A Just for Fun Story

GOODWILL

She reached into the rack of used jackets, finding a nice suede one that looked as if it would fit.   Slipping it on, she heard someone say, "Well, you know I never liked that color on you, but it's a nice fabric".  Turning, she saw an older couple in the next  aisle, smiled when they glanced over at her, and turned back to the jackets.

Next she tried on a corduroy pinwale, noticed a button was missing, but the price was good and the fit--"Michael, do you like this?" The voice was close, and high, obviously a young woman's, but when she turned to look, only the older couple were there.  Mentally shrugging, she removed the coat, but not before she heard someone say, "Oh, Mike,  not HERE"...and a giggle.

Good lord, she thought. What are they letting in off the streets these days!   She went back to the suede, tried it on again, and heard, close at hand, sobbing.  On and on, so loud

she was certain other people must have noticed it too.  She walked around the end of the row to comfort or at least confront the person, but the only one there was a very small Japanese woman, obviously nowhere near tears. She smiled,  Anne smiled. 

oh dear, she thought.

Taking off the jacket once more, the sobbing stopped.  Farther down she came to a rack of women's winter coats.  Taking a mid length soft fur coat  off the hanger she draped it over her shoulders.  Startled, she took it off, hung it back up, and moved away.  "Oh, baby you look so GOOD" a male voice had purred in her ear.

Suddenly she grabbed a hat, put it on.  A child's voice called.  Wrapped a scarf around her neck, and she heard a fire engine.  The child, calling for its mother, the fire engine wailing.   Gloves?   The right hand began arguing with the left hand.   Now that coat again, with the male voice in it.  Still purring.  Occasionally moaning.   She started to giggle, then realized the clerks were watching her in her headlong dash down the aisle, trying on sweaters, hats, boots.  Drunk, their faces said. Or shoplifting. Watch This One.

Slowly she removed the little boy, and put the hat back on the shelf.  Took off the arguing gloves, returned them to the glove bin.  The scarf, still wailing, went back among the other scarves.   Regretfully she returned the coat, still murmuring,  to its proper place..  Half way down the aisle she turned, went back, and retrieved the coat.  "Eighteen dollars", the counter clerk said firmly. "no checks.".  She handed the woman the money, put the coat on, and left the store, smiling. 

Christmas recap (YAY, we lived through another one)

 

We survived another Christmas with enough relatives (all his) to populate a football team, but the wonder holds:  even with six little kids galloping about (the oldest is about 8, the youngest is 3), everyone seems to get along extremely well.  No sulks in the corner, no grumbling,  no fussyness.

The kids have now progressed enough to be interested in 'group games' and play them with a great deal of shouting, but no howling. Major diff, there.  It's fun to watch them change from infants into kids, one holiday at a time.  The youngest one marched right up to me and gave me the best knee hug (well, he's only three, he's still pretty short) I have ever had, with  a great grin on his face.  He's the Happy Kid,  loves to laugh, and I suspect he will be the future 'good guy' in school. 

There are three layers: Grandparents, parents, and kids.  All even spaced as to age, so none of one group is stuck in neverland, not really fitting in anywhere.   I think that helps.    I realize that now we are the oldest in the bunch, by several years, and if we had had kids,  they would be too old and too young for anyone there. That's a hard place to be in. And they would have had kids who suffered the same strange dichotomy. 

It's always a fun day,  if exhausting, and even though all we did was eat and visit, today I am barely up to anything, beyond coffee and filling the woodboxes. (Maybe it's time to give up the idea of 'someday' having one last Christmas here.) 

