Shaken but not stirred....

In Walmart on Saturday I was headed towards the main aisle when I spotted a female who apparently was one of those few  people who are born with little or no jawbone.  She seemed to have absolutely no chin, with the line of her neck running from her collarbone to approximately an inch below her nose.  She was pushing a basket and was walking perpendicularly across my path.  I was just about to think to myself, "Aw, the poor thing." when she suddenly clapped her lower lip upwards to her top lip and her chin slid upwards into its normal place on her face.  I realized that  what I had mistakenly thought was the silhouette of  a chinless person was actually that of a person in the middle of a gawping yawn.  Then I espied the rest of her.  A pink sleep tee and stripped flannel jammy bottoms.  This lady was wandering the aisles of the store in a sleep deprived state, wearing her pajamas and a pair of flip-flops.  There was nothing in her basket.  She was headed towards the dairy section, so one can only hope she was picking up some milk for her cereal.  Creamer for her coffee.  Something to start the day right, something to wake her up and shake her up and yell in her face, "What were you thinking, going out shopping in sleepwear.....!"

Maybe it would have done some good.  Or, not.

Brown grass and blue skies....

It seems like we have had a cold snap going on since shortly after Christmas.  The temperatures have been in the 20's several nights and we once had some rain that turned into these tiny little snow flurries.  We aren't nearly as put upon as the folks in the states to our north.  They have been buried under feet  of snow.  Cousins who live in Atlanta posted some pictures of their back deck which were just lovely; snow crisp and covering the landscape.  It looked so lovely.  Made me feel the silence.

Until it melts.  Then it would  seem that a person living with the melting snow would  most likely start complaining about  mud. As in, "Wipe your shoes off and don't dare track all that mud through the house!"  Or, until another freeze turns all that snow melt into slick ice.  Then you have to be careful of foot placements and falling.  T. and I watched a video taken from an overhead helicopter - it showed a chase of a fleeing man who was coming from a bank he had just robbed.  He had a hostage in front of him and together they side-stepped along the sidewalk, heading for the corner.  The alleged bank robber turned to cross the street, all the while keeping his hostage in front of him.  The police had to hold their fire.  The robber stepped across a berm of snow that had been scraped up by the snowplow.  He began to back into the street while pulling the hostage.  Oops!  His foot slid out and he crashed down.  The road was iced and when he fell, the female hostage ran to the police.   Shots were fired.  I leave the rest to your imagination. 

We don't have that kind of problem, for the most part.  Around our house, if you leave a sprinkler running overnight - you may get icicles on the fence.   Freezing water will coat a plant, frosting leaves in a sheet of ice.  The water in the trough for the horses may have a skin on the surface.  Our cars will have frost on the windshield that requires running the defroster for 20 minutes before driving off.  Or, you can drive off if you're willing to hunch over so you can see out the bottom of the glass under the rime of ice.  Your husband may have written the word cold on the windshield.  Of course, it looks like  D L O C because he didn't write it backwards.  And the grass is mostly brown and crunchy underfoot, except for the areas that are weed filled.   Weeds show their green much longer that the ornamental grass.  There may be a life lesson in there, somewhere.

People are counting the days until Spring brings leaf bud and flowers. 



Leaf encased in ice - 2010

 I love the look of  Winter with the brown grass spreading out under a stand of pecan trees.  Their bare branches allow the golden light of sunset to show through and you can see farther than you normally can while driving through the landscape.  There are neighbor houses that are visible now - and only in the Winter.  So, while some are wishing for the cold to end and the earth to green, others settle down in the landscape and look around content with the brown grass and blue skies of winter. 

But, Baby it's COLD outside!

Elder Daughter called this morning at about 7:45AM and told us it was sleeting.  The wind was blowing the rain out of the trees and it was ice.  Sleet was all over the top of her car.  Of course, I had to take a picture.  This is the cover of our grill on the back patio. 

What's next Florida?  SNOW?

Well, we voted as well as if we lived in Chicago!

