Following Orders
I want to make one thing clear. I’m making this post because Mr. Husband ordered me to do so. 
I also need to inform Webster’s dictionary that half has been redefined to mean one-quarter of a cup. All is fair in love, war and now coffee.
He poured the remainder of the pot of coffee and I said “hey, I just wanted a warm up on mine.” He offered to share and so I poured some in my cup. In my defense my coffee cup was already half full, but when he compared our cups it looked like I hogged all the coffee. He burst out laughing and I retreated to the patio with my purloined coffee. He made another pot so it’s not like that was the last coffee on earth…sheesh!
To make it up to him, I purchased some raspberries for him to use in his protein shakes while I was on a beer run. We’re under the gun for tornadoes today, and I’m pretty sure that it’s against the law to not have beer in the house when a storm is a’coming. The only thing more important than beer is a good place to take cover.
I’m not entirely confident that cowering in a shower stall with a pillow over my head will help if we get hit by the type of twisters that took out Moore, Oklahoma yesterday, but all one can do is hope for the best. The part of Dallas we live in rarely gets tornadoes. They are usually to the south of us.
I do wish we had a storm cellar to retreat to in times of need, but I probably can not get any one over to install one by this afternoon. Oh well, you pays yer money and you takes yer chances. Life is like that.
My Cat is Trying to Tell Me Something
evil cat via sodahead.com
My cat is trying to tell me something. Just wish I could figure out what the heck he’s trying to say. I know he thinks he’s had the last word, but this is getting ridiculous.
This morning I wandered into the kitchen in my typical just woken up peaceful state of mind and proceeded to start the coffee-making process. I had a few technical difficulties so I was in the kitchen longer than usual. I put the ground coffee in the place where the filter goes without putting the filter in first. Woopsie.
As I was putting things to rights to get the coffee going I noticed a weird stench. I sniffed the dish rag, nope. The garbage disposal passed the sniff test also. I checked under the sink, nothing going under there.
Then I noticed some sort of bizarre ectoplasm on the stove top. It looked like a pot had boiled over, but there were 2 things wrong with that theory. It was around the back right burner which neither I or Hubman ever use for some reason. Also the house keeper cleaned the living daylights out of the stove on Thursday. (She even puts the burner racks in the dishwasher, so I have to reassemble the stove the next day.) Furthermore we were out to dinner on Friday so no cooking happened.
Then I sniffed it and viola the source of the stench was revealed. I leaned in to check out the stove hood to see if something was dripping from up there. I half expected to see some alien pod attached to it. What can I say, I watch a lot of sci-fi?
Finally I daubed a paper towel in the substance and to get an up close olfactory diagnosis. The mystery became obvious. Our G* D@#m cat PEED ON THE STOVE!!!!!????!!!! I’ve heard of cats weeing in your luggage when you are packing for a trip, or on the bath mat, or even on the bed if they are really ticked off about something. But the stove, what the hell is up with that? How do I figure this one out? Does he want us to cook for him? Or was he mad because we went out to dinner? Bleh, who knows?
At first I wondered if the storms upset him, but the tornadoes happened on Wednesday night. The urinary infraction occurred sometime in the Friday night – early Saturday morning time frame.
Was this just mischief? Does he have a legitimate beef of some sort that he is trying to convey? I swear I briefly considered the possibility of finding him a new home. But, I love the little critter even though he is frequently a royal pain in rear.
I’m seriously stumped here. Maybe it’s time to hire a cat whisperer?
In a New York Second – Everything Can Change
North Texas had an unusually mild spring this year so far. Mother Nature noticed the oversight and decided to make up for lost time last night.
6 of us went out to a fawncy restaurant to celebrate my Mother-in-law’s 80th birthday. During the meal I could see a reflection of trees whipping around in a mirror across the room. The trees were not just blowing in one direction; they were whipping around like they were in a washing machine. That is never a good sign.
I started to get antsy but kept telling myself that it was just because I was with the in-laws. I even ordered a second gin & tonic which is unusual for me when dining with them. A little after 8:00 pm we stood outside saying our goodbyes. The wind came up and we were all standing there with our hair peaking up on top of our head like we were in a wind tunnel.
For the ride home we watched an impressive light show to the south, all kinds of spectacular but unusual strikes. Some that branched out horizontally across the sky. Others hit the ground and the rays were so wide it looked fake. Someone was photo shopping Mother Nature.
At home I was in a semi undressed state and Mr. Husband was without apparel when he came running out of the bedroom yelling “the sirens are going off.” I was in a sort of stupor and asked “what sirens?” He answered “the tornado sirens,” for once not rolling his eyes and giving me that “Well duh” look he excels in. I don’t know how he always hears them and I don’t. Must have been that 20 years of working in bars with music loud enough to rattle the fillings out of your teeth.