Happy Solstice =)

WINTER SOLSTICE

At any time of the year

you measure the dimensions of the sky

one constellation at a time

give it  perspective in terms

that you can understand

but at this darkest point

the nadir of the calendar

stars become much more

than pinpoints on a chart

sometimes it's all you have to steer by

and you begin to weary of the darkness

there is so much of it

Having lost the light

you announce yourself with candles

in every window

drape strings of icicles

from  eave to  eave

calling softly into the winter sky

over here over here

imaginary garden with real toads

bamboo

remember the sundial, lady,

keeping relentless time

precise in its circuit

of the garden, season by season

year by year

and the stones: lady, remember

how the stones looked then

when you held them to the light

now all that remains is memory

like feathers drifting

between the yellow daisies;

becoming Queen Anne's Lace;

a waterfall of leaves:

at rest at last

amongst the wild geraniums

http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/

this and that T13

1. plaster staple

2. triplet splitter

3.  stupid pundits

4.  careful carful

5.  bacon carbon (who cares, it's bacon...)

6.  crane dancer

7. dawn  drawn warden wanders

8.  manger garment argument (you know  how touchy manger directors are)

9.  postal portals

10. stapled pleats

11. lower slower bowlers

12. german manager

13. ingrate creating carpeting

http://newthursday13.blogspot.com/

More curtain talk

Addendum: 
I was getting ready to sort all the fabric this house seems to have spawned,  and found two pair(s)? of curtains I made years ago and for some reason took down, never  put them back.  When the weather gets warmer (read: next spring) I need to go through all the bureaus and all the storage trunks and see just what it is I DO have. 

One thing with a large house, generous relatives (I don't want this fabric/yarn/thread, can  you use it) and a slowly changing  memory,  every drawer, every closet is an adventure and a surprise.  =)  I'm just thankful I never got the Yard Sale Bug.  My mother-in-law used to go with her sister every weekend, and she had a passion for lamps.  Not fancy, necessarily, just Lamps.  I now have about a dozen of those in the attic, waiting for Tables to Put Them On.  (those are up there too, btw)

I can remember when I made those curtains,  it was not long after we had moved in here, and my MIL had given me HER mother-in-law's Singer Sewing machine, that dates back to the 1887.  This house needed curtains, so I went out and bought almost an entire roll of unbleached muslin, then sat down and learned how to use the hemmer and the ruffler.  I must have made 80 yards or more of ruffles, and then attached them with the hemmer.  In looking at the 2 pair I have here from back then, I did a much better job than I can remember doing.

And I just noticed the time.  It's ten days to Christmas.  I've got to start paying better attention,  I'm afraid if I blink it will be June...

The lazy cheapskate (stuff you probably already know but I needed a subject)

1. With care and planning, you can get four sets of curtains for 6-over-6 windows (approx. 36" long) with decent fullness and length, plus valences, from one set of full  bed sheets.  Fitted works better, there's more material in the bottom sheet to accomodate the elastic, and considering the  cost of material...

2.  Shampoo and cream rinse contain carnauba wax, which is safe to use, heck, its even in chocolate, it's used in car waxes, foods, and hair care products because it makes stuff shinnnneeeyyy...but it's a lot kinder on porcelain and shower stalls, and if you put a blob on a sponge you can wash an entire car with it by swirling it around, gently, and then hosing down the car.  No rubbing/buffing involved. And no streaking.  It also removes that high-tide water line on bathtubs.  Great way to use up shampoo that you got and never liked.  Works on kitchen appliances too.

3.  Put a little vinegar in the water you're going to hardboil eggs in, and start the eggs in cold water, let them heat up as the water does.  Vinegar softens the shells so you can often slip most of it off the cooked eggs easily.  Only for about fifteen minutes. Longer than that and the yolk gets greenish.

4.  When you tie shoelaces, usually they skew to north and south rather than side to side.  If you make the last loop 'backwards'  they'll lie flat against the top of the shoe.

5.  House brands.  Most of them are exactly the same quality as the advertised brands, but way cheaper. Bleach,  vinegar, lemon juice, salt, baking soda, even  flour and sugar.  And sea salt is just salt with a huge price tag. Salt is salt.