I received a sample ballot in the mail and thoughtfully pre-marked it for T. to use when we went to the polls.  This morning, we got up - not so early as I had planned... but once we were dressed and had everything we needed, we headed out to vote.  Doing our civic duty, don't you know. 

We got to the polling place after 9:00a.m.  We showed our picture and signature identifications and went into the elections office where we both signed the electronic machines and got our receipts.  Stepping to the next window as instructed, we picked up our full size official ballot.  We went to a vacant pair of side-by-side voting booths and opened out our ballots.  T. asked me if we had to mark both sides?  I nodded yes and whispered for him to take out his sample ballot and start voting.  He did so and I got down to marking the little circles with the provided pen on my own ballot.  So far, so good - until T. got to the end of the line on his sample ballot.  It didn't correspond exactly to the official ballot and he'd  lost his place.  I glanced over and found the slot he needed to mark next and pointed to it.  He said he didn't see it.  I touched the space on the ballot.  He couldn't find the same spot on the sample.  I touched that space.  He lined things up and proceeded to mark the next group. 

We continued in this manner until the end of the ballot - I thought surely someone would come over and quietly ask me to stop interfering with the voting.  I was as much up in T.'s voting booth as I was in mine, trying to guide him along.  We still needed to flip the ballot and vote the back side. 

Flip.

T:  "Do we have to mark ALL of these, too?

ME:  (Oh, dear - did anybody hear that?  I'm sure they did.  Pretty soon I expect to be dragged out of here in handcuffs!)

I raised my head and looked over the edge of the booth at T.'s ballot and told him,  "Ok, just mark them the same way the back of your sample ballot shows".    He started down the row, got to the end of the line and looked up at me - I put my finger on the next row and then on the spot on the sample ballot where that vote was cast.  We continued to the end.  There were three columns on the back.  When we were done, T. wanted to know what to do with his sample ballot.  I crumpled it into a ball and then, thinking better of it - I told him to just fold it back up and put it in his pocket.  He smoothed it out and did so. 

We put our official ballots in the  privacy folder and went to the machine to cast our votes.  T.'s ballot rolled into the opening.  The lady gave him his "I VOTED" sticker and turned to me.  I started to ask her for two stickers - but I held my tongue, smiled and took my one  sticker and we exited the polling place.  I felt better for having done my duty as a citizen.  I was also grateful to have escaped censure for disrupting a polling place!  I wonder what the fine would have been.

Passing the stress test....

When we were looking for a place to live after T. was declared 100 percent disabled by his VA doctors, there was a lot of stress.  We were leaving familiar and striking out into the wild blue yonder without a parachute.  Or something very like that, anyway.  Once we decided the location and then  found a house - I decided I needed something to relieve all that stress of moving, leaving family and friends and moving so far away.  I settled on a little keychain  dangler shaped like an elongated egg.  It was white.  There was a small plastic latch that let the top flip up to reveal the scene inside the egg.  It was a farmyard scene with plastic green grass, a small  fence and two black and white cows.  One was large and the other small.  Mother and calf.  Whenever the lid was opened, the larger cow would move slightly back and forth to mimic eating.  Small gears would grind and at last the mother cow would come to a stop and the cycle was complete.  I would close the lid and open it again, time after time.  The little bucolic scene recalled to me the  peaceful country side we would be living in and the slower pace of life we could expect.  I could almost feel the muscles unknotting in my neck and shoulders as I let the little keychain toy unwind.  I played with it a lot.  The clasp finally snapped and I couldn't close the lid any more.  I sealed it with a rubber band so it wouldn't get broken.  When I slipped the band off the egg, the little cows would work their tiny magic and I'd consciously relax and feel less harried with the demands on our lives.

The other day, I was coming up Rough Way and spotted a scene of cows eating near the roadway.  Big cows.  Little ones.  One of the big cows was eating.  That's when I realized - I hadn't played with my little keychain in a while - probably because I have the real thing living just across the road and - for the most part, those neck and shoulder muscles of mine have come unclenched while we were been making this little piece of the state into our home.  I still miss friends and family but I do enjoy watching the squirrels run in the grass and butterflies dancing on the breeze.  I enjoy the slight change of seasons - the trees shed leaves and at night you can see stars through the lacy structure of the underlying limbs.  We might even get snow in our area.  It has happened before and could again.  There have been flurries.  I'm sure I've seen them.  And if there are flurries, isn't that a grand excuse to call out of work?  I never learned how to drive in snow. 