Of course a sort controlled pandemonium ensued. Where are the pets? Are they inside? Mr. Husband put some clothes on. He tends to respond to panic by dressing. I don’t blame him. If a tornado hits I don’t want to end up getting fished out of the rubble in my birthday suit. I grabbed my 2 most valuable possessions – my purse and laptop and put them in a handy place in case I had to grab them and take shelter.
Fortunately for us, but not so fortunate for those in the path of the tornado, it touched down south of Dallas in the Granbury area. Storm spotters said the tornado became huge with a mile wide funnel on the ground at one point, a real wrath of God type scenario. Some people reported hail the size of grapefruits. A chunk of ice that big could come crashing right through your roof and land on your coffee table.
This morning the news is reporting 12 dead and hundreds injured. The response of people rushing to help those who have lost everything but the clothes on their back is heartwarming.
This kind of disaster always reminds me that life is short. Grab it where you can and don’t waste time sitting around bemoaning your lot in life because it could get a hell of a lot worse in the blink of an eye.
Unplugging is a Good Thing
On this chick trip I just returned from I brought a few gadgets with me; a laptop, Kindle and cell phone. I thought for sure that I would need or want to use the laptop at least once during the trip, but I was wrong. It stayed in my carry-on the entire trip; I never touched it or even thought about it. I did read my Kindle a bit the first day we got to the condo. But after watching the ocean for a few hours it ended up forgotten on the night stand and I didn’t read again for the rest of the time we were there.
I did use the cell phone to phone home to Mr. Husband every day or 2 so I kept it charged. Its main use was to look up possible restaurants on Urban Spoon. It’s a handy little app that uses your GPS location as a basis to find restaurants and has ratings, reviews, menus, etc.
Sunset People Watching
We ate a lot of seafood, of course, being on the Gulf Coast of Florida. We had to be a bit choosy however since 1 person in our party doesn’t like fish. There were usually enough salad and meat options to keep her happy. We also had a lot of fun people watching at bars while watching the sunset. Some people really cut loose at the beach after a few brewskies. There was rather intoxicated woman who was having so much fun dancing with herself that people were filming her. Oh my, not really a G rated show. All that was missing was a stripper’s pole.
After finishing the people watching we decided to head to the Candy Kitchen for ice cream. It’s been there in Madeira Beach forever or at least 40 years. It has wild and crazy ice cream concoctions of course. But the most fun was browsing all the vintage candies; gum balls the size of baseballs, those little wax coke bottles with sugar syrup, candy cigarettes, wax lips, candy necklaces. I’ve never seen so many varieties of candy in my life. It was a fun blast from the past.
Candy Kitchen
I hadn’t really planned to formally unplug – it just sort of happened. I did have a bit of bloggers guilt about the 3rd day I was there. I should write someone right? That’s was bloggers do. But I was too busy having a vacation and doing nothing in particular except exactly what I felt like doing at the moment, so blogging fell by the wayside.
The end result was a glorious feeling of total relaxation. I didn’t realize that I had much of anything to relax from, but it still happened and it was wonderful. So let it be written – so let it be done.
Sunset = Beer O’clock
Room With a View
Our Chick Trip 2013 turned out to be even more wonderful than I had hoped for. There only just 3 women this time. (last year were 5 of us) It turned out to be a magic number and a good personality mix. Every day we slept late, snacked around until the noonish hour and then hit the beach.
One gal made her fabulous signature peach Jello shots and we hauled those down to the beach with us. I also brought along a small personal cooler for my stash of elixir of life, also know as beer. We parked our chairs right at the water’s edge so we could cool our feet in the ocean.
We gossiped, baked in the sun, and sad awful catty things about the people who wandered by. The usual parade of ginormous bellies and banana hammocks were on display, of course. It really reminded me of the obesity epidemic in America. I am old enough to remember when large persons where the exception at the beach, rather than the rule. But everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, so it’s all good.
The variety of tattoos we viewed was rather amazing. And not all of them were even remotely attractive. We spent the better part of an hour at the pool one day going back and forth between Jello shots and speculating as to what the large tattoo was on the calf of one woman. We couldn’t decide if it was supposed to be Jerry Garcia or Charles Manson. We didn’t have the nerve to ask.
Last year we all brought one piece bathing suits because we did not want to inflict our middle-aged bodies on fellow sun worshipers. It only took one afternoon of staring at beached whales to make us decide if that if they could get away with it then so could we. We went shopping, bought 2 pieces and flopped in the sand in all our glory. At the tender age of 58 I have a bit of cellulite here and there. So what? I tanned it anyway!
In the evening we sat out on the balcony and watched the beautiful sunset over the water. It’s so peaceful, you forget that there was ever anything to be stressed about.
I’m a woman of a certain age living and loving in Texas. Can’t get real specific because I’m a work in process. I Like to read sci-fi, steampunk and historical fiction, travel all over the planet, stay home on rainy days, go shopping in the middle of the night, and stay be in bed when I should be doing something.
Pampered Chef – Laurie Diltz
