So I am foster mom to 5 cats, 2 kittens and one raccoon..... they all seem to tolerate each other. I was walking the trash out yesterday and glanced down to see if the food bowl I keep outside for the stray cats needed filling...there sat 2 kittens and one raccoon, feasting together. I am beginning to think Rocky thinks he's a cat.... according to the neighbors everyone feeds him... (now we know why he is so big), he walks the back row of homes and hits everyone up for a snack. he's not picky, he eats with dogs, cats and ducks. When he saw me, he jumped on the garbage can and sat up on his back legs, raised one front paw as if he was waving goodbye, and he dove under the back deck steps. Then he turned to see if I was watching...that's when I snapped the picture with my cell phone.
He is quite a character. That was yesterday, this morning he scratched at the hall window by standing on the garbage can...the bowl was empty outside, I am quite sure the cats put him up to it... the begging I mean. he seems really friendly and rather tame to people encounters. The neighbor said he is harmless, his mommy was killed on the highway a couple years ago, and the park has been parenting him ever since he was little. Odd I have never seen him before this.
Anyway, I took out cat food, fresh water and a small plate of cut up fruit that needed eating a few chopped veggies and some nuts... Rocky loved the fruit and nuts. He snubbed the veggies..... clearly we need to have a chat about this....
I've been busy sewing and painting...hoping to get some things into my etsy shop and get it started this week. My last 2 packages were mailed last night... thank gawd.... I hate getting behind on things, but one item was damaged while ironing it...I got distracted and fried the finish before I realized it so in a tearful effort I made another. I cannot post those things here, they are surprises for people who watch my Vox blog from time to time. I'll post them when they arrive safely.
I don't watch a lot of TV, in fact before I moved to Portland I lived without a TV for 3 years and loved it. BUT, tonight I found shows I truly enjoyed watching.
How did I miss out on John Caparulo and his gem of a make-over show called Mobile Home Disaster???? John may not be anything like Ty Pennington, in many ways he is cuter and more loveable. The show is much more down to earth than ABC's Extreme Makeover. What I found refreshing about MHD was it was realistic in what it does.... giving simple solutions and rational fixes to people to help make their lives better. And you know what? No one in the family seemed disappointed that they got practical furniture, paint and things to make their life better instead of uncomfortable furnishings and over priced decor. It's a very refreshing show.... I didn't miss the over-acted team crying on the bus one bit... and talk about down to earth vacations, they sent the family camping in an empty lot across the street during the makeover, it was a riot.
Just like I think HGTV's CEOs need to get their collective heads of out their botoxed "let's do lunch" hinnies and stop being so uppity. Shows like Extreme Home Makeover and the makeovers on HGTV seem to endorse anal compulsive consumerism, and living beyond one's means. Take HGTV's Dream Home contest... they build a house no one can afford to win, and they admit they know the winner is going to have to sell it... so why the hell bother ya know? How about truly embracing the idea of "Restore America", and find 4 houses in different parts of the country each year that need fixing, do it rationally so the 4 winners can afford to own the houses... let your designers have fun doing them while showing off their talents... and actually put 4 families in homes they can keep. Seems that would be a better draw for viewers than dangling a key in front of one family's face for some over priced and poorly designed monstrosity and then saying "gee, don't get too comfy you are too poor to live here suckers" when the camera's get turned off. Truly, no one NEEDS a $2500 bathtub, honest.
Anyway, be you a mobile home dweller or no... Mobile Home Disasters is a fun to watch show, not one ounce of uppity in it. It's on CMT and quite entertaining. Don't expect any hard luck stories, they help hard working folks so busy making their ends meet they can't seem to squeeze money for major repairs out of the budget. I like it when the working class gets help just because they need it. heck, I'd be thrilled if they helped me fix the 34 year old single wide I call home.
I also watched Psychic Kids: Paranormal Children on A&E. Very interesting show, even if you are a non-believer in such things. See if you can explain away an 8 year old girl knowing the name of a boy who died at age 8 over a hundred years ago, the name of his mother, and the name of his aunt unless they really are communicating with her....
A&E's Paranormal State was also rather intriguing.... yep, I gotta say, Tuesday night TV is looking up.
