It's been a while . . .

Just a baby

We've been busy lately just trying to get in our flying and walking! Went to a neat birthday party for a newly minted four year old and they had a crawfishboil and barbecue. It was great and a lot of fun. We also had Slaughter friends stop in Monday; we went to Big Mike's for lunch. I'd been wanting to go there ever since I found out on TV that Bar Rescue had rescued Big Mike's after the August flooding. I liked the show and was impressed with the fact that they completed the work in just three days in October, only two months after the August 2016 Flood. It's the biggest rescue they have ever done and it was unusual too because they usually rescue bars that are failing; Big Mike's is a 1.9 million dollar a year business! But they would probably never have reopened without Bar Rescue because besides the Bar their home also flooded and they didn't have room in their FEMA trailer for all their kids! Typical mess à la Louisiane. The trip to Big Mike's was well worth it. We enjoyed the food, the company and the waitresses. Hope to go again soon. We both liked it there. Maybe I'll even spring for a Margarita!

It seems I've finally managed to get the Early Learning Center to send me to help someone else besides the three year olds' class. Tomorrow I shall graduate to the four year olds. I'm looking forward to branching out! I truly enjoy Miss C and her sweet kiddos but I've really always wanted to help with different teachers so hopefully this will all work out well. They've already got me for the summer camp program and the lady in charge of religious ed has also reminded me she'll be calling me to help out again in their short summer program. That's cool as long as it doesn't conflict with any flying contests or Kiddo visit!

We think the baby Bluebirds have flown the coop. P&D's Pop watched them keep popping their heads out of the box yesterday but they wouldn't leave. This evening there doesn't seem to be any activity around the box. We have one more box still holding babies so we'll have to keep an eye out for them too.

Made a Polish dinner this evening and it was pretty darned good: Haluski - Fried Cabbage, Ham & Noodles. It showed up on Facebook so I decided to give it a try; worth making it once in a while. Of course it made a heck of a lot but we're going to turn it into Poboys tomorrow with Dijon Mustard and chips! Sounds good to me and easy peasy, just the way I like things to be.

Tried to order a full cover for my new iPad because it only has a cover over the screen but they don't have a full one for it yet. I left them a piece of my mind. Man, the back of it is very slippery and needs to be covered. I hope they come out with one soon - disappointed in Apple.

Also fighting with Terminix as they have not fulfilled their contract in the fight against termites - we don't have any but we don't want them either! I've telephoned and emailed them every day since last Friday to no avail. No one answers the phone - they just put you on hold and advertise their products! Finally I got sneaky and said I was calling about opening a new contract - sure as hell someone called me back but couldn't help me contact anyone about our present contract although he said he'd call the local manager. That didn't help so today I called and pushed the button to cancel our contract - sure enough a nice young lady answered my call and when I told her the real reason I called she set up an appointment for Tuesday between 8 and 10 am. She said she'd look into the problem with contacting service! Seems that's been happening a lot! No kidding! We may look for another pest control service that is local.

Quote:  Live only for today, and you ruin tomorrow.   ___C. S
immons

Will I be the first volunteer fired???

Working hard feeding the babies

The three year olds were having lunch, only five of them, three were out sick and Miss C asked me to play a game with the Kiddos who had finished eating and cleaned up their places. I took out my Finders Keepers which has a game board made like a big puzzle covered with pictures. The kids helped me set up. I gave each of the kids a token to put on the item I showed them on a card. First one to put their token on the board got to keep the card. We were having a pretty good time when one of the kids who was still eating barfed all over the lunch table and himself so Miss C left me in charge! As they got used to playing one of the kids would yell "Nooooooo!" if someone else beat him to the picture. It cracked me up. And my laughing was contagious so all of the kids were laughing too. Finally we finished the game and Miss C returned after cleaning up the sicky and then she cleaned the floor etc. As I was leaving to come home she got a text message from the teacher next door who wanted to know if she was killing someone! Oh my gosh! Between the kid yelling "Noooooo!" and me laughing so hard the sound must have gotten through the cinder block walls. C was dying laughing as I left. In addition when it was time to bring the kids to choir one of them stated she hated choir so I spoke with her about how we all have to do some things even if we don't want to because it's our job  blah, blah, blah. After Choir the music teacher exclaimed what great singers all of the 3 year old were (3 classes of them.) I said to C she would have to praise them because they were so good and sang so well after my little tête à tête with the kiddo. She was pleased too. As we were returning to the room the music teacher was behind us and Miss C asked her how her own class had behaved - music teacher explained that they had been terrible until she split them up among the other kids then they sang their hearts out while our worst offender was in time out but singing sitting under the piano. Miss C looked at me and laughed saying it's a good thing she hadn't praised them - Miss Irène failed the test! Last one about school today. Yesterday one of the little blond girls whined about being on the hot playground and wanted to go back to class so Miss C asked the other kids if they were ready to go back inside - one sturdy blond boy said "No!" he wanted to play in the playground. The little blond girl walked up to him and punched him in the nose!  Yikes!

