In case you were wondering, I’m alive. I did go out on a couple of early morning walks this week, smartly attired in my plaid flannel pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt. By the time Thursday rolled around, though, I was on auto pilot and made a nose dive back into bed. Rude.

But today is Friday, and you know how I feel about that under normal circumstances, but today? It is my very first non-working, permanently retired if I feel like it Friday. Okay, so retired from working for others work. Payroll work. Having to get dressed and go to work work. So how did I celebrate?
I broke in my new ball.  I sat on it all day and tried valiantly to do something about the organization of this pathetic looking blog of mine.  Nothing has improved on the blog, but at least I’ve rolled and swirled and bounced myself toward a firmer core.  Yes, you, too can burn calories while you blog!  Of course we may not be able to get out of bed tomorrow, but still.

What else is new?

Not much, but yesterday when I was coming out of the grocery store with one of my green bags I finally remembered to remove from the trunk, a young man with a nice smile and a multitude of those disks inserted in his ears and a few other places I can’t remember right now, looked in my direction. He had a clipboard and a purpose.

“You want money, right?” I began since I’m not very good at beating around the bush when I talk. His eyes even smiled.

“Do you know about Greenpeace?” he began.

“Of course I know about Greenpeace,” I told him, flashing on images of news footage years ago of ships with nuclear reactors being prevented from entering a port in Australia or something like that. “But do you have any idea how many requests we get each week for contributions? It’s out of control. Even NPR hasn’t been able to peel my money out of my fist yet.” Who do you give money to when everybody wants it? His smile never left his eyes as he let me blather on until I asked if I could make a donation on line. And when he began to respond, I interrupted him realizing that he wouldn’t get credit for the donation.

“I need to be able to show something for my effort her today,” he told me.

“So fine, can I give $15?”

“No, we’re only set up to take monthly contributions,” he told me, explaining that it helped the organization have a more steady stream of cash instead of having to wait until the end of the year for a lump sum.

“Okay. Okay. Okay. Where do I sign? Can I do $10 a month?”

“No, I’m sorry, the minimum is $15. That’s only $5 more,” he added as I looked away from the form I was already filling out, and making it easier for those leaving the store to escape my fate.

“I can add. The math’s not that challenging,” I mouthed off, and he laughed good-naturedly, most likely thinking I was nuts.

“Do you want a sticker?” he continued as used the side of a brown crayon to rub an impression from my credit card on the form.

“Sure. I need something to show for my money, right? And if someone steals my credit card number, Greenpeace will be paying the bills. Make sure you tell them that, okay?” I called over my shoulder after picking up my green bag to walk away. “I’ll blog about you…”

“Thanks!” he said, still grinning. Talk about job satisfaction. Jeez. But I always wonder when I send off a contribution to any organization, just how much of it is eaten in administrative costs.

So when the MoH got home, I asked what he knew about Greenpeace since I joined.

“Great. They float around on a boat and cause a lot of problems,” he mumbled, partly in jest.

I’ll have to work on him a bit more. He’s no where near to being green.

I need the sky to be grey and angry looking. I want the wind to blow and rain to fall. But it’s blue as far as I can see.

I don’t want to hear the kids at the end of the block playing in the cul-de-sac. But they’re laughing and screaming at one another, having fun.

I want the trees to be bare like they’re supposed to be in the winter, and not green with signs of spring already.

I’m not in the right frame of mind for blooming and regrowth. Sprouting and budding.

I thought it might be good to bury my head in the pillows until about noon, but knew that was never going to happen. And once I’m awake, the last thing I want to do is lay there and think. Not today. Especially today.

I headed for the bathroom acknowledging my numb around the edges self, knowing that I wouldn’t see Blackitty, and wondering whether my ugly, red, puffy eyes could actually squeeze out more tears. They felt like they wanted to. And right when I could feel the wave of grief begin to wash over me, the door nudged forward and my dog’s big golden head and soft brown eyes pushed into the space, tentatively, seeking permission. Her cold wet nose bumped against my knee and I could hear the thump of her tail against the vanity as I scratched her head to say thank you for continuing Blackitty’s routine.

So amazing.

 (more…)

I have been fortunate to have known many lovely cats in my life. If I proceed slowly backwards, with each name I recall, I can glimpse a bit of the life I was leading when I had each one, and smile remembering what knowing them brought to me.

Blackitty (Mr. Blaxter Blackington) & Precious (The Yack Star)…Dear, dear Holis and his friend, Miss Mew…Rocky Lou…Yeller, Jasper. Tar Baby. Spark Good Buddy. Sissy Kitty. Tuffy. Big Kitty. Boomer…and so many others.

A few of them have been very special. They had the quiet ability to soothe when the need was there. To calm. To provide warmth and a bit of softness exactly when it was needed. Somehow they just understood that their responsibility was to share themselves unselfishly. I can think of almost nothing else that is as simple, and yet so valuable.

I lost the dearest one today. Blackitty. The loveliest cat I’ve ever had.

I knew something was wrong, but I just couldn’t bring myself to deal with it. I didn’t want to imagine how it might be to not see him each morning in the bathroom after I’d dragged myself out of bed. He’d push open the door, slink through it, rub against my legs, and then stretch his velvety body with one paw pushed against the wall.

