Tag: Studly Doright

Odds and Ends

1) Our younger cat, Patches, pooped on the rug in the guest bathroom this morning. This, in spite of having easy access to three litter boxes. We’re fairly sure it was done in spite. She and her “sister” Scout dislike each other immensely and are in constant competition for our attention. I scolded Patches and made her watch me clean up her mess. She seems somewhat chastened. We shall see.

An older photo of the cat in question.

2) The New England Patriots defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars 24-20 on Sunday. &$@#%!?!!!!.

3) Studly Doright and I met friends at the AMC movie theatre in Tallahassee on Sunday afternoon and watched Darkest Hour. Excellent film! Gary Oldman is superb as Winston Churchill. When I think of how close England came to negotiating with Hitler I get sick to my stomach. Also, I had difficulty understanding all of the dialogue. Too many years of loud rock and roll?

4) I got my days mixed up and missed a meeting of my book club on Saturday. I was so looking forward to discussing Kristen Hannah’s The Nightingale. It’s a fine book and the capitulation of France’s government to Hitler’s regime dovetailed nicely with the Churchill film.

5) I hope the Eagles prevail over the Vikings tonight, but I have yet to pick a winner this year.

6) Dinner on Sunday night was cheese, nuts, and red wine. Bohemian, right?

7) For two consecutive nights I enjoyed seven hours of sleep. Yay me!

That’s it. Another weekend in the books. Y’all have a great week.

Peace, people!

Do I Look Like a Twinkle to You?

I’ve been called by a variety of names over the course of my 61 years on earth: Leslie, Sis, Mommy, Mom, Nana, Boobsie (don’t ask), and a few less flattering ones I’m not going to mention. But a couple of days ago I was offered a new moniker.

On Thursday afternoon I had volunteered to transport a meal to a group of young single moms in Tallahassee. The coordinator paired me with someone named Robin who would prepare a meal, and my task was to meet up with Robin and then deliver the meal to the meeting in a timely fashion.

In spite of numerous texts and emails between Robin and me, we managed to get our wires crossed and ended up at two different locations. I was at one truck stop and Robin was at another just down the road. Before we resolved the issue I was standing outside the Flying J restaurant looking for someone who might be Robin. Since we’d never met I scrutinized everyone.

A car pulled up beside me and a middle-aged man rolled down his window. I thought, “Hmmm, maybe Robin is a man.” I have a male cousin named Robin, so it was a possibility.

Before I could say anything the man asked, “Say, are you Twinkle?”

Briefly taken aback, I retorted, “Hell no. Do I look like a Twinkle to you?”

He quickly rolled up his window and sped away. I got the giggles. I believe he thought I was a prostitute! Me! In my mom jeans and Star Wars t-shirt. Then it occurred to me that the “Twinkle” he was looking for was likely to be a trans prostitute. Guess I fooled him all around. Studly doesn’t call me “Boobsie” for nothing!

Stretching Like an Athlete

Athletics were never my thing. As a card carrying klutz, I’ve shied away from anything requiring physical prowess for most of my life. Oh, there was a brief period during which I played racquetball, but even then I managed to hit myself in the face with the racquet on more than one occasion. I tried golf, but was soon spending considerably more on chiropractic treatment than on greens fees.

As a result, I kind of gave up on doing any activity that was physically demanding. I have tons of other excuses: a disdain for gyms, a dislike of workout classes, an allergic reaction to sweat….You get the picture.

Now, at 61, my body is telling me I should have done something to keep myself fit. My hips hurt, my back aches, and my arms are flabby wonders that wag even when I try to get them to play dead. I feel like a bag of lumpy gravy.

I see a chiropractor, Dr. Verrier, on a regular basis. He’s helped me a great deal. Before I began regular treatments with him I couldn’t walk without significant pain. He’s worked wonders, but I still had some issues with my hips that keep me awake at night.

