Belgium Truffles

Sometimes I just need quiet time all by myself. Just sitting outside breathing in the slightly cool air and feeling good that my lungs are working is an awesome task. Letting the soft breeze blow my hair into my face and watching the palm fronds dance to the wind which is hard to see when your hair is plastered across your eyeballs. The silence is relaxing. Your brain switches over to nothingness - all the world problems and personal issues are someplace other than the 'here and now'.

Time to reflect or not. Absorbing the morning and all it has to offer including the tropical storm Nicole that may be a storm or not depending on her path. Worries are like raindrops splattered along the floor of the lanai. Soon the sun will suck them up into the clouds.

Time for more coffee with the decadent creamer hubby purchased last night. It feels like fall without the leaves changing and dropping and cluttering up the lawn. Palm trees don't drop their fronds when the weather turns cold. Soon the turtles will be heading to the bottom of the pond in a suspended state of inactivity.

Life is as good as it gets - well it could be better but I will accept this. The foot hurts less everyday and mobility is returning. I am enjoying this quiet time sitting outside and capturing the moment. Chocolate would be nice.

Russ and Us

Our new adopted doggie Russ is settling in or at least he's trying too. Last night was better - less whining. We are trying to desensitize him and help him get over the 'separation anxiety' he seems to be making progress. Well, if I spent weeks in shelters I would have some anxiety also. Today he is attached to my big toe.

He is helping me in my road to recovery. We are both couch potatoes. He is sleeping I am reading. I am reading - There's A spouse In My House by Peter Scott. It is side splitting and very true. I can see so much of my life in this book. The chapter 'My husband may be a moron' is very interesting. Although hubby has been a real trooper helping me with my recovery. I will never buy him a $60.00 hat like the Florida Sheriff department displays on their bald bloated heads. I'm sure some are very nice.

Hubby and Russ have bonded over their daily walks. Russ slept on the couch last night with hubby's two day old shorts. This is to help him adjust to his new surroundings and get over the separation anxiety - also dogs like stinky stuff. Sometimes they roll in dead fish.

On the mend just around the bend

The pain has eased up quite a bit. The ankle now hurts - possibly from the ten pound boot I have to wear to protect my surgery site. My neighbor let me borrow his walker - so much better than those crutches that ruin your armpits. He also let me borrow his wheelchair now I can do wheelies in the cul-de-sac.

We brought home a new family member yesterday adopted him from the shelter. A no-kill shelter to be exact. I feel good about that. Russ has a little separation anxiety and it was in full bloom last night. This will be something I can work at while I'm home recovering.
Enough writing for now time to go back to bed put my foot up and get some much needed sleep that I missed last night.

Day Two - post op.

Two days out from the foot surgery - hurts like hill!!!! Did not expect this much discomfort - dang!!! The Tylenol extra strength just doesn't touch it. Afraid to try the real stuff the doctor gave me. I am such a wimp.

Got out of bed today and put on clothes - no more jammies all day for me. Am scooting around the house on the rolling computer chair. The crutches hurt the underarms an awful lot.

The toes moved a half of an inch - still no feeling in the toes or the whole foot except for all the pain. I guess I won't be running in the Boston Marathon.
Bored - bored - bored. This will be a very long six weeks.

Befuddled by bed bugs

It's all over the news in the Sunday paper and on the front page of some magazines. Bedbugs! They are everywhere and places you would never suspect.

I'm afraid to travel and sleep on a bedbug infested bed in a very clean looking hotel. I'm scared of placing my luggage on the bug encrusted luggage rack. And don't even think about going to an upscale clothing store to purchase under garments. Or visit New York City and come back bug less. Leaving on a jet plane - don't know when I'll be back again.....yep they could be lurking on the business class seat you paid extra for.

What is one to do about these nasty little creatures? It makes my skin crawl just thinking about them. YUCK!
I just had an idea for a great childrens book - 'Make Way for Bedbugs......

Life is not always Fair

I don't know if it makes me happy or sad but my surgery was cancelled and rescheduled for next week. I was ready to go on Wednesday - got myself all psyched up and everything. Now I have another week of anxiety to face for next week. How unfair is life?