6. Coffee.  Really.  Someone put me on to this one, and he was right.  As with a lot of other products, branded coffee is the same across the board. The only thing that changes is the label and the price. (Maxwell House cheats on its labeling, selling three different amounts in identically sized containers, all at the same price. ) The only difference is the teeny weight symbol at the bottom.  And house brands use plain coated cardboard containers, no ads, and are sometimes half the price of the fancy brands.  I love coffee, and cannot tell the difference.

7.  Jumbo sized standard foods like cereal, peanut butter, ketchup, and sometimes detergent.  Check the /per oz. label on the shelves.  We were taught as kids that the giant economy size was the one to buy.  Some years ago manufacturers realized that people bought this stuff on autopilot, and began changing their prices to reflect that.  If you  compare sizes, you'll find that the medium size of anything that also comes in jumbo is often cheaper-per-oz than the extra large.

8.  Paper towel products are a minefield.  Read for content on the label.  "squeezably soft" does not mean the product is soft, it means they have air  incoporated into the rolling process, so that you get big fluffy looking paper towels and toilet paper, but lots and lots of big fluffy air as well.  Sheet count is way more important.

9.  repurpose your knitted goods. Unravel the sweater you hate, wash the yarn, and make mittens with it.  Or socks, if you're so inclined.

10.  Those wonderfully huge lawn leaf bags can be used for more than just leaves, and they last, with care, forever.  If they get wet, they dry out quickly.  Great for kids' forts and paperbag games for cats.  Excellent for storing fabric or yarn, or even extra clothing.

11.  Neither of us likes the end pieces of store bread, so I let them dry up a bit and store them whole  in a plastic bag in the freezer.  When the recipe calls for bread  crumbs, take out what you need, let them dry out in the oven, and crumble them.  They still taste fresh, and you never have to actually buy any.

12.  Old socks. I use one as a duster, slip my hand in it and dust away.  I  prefer to go barefoot in the house, but in winter the floors are cold,  and use a pair of my husband's old socks, with the ribbing cut down to just above the ankle line.  The cut-off ankle pieces I use as wristlets  when I go outside to shovel. keeps the cold from whooshing up my arms.  And one is of them is perfect for my right wrist, I have a bone spur there that makes using the computer mouse unpleasant. This is just enough to relieve that.

13.  If you have water-based color pens (not gel or alcohol based, this doesn't work on them) and they start to dry up, take off the end of the tube (sometimes you need pliers, but you can see where it joins up), and with an eye dropper put in water, one drop at a time.  When the felt begins to look wet, replace the top of the pen and cap, and let them set for a few minutes or longer.  You can stretch the life of most water based pens like this almost indefinitely.

http://newthursday13.blogspot.com/

The good news is...

in about three weeks the days will be getting longer.  Inch by inch, day by day,  we will begin the long slow journey back into light and possibly warmth.  I remember warmth.   No comments necessary, just nod and smile happily. Wistfully.

well my goodness

just did some terrifying things in google  and came back here and thought, hey this looks different.
It seems that, at least for now,  we are in business. 

That is one happy hornet, I'll tell ya.

Sadly,...

well I can see your stuff, and bring it into the blog, but Google refuses to let me sign in with anything, and it does appear that I am whipped.
Ark, I have a blog at Blogger, but Im terrified to open it.  I just don't have the patience or the ability to futz with it any longer. 

Trouble is (this is whinging) I am so invested in Google at this point it tends to take over every thing.
Flick'r used to be Flick'r. Then it became Yahoo and then Yahoo became part of Google (aha, she says) and it does seem that no matter where one goes, Google is right there with those  big hairy hands, waiting. 

In any case, I appreciate the support, and the time spent here.  Maybe magically the whole thing will get over itself at some point (although I doubt that).  And I do have an email out there in my profile...

dese dem and dose

okay, so here's the deal.  For now, I can make new posts, and you can read them. And comment.

This is awkward,  and if no one minds comments without responses from me, then I'm cool with that. Or I can just comment in a new post. 