Okay. That's it for today. I'm writing on my brand spanking new iPad! Hip! Hip! I ordered it a week ago tomorrow and it came direct to me from China. They started selling them at 8:01 California time last Friday and I snagged one. But that's another funny story.

Quote:  Indolence and stupidity are first cousins.  ___Rivarol

Wow, need more pine straw . . .

Yes, an alligator!

P&D's Pop bought me three bales of pine straw yesterday and he brought them out to the front of the house this morning, unwrapped and unrolled them after cutting some shoots and roots of crazy bushes I don't want. But I still need at least one more bale so he's off and running around DS as I write.

No helping at the Early Learning Center today because they are having a Trike-a-thon in the parking lot to raise money for Saint Jude's Children's Hospital from 9 to 10:15 and then releasing the kiddos for the day. Since I only go from 10 to 1 that wouldn't work out. One of the best things that happened at school yesterday was that I got to hold baby K and he fell asleep on my shoulder. He had been fussy on his Mom who was a full time teacher at the ELC last year; baby K who is only about six months old had to have his left eye removed because of cancer and she needed to be with him in Tennessee for weeks at a time so my friend Camille, who had only wanted to sub this year, became a full time teacher and K's mom subs when medical appointments allow her to do so; she brings K to work with her! It is so nice - he has his fake eye in place and if I didn't know which eye had been removed I would not know that he had ever been operated on. Thank God for the wonderful innovations in medicine that have allowed baby K to be cancer free and thriving. Wow, Higgs boson at His best working with impossible to control humans!

I've been having so much trouble with my older iPad - even thought it had died because we couldn't get anything to come up on the screen - that I called Apple and spoke with Jeffrey who told me that if I could wait until today Apple was unveiling it's latest model and it would be less expensive than the iPad Pro. So this morning using the phone and email I have snagged the newest iPad on the block. I didn't want to pay $10 for expedited shipping so it should be here in early April. I'm so excited and hope that I can get it all set up on my own! As luck would have it P&D's Pop removed the SIM card from the old one and we finally got it to work again so I'm not left in the lurch. We really like the Waze app and without the iPad we can't use it! So until the newbie gets here we still have a backup. My first old iPad is now dead as a door nail!

We had a fantastic trip to Avery Island Monday; at the end of the day before leaving for home I did buy some Tabasco Sauce  and some hot pepper jellies! We had already visited the Tabasco Plant a few years back with our son and his wife so this time we just went to their Jungle Gardens. It is impressive to be able to drive around the gardens and stop wherever and whenever you want and get out of the car to look around and snap all of the photos you'd like! Wow, my first time seeing alligators in the wild - it was wonderful. We will have to go back early next year because we missed the azaleas and the camellias. Seems we should have taken our trek at the end of February or early March. Of course the mild Winter made the plants bloom earlier than usual so I guess Higgs Boson can be blamed for us missing the flowers!

Well P&D's Pop is back with the pine straw so I'll go out and use my handy dandy new small potato digger like tool to spread it around!

Quote:  God heals, and the doctor takes the fee.  ___Benjamin Franklin

MOAR BURNOUTS!!! American versus Australian burnout Firebird Attempt #4 - Biggest Kiddo having fun

$32 lunch . . .