Sights and Scenes

T.  and I were on the way into Wally-World to do our Saturday grocery shopping when I glanced up at a sign. Then my eyes travelled on towards the top of the building where the camera array was.  I found myself looking around for Tippi Hedron!

Like a bad Hitchcock movie........

Sunday Nights

Funny how you can go along without watching a show for a while and then a new season starts and you suddenly find yourself enmeshed in finding out who will be the next Food Network Star or - in my case, the next Design Star.  The winner will get his own show on HGTV.  There were 10 contestants in the beginning.  The show is down to the final four and I have the timer set for tonight's show.  I have even been voting for my favorite.  You can go online and vote for a favorite designer too.  If you do, I urge you to support Courtland Bascon.  No, really.  Go.  Vote.  You can vote up to 10 times a day.  This is one election you can influence and see it happening right then.  Not unlike Chicago politics.  Apparently nobody liked Nina - she has zero percent of the vote. And you can vote for a designer even though he has been removed from the competition by the judges.  Sort of like when an election is held and the people elect a politician who has been run over by a bus and is no longer among the living.  I'm telling you - this show is a slice of real life!

The judges are usually Vern Yip, Candace Olson  and Genevieve Gorder.  In the event one of the judges can't be on the show in a particular week, another HGTV star fills in.   That's fair, right?

Last week, Alex got removed. He really wasn't standing up for his design choices.  He needed to go.

The final four are Courtland Bascon, Emily Henderson, Casey Noble and Michael Moeller.  I haven't liked Michael's attitude over the life of the show.  He's kind of  a cocky guy and was the main reason Alex got removed last week.  After tonight, there will be three designers left.  Even  if Courtland gets removed, I'm going to keep right on voting for him as a fan favorite.  Maybe he can get out of the 4 percent range.  Come on, people - go over to HGTV and help push  Courtland Bascon into a higher bracket. 

Then we'll get busy on the mid-term elections in our own communities.  Remember, Early Voting starts next week.  Practice at HGTV for the real thing!  Go Courtland!

Social networking is hard work!!

Lots of the family is on Facebook and I saw a nephew in Houston who posted that he asked his wife what she wanted to do for the weekend.   She said she wanted to go see the Corpse Flower at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.  He asked her, "Huh?"  That was my comment, too -  except that I Googled Corpse Flower. I came up with news about the museum exhibit and all the excitement over this giant stinky flower from the rain forest and how crowds have been visiting the museum pretty much around the clock to see it whenever it opens.  Or maybe to smell it.  Sounds like fun, if you enjoy smelling rotten stuff

There was a link.  Naturally I tried it.  I checked back periodically.  Finally I gave up and just sat at the monitor watching the people pass through the line in Houston and waited for Lois to bloom. 

Lois.  They have named her.  You can buy buttons online that tout Lois. I didn't buy a button but I did keep the page open until 2:30AM at which time I came to my senses and went to bed.  This morning Susan was online telling me she thought Lois looked like she had changed.  Yes, I got her hooked  as well. 

Half the fun is waiting for Lois to unwrap her huge petals.  The other half of the fun is reading the Tweets posted by visitors and people who work at the museum.  One of the tweets may have been from someone called Ol Doc who lives somewhere in Florida.

I like to take polls. Honest!

I found the below poll online and decided to take it.  I also inadvertantly signed up for a news website but that's okay.  There's an opt-out if I get tired of the inbox filling up each day.  I won't tell you which one, but there was only one question that my answer differed from the majority.  The poll results had graphics in the form of a chart but it didn't copy well so I set italics to indicate the majority response.  If you really like the presidential handling of the oil spill in the Gulf, don't read down any further.  If you kind of believe that Chicago Politics are at play in the handling of the spill and treatment of BP Oil Company - you may be interested to see how many others in this poll agree with you. 

