dog days

It's raining over here in Los Angeles.  What is it about rain that makes one feel melancholy and desire to hunker down and cozy up with familiar things?

Our doggies, two senior citizen adoptees ... George and Gracie, are their undercover "witness protection plan" names (real names have been changed to protect the innocent) hahhahahha ... keep wanting to go outside in the rain. 

Which wouldn't be anything except for having to dry them off a bit but, Gracie turns out to have some "quirks".  One of them being she chews on herself ... all the time. She has done it so much in her lifetime that she wore down her front teeth, from chewing on herself. Vet thinks it's doggie OCD.

This week she chewed on one of her hind legs and gave herself this angry sore and she has to wear a bandage, so it can heal - which, getting back to our rainy weather, isn't so great. I have to put her bandaged foot in a plastic bag to keep the bandage dry when she wants to go out and then I have to watch her ... well, I have to watch her anyway as she's removed the bandage before and started chewing on the leg. WAH!

And then, since neither one is used to me hovering over them, they won't go to the bathroom. ARGH! This has been repeated a gazillion times today.

The husband is picking up a collar (the cone of shame, if you love UP too) after work today - I was going to go get one and then we realized that if I leave her alone, she'll remove her bandage and chew her leg.

sniffle sniffle woe is me!

In between bouts of chewing, she also likes to root around and eat things in the yard that she shouldn't. 

George on the other hand, is the most well behaved of doggie citizens. His one failing being he has a bad case of halitosis, really the most stinky breath bwahahhahha.


Besides being up and down and in and out with the dogs today, I decided to make a recipe my mom always made when I was growing up.  Ridiculously simple and feels like home on this cold and melancholy wet day. I don't imagine it's actually any good to anyone else but it tastes heavenly to me since it's laced with memories.

 

Faux ground beef for this veggie girl, onion, tomatoes (& some brown sugar to cut the acidity of the tomatoes) and beans. And I'm going to serve it over polenta.  nom nom nom.

Two days ago we received our first holiday card - from our dear neighbor's daughter (he passed away in 2010) - bright and early every year, just like her wonderful daddy. I put it on the table with my darling ornament I bought from Elizabeth, at Creative Breathing.

And then I was going through boxes yesterday, deciding largely to just get rid of things. Enough is enough. Time to seriously winnow down the remainder of things. One box had some Christmas things in it, bits of cuteness and old holiday photos of us. So I put them on the table too.

Holiday hodge podge merry making has commenced LOL!
Let the hoopla begin!

Happy weekend!

grammies lace

I found many treasures while going through my parents things after my father passed away last year. One of things I found was this mauve leather case, belonging to my fraternal grandmother. The contents brought delight - vintage lace, collar pieces, gloves and a charming pin cushion.

The discovery also brought some fun - 

the leather case was from MALT O MEAL cereal!

Grammies gloves :)
The fingers are so very tiny in person!

Please join in the Vintage Thingie Thursday fun with Suzanne at Colorado Lady!

we need a little christmas

Yes, we need a little Christmas,
right this very minute ...
~ Jerry Herman for "Mame"

whisper whisper - I haven't decorated a thing yet, these are cuties that live in my curio cabinets all year long - I wanted to join in this week with something merry and bright for the quickly approaching holidays (which the very thought of, makes my noggin spin!). 

Please join in the Rednesday fun with Sue at It's A Very Cherry World.

did the grinch steal 2012?

I'm missing some chunks of 2012, I mean I must be missing some! It doesn't add up to me at all. It surely can't be the end of November already!!! Perhaps I took a nap at some point? It's all just woooooooshed by - so very odd after 2011 went by in slow motion, henceforward and forever to be known as the year without end.

I am still fighting the mountains of paperwork and boxes over here. Fifty years of my parents things just will not depart easily for me. So stressful. Progress is obvious though - gosh, I wish I had taken photos!  There was a long while where there were boxes piled nearly to the ceiling, along one wall, in our living room ... and in our hall ... and in our spare room ... and utter chaos in our garage.

Now it's just our spare room. But I've had to take a break, I just couldn't do it anymore. So many tears. 

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving, filled with all those dear to you and lots of pie!

My husband had the week off and we saw another three movies: Silver Linings Playbook, Rise of the Guardians and Chasing Ice, about the loss of our glaciers - frightening!  Enjoyed them all.

We also saw a production of Hamlet and there was lots of good food and dessert too. 

We had a lovely Thanksgiving at my cousin and her husbands, with her family and two of her family friends.  My auntie, who I have been worried about, looked great and was her bright and perky old self, albeit aided by a walker now.

We steered clear of the stores but I did treat myself (crazily, extravagantly YIKES & holy moly!) to the new Vitamix blender this morning - not a penny off for cyber Monday. PHOOEY! I have been wanting one for literally years and I decided I'm not a spring chicken anymore and now's the time LOL.  Happy Unbirthday to me!

And another one of those anniversary days, days of remembering, happened over the holiday week, the 24th would have been my daddy's 94th birthday. 


The wooly lump lumps are doing well ... their tails and rear ends wiggle and waggle all day long. I sense they are happy here.  Course I bribe them with biscuits and tummy rubs. We are a goofy, joyful bunch.

