Tag: blogging

Hanging with Toby

I forgot to write a post for today.

But just look who I get to hang out with on this beautiful Thursday!

That’s Toby, my grand dog. He’s the size of a coffee table, hard of hearing, a tad forgetful, and a factory for dog hair. He’s also a real sweetheart who loves his Nana.

We’re supposed to go for a walk this morning, just the two of us. The last time I came for a visit and took him for a walk I found myself being hoodwinked by Toby into walking into what I later learned was “cat territory.” Toby hates cats. So, if you don’t hear from me again you might conclude that I didn’t survive the walk. Wish me luck.

Peace, people.

Comedic Timing

We were shopping for Studly Doright a sports jacket at Dillard’s a couple of nights ago. He found one fairly quickly and as we were leaving the men’s department he said, “Well, now I need you to help me find a gift for a girl I used to date.”

I did a double take, and my mind quickly scrolled through all the girls he’d ever dated. Before I could express outrage he said, “She’s kind of hard to buy for, and her birthday’s on the 5th.”

Only then did I realize he was talking about me. I slugged him. Gently.

Peace, people.

October, My Kind of Month

There’s so much to love about October: Cooling temperatures, changing leaves, pumpkin everything, and best of all, my birthday!

Yes, October is most likely the best month of all, and even though my date of birth comes early (Oct. 5), I celebrate all month long. I’m like a little kid in an old lady’s body. Fortunately, my dance card for the month is pretty full, so even though I’m too old to be the belle of the ball, I’ll at least have an invitation to the party.

Studly and I are going to Dallas for a few days. He’s going to play in a member/guest golf tournament with our son. I’ll hang out with my grandkids while the men play golf. Long distance grand parenting stinks sometimes because we don’t get to be there for every sporting event and music performance, but while in Dallas I’ll get to watch our eldest grandchild, Dominique, play in a varsity tennis tournament and Jackson, our youngest grandson, play baseball. Yay me!

The golf tournament concludes with a dinner for golfers and their dates on Saturday evening. As far as I know, I’m Studly’s date. I found a dress for the soirée, and I’m actually trading my flip flops for heels for one night and one night only. I’ll try to remember to take a picture; otherwise, no one who knows me will believe it happened. I practiced walking in the heels this afternoon. No one was injured in the process. The cats were wide-eyed and leery.

While Studly has to head home on Sunday, I’m planning on staying on for a few days. I’m going to a rally for Beto O’Rourke in Dallas on Sunday afternoon and attending a Bishop Briggs concert with my son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter on Thursday. I’ll fly home on the 12th. Whew!

Then one of my very best friends is set to visit on the 26th of October. She is traveling through Florida on a leisurely solo trip, and I am so looking forward to having her spend some time with us at Doright Manor.

Oh, my daughter’s birthday is the 27th of October. She was and remains by far the best gift I ever received during my birthday month. I’ll even share my birthday month with her. That’s love.

Peace, people!

Beetles and Spiders and Wasps. Oh My!

Studly Doright is tired of hearing me talk about the series of books I just finished reading, but I’m not through talking about them. That’s bad news for my readers, so feel free to tune out any time. If you enjoy the sci-fi/fantasy genres, though, you might want to stick around for just a minute or two.

The series in question is Adrian Tchaikovsky’s epic “Shadows of the Apt” told in ten novels and followed up in three, soon to be four, companion books of short stories.

The first book in the series, Empire in Black and Gold, introduces readers to a world in which humans have evolved not from apes, but from various insects, arachnids, mollusks, and other species. Their evolutionary process is relatively young, and some species are more evolved than others. Indeed, some humans, such as those evolved from beetles and wasps, are apt, in this case meaning that they understand mechanical processes and have developed machines similar to our automobiles and airplanes.

Other humans, or kinden, in this world cannot operate a simple doorknob. These species are inapt. Spider-kinden, moth-kinden, and butterfly-kinden fall into this category.