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Poll starts below _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Thank you for taking the poll: BP Spill - Obama's Katrina?. The poll results are listed below.

Special note: The poll results may include data for questions that were not included on the poll that you took.

BP Spill - Obama's Katrina? (156,186 Respondents)

What is your opinion of President Obama?

Favorable
46,554 (29.81%)

Unfavorable
109,633 (70.19%)


Do you believe President Obama was right in letting BP manage the oil spill disaster?

Right
72,241 (46.79%)

Not right
82,137 (53.21%)


How would you rate President Obama's handling of the disaster?

Excellent
18,926 (12.15%)

Good
21,128 (13.56%)

Fair
12,793 (8.21%)

Poor
102,924 (66.07%)


Do you believe BP's political donations to the Obama campaign have been a factor in how the President handled the matter?

Yes, it played a role.
98,340 (64.04%)

No, it didn't play a role.
55,232 (35.96%)

Have the media been much more lenient on President Obama than on President Bush with the Katrina disaster?

Yes, more lenient on Obama.
111,421 (71.87%)

No, it's been about the same.
43,609 (28.13%)

In the 2008 election between McCain-Palin and Obama-Biden, whom did you vote for?

McCain-Palin
85,293 (55.80%)

Obama-Biden
44,522 (29.13%)

Other
23,039 (15.07%)

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Video link from BP

I know some folks who live on the Alabama Gulf Coast or within driving distance of the beaches there.  They (and we) are following the gushing well on the bottom of the gulf with heartsick hope that the well will be capped before more damage is done to the environment - sea life, bird life, people in the area who make their living from the waters.  Some of us are so angry at BP that we're not using the gas stations - although I reminded a family member tonight that the people who hold the local franchises are not to blame for the disaster in the Gulf and to boycott their businesses only hurts the local economy and not the parent company.  Still, it's hard to support the huge conglomerate that took shortcuts in safety and basically caused a rig to go down with loss of life and a disaster the likes of which none of us has seen before.  Tonight, the company is trying another method of capping the well... called a Lower Marine Riser Package (LMRP), it is supposed to replace the riser pipe on the bottom of the gulf with a top portion of a Blow Out Prevention (BOP) package that will allow the oil to be pumped to the surface and loaded into tankers.  It's not a cap but a way to divert the oil to the surface and recover it.  The two Remote Operated Vehicles (ROV's) are operating to perform the procedure.  They are also sending video feeds to the surface.  I found this one and there are other sources out there.  The Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska is a minor ripple in the environment, compared to what's going on right now.  Pray for the well to be under some control and that before a hurricane sends the pollution ashore Kevin Costner can bring his brother's invention to the Gulf and help alleviate the situation.  Otherwise, we are all in a world of hurt!

Yeah, but would you drink the water?

We got up early and I did T's medicine doses for the coming week. While the coffee was brewing, I turned on the television and happened to catch a spot on the Fox and Friends, Sunday show about a product manufactured by a private company that they claim will fix the problem of the oil spewing up in the Gulf and heading towards our pristine gulf shoreline. It's called Smart Sponge and can be manufactured in any shape and size required. He held up a small piece that looked like a slightly over sized popcorn kernel. In fact, he told the viewers - this was the "popcorn configuration". He proceeded to demonstrate the product with a vial of clear water and a smaller one of motor oil. He poured the oil into the water, capped and shook the vial and then showed the resulting mixed liquid. He held up a second vial that was packed with the Smart Sponge and placed this vial, which had an opening at the bottom, over a third vial. He then poured the mix of motor oil and water onto the Smart Sponge vial. The motor oil stayed in the top vial while clear water ran out the bottom of the middle vial into the empty one at the bottom. He claimed that the product had been demonstrated to the companies that deal with oil spill clean-up. Nobody is using the Smart Sponge. The talant on Fox and Friends wanted to know why not.

I kind of want to know, too. It is apparently in use in drainage cleanup systems and other applications in the country.