Then Studly Doright suggested I also see someone at a Tallahassee business called Stretching Your Life. One of his golf buddies recommended the business and Studly wanted me to check it out.

Stretching Your Life is owned by kinesiologists who teach their clients to stretch like athletes. They’ll even spend an entire hour stretching you! I’ve had two sessions of intense stretching and am amazed at what I’ve missed out on all these non-athletic years. I still have a long way to go, but my kinesiologist, Jen, is upbeat about getting me to a healthier place in my life.

Here’s a link to Stretching Your Life. Their website alone has a great deal of helpful information along with exercises to do at home. (I receive no compensation for sharing this information, by the way, but I wanted to spread the word.)

https://g.co/kgs/Fbs46h

I’ll give updates on my progress with the stretching. Hopefully I can work out some of these kinks that have begun to feel like the norm. I don’t mind being 61, but I do mind feeling like I’m 91.

Peace, people.

You May Say I’m a Dreamer

You may say I’m a dreamer, and in my household I am the only one. Where my dreams are typically vividly technicolored, Studly Doright’s are seemingly non-existent. So when I got this text first thing Monday morning, I was intrigued:

(Ignore the odd punctuation. If I’d known this was going to be blog fodder (blodder?) I’d have taken more pains with my text.)

According to Studly, he never dreams. Of course I’ve informed him that we all dream every night, but not everyone remembers their dreams. Stubbornly he persists in claiming that he is the exception.

All day I waited for him to come home, so I could hear the details. Part of me hoped he’d dreamed winning lottery numbers. Had that been the case, I’d have bought a dozen tickets immediately. Another part of me was concerned he’d dreamed about his soul mate–and it wasn’t me! As promised in the text I made potato soup for dinner, always with one part of my brain on Studly’s dream. Do I need a life? Most likely.

The second he walked in the door I asked the million dollar question. “What was the dream?”

“Mmmm, that soup smells good!”

“Damn it, you don’t get soup until you spill the dream beans.”

He said, “It was weird. The whole time I was dreaming I kept thinking it was the kind of dream you’d have.

“There was this creature, maybe an alien, maybe an animal, and a little boy. Somehow they communicated, and if there was any danger the creature would surround the boy with a protective cloaking shield.”

I managed to nod encouragingly, all hopes of a winning lottery number dashed.

“And this kid had family members he could pull inside the shield.”

“So, what happened?”

“Nothing! I couldn’t get past the shield part. The dream never moved forward. It was frustrating.”

As we ate our potato soup and cornbread I tried my amateur dream interpretation skills on him:

1) Studly is the little boy who feels like he needs protection for himself and his loved ones.

2) Or he is the outsider providing protection for others.

3) Or he had an upset stomach and as a result a weird dream.

4) Or he was hoping for potato soup for dinner.

At least he didn’t dream about his soul mate. Unless, of course, the alien filled that role.

Peace, people!

Scraps from Their Pasts

For Christmas I put together scrapbooks of their early years for our two children. The idea wasn’t an original one. Studly Doright’s mom, Saint Helen, had given Studly and his four siblings scrapbooks several years ago as Christmas gifts and for him at least, it remains one of his all-time favorite gifts.

I’m not a very crafts minded person, but in preparation for assembling these scrapbooks I made multiple trips to Michael’s (for non-Americans, that’s THE place to go for creative types) in order to purchase the books and to find appropriate decorative touches for each page. I bought tons of stuff and ended up using only a fraction of it. Project ideas, anyone.

I’m so awful at this type of thing that I actually started all this at the beginning of 2016 and had planned on presenting them with their gifts at Christmas that year, but I got bogged down in the minutiae, and it took me almost two years to complete the task. I’m still not sure how my mother-in-law put together five such books without going crazy, because I’m fairly certain some of my sanity was lost in the process.

I’d looked forward to presenting the books to my kids in person when we were all in Nashville that Christmas, but since I was an entire year behind, and we weren’t getting to see them for the holidays this year, I had to put them in the mail.

