Unholy way to begin this day . . .

Not the Bluebird!

Can't believe I've just spent about three quarters of an hour cleaning shit off of one of my favorite pairs of shoes. I made a huge mistake yesterday when I was so excited about the Bluebirds that I decided to make them a treat and I put out some peanut butter with raisins and mealworms in a flattish dish on the big outcropping near their box. I also put out some very expensive special bird food and dried mealworms in another dish also on the rock. I checked them out after breakfast this morning and both had been licked clean. I came in the house to clean up the pans and P&D's Pop noticed the mess I made when I wiped my feet on the old towel I leave by the door. It was the worst mess I've smelled or seen in many years. I had to flush the bottom of the shoe outside with high pressure from the faucet and then brush like hades to get it perfectly clean; then I threw everything that had touched the right shoe away. Horrid, horrid horrid. To top it off I didn't think it was a fox that made the mess. As I'm writing this blog I saw Soldier, who never goes past the driveway and . . . yep, he was checking out the place where the flat bottomed pans had been! And yep, I'm sure it was dog shit I stepped in and it was he who came here and didn't bother to stop at the door for his regular snack. I yelled at him and made him go home and the tête de merde stopped in the middle of our property on his side of our house and pooped. He never used to poop here, peed yes, but there's a newish dog in the neighborhood and the people let him out and I have to chase him away from this yard whenever I see him because he poops here too. I think I'll ban Soldier who seems to be following the new dog's lead. No more snacks. I hate having to watch out in my own yard for dog messes. Still ticked off,

Well that's a load off my mind. Ha. Having a good weekend other than stepping in it. Kiddo went sliding Friday and that's a good thing because it's already 50 degrees at 9 of the clock in the morning and the melting is audible. He beat me at every game we played this weekend but Grampa managed to beat us at the newest iteration of Monopoly. He, Grampa, was tickled pink! Kiddo is turning out to be a pretty good sport and though losing is not fun it isn't a big deal. While he was playing his concert for me yesterday the Bluebirds showed up so I had to go take some photos while they graced us with their presence.  After bringing him back to Groton we stopped at Gus's Pub in Plainfield for lunch thanks to Grampa's gift certificate. Food was fine and since they only have beer and wine I tried a Bud Light Lime-a-Rita: surprisingly good, stronger than I expected but definitely drinkable.

Time to think about getting ready for late Mass.

Quote:  Narrow-minded and ignorant persons talk about persons and not things; hence gossip is the bane and disgrace of so large a portion of society.  ___George Eliot

Best Turkey . . .

Yuppers! Gotta hand it to son-in-law; he roasted up the best turkey of the year. The meat was tender, tasty and downright salubrious. I've never been very good at turkey and so I was delighted when middle child called and said they were in charge of Thanksgiving this year. Phew. I only made two pies and a bread; the rest is a delicious history with no clean up plus two really sweet young men at the table. One for the books, I say.

Son-in-law called his brother in Florida to wish them a happy day and also wanted to speak with his sister and her son who had flown to Florida for a family/Disney visit. But to his surprise she wasn't there. Seems she had tickets to fly out of Bradley in Connecticut and tried to get on the plane in Warwick, RI at T.F. Greene. Made for a real mess picking her up in Florida! I think she hung around Providence and managed to get a late afternoon flight. Hope they all knew what airport she would be landing at. It's just funny as heck because she is a perfectionist, although it sounds like something I am capable of.

Will send out some early Christmas cards this year letting all and sundry know that we've cut out all presents except for four kiddos. I'm not sure what has possessed me to do this but I think the commercialization of this peaceful, family day has taken the 'buying gifts' out of me. It seems to trivialize the beauty of Christmas so we'll have our usual family feast, a tree and cards and call it quits. I'll get myself to the Children's Mass too.

Be leaving shortly to pick up Kiddo for his Frication. Hope he remembers to pack a snowsuit and boots. It's 34 and windy but the hill looks good for sliding. I shall watch only. Don't want to risk breaking my neck coming down at breakneck speed!

Quote:  The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.   _____Johnson

Thanksgiving Proclamation

Unhappy state of affairs . . .

At least this little guy is happy at the Diner!

P&D's Pop returned this stormy morning with a very nice monetary gift certificate to Gus's Pub from a friend at the school.  That is really very nice but somehow there is a downside to this generosity and that is:  he went to the Roadside in Central Village to get the gift certificate but they wouldn't oblige him because they are leaving soon for Canterbury. What the hell. I knew down deep that they wouldn't stay in Plainfield but I've really enjoyed the food and especially the service. These guys have never stayed at anything for more than a few years and then they're off. I was hoping this would be different. I guess I'm blown away by the fact that these two guys use people for their own ends and are not pleasant to the people that work for them. That sounds like sour grapes and it is but I believe it's the truth. I've seen servers in other restaurants we've frequented also treated like dirt and this has been the same. I think if I were working there I would have walked out on them long ago. They have great food but lousy manners. I suppose we may check them out in their new digs but perhaps we'll just go to breakfast less. We have found a very good place for lunch with a couple of beers and a Margarita so we're all set! Could end up saving us a lot of money. Okay, there it is, the bright side. I will miss seeing Trish but imagine she will find a new place to work. She's an excellent waitress and great employee who is most definitely underpaid and overworked.

Missing my weekly trek to East Granby because of a Nor'easter. It's only raining now but will probably turn to snow later this evening. We are getting some pellet rain at the moment and I think that younger sister may already be getting wet heavy snow. I'll weather the storm writing Christmas cards and reading.  The birds are looking frazzled; not sure I can get any good photos today.

Quote:  Self-trust is the essence of heroism.    ___Emerson

Gees . . . I have been very bad . . .