Helping hands

By this time, most folks are aware of the tragic explosion and sinking of the oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico that has left barrels of oil spewing into the water. Our daughter in Alabama says there are clots of the stuff coming ashore on the beaches. It makes us sad to think of all the ruin that may be floating toward shore.

People in our town are wanting to help and not quite knowing how. But yesterday there was an article in the local paper about the beauty salons that are collecting hair to donate to help create the booms that are extended along the shoreline to try and keep the oil from coming in.

This morning we woke to another article about the alpaca farms in the area that are collecting fleece that they will donate in order to try and soak up the spill.

There on the cover of the newspaper was a picture of a 9 year old cousin feeding a female alpaca owned by the Suwannee Valley Alpaca farm in White Springs. The alpaca was freshly shorn according to the article and her fleece will be donated along with that of other animals in the herd. Businesses from this area are sending human and dog hair along with panty hose to help in the effort to hold back the oil with the booms. This farm will donate 200 pounds of hair.

It gives one a feeling of pride to see our area step up and give so generously in this environmental emergency and to know our family members are contributing as well.

What they didn't get....

I took the photograph this morning. It kind of looks like a war zone with the stump as the only casualty. The supervisor told me that the work crew is finished and now we are waiting on another contractor to come and remove the stump. This is a pecan tree. You can hardly pull the seedlings from the ground after the root has established. They are deep rooted things - they'll crack off at the middle rather than uproot themselves. I want to see this contractor. I wonder if he owns a big blue ox - possibly named Babe?

Getting a blow by blow account

Well, today is the day to say goodbye to the pecan tree across the road. The County Public Works came this morning and the crew started cutting the limbs from the top down. They will take out the middle at some point today and then dig out the stump. At the end of the day, we will have a smooth place on the road where this pecan provider and squirrel haven has stood for some years now. This graceful old tree has been standing by the roadside for at least the fifteen years we've lived in this house and from the size of it when we moved in, it was there ten or fifteen years before that. Hey, this tree could have been a tender green shoot when T. and I were first married. I want to be the one to see the first squirrel jump from our trees to the ones across the road - they used to sail between the near branches and move from tree to tree over vast distances. Not going to work next time.

The near branch from that tree that any squirrel planned to land on will be just a distant memory on the way to the landfill. Pecan wood burns well so some of the work crew may take a limb or two home for the fireplace. Everyone who found out the tree was coming down has expressed dismay over the loss. All except the neighbor who sent in the letter of complaint. We know who it is and he will never get another bag of our cracked pecans. Nor will he be invited over to harvest the nuts from the ground. This guy, who thinks it's better to smite a tree just to get a little further look down the road (rather than moving his driveway) - doesn't deserve pecans.

I don't know. Is that too harsh?

I has Meds!

I had and kept a doctor's appointment yesterday afternoon. Lady A. R. N. P. took one look at me and proclaimed, " You don't feel good. I can tell by your eyes!" She proceeded to prescribe some strong antibiotics and a short course of 'roids. All to the good. I picked the medicines up and took them. I feel better already. When I say, "I am woman, hear me roar...." maybe the word roar won't morph into an imitation of a chainsaw hitting heartwood. Ro-rrruh. 'Scuse me. I didn't mean to cough in your face.

I came home this afternoon to find T. sitting on the front porch with Pastor from our church. He had come visiting to see how we were feeling. T. handed me a card from our County Commissioner who had stopped by to see if we would mind the County Public Works crew coming and cutting a huge pecan tree across the road from the house. It is all on the county's land - our boundary marker is in the ground behind the tree. I have halfway been expecting the tree to be taken down. It was just a matter of time. We are the house on the curve and the tree is part of the reason the road takes a double bend along our frontage. The other reason is that the former owners of the property allowed the road to be cut in such a way as to have the part that's north of the house to be offset from the road to the south of the house. So, you come to our lot and have to make an S curve to get from the northern part to the southern part. Standing in our yard and looking down the road to the south, you can see where cutting a straight line would have taken out some pretty big trees and quite a chunk of our front yard.