Individual members of each kinden develop arts inherited from their species. For example, wasp, bee, fly, and moth kinden can all fly. Some kinden have excellent night vision. Spider-kinden are adept at deception, and scorpion-kinden are fierce warriors.

I must admit that at the beginning I was somewhat put off by the kinden tag, but soon it seemed natural as the story and characters developed. And Tchaikovsky is a master at developing a universe of characters and juggling multiple story lines.

Without giving too much away, the wasp-kinden have grand plans to dominate the world, and it falls to a loose coalition of other kinden to attempt to prevent this from happening with varying degrees of success and failure. As one might imagine there are barriers to peaceful coexistence between the varied kinden. Prejudices against, and preconceived notions about different kinden make for delicate negotiations. There are traitors and spies, turncoats and heroes among all the kinden.

Tchaikovsky writes battle scenes that make one feel as if they are right there in the middle of the action, too. I’m not a particularly violence-prone person, but the author made me believe that I might be able to go toe to toe with a wasp, as long as I stayed beyond the range of his vicious sting.

I came to care about so many of these characters: Cheerwell Maker, a young beetle-kinden, and her uncle Stenwold,; Thalric, a conflicted wasp-kinden; and Taki, an amazing fly-kinden. My only complaint is that there aren’t more books in the series.

As I read “Shadows of the Apt” I couldn’t help but wonder which kinden I’d be. A purposeful beetle? Maybe. A sensual spider? Hardly. A graceful butterfly? Hahaha! A war-like wasp? Could be. Chances are, I’d be a slug; although, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You’ll have to read the series to discover why.

Peace, and happy reading, people.

Half-assed Weekly Recap

I don’t lead an interesting life. In fact, if I weren’t such a klutz I’d be as boring as oatmeal. And not that fancy steel cut stuff with raisins, honey, and brown sugar. No sir. Plain old Quaker oatmeal sans butter. That’s how boring I’d be.

Some of my blogging friends provide interesting recaps of their weekly activities, though, and I thought I’d give it a go. Prepare to be underwhelmed.

  • Finished reading the sci-fi/fantasy series, Shadows of the Apt by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Tomorrow’s post will provide a review for any geeks out there.
  • Began reading The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey. So far, so good! I hear it’s been made into a television series.
  • Studly and I finished watching “Hell on Wheels.” I cried because it ended perfectly and because I’m sad that it’s over.
  • Watched the U.S. team lose to the Europeans in the Ryder Cup. Damn.
  • Studly bought a new sport jacket and I helped pick it out. Actually I just stood there and did my best to discourage any bad choices. He did well.
  • Bought a new pair of jeans. That must mean fall is here.
  • Shopped the amazing sidewalk sale in downtown Thomasville, Georgia, but only bought myself lunch–a beautifully made grown up grilled cheese sandwich at Sweetgrass Dairy. Yum!
  • Fished my favorite necklace out of the dumpster.
  • Spent one day watching the testimonies of Dr. Ford and Brett Kavanaugh. Some of those senators need to be sent to bed without supper. Lindsey Graham should be grounded for a year. Kavanaugh doesn’t have what it takes to be a Supreme Court Justice.

I’m sure I did other similarly non-fascinating stuff, but I didn’t sleep much last night, and a nap seems like a good idea at this time.

Peace, people.

Hurricane Leslie

My actual real life name is Leslie. Supposedly I was named for a character in a novel that my grandmother read before my birth. Although I can’t be certain, I’ve always suspected that novel was Edna Ferber’s, Giant, which was published in 1952 and became a major studio film in 1956, the year I was born.

The absolutely gorgeous Elizabeth Taylor played the part of Leslie Benedict, and when I saw the film I felt such a sense of vindication. Finally here was a character with my name, and oh, what a character she was: Beautiful and smart and fashionable. It bothered me some that her name was pronounced with a “z” sound while mine has the softer “sss” pronunciation, but I was willing to overlook that. After all, my grandmother read the name in a book. The movie folks likely had gotten it all wrong.