Sigh.

I would like to start a new blog, if I can close this one off from rogue posters and actually use a for real password.  I don't want it to turn into Vandal City, by any means.  I have about 9 years of stuff here, and I'd hate to lose it.    Lotta ego there, maybe, but it's like writing the world's longest book, and then seeing it go down (or is that up) in flames. 

if/when I do start a new one, I'll post the announcement here. oh, aren't we all excited, lol.

new post

lets see if this works

To everyone who is responding

It seems that not a lot is getting through,  although Im grateful for the sympathy:  I may just have to junk this whole thing and start over, something I do NOT want to do, after 10 years of stuff. 

I contacted Blogger and I was told this sounded like something that happened last spring (which it does not), and I should go reread that and see if that's the problem (which it is not) and that was the stellar advice I got from the four star help over there.   I have Chrome on this now, and I surely wish I didn't, it seems to cause more grief than not, but it somehow insinuated itself into nearly every program I have, sort of like the stray cat that you wake to find sleeping peacefully on the bed at your feet. 

Chrome is even less helpful as far as trouble shooting goes.

Anything else, I wouldn't mind, but I just can't respond directly to comments, I have no idea why.  So, we do this.

N.ayisha, if I can, I'll post photos of the loom when I get it set up.  This is a 36" 4 harness loom, collapsible for (ho ho ho) easy traveling (if you have stevedore blood) and storage.  What I love about it, you can fold it up with stuff still in it, unfinished, and drag the thing away to a corner.   And it's an amazing way to use up all that accumulated yarn and such.   I really think a nice coverlet blanket thing would work well.  I could back it with a patchwork quilt made to size,  and have it do double duty. 

Right now I'm doing curtains for the upstairs, from a set of cotton sheets that are no longer fitted sheets, but are also neutral enough to work well at the windows. 

I hate to admit it, but the radiators are working exactly the way we(I) hoped.  He has the thermostat set for 62 deg. and when the temps in here drop to 62 or so, the furnace comes on, and voila, you wake up in the morning to dead stoves but a decently warm room.  Considering it was 9 above this morning, and 2 above the morning before...

problems in blogger land /waving at Boud

It would appear that somewhere between here and there my password, sign in and whatever else google can dream up to mess with, has hit the fan.

I can  post, but I can't respond in the proper comment box.  Google is giving me three choices, none of which work.

This is not a good thing, here.

I posted this to Boud, and it won't take there, so I'll post it here.


"Im thinking of a nice easy straight stretch, maybe a blanketty thing, depending on what I have for yarn. 

My former loom is a big old barn loom, this is a nice 36" collapsible one.  The cats really don't pay a lot of attention to it, and if I can close it up between bouts, all the better. "

Thoughts on weaving looms and oil burners

For the first time in 43 years, tonight we let the woodstoves go out and turned on our new  oil burner.  It seems to be working.

My husband, the mechanical engineer, is down there right now with little digital  thermometers,  assessing and testing and generally having entirely too much fun. When it first went on, it really sounded as if the spaceship engines had been lit and we would be whisked off into outer space.

It may happen yet.

After this 24 hour test I hope it doesn't come on again until much colder weather, my fingers are itching to start up the stoves RIGHT NOW.  Habits die  hard. Also brought the weaving loom down from the front room,  now that we will have a place to keep it.  It belonged to a weaver friend of mine, and when she broke up housekeeping she sold it to me.  It's a reasonably small collapsible one, 36",  and I'm waiting for some long winter days to get it moving.  It's been years since I've used a loom, it'll be like starting from scratch again.

It was time

A week or so ago my husband came home to tell me that the brakes had failed on his mother's (his,now) old car, and he would have to fix them.  But the deeper he dug, the worse it looked.

The car is 15 years old, and well past the due date as far as  something called the timing belt, which, it turns out, is rubber and whether you drive it or not, after 7 years it needs to be replaced, rubber being one of those things that goes pearshaped with no help from humans.  