I am really struggling to function, so my pal Sherry came by and brought me another dose of B12, after 3 shots in the last 4 weeks my level has only climbed from 87 to 95...still well under normal. I am doing another shot this coming Saturday. Everything I find online says a level as low as mine should have started with a loading dose of one shot a day for 5 days...I hate HMO's and the way they do things...I need to be up and running, NOW, not dragging, numb and confused. Anyway I am taking this situation into my own hands, I don't have the patience to wait a year to get back to normal. I cannot function the way things are, not at all.
I did get one package into the mail yesterday, and the Tribal Sun collage is going out by Friday, with an extra special sorry for the delay gift included. I had the bonus gift that goes with it nearly done 2 weeks ago and went to press it and fried it with the iron when I got distracted, so I had to start it over. I sobbed for hours, this is not like me at all. I am not committing to doing anything else until I feel better. Did I mention I crock-potted chicken breasts for 2 days before I remembered I even had it cooking? I have reminders set in my phone to remind me to eat, lately Viola, my 83 year old Alzheimer's client is more on track than I am, she finds it funny. I do NOT.
If I could just get my brain and energy back life would be good, I am really tired of being tired all the time... off the chart fatigue with an almost semi-dementia. It's been maddening. I now know I am not going to age gracefully, when my mind goes for real I have decided I am just checking out.... I hope I remember when the time comes.
The other major dumb thing I did was, I am in this group on yahoo, we make themed 13"x13" art quilts on a schedule, somehow I got the schedule muddled in my brain and got well into the one for coffee before I realized I was suppose to be doing the sun theme....argh!!!!!!!!!!!!! On the plus side, I am well ahead of schedule for the coffee one that is due in August.
I wonder if I am even safe to be driving the way my brain is not working these days... I am keeping my jaunts close to home, but we are suppose to go to the coast with Sherry for July 4th, and I am suppose to drive.... Karina may need to co-pilot, that's a scary thought.....
Has anything unlucky happened to you today?
More than enough thank you....
But no, it was a raccoon, a BIG one. He was after the cat food, and apparently quite good at nabbing more than a fair share of it judging by his waistline. Bold guy he was, came right up to the front porch to chow down. I know they can be aggressive and since we have 2 baby calico kittens in residence under the front porch, (there use to be a 3rd, I suspect the raccoon or a possum got it). With a coon hanging around I have to figure out another way to help the cats that have been abandoned out here.... putting out food is gonna be a no-no at least for awhile. I think cats have a secret symbol they leave at the houses of stray cat suckers like me. The shelters are full so people are dumping their cats out in the rural part of Portland, this has been going on forever according to the neighbors, it's worse since folks have to choose between gas for the car or feeding their pets. There is even a food pantry starting for pet food here in Portland to help people so the pet dumping stops. Now apparently my sucker status seems to be known to the wildlife community. Anyway, things were going remarkably peaceful and then....
The raccoon inched one inch too close to where momma cat's babies are and all hell broke out.... it is something to see a smallish part Manx mommy cat chasing a coon more than twice her size across the lawn with fear in his beady little eyes and to watch him make a mad dive into the blackberry bushes... momma cat is FEARLESS. The two male cats from next door were up on the railing instead of being her backup... Men! (Momma cat actually started out as Karina's cat, then Karina left her, and she took to me, but about a year ago she got out and she will not let even me near her now, I suspect she was feral to begin with). Some things you just cannot love out of a wild cat. her babies are lovable though. 3 shelters have tried to catch her and fix her, and she has yet to be caught... she is one tough kitty.
In the first picture you can see the coon heading towards the berry bushes along the back, and you can see the difference in his size compared to mommy cat.... note the brave male on my railing acting like nothing is going on.
The second pic was taken just after the coon made his dive into the berry bushes.... yes they are already blooming in spite of temps that are 20 degrees below normal... those bushes are 11 feet high, 60 feet across... they and I are at war, and don't tell Homeland Security but I am getting my hands on weapons of mass destruction and taking the bastage berry terrorists out of the game in the next 2 weeks. I am taking no prisoners.... they are killing my yard, they have to go.
I got some really great bargains by buying used, what I bought is listed below,(if you are interested in any of them, you can click the name of the book to get to it on amazon):
Hardanger Embroidery
Doodle Stitching: Fresh & Fun Embroidery for Beginners
Time to Quilt: Fun Quilts and Retreat Ideas for 1 or 101 (That Patchwork Place)
The Art of Bead Embroidery: Techniques, Designs & Inspirations
Wearable Art: Innovations (A Studio/Penguin book)
All this for $53.03, I think I did good. Of course it barely dents my wish list, but it did take it down by a page. Yay!