So that's pretty much the news over here.  Wishing you all a great week!

it's the little things

Favorites of the heart.
A love of wee things shared by mother and daughter.

Please join in the fun on A Favorite Thing Saturdays
at Mockingbird Hill Cottage.

giving thanks

I thank you dear friends
for sharing in my life
the dark hours, the challenges
the struggles and the strife
the good times, the laughter
the love and the cheer
through all and all
I'm blessed you are near.

~Steve Myrvang

Happiest Thanksgiving to my dear friends in blogland!

a prayer of thanksgiving

for leaves of yellow and scarlet
for goldenrod's bright array

for crisp November breezes
and frisky squirrels at play

for misted mornings and velvet nights
for glowing harvest moon

for crickets tuneful chirping
on a sunny afternoon

for families gathered together
for marigolds in a bouquet
for bounty from earth to share

this blessed holiday

we're thankful
~Sheila Forsyth

farewell dear friend

Debbie and me

oh gosh.

My heart is burdened and broken with yet another profound loss. I found out yesterday that my very first childhood best friend passed away in 2010.

Debbie was an alcoholic and a drug addict.  I last spoke to her in 1994. The last straw in our relationship came for me when she chose drugs over her four year old son and abandoned him to her husband.

While out running errands, I would catch glimpses of her a few times later in 94 or 95, around the neighborhood with a shopping cart, like one of the many struggling or homeless in Los Angeles.  I would never see her again.

In the back of my mind, I always knew the chances of her still being with us were slim. Alcohol and substance abuse recovery rates are very very low and she had never been willing to admit she had a problem, let alone seek help.

But still the heart hopes.

November 8th would have been her 59th birthday.  She was continually on my mind. I felt her presence so strongly this month. 

And yesterday, I felt the need to see if I could find something out.  Thinking I was looking for a phone number or address online, I found instead, an obituary notice. In shock and disbelief, I logged onto my Ancestry.com account and it confirmed that she had passed away in April of 2010. 

The tears flow unabated, like Niagara Falls. Regret fills me.  I should have just been there.  No child grows up dreaming of being an alcoholic or an addict, or living a life hurting and disappointing those they love. I should have found a way to be there.

I don't know what happened to her, will most likely never know. I long to know she was loved and cared for.


I met Debbie in Kindergarten. She was blonde, full of life and fearless. I was brunette, scared of my own shadow and the description "painfully shy" was made for me.

Debbie's parents were fifty when she was born, her mom had been told that she would never have children and then SURPRISE!, here came Debbie.  Debbie was adored and doted on. Her father built her room sized Christmas scenes every holiday to enchant her.  Her mother made most of her clothes and all her Halloween costumes. For her sixth birthday, Dorothy made her a clown outfit for her birthday party that was at the TV show, Chucko the Clown - her outfit was identical to Chucko's. I remembered it to this day, she and Chucko together. 

I learned to swim with Debbie - I was petrified and she had nerves of steel. 

I wanted to take ballet because Debbie did - she'd been taking it since she was three. I longed to be a ballerina but after one day of a cranky instructor barking at my seriously-low-self-esteem-self, that was the end of my ballerina dreams.

Debbie was always the most popular. She was a friend to everyone and everyone wanted to be her pal.

Our friendship would wax and wane from 1959 to 1994, but she was always there. Her last gift of friendship to me was buoying my spirits and telling me I deserved so much better, when I (ironically) left my alcoholic ex-husband.


Love you always, dearest and best of friends! 

from Christmases past

Am I the only one in complete shock that it's nearly Christmas?!  Good googly moogly, how did that happen?! How can 2013 be just around the corner?

Sharing some vintage ephemera today for Rednesday - order forms for photo Christmas cards, found inside of old packages of photos processed at the drug store. 

Please join in the Rednesday fun with Sue at It's A Very Cherry World!

i spy with my little eye

I hope everyone had a great weekend, we had lots of fun!  We saw THREE movies (Argo, Skyfall and Lincoln), ate a lot of good food and attended Bill McKibben's Do The Math tour presentation here at UCLA (about climate change).

And I can find myself in the group photo they took at the event, how cool is that?! A husband and wife were wearing sunshine-y yellow jackets in front of us, so that made it easy to find me.  But the hubby got hidden behind someone, phooey!

moving forward

I find myself sick at heart and apprehensive. 

I read some blog comments after the election that shall we say, were less than gracious (understatement!).  I didn't know before that there were blogs that were so hateful of contrary beliefs. 

I labored under the false assumption that crafting/cooking/decorating, etc. blogs were benign and innocuous.  Yes, I could sense some bloggers political bents were the polar opposite of mine and that was fine because I didn't feel disparaged or disrespected. 

I chose to see the common ground we shared.

But after reading those ugly posts, my stomach aches and I wonder if there are those of you who would find me despicable because I am a Democrat and support President Obama?

If so, so be it. 

I wish you all good things. Elsewhere.


Moving forward ... What you see is what you get here.  I wear my heart on my sleeve. I believe in treating everyone with dignity and respect. Hoping we can meet on that common ground.

Please vote