Now, I’d worked my butt off cropping photos and arranging them with curlicues and doodads. I’d spent countless hours searching through old school pictures and awards. The thought of trusting these works of heart to the mail almost drove me crazy(er). So, before I boxed them up for shipping to Dallas, Texas, where our son lives and to Port Byron, Illinois, where our daughter resides, I documented each and every page with the help of my trusty iPhone camera.

I’ll spare you from viewing all of the pages (you’re welcome). While I wasn’t there when they opened the books they both assured me they’d enjoyed their trips down memory lane. I’m so glad I spent the time creating these, but even more glad that I had only two children.

Peace, people.

Swing into Spring

In my junior year of school at Floydada High, I took Distributive Education (DECA) classes. Even though I planned on attending college, I needed to earn some money, and these courses allowed me to work for a couple of hours each afternoon. In retrospect I wish I’d gone the purely academic route, but I didn’t have a great deal of career guidance coming my way. In the end it all worked out okay, I suppose.

DECA was interesting, though. We learned a variety of things about working in retail businesses, including how to display goods and market them to the consumer. Our teacher, Mr. S, was rather limited in his understanding of marketing strategies, but that didn’t keep him from trying. I remember one lesson in which we were to come up with an advertising slogan to promote a product.

The only slogan Mr. S could come up with as an example was “Swing into Spring!” Given that we lived in the Texas panhandle this sounded a great deal more like “Swang into Sprang,” and every time he said it I’d dissolve in a fit of giggles.

Mr. S was not amused. In fact, he threatened to send me to the office if I couldn’t stop laughing. Of course that made it worse, and I ended up trying to explain to the principal that I wasn’t being disrespectful to Mr. S. Apparently the principal wasn’t amused either, but rather than calling my parents to report my transgression he allowed me to stay in his office until it was time for me to report to my DECA related job, the better to compose myself before I found myself in the presence of Mr. S again. As punishments went, it was pretty sweet.

Ironically, just a few short days after my trip to the principal’s office I received a note to call my mom during DECA class. We didn’t have cell phones, kiddies. This was back in the dark ages. The only phone available to students was in the main office.

All the way there I imagined I could hear the other shoe dropping. Somehow, I figured Mom had learned of my previous transgression and was going to read me the riot act followed by a few weeks of grounding. I’d had a feeling I’d gotten off too lightly from the start.

Instead Mom had called to tell me that my dad had been offered a job in another town and that we’d be moving before school’s end. I was supposed to begin wrapping things up. Man, how I wished she’d been calling to ground me instead.

I returned to class sobbing. My friends gathered ’round to console me, but I could tell Mr. S was feeling pretty smug–he figured I’d gotten further punishment, as well. He looked a little less smug as my story unfolded, but was probably relieved that I’d be out of his hair.

The joke was on him, though. In the end my folks arranged for me to live with my maternal grandparents to finish out the school year in Floydada. I still wasn’t happy about leaving my friends and the only schools I’d ever attended in my last year, but it was a workable compromise. Plus, I met Studly Doright in the new town, so that was a positive.

And the next time I got the giggles over “Swang into Sprang” again, Mr. S let it go. I guess he figured I’d had punishment enough.

Barely Bearing Up

I used to be a hardier person. At least that’s the story I tell myself. It’s become more difficult to believe, though, as I find myself whining about the less than balmy weather we’ve had in Tallahassee these past couple of weeks. Some days we barely climbed above 40°!

When Studly Doright, and I, along with our two kids, lived in North Dakota we went entire months without seeing temperatures above 30°F. I drove daily on icy roads, supervised playground duty in sub-zero weather with three feet of snow on the ground, and went about my business even with blustery winds gusting at fifty miles per hour. And those were the more temperate winter days! Somehow, we adapted.