He didn’t do that today.

 (more…)

I told the MoH I was staying up here nights. At least that way I can get my blogging done. Jeez.

Is there any reason WHY, if I don’t salivate over watching football, or baseball, or basketball, or hockey, or soccer, or poker, or curling (just wanted to see if you were paying the hell attention…) but yes, he watches that if it’s on, too…that I can’t BLOG? Well?

No. I didn’t think so.

So maybe Cafe Kelly is closed. Okay, well, don’t get too excited, because I do have to do my foodblog. Really. And I do have to pay more attention to it. At least try.

No hissy fit. Just making a statement. Now I’ll put my soapbox back under my desk for the next time.

But you can help out by going to my food blog and clicking on the & Veracity" target="_blank">vote button in the upper right hand corner. You know. Just in support. I swear there are people who are cheating. So vote for me. “Kay? Routinely. When I’m famous, I’ll put you on the payroll. We can party.

I can’t believe it’s been forever that I’ve posted again. TOO much going on. Seriously.

But I did want to share the RT’s new status as Resident Rocker. So that means I guess his name has to be different now. How about Resident Teen Rocker. RTR. And while I’m at this nonsense, I need to say some serious thanks to Scott for helping me along as I did my research on guitars. I paid attention! He’s already had his first lesson, actually practices, and sounds like he’s hitting the right notes. Okay, so that’s kind of piano lingo, but that’s all I know. He IS sounding decent and playing around with the sounds on his amp. I haven’t needed earphones once. We’ll talk in a couple of months, though. Remind me.

 (more…)

What does it say about me when I can admit that I spent most of my morning at work putting labels and stickers on file folders in preparation for this next year of business and L.O.V.E.D. it?

CONTROL. The woman craves CONTROL. (insert wicked and crazed laughter here and clasp your hands near your chin, making sure to rub them as if applying lotion) It’s an office supply problem. You know. Paper, and pencils, envelopes and white out? I’ve always had an issue with office supplies, and I’ve learned there’s no cure.

But wait! There’s more.

I worked a whole extra 90 minutos loving it. I could see a real live finished product that had dimension. And I could carefully pick up all the brightly colored folders, and click them on the desktop to make sure they were PERFECTLY lined up. So. Cool.

About half way through my time, someone brought up New Year’s Resolutions, and I was surprised that I hadn’t even thought of making one. Of course, now, it’s still on my mind. But not so much that it has kept my drawers in a knot or anything. Now that would be quite the conundrum. Call this practiced avoidance.

Why do you need a resolution when you have a list. I made one last night before going to bed so I could hit the ground running when I got home from my J.O.B. Guess what was first on the list? Okay, so you’ll never guess, and although I’m a complete pro at Twenty Questions, I’ll cut to the chase…

…my friends at Best Buy. Or better said if you’ve watched the show on Monday nights, Chuck, which is beyond surprisingly good for television and no, I’ve never watched Boston Legal, or 30 Rock, or…Okay, you get it. Buy More. That’s what the store is called on Chuck. Best Buy is Buy More. Whatever.

Anyway, I called like a gracious and tolerant consumer who has been screwed and dragged over the coals by the capitalist machine that will be the bane of our existence before we know it ahem…has been so patient with an obvious communication problem.

I was less than thrilled when Josh answered the phone after I dealt with the cheerful machine and sitting on hold for 10 minutes. It wasn’t that Josh wasn’t thrilling. He’s been well trained. “Let me verify that the television we’re talking about is at (***) 555-DORK.” I told him that was correct and that there were most likely red flags and unhappy faces stamped around my phone number along with a few Jolly Rogers and a Fickle Finger of Fate for good measure. After a professional pause, he stated that they did not deal with red flags and unhappy faces (bwahahahahahaha!) and then he read me the notes the supervisor wrote on 12-14 after I spoke with her about what could be done.

Poor Josh read, “General Electronics (authorized posers) is having difficulty ordering parts.” I could only gasp delicately and ask him to tell me if that meant the parts to fix our T.V. still had not been ordered before I collected myself to breathe scorching flames through the receiver. He politely responded that,” because I’m not a supervisor, ma’am (wince), I may not be able to access all the information regarding what has transpired.”

So yes I spoke to yet another supervisor whose name I was provided without a request and isn’t that stellar customer service? But after she said hello, she asked to put me on hold so she could review the service notes. Uhhh…what service?

And when she couldn’t tell me whether parts had or hadn’t been ordered, I told her I would take the T.V. to the closest Buy More Sucker Store and stay there until they gave me a new T.V.

And guess what?

She said in her well-trained and pleasant customer type service voice, ” I can submit an authorization for you, if you’d like.”

Huh? “An authorization for what?” I asked.

“An authorization for a replacement T.V. which will take three to five business days.”

Go figure. So I told her I’d prefer the quickest way to ensure the T.V. was totally functional and wasn’t this a lot of horse shit from me.  She said she’d pursue both avenues and ain’t that special. I was smiling, however. And I did NOT raise my voice ONE time. But my eyebrows were very angry.

