Oh Dear

Well.  It appears we’ve actually become part of the blogosphere.    Had to delete a couple of posts, and, really.  Who knew?  I guess it’s a good thing, but it IS interesting what people will do in the privacy of their keyboards.  Yipes to the comments, I mean.   Anyway, the Veil  of Secrecy has been drawn across that episode.   And, Google translation?  Good for a laugh, not much more.

Meanwhile, it all continues apace.  Thanksgiving went well, by which I mean not only a beautiful day and good food, but: NO INJURIES OR THIRD DEGREE BURNS.  It started out normally enough, with me making the delightful discovery in the back bottom of my pantry of two, not one but two, apparently exploded at some time in the distant galactic past, cans of sweetened condensed milk.  Goo all around.  Black goo.  Sticky, metallic, black goo. ( The miracle was there were no ants.)  But I take heart from the fact that instead of the entire day being like that, it stopped there.   I mean, I’ve had Thanksgivings that featured chestnut-related eviscerations, dramatic last minute bird funerals (not the turkey’s, either) and plumbing disasters attended to by members of the Hell’s Angels.  This was all quite pleasant, really, this go round.  No blood in the stuffing or anything!

I did have lots of ostensible ideas to write about, really I did.  But the Christmas potion mixing season is upon us, so I find myself occupied with finding the right tool for the job most often.  You’d be amazed how challenging that can be sometimes.  One thing we do here, is we fill jars with cream.  A pastry piping bag is perfect.  Except we don’t want to use the same bag for the creams as we do for the BUTTER creams.  For some reason.  So we use plastic bags.  But we ran out.  So we got DISPOSABLE piping bags.  But they were too small.  So…..you see how this is going.  And it’s not just the right tool for the job, either.

No.  It’s the freaking inordinate amount of time I still have to spend in Night on Customer Service Mountain.  My new business motto is: JUST SAY NO.  No, I don’t want to be featured at the top of Google for a mere $100 a month.  No, I don’t want another cel phone account when I have 5,000 leftover minutes on the one I have, for coincidentally? $100 a month.  No, I don’t want to be signed up for your special extra credit card fee.  Which, can you guess how much? Bingo.  $100.  SO, NO.   And, really, I did not to subscribe to both MUJER and LATINA magazines so don’t bill me. Then there are the follow up phone calls to the bowels of the universe, the depths of hell where the music never changes, when, my gosh, the assured corrections have not been made and wow! Not only are bells ringing but things are bouncing. No, I didn’t sign up for that.  No, no, no.  I’m being attacked by worms, by spiders,  by my HAIR.  It can’t decide if it’s on fire or not.  Not even! I got some new “product” from my hair impressario and I guess it is only to be used if you’re actually styling your hair, like with a dryer? or something? and not twisting it into a knot to let it dry in 40 degree weather.  Because then, then, well.  It does something rather unspeakable which is to remove every shred of body the hair might ever have had.  Ha, ha.  

Anyway.  We’re all fine! Really! We’ll keep you posted, as it were.

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And Further….

I’m still mentally kicking the Driveway Can around.  I suppose the reason I got more than usually irritated by yesterday’s brouhaha was a very human one.  I had a hard, really really hard, time digesting the fact that this…this PUSTULE, this excrescence, was taking up air and space and resources, and my great hearted friend is dead.  I do, of course, wish that all may enjoy the root of happiness.  So there’s work to be done I guess on that Other Part of Me that wishes that many of those all Do Not Pass GO.  Ah, meditation.  Spiritual Practice.  Hurling glass bottles into the recycle bin to assuage the urge to BREAK SOMETHING. This is not easy.  Anyway.  I got to watch Hellboy last night and that helped some.

*SIGH*

Well, hello again.  Somehow the frazzled nerves here at House of Pain are soothed by writing, SO:  onward.

One thing I have been meaning to write about and haven’t  is: MY PROPAGATION WENT SWIMMINGLY THIS YEAR.  I was actually, for the first time, able to propagate a rose bush.  I know it is supposed to be easy, and usually my entire paw is green, but up to now, no baby roses.  This is an especially wonderful one:  Large coral and rose colored, intensely fragrant flowers.  I dry them and use in a Persian style spice powder.  The other projects, the grape, onion, ginger stalk, succulents, elderberry and scented geraniums are well established and on their way to being Big Plants.  I am thrilled.  Propagation is one of the joys of my life and given the Challenging Nature of Things at Present……

Which, ha ha, reared their ugly head while I was writing this earlier.  So.  Also, I was going to report on two things that made me laugh last week.  Thing the first:  My client in the nursing facility has a prized object, shaped like a cat.  A pillow.  One day last week, in addition to everything else, the cat went AWOL.  I tore his room up, got lots of inarticulate hand gestures in response to my queries about what might have happened, finally got my homegirl up front to let me into the laundry room.  So I could go through the dirty laundry from his wing in case the cat was there.   Which I did. And, which, yes, is another little piece of hell on earth I got to tour last week.  Nonetheless.  The two laundry people were standing there goggling at me.  I say I’m looking for a pillow, shaped like a cat.  Black, round, yellow eyes with a tail.  The man there, bless his furry and demented little heart, no doubt just wanted to help.  So he said, OH, IS THAT IT? pointing excitedly.  Hope springs eternal so I turned and looked.  And saw, yes, a pillow.

 A pillow SHAPED LIKE TWEETY BIRD. A BRIGHT YELLOW, EIGHTEEN INCH TALL, BULBOUS TWEETY BIRD.  Well, no, I said, barely holding it together.  Excellent try but I’m looking for Sylvester.  (Who, eventually, I did find.) (But not there.)

Thing the second was on dooce.  She printed an email comment from a headless, Germanic, anti-vaccination pioneer which…well.  I felt like I might have found my long lost sister.  I also wondered if all this hasn’t driven me just the teensiest bit crazy.  Just. The. Teensiest. Bit.

Meanwhile, watching a program on tv while The Partner lay in quiet misery, (since, of course, there’s no doctor we can see for him because…oh, well) we see that there is no water in Fresno, they’re mowing down almond trees before they die, and the ground is empty, unemployment there is at 40%, and the food lines are so long people can’t even get…..anything.  Which, since the San Joaquin Valley produces an awful lot of food? And it isn’t producing it now?  What do you think?

I heard a very intelligent person, who is on the grid (unlike me), has a brain and a heart, give an opinion about what she thought was happening, worst case scenario.  It really made my blood run cold because it makes a horrible kind of sense.  The fine folks who have brought us to this situation AND I’M SORRY YOU KNOW DAMNED WELL WHO YOU ARE, GRAND OLD PARTY , BIG AND MULTI-NATIONAL CORPORATIONS OF ALL STRIPES AND THOSE LUCKY FOLKS WHO ACTUALLY HAVE ALL THE MONEY, (sorry about the yelling) are just waiting for everything to collapse, undermining everything President Obama is working potentially toward.  Then they can rebuild, again, in their own image, pointing to the failure of the Democrats and of Obama.  Endless supply of immigrant labor, check.  The supermax prisons they said they didn’t build but did? Ready for occupancy.   These days are a real test of my faith, of my convictions about non-violent action.  About everything.  Thank God for gardening, is all I can say.

Not Dead Yet

However, a bit zombified.  This will be short as we, Gentle Readers, are still digesting the delights of the past 72 hours, many (WAY TOO MANY) spent in the Emergency Room (which, ha ha, if you can walk in, it isn’t an emergency) of our fine inner city County Hospital.  Experiencing some true compassion as well as…well.  You’ll see.  Don’t miss the next installment of You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet, OR, As The Head Spins.