Who said life is fair? No one - but sometimes you just kind of expect life to be a smooth ride with little or no stress. It could happen! I'm sure there is someone in the world who has a life like that. It certainly is not me. What would life be like to wake up without any wildfires to put out?
Blues skies and ocean breezes - no bugs - raspberry lemonade at your side, with your feet propped up and they don't hurt the house is shiny clean with the laundry done-folded and put away - the cat doesn't throw-up on the carpet, the hose doesn't burst in the side yard spewing gallons of water across the dry grass - flooding the neighbors yard and jacking up your water bill once again - the solar panels have not been blown off the roof in that thirty second wind storm and those dang grasshoppers never again eat all the leaves off your beautiful amaryllis flowers. Oh the joy of a fair life.

I am thankful it's Friday. Ready for a weekend of leisure and no thinking. AAAHHH the peacefulness of a weekend. Better get out my To-Do list.

Jitters and junque

The surgery is scheduled for 1 PM this afternoon. I have had nothing-nada- nothing - to eat or drink since midnight last night. I'm groveling here. I need a drink of water-----PLEASE!!!! Can't do it - can't break doctors' orders. Dang!!!!

Anyways I have this premonition or rampant thought blowing around in the back of my mind about this surgery. So I can't speak of it or wallow
in it lest it comes to fruition or gives me bad vibes on the operating table.
I'm pacing around the house like a caged rabid animal almost frothing at the mouth but there is nothing there to make froth. I need WATER. Afraid to take another dip in the pool - may not be able to contain myself surrounded by all that agua. I just might stoop to the level of slurping pool water. That's a disgusting thought.

I presume the only distracting alternative for me and my lack of food water survival is to go shopping. Spend money that I don't have and buy things that I don't really need but for sure it will fuzz up my mind about going under the knife.

Cross off the grocery store because I may attack the fresh vegetable section. I do need to make a post office trip - no food involved there. But OH NO it's right near Joe Muggs the coffee shop. Dang....... I can't do shoes because I won't be wearing a matched pair for several weeks. I could go clothes shopping since my body is slowly starving I might be able to squeeze into a smaller size. That's it I need to fill up my closet - wait it's already full. Dang.....
Okay I'll clean the house from top to bottom........

Deadly Dreams

I'm always trying to make out the meaning of my dreams. Sometimes they seem very accurate and at other times they look like episodes from the Twilight Zone.
Scenario: I'm walking through this neighborhood in California the one with all the Victorian houses called 'painted ladies'. I watched HGTV - Househunters last night and that's where they were.

So I see two dogs a black Shih-Tzu and a white dog running between the houses. I crawl over and coax the dogs toward me with M&M's. They fall for it. I reach out and grab the dogs and they turn into cookies. The white one becomes a huge sugar cookie and the black one becomes a chocolate cookie with chips.

As I grab the dogs turned into cookies the white sugar cookie breaks into four pieces. I see a person who knows my neighbor pull up in a car. I don't want him to see me with the dogs turned cookies because I suspect they are my neighbors.

I run inside one of the houses and look for a plastic container to put the dogs turned cookie into and slip into my purse and no one will realize what I have done. So I ask the chocolate cookie that formerly was a black Shih-Tzu if he knew the white sugar cookie that was formerly a dog. He said it was his best friend. I said he died and the chocolate cookie said he could never live without him.

I am trying to sort out this dream and how it applies to my life. Strange as it may seem we have been looking at dogs to adopt. I found a black Shih-Tzu and also saw a white Papillion. Any significance here? I also am going in for surgery tomorrow and have mucho apprehension about the whole deal. Like I may not survive the surgery. My brain must be unraveling my subconscious. That's a scary thought. So if I never write in this blog again everyone will know I turned into a sugar cookie was broken in four pieces and stuffed in a plastic container. I'm seeing the plastic container as a see-thru coffin.

Smell of Death

Early Saturday afternoon this HORRIFIC odor invaded the master bedroom. Hubby had recently purchased some body spray (for parts I dare not mention) and was spraying it in the bedroom. So - yes - I accused him of making the room stink!

I know puss drags in gecko's and plays with them till they are dead but they are sooo little - no way could they stink up a room like this. You need a gas mask. Not good for my asthma. I sprayed the room with one of my favorite perfumes - Vanilla Fields. Gag me with a shovel. The smell and the stink are unbearable!!!! I guess we could move.