Yes, bad to the bone. For some inane  reason I felt almost faint went I got back from my bi-weekly cribbage games with cousine S. I had eaten a good breakfast but because I was so hungry on my return at around 11:30 I ate enough to fill two of me. Still didn't feel great but went shopping at Big Y along with the entire village and came home still craving food. So I did the best I could; I went out and bought myself Ben&Jerry's Everything But The . . . After I ate half of it I felt terrific and cleaned the house a smidge, played around with the Lumix and was ready for supper! Now here we are after supper and I just finished the Ben&Jerry's. Awesome. I hate that word but it fits the circumstances. I just put on at least 5 pounds. But I feel super fine. Nothing else to say.

So discouraged by the news today. Can't believe that Ferguson, Missouri is in the throes of race riots. This should have passed years ago but it seems to be getting worse. One would think that having a mixed race president would help ease the tensions in this vast United States of America. But if anything racial tensions are worse than I've seen them. I find it frightening for all people that we are still looking at skin color, eye shapes, ethnicity, religion as important. What has happened to our souls that they no longer shine through the morass? It is painful to live in such crude, backwards, material, selfish times. It seems that man truly is an animal without the instinct to love, honor and protect his own kind. Other animals have their instincts and live quite well in their animal kingdoms. Man is the worst animal because he follows base instincts and has not improved over the time he has been on this Earth. One may not believe in God but one can understand why a belief in a some intelligent being seems to be the only way to bring order into the chaos man makes. Man is in a losing battle with himself. Don't like it one single bit. I really think that the song from South Pacific fits our situation here on earth. "You've got to be taught, before it's too late, to hate all the things your relatives hate. You've got to be carefully taught."

Well this isn't helping my mood so I'll just sign off. And to think that I'm an optimist. Gees Louise.

Quote:  The existence of evil, as Whately well says, is the great theological difficulty; and the apparent want of success of good men in overcoming it, is but one branch of this difficulty.   ___Bristed

I've never blogged at night before . . .

Isn't that crazy . . . I swear I've never written in the evening. I usually write in the afternoon but I was caught up walking my couple of cold miles, taking photos of the hawk P&D's Pop saw and I've just finished watching Gold Rush on the boob tube. It's good that we can tape it and skip the ads. Not sure why I get a kick out of the show but I do. Perhaps because it takes place in Alaska and of all the reality shows it's interesting to see gold kept in Mason Jars as the weeks progress. No one else keeps stuff in Mason Jars on modern day media! There's really nothing worthwhile that comes out of other reality shows. At least I get to see gold and I like gold. Wish I had at least one solid gold coin to keep on top of the old desk so I could admire it. Pure gold looks as if it must feel warm, bright, heavy and beautiful. I'd even settle for a little, teeny weeny bar! We gave Kiddo the gold we panned when we were in Alaska so he has a little bit hidden away, probably worth about $25. That's cool. We also gave him some pure silver. I'm sure it isn't worth too much but it sure is pretty.

He just called to tell us that he's doing a good job on two of his projects for school. He has one due Tuesday on Lionfish and then a super big one due in January about Tchad. He had to pick a country where French was spoken and he chose Tchad! Wow, it was hard finding him a good book to use as part of his research. They are not allowed to go overboard using Google, Wikipedia or media junk so it's pretty interesting to see him working on his projects. He and Grampa went to buy just the right poster board colors, spray glue and various other colored paper so he can finish the projects. His Mom hates the projects but the kid seems to thrive on them. Personally, I hated them when I was in school and I rarely assigned projects in my classes. I hated cooking projects or art projects. What a pain in the derrière for all. I'm always impressed how he can speak extemporaneously on any subject he has decided he likes.

We played Chess this weekend and now I think he's hooked. I sent him a set from Amazon. He should get it Wednesday. His Mom is going to kill me because he'll be bugging her to play. He was practicing on the iPad on the way to Groton this morning. I'm not a good teacher so I told him to play against the computer. He'll learn more that way!

Quote:  Heaven must be in me before I can be in heaven.  ___Stanford

Okay . . . that was interesting . . .

Sweet

Got to the Orthopaedic Doctor's office a smidge early and I was in 'the room' a bit early too and lo and behold the doctor was right on time. Gee, I like this man. The MRI's showed a slight tear in the right rotator cuff so we'll just leave it alone. He warned me not to throw anything overhand with the right arm nor rotate it much. The back has more arthritis than I expected but nothing major. He offered me a shot which I declined but I'll be going to a therapist to set up exercises I can do on a daily basis to strengthen and stretch my back. I'll show the therapist what I've been doing because I think I've done some exercises I was taught in cardiac rehab that probably aren't good for the back. (Definitely not going back to the guy in Danielson.) The doctor also told me I could go back to my weights, just don't throw things or rotate the right shoulder. Yay. I've already dug them out. I had to hide them from myself so I wouldn't use them. I do have a tendency to go overboard.

Got back from a good visit with younger sister yesterday and P&D's Pop had been speaking with a guy who explained that we need to have railings on the porch steps and the steps going to the milk room. So that's what he's doing at this very moment; working on the porch railings. We may just pull out the steps to the milk room and add some loam and grass instead of a railing. Neither of us really use those steps because they can be somewhat treacherous especially in the Winter. As I think about it perhaps there should be a railing at the top of the wall by the milk room. Everyone is safety conscious to the extreme and even though there have been many kids brought up in this old house and I'm sure many of them have jumped from the top of that wall I guess today's kids need to be protected from their rash behaviors. C'est la vie, n'est-ce pas?

Think I'll walk up the street today. It's not quite 32 degrees though so I'll have to dress up.  Poo.

Quote:  Sophistry is like a window curtain - it pleases as an ornament, but its true use is to keep out the light.