Leslie wasn’t a common name for girls back in my day, and it’s never going to make the top ten list for female children, as names like Linda and Sophia, Ashley and Jennifer have over the years. I have met a handful of female Leslies, though, some pronounced with an s others with the z. We’re a pretty select group.

Yesterday Studly Doright sent me an email with information about another Leslie.

Welcome to the club, Hurricane Leslie. I hope they pronounce your name correctly.

Peace. People.

I Bought New Tongs

Yesterday afternoon I had to buy new tongs.

My old tongs were old and ugly, but still serviceable. Unfortunately I had no choice but to throw them into the large dumpster where our household trash goes to be picked up by the sanitation workers each Monday. You see, I had to use the old tongs to extract a piece of jewelry from the dumpster.

Can you spot my little fairy pendant nestled there between the dark green bag and the white one? In the photo above it appears as if I could just reach in and pluck the pendant out with my fingers, but actually, it was almost at the very bottom of the dirty dumpster:

How did it get there, you might ask. I’d spent quite a bit of time cleaning the cats’ litter boxes yesterday morning. I dumped the litter into a large green bag and set it, along with our regular kitchen trash, in the garage so I could deposit them both in the big dumpster when I left to run errands later in the day. I do this on a regular basis with no problem.

Yesterday, though, as I heaved the bag into the dumpster the pendant was caught between me and the bag and was ripped from its cord. The momentum of the bag prevented me from being able to stop mid-heave and I watched helplessly as the necklace tumbled into the nasty depths of the dumpster.

I was dressed to go into town, so I wasn’t about to climb into the dumpster. Instead I ran into the kitchen, retrieved the tongs, went back out side and…still couldn’t reach the pendant. Against my better judgement I pulled a chair over to stand on so I could better lean into the dumpster without touching the sides. Amazingly I was able to reach the pendant and pulled it to safety:

(Note: these particular tongs were never used for cooking….)

Voila! Knowing I’d never use those tongs again, I tossed them into the dumpster. As they fell, I realized with chagrin that the companion piece to my pendant must also be in the dumpster. As were my tongs. Sigh. There was nothing for me to do but carefully tilt the dumpster on its side and rake the rest of the necklace out.

I managed to do so without dirtying my hands and soon had the Celtic symbol I’d bought in Ireland safely in hand. Soon I’ll have Studly help me put it all back together again, but for now I’m going to let everything rest. And sanitize. At least I’ve got new tongs.

Peace, people.

Reparations

A friend in Illinois shared on Facebook this week that her young son’s bicycle had been stolen from their front yard. Somehow in their busy day they’d neglected to bring the bike into the garage, and her son’s pride and joy disappeared, most likely forever. I felt her pain.

Many years ago our son’s bike was stolen in much the same way. It was a beautiful blue Diamondback that we’d scrimped and saved for in order to give him exactly what he’d asked for that Christmas. And that kid took great care of his bike. Until one afternoon when he didn’t.

I still remember the anger I felt knowing that someone had come into our yard and in just a few minutes stolen something that had taken us months to save for. Our son was heartbroken. Studly Doright, though, was determined to get that bike back.

We thought he was nuts, of course. Dumas, Texas, was a town of about 19,000 back then. Certainly that bike was parked safely in someone’s garage waiting to be painted or sold to some kid in another town.

Then one Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks after the bike had been stolen Studly and I were in his old pickup truck driving home from mowing lawns. We both had full time jobs, but mowing lawns provided extra cash for purchasing extras like new clothes for the kids and bicycles for Christmas. Money was tight back then.

As we neared our home, a kid on an older bicycle turned down our street, and Studly went on point like a bird dog.

“Those are Jason’s wheels,” he said.