Those famous or infamous words of Cindy Anthony - 'smells like there's a dam dead body in the car'. Well - smells like there's a dam dead body in my bedroom. Hubby is alive so it's not him. The neighbor said that his wife is visiting her family in N.Y. - we haven't seen her in a week. But why would he stuff her in our bedroom?

So, we - I mean hubby (such a sweetie) cleaned the room from top to bottom and located the stench. It was near the ceiling and towards the corner of the room. He found it and it wasn't a dead body but lots of dead bodies.

It was the canister of freeze dried shrimp I bought the turtles sitting right there on the shelf next to the T.V. and the bookcase. That little canister made it to the outside world really-really quick. No dead bodies and the neighbor's wife came home. Mystery solved and life moves onward.

Business Plan

The long weekend is over and it's back to saneness. Wait - is sane a part of my world? Probably not. I shall miss 'shoeless turkey man' and his constant tobaccie spittin and that dang awful sound of his turkey calls. But a person has got to make a livin as he says. And if that is selling little wooden boxes that make noise to raise the hair on the back of your neck - so be it.

I am rethinking my strategy involving traveling the craft show circuit. The only people that really make the money is the food vendors. Perhaps next time I can serve up some of my delicious road kill recipes or write a road kill recipe book. I bet 'turkey Man' could help me. He says roasted possum is his favorite food. Maybe he will like this.
I can cook it in my - out house.

Oyster Omelet

What it means to cook well is to find fresh, local and raw ingredients. Concoct an outstanding family recipe and go down in the ancestry history books.
Gather 1 dozen fresh oysters from the Gulf of Mexico. No need to marinate in oil as they come already soaked in crude oil. Soak the fresh oysters in 2 gallons of sea water for 36 hours in the harvest gold garage refrigerator. While the oysters are soaking collect 6 fresh free roaming eggs from Rhode Island Reds. The best place to obtain free range chicken eggs is Key West. Keep them cool in the beer cooler on the long drive back home. Please do not drink and drive. Drink responsible.
Place the eggs in the lower compartment of your indoor freezer so they do not freeze. Cover with newspapers. Weight down the newspaper with assorted vegetables. No one will look in the vegetable bin.
Collect dollar weed from your lawn or your neighbors. Do not collect dollar weed from the neighbor with lush green lawn and the pesticide sign stuck in the grass by the mailbox. Unadulterated dollar weed is the best. Chop the dollar weeds into 2 inch sections and boil in two bottles of any lite beer. Alcohol cannot be purchased on Sunday mornings so you may need to adjust your shopping excursion. Sprinkle with iodized salt, about 2 cups. Boil for 2 minutes. Set aside for 3 hours.
Cut the long prickly leaf off of one agave bush. If you don’t own one check your local mall parking lot or the Big Lots store. Wash the sharp prickly leaf very carefully. Please be drinking responsibly. Gloves may be need so fingers and other body parts do not become impaled on the 6 inch long thorny spikes. Clip off the spikes using the lawn clippers or a blunt pair of household scissors. Place the cut spikes in a bowl of vinegar and set 20 feet away from the house and all open windows. Make sure the bowl is not accessible to family pets or small children. This takes about 16 hours.
Remove the oysters from the harvest gold garage refrigerator and place on ice. The beer cooler filled with ice will do fine. Please drink responsibly. Leave in cooler for two hours or until all the beer has been digested. Place the oysters in a colander and rinse with hot water. Sprinkle 2 cups of salt on the oysters and set aside. Make sure the cat is outside.
Remove the eggs from the vegetable bin from the house refrigerator, save the vegetables and newspapers. Wrap the vegetables in the moist newspaper and place in a microwave on defrost for 10 minutes. If the paper ignites stop the process.
Crack the eggs one at a time into a large bowl and beat the eggs till the white slime has coagulated with the yellow. Rinse the oysters and add to the egg mixture. Place entire contents into a greased (lard) pan; sprinkle the top with chopped dollar weed. Bake 200 degrees for 10 hours. Garnish with the sharp pointed spikes, pointy side down. Serve warm.

Fire in the hole

I have survived the third day of the craft fair through intense heat and super high humidity mixed with an array of interesting characters. Today was the Seminole raid on one of the homes at the museum. The soldiers were practicing right behind my space. They would yell out, 'Fire in the hole." And bamm the musket would go off and scare me every time. Not as scary as the 'Turkey Man'.