So next Wednesday, I’ll bring this up again. You will be soooooo over it, but it will be so special to find out whether I’ve been granted a brand spanking new T.V. or parts. And you know what they say about parts.

Parts is parts…OR…the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.

What’s that song that says something about being happy if you know it and clapping your hands?

Yah. Like that.

Now, on to the next thing on my list.

The head has cleared, my throat no longer feels like the tunnel of death, and I can sort of tell that there are things on Earth that don’t smell like s*ot.  Sorry.  I just can’t spell it.  It’s disgusting.

But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to say Happy New Year to you all.  I tried to make it around to your blogs and hope I didn’t forget anyone.  Well, it’s not exactly like Santa trying to get around to all the giftees in the world, you know.  But still.

It was nice “seeing” you again and reading about what you’ve been up to even if the MoH is now in bed, I’m up alone, the T.V. that Best Buy has still not delivered parts on is blaring, the RT is snuggled in his bottom bunk unfortunately not as much on the mend as I, and well…

…I’m not sleepy.

Must have been all that decadent lounging on the sofa and in bed for two days with Kleenex sticking out of my nose.

Hopefully you’re smiling.  And if I can wish anything for you, it’s that.  That you’ll smile as you head into 2008, believing that good will happen when you least expect it.

Imagine what could happen if you did expect it.

See you soon.

So we made it to Virginia and after a few days of very grey skies and a refreshing chill in the air, it totally warmed up to near 60 degrees and then rained. Sheesh. And today?

The freaking sun is out. What’s up with that? You would think that when you fly across the damn country for the holidays at least it could pretend like it was going to snow. Feh.

That list I made before I left had to get done or we wouldn’t have been able to get on the plane. So no problem there. When the shuttle driver arrived at the front door to collect us, the house was decent, the presents for the older boys were snuggled under the tree and as an added bribe to them to take care of the house while we were gone, we had the RT open one of his presents we couldn’t take…a gamer’s computer (HP Pavilion Elite) with a 22” flat panel monitor and a humongous graphics card (XFX GeForce 8800 GT XXX) and I have to swagger around a bit when I say that even though I have absolutely NO idea what I’m talking about) that had to have its own power source (or some kind of a fan thingy installed). We had it installed before we left the store (Fry’s Electronics, thank you very much and NOT BEST BUY Bwhahahahahahaha Losers…) by a sales/tech guy who was completely cool, talked the entire time he was putting it in and answered everyone else’s questions at the same time — including “The Wife” on his cell a couple of times regarding being home on time for a change. The guy works 16 hour days. Amazing. We came home with a fist full of rebates I now have to complete so we can actually have a few checks in the mail at some point in the next century. I’ve done them before and I swear we never get anything out of them — most likely because I forgot to cross a “t” or dot an “i.”

Now the cool thing about this computer is that it also functions as a TV, so that helps us out a bit in the area of ensuring that we can all be in separate rooms watching different programs and never see each other ever again. Trick. AND (drum roll…) now neither the MoH or the RT has to use my Mac. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT.

Seriously. It’s mine, mine, mine. ALLLLLLLLLLL mine and they don’t get to TOUCH it.

EVER. So I’m sure the two older boys (okay, so they’re men, but you know how that goes when you’re the mom, right?) are enjoying it while the RT is away. And you can imagine the RT is sweating a bit because he had to leave it at home and is now stuck in this female infested house for the holidays. My sister does have a Wii, though, so people have been having a blast with that. I haven’t succumbed, but most likely will tonight after a couple glasses of wineski.

Enough of that nonsense.

So I just wanted to let you know we were all alive and well, have celebrated my mom’s 70th birthday in true style (there wasn’t a fancy dress in the house…) and took some photos I’ll have to try and share later. Totally hilarious. Oh, and “we” constitutes my sister’s family (husband and two younger daughters) her oldest daughter and her boyfriend (who left Monterey, CA to live here instead and are holed in upstairs indefinitely..) my mother (who’s living in the basement sort of indefinitely, but actually more like temporarily…) a dog, and three cats who all have to be kept away from one another. Oh. And us. Quite the household.

Today, more lists are in order — but they’re the lists I’m good at that include miles of ingredients and a sequence of what to prepare in which order. With one last trip to the grocery store (there have already been two…) we’ll be ready to hunker down for a fun night of dessert making, toasting (instead of the roasting we did to my mom last night), and preparing for our holiday breakfast and then dinner later.

The MoH and RT are out today with my seester doing the turismo thang in D.C. I’ll venture out on Wednesday (which is our wedding anniversary) and make like a tourist myself. Maybe I’ll even twist the MoH’s arm a bit for a swanky dinner or something.

In the meantime, I sincerely hope you are warm, doing what fills your heart — regardless of what it is — and that you are healthy.

Thanks for visiting my little space in the Bloggosphere so often this past year. You have helped to take me from the exhausted, burnt out, frazzled, and completely flattened person that I was, to a person who laughs much more than she used to, and who has also recovered something she thought she’d lost for good — writing.

YOU ROCK!