Vi and I took a ride yesterday, in route home we were driving down Powell and passed an "exotic dancer" place, the sign out front said "free prime rib dinner" and that caught Vi's eye. Vi was questioning how they could give away prime rib dinners, so I suggested maybe the cover charge included the cost of it. She started laughing, uncontrollably... and without blinking she said, "oh Andee, that is just silly why would anyone going into a place like that want anything covered?" We laughed all the way to her house... she amuses me no end. The things she comes up with just slay me....
I pulled a great one on Keegan on my birthday... he was bugging me to go shopping, I was too tired and he would not let up so I held a small flashlight to his ear and he asked me what I was doing.... I said "Look at that! The light goes right through your head and out the other side, obviously your head is empty and that is why you will not listen to me". He called me a liar, grabbed the flashlight and held it to his own ear, but tilted his head to see if the light indeed came out the other side and showed up on his little cookstove his uncle Pat bought him to play chef on... when he saw no light he proclaimed me a naughty grandmother. Straight faced I told him his head was not tilted enough for him to see the light coming through but I had seen it.... ( I figure any time I can get him to act dumb twice in a row is more fun for me so I stuck to my story). Of course he tried it again but this time a car was going by outside at just the right time, and the headlights reflected on his stove as he was doing it... his eyes got REALLY big and he ran to his mom crying because his brain was missing...... I am a MEAN GRANDMA. Karina lectured me accordingly... I gotta say it was my best gift of the day though.
If you had to write your autobiography in 6 words, what would you write?
Submitted by mitzie.
"Could have skipped the SWAT raid..."
Stumbled onto this this morning:
http://www.blueoregon.com/2008/05/this-morning-in.html
What made Obama's crowd turnout in Portland and his win in Oregon both monumental is the fact that Oregon is overall a fairly ethnic unfriendly state. I moved to southern Oregon in 1990, Coos Bay to be exact, and I lived there for several months before I figured out there were very few non-white residents there. How this escaped me for so long is beyond me... but when I asked about it, someone informed me the KKK was still active in Oregon, especially southern and coastal Oregon. Hmph, how did I miss THAT? This explains why Hillary campaigned heavily in southern Oregon. Let's face it, she's an Arkanas girl & she knows how things work, so she headed straight for the largely uneducated, bigoted small town Oregonians to seek her supporters. What Obama pulled off here means more than people know. Admittedly things are slightly better in Portland, it holds more educated people, and that opens doors for non-whites on some levels, but things are not equal here no matter how much people want to claim that they are. For a black man to attract 75,000 people to hear him speak... falls into the witnessing a miracle category in this state.
In case you haven't heard...you LOST. Perhaps you are secretively hoping some crazy loon will take out the skinny black guy from Chicago that beat you, and you will get the nomination by default..... or you are refusing to concede in hopes he will be pressured by the party to invite you to be his VP and you can still slink your way into the Whitehouse.... or maybe you are organizing to run as an Independent and think the last laugh is on Obama because you are not planning on going away after all.... I can assure you , (speaking as a devote Independent the last 34 years who had to cross over and register as a Democrat in order to vote against you in the Oregon primary) that such a move would annoy me no end....
Look, just put on your big girl panties and do what you are suppose to do, make the speech and go away. You are starting to get annoying, and you are looking rather pitiful about it, to the point it's getting fairly embarrassing.
Will the rising cost of gasoline change your summer travel plans?
You bet ya, last year we went to California to see my oldest daughter on Amtrak, total cost $410, this year the same trip would cost over double that. Groceries are rising too, everything is worth more than it was a year ago, except me. There is no money left in the budget for a trip that costs that much more this year. Public transportation doesn't work for my job and is not an option to help me beat the $75 a week it costs me just to get to work and home now in gas. I am working on changing that though, like I am now turning down hospice jobs too far from home, I quit one job because of the distance and gas costs, I condensed my work hours into 4 days instead of 6 on the job I still have, so I only have to drive 4 days a week now... and I am working on making a pedal car to get around in closer to home.
I am also self educating myself in hopes of building my own small, simple, electric powered commuter car for use close to home this winter. I am also thinking seriously the time to move from the city is now, to a small town, where everything is walking or biking distance from my front door. So I guess the cost of gas is fueling changes in more than my summer travel plans, it is changing how I want to live my life and where.