So...

The last new car we  had was mine, in Y2K, and that died a year ago.  

So...

Go, Honda.  In order to escape the dreaded "black silver grey white" syndrome we had to get the next model up, and Im not disappointed.  Innit shiny?

And as we were leaving to pick up the car,  this happened:  thousands of starlings, all taking flight at once,  with the most wonderful flapping of wings and calling to one another.  I call that a good omen.  

I have (and have had for years) two Yahoo accounts with two different names.   This morning I was on one of them and wanted to cross over to the other. Ordinarily one gets a bit shirty if I neglect it for a few days, sort of like two sisters who demand Mother's attention all the time. 

When I went in,  I was asked for a verification code. er. What.  The rest of the response was,  when you sign in to the 'other' account, you will need to give  us the verification code in there to prove that's you.   If I cannot sign in,  I cannot get the code to give you, because it's unreachable.  yes indeed.
 And when I went back to the first site I needed a verification code for that one, too.  Take your foot off the pedal for ten seconds and look what happens.

But now it's okay.   Puts aching head on desk. sobs.

The visit yesterday was fun. we hiked all over hell and beyond, found a couple witch hazel trees,  spent about three hours out there enjoying the weather and the sun.  We have a lot of beech and rock maple and birch, and the woods just glowed with yellow leaves and sunlight.    Annnd my big old fluffly cat, Charlie, decided that my husband's cousin Joyce was safe to be friends with. He got patted, he chirped at her, and I was delighted with all of it.  It's not often he makes an appearance like that.  Maybe he's learning to trust.

excuses excuses

Not a lot write-worthy going on;  we have 'woods walk' company coming Wednesday(weather dependent); I was supposed to go to the dentist today (cleaning, not drilling) but the car died yesterday and the Mr. had to order a part--the brake linings went--and that won't be in for a week, and that was the perfect excuse for me to call up and cancel the dentist.  I have enough to do this week
without losing half of a day in a dentist's chair--and frankly any excuse at this point;  "oh, dear. I have a hangnail, must cancel the dentist" 😉

The house is still reeling from this summer's rearranging, and now it's time to try to find a way to fit stuff in around the damned radiators.  (no, it isn't working.)

If we could only get this glorious weather for Wednesday, but with our luck...

Weather Map Cat

Charlie is becoming my forecaster, long range.

Last winter long about early November, I noticed he was beginning to look sleekly shaggy, a bit blurred around the edges, like an expensive fur coat.  There was a LOT of Charliefur on that cat, and when you patted him, you had to hunt to find cat.  Luxurious was the word.

It was as if he had become the feline equivalent of a woolly bear caterpillar, predicting hard weather ahead of the storms.

We paid for that.

All winter, every day, he shed.  Sadly, he wasn't shedding fast enough to suit himself, and the old fur would get mixed in with the new stuff, and whatever dirt he had rolled on lately, and he became a
mass of furballs, some of them needing to be cut out with scissors.  The rugs were coated in a lovely skim coat of charliefur, the blankets, the couch cover, MY BLACK LEGGINGS,  and I think it's partly what killed the good vacuum halfway through the festivities.

But the weather got cold (zero) in early december and got colder in January (down to -20 some mornings),  and February we hit a warming trend when it zoomed up to maybe -10 and we got all excited and sweaty in our layers.  And Charlie shed, and shed, and shed,  and I combed and combed and brushed and clipped, until one day in May I thought, hey. No more fur lumps.

In august he started shedding a bit, possibly to make room for this year's crop, and I noticed that the rugs were looking a bit fadey because of the nice even layer of fur on them.

Sigh.

Gonna be a tough winter, I can see that.

Patsy Ann New dress

Went shopping at the Salvation Army (my go-to store for odds and ends...)

And I took some time to examine the baby clothes, found a sweet little (3-6 month) dress that fits Patsy Ann, if not perfectly, at least better than the old baby's dress.    =)
..

