Saturday, November 26, 2005

Hmmm…maybe not that hungry…

I consider myself a very good cook. One of the first things I learned to make was scrambled eggs…and I can make them really, really good. Anyway you like them: hard, soft, runny, dry…I am your “man” for making great scrambled eggs. (Now omelettes are a whole other story…but we shan’t be going there at this time…)

So, about four months ago a cute tabby cat showed up in my backyard. Very scrawny, very hungry, very thirsty. I fed her some water. She lapped it up…but you could tell she was hungry.

Now, being the soft-hearted dork I am, I scrounged my refrigerator, looking for something…anything…a hungry kitty might like. Nothing…but eggs. So…I scrambled one for her. Put it on a plate…took it out…Ms. Kitty sniffed it a couple times. Tried a bite. Turned her nose up at my beautiful eggs and left the yard…never to return.

Fine. No big deal. The ants that swarmed the plate about a half hour later loved my scrambled eggs. Besides I told myself…over and over and over again…I dun want no pets.

Then, about a week ago, a really darling black kitty showed up in my yard. Obviously very young. Has the most beautiful green eyes you ever saw…and very friendly. And hungry.

Well, Mr. Cat was in luck. I had a leftover hotdog…which I fed him. He loved it! I was quite certain I had a new friend for life!

But Mr. Cat was quite fickle…he left the yard and did not return for a week!

Until yesterday. Mr. Cat was very hungry…he’d lost even more weight since the last time he visited…and my heart went out to him. All was forgiven for his eating and running behavior.

Sadly for Mr. Cat, however, there were no more leftover hotdogs. Or Thanksgiving leftovers. Or anything a feline would enjoy…except…yes… A Scrambled Egg!

Which I lovingly prepared. And placed on a plate. And brought outside.

“Here, Kitty, Kitty,” I cooed softly.

Mr. Cat spied me and came running. “More frank! More frank! More frank!” he thinks.

I set the plate down. He sniffed. He looked up at me. He sniffed again…and walked away! He didn’t even take one bite!!!!!

Hmmm….now I’ve heard that when one gets hungry enough, they’ll eat anything…even liver (and trust me…I’d have to be pretty damn hungry to scarf down some liver….) So, I am guessin’ that Mr. Cat is not that hungry…he is conning me… No more frankfurters for him!

Or eggs! (Like any of the feline population in my neighborhood is cryin’ over that declaration!)

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Good Choices, Bad Choices…

I remember when I was about five years old, I did something outside on the swing set that probably could have gotten me killed if my lucky stars hadn’t been with me that day. My dad sat me down on his lap and gave me a lecture about making choices and decisions. How I had to learn to weigh my actions before I did them to make sure that they wouldn’t hurt me or someone else. That I had choices and I had to learn how to make good ones and to try not to make bad ones.

Fast forward a few dozen decades (oh, okay…not that many…) and I am sitting at my desk reading an Internet news story about how the Pennsylvania parents who were murdered by their daughter’s boyfriend were buried today. Their four children were there, all orphans in the matter of seconds. So very, very sad.

The article then goes on to talk about how nice the boy and girl were. There is even a quote from a neighbor…and just so no one will think I made this up, here it is verbatim:

"They were good kids and they were brought up very well. What I see is, they just made some bad choices," said Vera Zimmerman, 50, who has known the Bordens for seven years and is acquainted with Ludwig's mother.

Article by: MARTHA RAFFAELE, Associated Press Writer, titled: Pa. Teen Attends Slain Parent’s Funeral. Dated: November 19, 2005, 8:15PM, PST.

Okay…bad choices? These teens made BAD CHOICES??????

A bad choice is deciding on dessert when you are so full, you know you will explode or have an enormous belly ache…and then you eat every last bite.

A bad choice is deciding to try gardening…again….when you know you hate it.

A bad choice is getting a dog when you know you have no place to let him run.

A bad choice was for this young lady to sneak out and date a guy when she knew her parents didn’t approve of him.

To say this 18-year old man (yes, man…he is old enough to vote, old enough to defend his country, he has reached the age of majority in many states—though not in Pennsylvania…) made a bad choice by blowing her parents away, and then stealing his parents car and driving at breakneck speeds to crash into a tree six hundred miles or more from home made a bad choice cheapens the fact that he took the lives of two people who apparently tried to teach their children values. He robbed four youngsters of their parents.

According to a new report (mentioned in the same article, by the way), this wasn’t a spur of the moment decision on his part. He planned to attack them and finish them off. A bad choice????

As my “friend” (don’t I wish!!!) John Stossel would say: give me a break!

As for Ms. Zimmerman, to give her the benefit of the doubt, it is possible she was misquoted…and if so, she should be screaming “foul” as loudly as she can. Yet, I somehow don’t give much credence to this theory since on the day of their arrest, she was quoted as saying what “good kids” they were…

Uh, folks…”good” kids don’t go sneaking around and have multiple guns in their bedrooms and plan murders.

Give me a break! Bad choice, indeed…

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

November 15, 1989…

Sixteen years have flown by already…sixteen years since I lost my mother. It seems almost impossible to believe that much time has elapsed, and yet I remember that period as if it were just sixteen days ago.