Today he topped it off with his bib overalls - he unsnapped the bib top and took off his shirt. Now in itself that would be half bad but OMG!!!! he had nothing next to him except his 'Osh Kosh By Gosh' bib overalls. And the buttons on the side of those bibs - well - only one was buttoned. And all that white poking through was not his tidy-whities. I'll take the musket booms over that horrific sight any day. He could have used a mansear also.

I gagged every time he spit out his chewing tabaccie. Sometimes it dribbled down his grey mile long scraggly beard. Another wanting-to-forget sight. At one point hubby offered him a pretzel but he declined. "I done had all my teeth pulled out they was no good."

I will hear that turkey calling for years to come. And the constant chatter about what type of turkey noises he was making. He did draw a crowd to the area which made a sale for me.

Tales to be told

I have survived my second day on the craft show circuit. Not an easy feat but VERY interesting. First the people - some have been doing this for over twenty years - cowabunga! These craft show people whom I am now one of them are the nicest people to meet. They go out of their way to help one another and to offer assistance. They are also extremely talkative.

Take Bill for starters - Bill is a registered Cherokee. He says he has the papers to prove it. Perhaps he keeps this information so he will not be mistaken for an illegal alien. Wasn't E.T. an illegal alien?

So to be a registered Native American does that mean you come with papers like an AKC registered dog? How does one go about getting registered? He states he has spoken with many law authorities who have stopped him while picking up precious stones on state land. He pulls out his registration papers and the law officer backs away and lets him keep his precious stones. Even I know it is illegal to remove anything from state or federal land but old Bill has the right.

Bill is a very loud old feller with red hair and blue eyes. He would be the strangest looking Native American I have ever seen. But he lets everyone know he has his registration papers and also that - yes - he can posses gator heads, tails and deer legs. Interesting does not come close to describe Bill the self certified chief of his clan. Actually he calls himself the mayor or something to that effect.

Old Bill has eaten just about everything that Florida and Oklahoma have to offer. Possum is his favorite. He has seen and wrestled every beast that walks the earth except for Big Foot but I'm not too sure about Big Foot. Perhaps he hasn't gotten around to that story yet. Maybe tomorrow.

There are some that have no objections to hanging out their dirty laundry for all to see. As for me I'll use the washer and dryer and not my words.

Earl of Sammich

The fear and uncertainty is beginning to gnaw at my innards chomping away at my strength and sensibility. Not that I have a lot of sense but the little that I possess is deteriorating at a rapid rate. Crazy thoughts are swirling around in my head and robbing me of my sleep. The unknown factor looms like a nightmare in the recesses of my jumbled mind.

My positive thinking has run off with Earl up the coast - onward to Canada - without a passport or a plan. Always have a plan - then a plan B. The eye of the storm tumbles aggressively - smashing my good thoughts - crumbling them into the sand strung along the east coast.

I'm beginning to wonder if my doctor is truly competent? Did he leave one of his instruments inside my foot on the last surgery? Is that the cause of the intense pain? Do I have some rampant bacteria inside my foot devouring all my tendons? The scary questions and thoughts are muddling my pea brain.

I can't wait till September 15 and I cannot wait till September 15. STOP those bad thoughts and images! The thought of the day is - Serenity Now! Whatever that means.

The cat who cried wolf

It's 4:30 AM - AM as in really really early in the morning - way TOO early to be dragged out of bed by you the CAT from down under. (get my drift) You sit right outside my door at 4:30 AM screeching. Listen you fur ball - it's not time to eat. You eat at 6 AM. Stop that screeching and whining and scratching at the door. Let me sleep. You could use a little yourself. Add and extra hour or so to the 23 hours per day you already sleep in total bliss.

You are not starving - you are obese. Sorry if that hurts your feelings and I am sure it doesn't but - you are a fat cat. Go back to sleep and leave me alone. You will not waste away to nothing if your bowl is not filled.

What will happen when the time changes? Will you be screeching all day for food? Why don't you catch mice like other more normal cats? Oh, that's right you are not normal that's why you live with us. Maybe you need a playmate - like a mastiff an extra large puppy.