I talked it over with T. and he doesn't mind losing the one tree. More than that, no. So, I called the number on the commissioner's card and left him a message to call me back. Then I got online and tied up the phone for a pretty good while. Maybe in the back of my mind, I'm not so anxious to hear from the gentleman.

Flurries? We don't need no....flurries!

Somehow our weather has gotten mixed up with some other country's. Say somewhere in Russia? The forecast for this Thursday is calling for snow flurries as a possible event. We're not really excited about having snow in the yard or on the roof. Flurries are fine, in Atlanta or La Grange. They're also possible at both of those places in the same time frame as our local forecast is calling for.

The weather band radio also said that there might be ice on the highway, Thursday - due to moisture freezing. Duh! Frozen moisture would be ice, now wouldn't it!

When the girls were little, we used to think nothing of driving the length of the state to Stone Mountain and letting them play in the few inches of snow on top. Now that we're older and have accumulated a little bit of sense - we think nothing of piling another blanket on the bed or putting another chunk of wood in the fireplace.

I ask you! Flurries? Well, I for one might get out of bed and look outside if someone were to phone me to say it was snowing. But I'm sure not going to set my clock. T. will probably be up anyway. I'll ask him to check outside and wake me if he sees anything falling from the skies. Unless it's leaves off the trees. Then, just let me snooze.

Sometimes a thing is what it is....

Coming home at night is sometimes a thing of beauty. I get out of work at 5PM and home as the sun is setting. Last night T. picked me up at work and we went to the auto repair shop to pick up the car that had been left for a hood latch repair that morning. Surprisingly, the repair cost under $30.00 - which made me happy. We drove on to the house and turned in the driveway. As I was getting out of the car, I glanced over my shoulder to the southwest and spotted a sunset that looked as though the sky was on fire. In the quiet of the day's end the glow stopped me in my tracks. Some things should just be preserved either in memory or on a memory stick. I chose the stick last evening.

Time and Time

Getting up at Dark:Thirty is so hard. I have to do it if I want to get myself off to work on time and I have to go to work if I want to get paid. So I set the radio alarm to go off at 6:00AM and then I get ready, set and coffee by 7-ish. Out the door around 10 after 7 and the drive is on roads that go North then due East. That due East stretch is a bad one if the sun is visible. It's right in the eyes and the glare is something else. It seems almost an insult to have to start out driving in the dark and wind up blinded by the sun on the same stretch of road. Ah, but this weekend things will change. I will set the clock back on Saturday night as I trundle off to bed and come Monday morning I will be drinking my coffee while I look out the window and see the sun already up. It'll be daylight. At last, things will make sense in the morning.

However - the drive home may be another story. I'll be headed more West than South and the sun....isn't there a place to lodge a complaint over Daylight Savings?

Hello?

Hello, is anybody listening?

Spring Forward and Fall...when?

We have a shrub growing outside the downstairs room. Well, it's only three steps down from the kitchen into what used to be a garage and that now houses a fireplace, a piano, a couch and assorted chairs - plus the dog and the cat crates. But, when you step out into the side yard, you see a shrub that is taller than my head (but not as tall as the roof). It is full of small green leaves that last pretty much the year round.

When the nights start getting cooler we keep an eye on the thing because T's cousin Delma once told us that the plant predicts when the weather is about to turn colder; bringing a freeze our way. She said the shrub would bloom with lots of small white flowers before the frost and then the blossoms would fall off afterward - only to bloom again when the weather turns colder. We've been through enough cycles of this winter behavior to believe what Delma told us in her country wisdom.

Last Saturday, I got out of our car and glanced at the shrub. It is covered in tiny white blooms.

The weather forecast for next weekend calls for a cold front to come in on Friday.

I own a Weather Shell. (It's kind of like a Weather Rock, only much smaller.) It dangles from a string tied to an angled plastic stick and will let you know if you're experiencing anything from from a light zephyr to hurricane gales. But the shrub in our side yard is the best thing around for predicting cold weather ahead!