He dropped me off at the house and took off after the kid. I’d seen the bike, a run down rusty banana seat affair, but hadn’t paid attention to the wheels. Studly, though, had been vigilant.

He was gone for a couple of hours, but when Studly returned to the house he had three teenaged boys crowded into the cab of his pickup and a tangle of bicycle parts in the back. I watched from the living room window as he supervised the crew in putting Jason’s bike back together. The lecture he gave them as they worked was one part fatherly and another part mafioso. I have no doubt he made them an offer they’d better not refuse.

Our son received a similarly stern lecture when he arrived home that afternoon, with the bottom line being that he’d better not ever leave that bike outside overnight again. As far as I know, he never did and that bike went with us to North Dakota and beyond.

Getting the bike back felt like a small victory during that period of our lives. Not much was going right for our little family at that time, but Studly turned things around. He’s still doing that, just in different ways. I’m pretty lucky to have him.

Peace, people.

Flute Flavored

Yesterday I drove all the way across Tallahassee to Governor’s Square Mall solely for the purpose of getting a foot massage. You see, the middle metatarsal on my right foot has fallen, and it can’t get up. Consequently, I’m dealing with considerable pain when I walk.

There’s a Chinese man, Hong, at the mall who knows just how to manipulate my foot to provide relief from the pain for several hours. While he works on me I lean back in a recliner and drift away. I can never quite go to sleep, though, because my mind starts playing “Name That Tune” as Muzak with an Asian influence wafts through the spa area.

First up today was Greensleeves. If you’ve never heard this song played on a pipa, also known as a Chinese lute, you don’t know what you’re missing. Anyway, I identified the tune immediately. Here’s a video featuring the pipa:

https://youtu.be/1GJiliDvXhk

Next up was It Never Rains in Southern California, but it took me half the song to figure that one out. The Asian influenced instrumental version lacked the pathos of the original song by Albert Hammond, turning it into just so many notes.

https://youtu.be/XqMEEvmfyQU

During my treatment, song after recognizable song drifted through the spa: Für Elise, Rhinestone Cowboy, Everybody’s Talking at Me, to name a few. Then some melody was introduced that I’d never heard before. It was lovely, but for the life of me I couldn’t place it.

I asked Hong what the song was, and he shrugged, but told me the instrument I was hearing was a dizi, or Chinese flute. So I dubbed the song, “Flute Flavored.” If there’s not already a song by this title, there certainly should be.

Peace, people.

Get Off My Lawn

Do we get crankier as we get older, or could it be that we just do not care anymore what people think of us? Maybe that perceived crankiness is just a result of the wearing away of social constraints. Why am I even contemplating this?

I’ve been a fairly nice person most of my life, but I do have something of a temper. It’s something I try to work through, and I’ve gotten better at it through the years, but now as I approach my 62nd birthday I find that I’ve lost my ability to tolerate certain things.

Usually those things are large concepts, like racism and misogyny. I have zero tolerance for those who discriminate on the basis of race or gender, and I’ve been saddened to discover that some people I counted as friends over the years do both. I’ve gotten cranky with them, and in some cases they are no longer my friends.

Other times those things that make me cranky are little and local, like littering. One day last week I was behind a 40-something mother and her pre-teen son as they exited a convenience store in Tallahassee. Both of them had bought big gulp type sodas (huge cups) and were unwrapping their straws in the parking lot. I watched in horror as they tossed their straw wrappings on the ground.

Before they got into their car, I said, “Excuse me, I believe these belong here,” as I bent down and scooped up the wrappers, dramatically depositing them into a trash can that was literally two steps from them.

Now, the instant I said that I thought, “Oh crap, they’re both bigger than I am.” But I casually strolled to my car and drove away while they remained sitting in the parking lot. Who knows, maybe they learned something? Or maybe they took down my license plate and are plotting to take me down. But if they follow me to Doright Manor, I’ve got one thing to say, “Get off my lawn!”

Peace, people.