And her new friends in the front hall.

PatsyAnn

This afternoon I was up in the attic, hunting for some books--I was also rummaging around to see what I might have stored in an old bureau up there.  The minute I touched it, I knew what it was:
an old Patsy Ann doll I had when I was a little girl, one that my birth mother gave me that she had had too.  That means it was probably from the mid  1920s.

I was appalled at how dreadful it looked.  The face was cracked, two  of its fingers were gone (this kind of doll was known for leprosy attacks) and one foot had been nibbled by mice. I thought,  why am I keeping this?  And was contemplating a quick cremation in the stove.  It's a composition doll, usually a kind of  coated plaster, and it would have burnt well.

Then I picked her up, and god help us all, her eyes flew open, and I realized, I can't do this.  So now she's downstairs warming by the stove while I think about what I might do to dress her  up a bit.

The hair is something I added years ago, no idea when that happened but it really looks pretty good...

Am I Blue T13

1.  Blue on Blue

2.  Blue Christmas

3.  Devil With a BlueDress On

4.  My Baby Blue

5.  Famous Blue Raincoat

6.  My Blue Heaven

7.  Tangled up in Blue

8.  Subterranean Homesick Blues

9.  Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain

10.  Song Sung Blue

11.  lovesick blues

12.  North Country Blues

13. Blue Bayou

http://newthursday13.blogspot.com/

Let it snow, let it blow, let it get to -20 below...We are so ready...

The last of the wood justwouldn'tfitinthe door so we stacked it outside, in front of the kitchen door.  About 1 1/2 cords,  and we may have set a record for split-and-stack this year.  I've never seen such an empty back yard, lol.

Also boiled down about 6 pounds of fox grapes but they ended up being more like fox grape syrup, I'm not sure, but I suspect it was because I ran out of sugar. 
The mister says there's lots more out there, if I want to make more...he's so generous with my time...he even offered to help. Pick. Not help sort, mash, strain...no no no.   I was thinking, I"ll bet this stuff would make a great blueberry/grape jelly.  If I had the blueberries. 

As it is, it's going to be a great fox grape syrup.  Oh...Ice cream with this stuff on top.  👍👍👍

Fantasy

There was an announcement on the news that  Samuel L. Jackson was now the new voice of Amazon Alexa.  That lovely baritone, rippling out of the speaker...And then I thought, if I had a choice, it wouldn't be SLJ...

                                             Alexa, Tell Me A Story 

     One of the longer grey days of November.  Outside a cold steady rain sliding down the windowpanes, with an occasional  splat when the wind picked up again.  And now, just before sunset, fog adding its base notes to the music. 

     My coffee was nearly gone, and what was left was tepid.  I wanted more, but was too rain-weary to contemplate the long ten foot walk to the kitchen to make another cup. 

     When I get like this, a giddy little angel-with-a-pitchfork wakes up, and perches itself on my shoulder.  "Alexa", I said, quietly, 'Tell me a story.  In the good voice."  There was a pause, and then the voice of  Morgan Freeman began to slide across the room.  "What kind of story would you like?"  You could hear the smile. See the crinkly eyes.  I considered carefully; "Oh, I don't know.  Maybe Little Red Riding Hood?  The naughty one?" 

seasonal T13

The woodshed's  full
the summer birds gone
maples changing color
it gets dark too soon
mornings are chilly
we'll be starting the stoves
already we're planning next year's clean up
the cats are growing furry
the light is different, mellower
crickets sing all day in the tall grass
acorns underfoot and fallen leaves
where are the bluejays, the crows, the robins...
I have totally lost track of time


http://newthursday13.blogspot.com/

September Song

The wood is almost all in and so am I...

This...in July

is now this...in September

yellow jacket  wasp nest in the maple.  as big as a man's head

Charlie looking alert (because he can)

and yes, this is what a piano 'harp' looks like (our first major step

 toward installing radiators was to get this out of the parlor.)    