Neither of us were accustomed to long term cold, having grown up in the panhandle of Texas. We knew brief periods of winter that often were replaced by spring-like weather, within a space of six hours. I can remember mornings that school was cancelled due to snow that found us playing outside sans coats by 3 pm.

I’m rambling, I know. It’s this darned cold weather to blame. I’m barely bearing up under these conditions. My feet have forgotten how to wear flip flops and will require remedial instruction once the temps begin to rise once more. That’ll most likely be next week. And, as God is my witness, we will rise again.

“Forget the Iguanas” Stew

Ladies and gentlemen it’s cold outside! Not so cold that I’m liable to get frostbite if I’m out for more than a few minutes, but cold enough that in some parts of the Sunshine State cold-stunned iguanas are falling from the trees. That I could possibly be walking along and have a lizard fall on my head almost makes me hope for hypothermia instead. Almost.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/frozen-iguanas-falling-from-trees-during-cold-snap-in-florida/

Can you imagine? The thought creeps me out.

I couldn’t stop thinking about falling iguanas, so I occupied my mind by chopping vegetables for a stew. Now all I had to worry about was losing a finger. I’m not all that good with knives.

Once the veggies were all chopped and the stew was simmering on the stove, wafting savory odors throughout Doright Manor, I once again found myself contemplating falling lizards. What to do? How about I type up the stew recipe for my readers?

“Forget the Iguana Stew”

1 lb. very lean ground beef, (I use 93% lean) browned and drained

3 C. potatoes, cubed

1 1/2 C. celery, chopped

1 C. onion, chopped

2 C. carrots, chopped

1 1/2 C. frozen peas (Studly prefers corn, so that’s what I used)

1 3/4 C. chunky style Italian tomato sauce or Italian style stewed tomatoes (I can’t always find the chunky style, so the stewed tomatoes work fine.)

1 C. tomato sauce

1 1/4 C. beef broth

Salt and pepper to taste

(I usually add a tomato sauce can of water–the recipe as it’s written doesn’t seem to have enough liquid.)

Cook for a couple of hours, while the potatoes soften and all the flavors mingle, and stir frequently. I cook it on medium heat and then switch to low once the veggies feel soft.

If you cook this in the crockpot, cook on low for 6-8 hours.

No iguanas were harmed in the making of this stew.

Peace, people

Loco for Coco

With Studly Doright out of town on Wednesday evening I treated myself to a movie that I was fairly certain he’d never go see in a theatre. It was a spur of the moment decision to go, and I was still trying to choose which film I wanted to see when I approached the ticket kiosk.

It came down to a tossup between three movies: the third Pitch Perfect movie, the one about Winston Churchill, and the Pixar film, Coco. In the end I chose Coco because it had an earlier starting time.

Coco was wonderful from start to finish. I’m no movie reviewer because I’m such a pushover, but I’d put this film up against anything I’ve seen in many years. The music is wonderful, the animation is outstanding, and the story so sweet that the grandmother sitting next to me sobbed as much as I did through the last five minutes.

On that note, I must warn you that the story is pretty intense and might be hard for some children to handle. Plus, there are dead people in it. Well, dead cartoon people, but it might be a bit scary for some young viewers.

Let me know if you’ve seen Coco. I’d like to discuss it with others.

Clone?

One of the upsides to the social media site, Facebook, is the way it reminds of us photos and events we might have otherwise forgotten. This morning the following photo popped up in my Facebook memories:

That’s Studly and me with two of our grandchildren, Garrett and McKayla, from nine years ago. At first glance I thought the woman pictured was my mom. Then it dawned on me, that my mother died before ever meeting any of her great grandchildren.

Here’s a photo of Mom with our daughter, Ashley, who is the mother of the children pictured above. I think maybe Ashley was four in this photo.

Again, here’s the photo of me:

Holy cow. People have told me how much I look like mom, but until now I don’t think I fully realized it. Cloning. It’s real and apparently has been since the 1950’s.

Peace, people. (Miss you Mommy)