They say that things like this get easier with time. Somethings “they” are wrong about. You never get over losing your mother…no matter how much time has passed.

I miss you, Mom…

Monday, November 14, 2005

This is “fresh”??

Sunday is grocery shopping day…better known as a frustrating chore. See, I live in a small town that sports two supermarkets. One is a small chain of three stores and very expensive with relatively poor quality. The other is an Albertson’s…nicknamed by me: Dumb, Awful Albertson’s (remember the Mary Tyler Moore Show, and how Phyllis called Rhoda: “Dumb, Awful Rhoda”?)

Anyway…not only do I live in a small town, I live in a small town in California. The state that is the largest agricultural producer of, well, almost everything… I remember reading that if California were its own country (ha! sometimes it feels like it!), we would be the seventh largest industrial nation in the world.

Okay, I prepare my grocery list, determined to start eating in a more healthy manner (yeah, yeah, yeah…I am fully aware the holidays are lurking just around the corner and tis the season to screw calories, eat hearty and all that jazz…but what can a person do when they suddenly start craving things like broccoli and carrots except succumb to the rare urge and purchase them!)

So, weekly ad in hand, I spy Fresh Salmon filets on sale! Woo Hoo! I love salmon. On the list it goes…. Hmmm…Fresh Shrimp are on sale! Bingo! On the list they go. Hmmm…yum! Grapes…on sale! Yep…mark them babies on the list…can’t forget grapes! Ooh, grapefruit…on sale! How lucky can a temporary health-food nut get! Except to see that avocados are also on sale! (Of course…having grown up in the avocado capital of the world…with a parent who still grows them…I would NEVER even consider buying one from the store!…but still, a girl can drool for a moment—see I had more avocados growing up in the city than I ever got living on a grove of the suckers…)

Then off to the store, I trot, with my list full of goodies…all prepared to spend a ton of bucks. Also on the list is some laundry detergent on sale for an obscenely low price…milk, butter (also on sale!), tuna (yep…on sale!) and Breyer’s Real Vanilla ice cream (on sale! But hey…it’s for Thanksgiving…I shan’t open it a day before…)

So…first item…the grapes…uh…they are from Chile. Okay…I have nothing against Chile…but I really don’t want grapes that have traveled thousands of miles when I live in a grape-growing area. Oh well…

Grapefruit…uh, hmmm… okay…grown out of the country… Okay…I personally even have a bit of a problem buying Florida or Texas grapefruit when we grow so much here…but…at least it grows on the same continent that I reside on…

EEEKK… The avocados are from Mexico???? Mexico??? When the store in which I stand is in the Avocado Capital of the World??????

Okay…so maybe I don’t need those “on sale” foreign items. Off to the meat counter.

Fresh Salmon…from Chile??????? Even the Atlantic would be stretching it for fresh…but from Chile???

But here is the best of all: Fresh Shrimp. Not fresh frozen…not frozen, defrosted…but FRESH! From….drum roll….New Orleans, you are thinking? Wrong! Oregon, you are thinking….Wrong, again!!!!!! Thailand!!!! And Bangladesh!!! And Viet Nam!!!!!! Ten thousand miles away these poor shrimpies have traveled. Heck…No human traveling home to California from those countries is gonna be fresh by the time it arrives…let alone a small fish.

I am at a loss to even try and figure out why…when it is readily available here… Albertson’s finds it necessary to search the world for these items… Oh wait! Cuz we are dumb enough to continue purchasing them. Well, this shopper wasn’t…this shopper spent a lot less money than she thought she would…especially since they no longer had the laundry detergent (probably started out with ten…) or the milk or the tuna or any of the other things mentioned in the ad.

Hmmm…maybe that is why the Albertson’s chain is up for sale….

Sunday, November 13, 2005

I am a bad, bad Blogger…

Yes, it’s true…I am a bad Blogger. To have a good blog, one must post at least once a week…preferably every few days… even better every single day.

Hmmm…my last blog entry was in August…true…the end of August, but a whole weather season ago. I have failed the Blog Frequency Test miserably. Dismally, even.

And yet, the other day, I was thrilled to see that someone actually commented on my site. And they claimed they liked it! Woo Hoo! I thought to myself. I should really make more time in my already crazy schedule to post on a more regular basis…maybe even just once a month!

The commenter left behind “his” blog site. Well, I should certainly return the courtesy and check it out, make a comment even. (Hey, I have been raised with manners! I didn’t grow up in no barn or fall off no turnip truck…not recently anyways…). I clicked on the link, wondering what I would find.

Nothing. The link led to nothing.

I’d been spammed! GRRRRR!!!!! And...not just once, but the next day…another entry showed up with a different name, but essentially the same complimentary message. Loved your blog…You write great…yada, yada, yada. Well, in the trashcan both you clods went. Deleted with no trace that you ever slimed up my personal space.

And…now…as I am sure you noticed…I have to have a spam detractor up.

I could probably spend another few paragraphs on the topic of spam…talk about people who obviously have nothing better to do with their time or creativity except to makes pains AND asses of themselves… But why bother…

I personally have better things to do with my time…like thinking up some entertaining blog subjects so that it won’t be another two months…okay, two and a half months…before I post again.