How Green Was my Valley, my tree, my lawn... T13

pickle

chartreuse

olive

lime

lemon-lime

shamrock

sage

emerald

seaweed

grass

spring

seafoam

mint

http://newthursday13.blogspot.com/

#9--Poem for a Sunday

prepositional phase

where you are right now

between away and to

is not where i am

among the leaves dancing

down along the  hallways

beside and amidst the parted grass

there will never be an after

without the before that came before

no here no there

no way around about or through

without me, without you

the perhaps of you and I

has been overtaken by the now

why doesnt even enter into it

and that will have to wait for spring

JT

Some days are more fun than others

For my birthday today he bought me Ben & Jerry's Caramel Chocolate Cheesecake Truffles.  I was a bit nervous about it, I had the feeling Michigan J. Frog would leap out and start singing "Hello  My Baby" .


Close.

oops

Maybe we should just call it 'somewhere in the middle the week 13" and leave it at that...👵

13 signs I'm getting old(er)

1. My  feet are now too far away (are my arms shrinking? Did my legs get longer?)

2. Those funny noises you make when you stand up really do help.

3.  Most of my dreams I forget, and the ones I remember make me understand why I forget the others.

4.  I know who you are, I just don't know why

5.  When you realize that all the people you knew in highschool are NOT still that age, and if you met them now you'd have to be reintroduced...

6.  When I described what hurt, and where,  the doctor got  that look and said,  give it a few days, you'll be fine.  I called him from the hospital to tell him I was okay, (now), and thank you.

7.  making supper, I pick up the mixing spoon, put it down, and can't remember what I was doing. Or where the spoon is.

8.   I dropped my purse on the floor in the grocery store and it took three people to help  me stand up again.

9.   No one ever asks for my ID for the senior discount now.  I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing.  I used to make them work for it.

10.  I told my husband's young  cousin to stop shouting at me, I ain't deaf, sonny, and he said, WHAT?

11.  I can stretch but I can't bend. Figure that one out.

12. I am now older than most doctors and all nurses, and any doctors older than I am better not come near me with sharp instruments.

13.  I'm the last one standing in my immediate family, except for one rogue cousin, and I intend to keep it that way.

Bonus clip:

I can remember almost every song from the 50s, 60s, and early 70s, and like the folks on Name that Tune, I can usually get the title in three notes.  What I cannot recall is what day it is now, and sometimes what month.

https://newthursday13.blogspot.com

maybe a glimmer...

Just this morning I was reading that there are now REPUBLICAN conventions in at least two states  canceling their venues. interesting.

trump

There are apparently also some Republican candidates who are about to jump in as well.  Thoughts?

My own first thought is, even if the Republican candidates go  under in the voting,  they might be able to deflect enough votes away from--um--him, and make a serious difference.  Sort of like throwing yourself under the bus to keep it from running over the puppy.

Poem for a Sunday #8

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

It was a very good year T13

1. I remembered to duck

2.  The old bathing suit still fits!

3. Top of the world

4. On a winning streak

5. I've had worse days

6.  At the right  place at the right time

7.  Drove all the way through and never got lost

8.  Coming up all aces

9.  Now and then, you find a 4-leaf clover

10.  The baby smiled at me today for the first time

11.  Every bulb bloomed

12.  The haircut I paid for was the one I wanted

13.  Lost the weight I wanted to lose and someone noticed...

https://newthursday13.blogspot.com

lesson learned

some time ago it was suggested that I might like to try an "extra layer"  kind of anti virus program:  I had always liked SpyBot, and decided to give it another try. 

They've updated.  They used to be a low-key user friendly site, you could configure it to suit yourself, and they did a good job of keeping the baddies out of the conputer.  However.

This latest version has teeth in it, and AK47s at every window.  I found out the hard way that when they clean up after you, they not only take out the spyware, they wax the floor,  vacuum the dog, and hide your passwords in a secret location, where even you can't find them.