Another surprisingly good lunch at El Agave in Zachary today. We brought the pupster home as her folks will be home after work and before returning home we decided to have lunch. I think it's a pretty cheap yet very good lunch for the price: 2 Bud Lights, one Texas Margarita, one Philly Cheese Steak with fries, one Steak Fajitas and one fried ice cream to share. It was all fresh and good. I'm always surprised when P&D's Pop doesn't mind going to a Mexican restaurant because they're not usually something he likes but he did like the hamburgers the last times and the Philly Cheese Steak was also a hit. Yay for me - I don't have to cook dinner and I finally had a Margarita - I've been missing out lately!

Not much sunshine

We were at South Park this morning but it ended up too windy for more than one flight and there were only Robins flying around so it was a rather dull walk - but a walk none the less. I haven't been in the mood to wear the Fitbit lately. I find it annoying because I keep checking it and wanting to keep adding more steps which gets tiresome and boring after a while so . . . it's on the shelf until I'm in a better mood. I am keeping track of the calories, though because I've been starving lately and eating too much! It does help me to keep track of my over eating! Isn't that great? Especially since I don't feel like exercising more!

I did break down and try to buy some more comfortable jeans/pants at Walmart in Walker but that didn't workout so I went to Stage in DS and was surprised to find the Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and capris that I like. I think I'm tired of trying to be comfortable in size 10 and even though the 12's are not fitted they feel good! So that's that's - I need to be comfortable especially when sitting down and swinging. Stage also carries Easy Spirit shoes which I like. Can't find any good crew neck cotton t-shirts down here so I'll stick with LLBean. Also looking for a shirtwaist cotton dress and cotton skirts - hard to come by in the stores. Almost everything is some sort of polyester and I hate it! I'm getting too damn fussy in my dotage!

Time to do some stretches and read the paper.

Quote:  It is to be lamented that great characters are seldom without a blot.   ___Washington

Incredible . . .

There must be close to 40 cars parked on our street and around the circle. Our neighbor's opened their home to members of their extended  family whose mother was killed in an accident a few days ago. I'm not sure I can put in the link to the accident but it was caused by a construction vehicle on I-55. The lady I help out at the Early Learning Center had to leave early today to go to the funeral of her husband's hunting buddy's mother. As I was taking my walk this afternoon and cars were parking on the road someone called, "Miss Irène." And there was C with her daughter Lucy and her husband; they had just come from the funeral and were now at the reception at our neighbor's home because the lady who had been killed in the accident's home had been flooded as were the rest of her family's homes. This is awful I certainly never expected to feel that close to people who have experienced such tragedy as we have lived here for such a short time.http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/communities/livingston_tangipahoa/article_5fca3196-fb84-11e6-83f0-234ad3dc2290.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=user-share

Religion . . . opiate of the masses . . .

It's a Bluebird kinda day

Perhaps - for me Sunday Mass is rich, musical théâtre; I believe there is much theater in all religions. As long as common sense prevails that is fine. When religion becomes heavy with righteousness and preaching "Do as I say but not as I do" then there are problems. If religion gives people a sense of peace and a devotion to loving man and nature with their imperfections then religion is on the right track.  Sunday Mass gives me time to unwind from petty cares; I feel the comfort of music that transcends the building, benches and worshipers and warms my soul. Perhaps I'm just fortunate  that our choir is good! May hap - I enjoy the calm and repetition of prayers I've known since childhood. Even though the church has tried to modernize the language of the prayers I still recite them as I learned them kneeling by my bed at night with Mama. Don't need no modernization of prayers! Hell's bells, I listened to the children at the Early Learning Center say the Hail Mary without the thou's and thy's. It's horrible and hurts my ears! Not sure basic truths whether religious or secular need to be modernized. Man is still man - as imperfect as ever and that's never going to change. Have not figured out what the Divine Higgs Boson had in mind when creation erupted in his almost perfect mind. The universe was set in motion, nature began its ascendancy and the human race has been trying to trump all creation - ain't going to happen - not with the seemingly built in perverseness of man's brilliant yet feeble intelligence. The Divine Higgs Boson has work to do.

Okay - that's enough merdeski for today - still feeling fine on this glorious, bright, cold February day as I keep puppy while P&D's Pop has gone off to buy her the proper treats - seems her folks don't spoil her enough so we have to!

Quote:  It is motive alone that gives character to the actions of men. ___La Bruyere