Every single program had my passwords stripped out, and a few were on the danger list.  I couldn't even get close enough to them to restore the passwords. 

After two days of this I decided the only thing to do would be to do what is called a 'system restore' and then shoot SpyBot.  That's when I found out how much stuff they had put walls around.  Removing Spybot itself was scary, the guest that will not be removed. 

As God is my witness, I'll never use SpyBot again.

5. Poem of the week--Mildred Goff

Love Story--Mildred Goff


Great-Grandfather is very old,
Nearly a hundred years, I'm told.
Once, when nobody else was there
I tiptoed up to the old man's chair.
He was was whispering, sad and slow,
"Mary...dear Mary...I loved you so..."

I left as quietly as I came.
Mary wasn't Great-Grandmother's name.

Rant-omization

There are moments (like now) when a place like Greenland or Ankh-Morpork or even at the feet of a rumbling volcano seem like much better places to be.  I am weary of politics, of Megan Kelley and her fake news, of sensational journalism that leaves your heart pounding and your head full of doubts,  I am weary of  all of it.  Oh, to be somewhere where English is not spoken with any regularity and then only badly.

If I had a TV I would turn it off and eat doughnuts.  If I had doughnuts. Funny thing about doughnuts.  There is no such thing as enough.  Too few, or too many, but never enough.  they never come to the point where you say, oh look, there are three doughnuts left, let's save them for later.

With doughnuts, there is no later, only before, and right now.

Sunday poem--Edna Millay

Portrait by a Neighbor

Before she has her floor swept
Or her dishes done,
Any day you'll find her
A-sunning in the sun

It's long after midnight
Her key's in the lock,
and you never see her chimney smoke
Til past ten o'clock

She digs in her garden
With a shovel and a spoon,
She weeds her lazy lettuce
By the light of the moon,

She walks up the walk
Like a woman in a dream
She forgets she borrowed butter
And pays you back in cream

Her lawn looks like a meadow
And if she mows the place,
She leaves the clover standing
And the Queen Anne's Lace

Magic numbers

76 Trombones

3 Men in a Boat

7 Days in May

1 Is the Loneliest Number

39 Steps

15 Men on a Dead Man's Chest

40 days and 40 nights

50 Ways to Leave your Lover

Tea for Two

Eight is Enough

7 Brides for 7 Brothers

Ocean's Eleven

Thursday 13


https://newthursday13.blogspot.com

#6 Poem for a Sunday

The Road Not Taken

                        Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
    I took the one less traveled by,
    And that has made all the difference.

Update of the last three weeks

The radiators have been installed
The oil burner and oil tank are plumbed up and functioning
We replaced the old water pump and tank so running the water
no longer sounds like a cement mixer gone awry

The second batch of wood has arrived
We are now involved in installing a downstairs bathroom
I'm trying to figure out where to put the furniture now since having radiators
under the windows changes things immensely
Discovered that the south windows need some putty and paint work

three replacement (wallboard) walls are installed and painted
and the plaster that came down is now in the driveway. 
Annnd there is a skin coat of plaster dust from one end of this house
to the other. (deep aggrieved sigh, here)

The days are now cooler at either end and shorter too.
How did that happen?

We have noticed one of the wild turkeys is lame--
not from an injury, but it looks to be one of those birth things.
She hobbles when she walks, and up until now her siblings
take pains to keep her in the middle of the pack.  Then I noticed today
when I went outside, the other turkeys scattered, but she
took flight with  great sweeping wings, and ended up in a pine tree.
She can't run, but she can fly.  Bravo, lady, for figuring that out.

T13 homophones T13

hoarse horse

coarse course

burred bird

bare bear

bored board

fair fare

hare hair

earnest Ernest

idle idol

write right

banned band

barred bard

foul fowl

(feel free to add your own)

New Thursday 13

For a slow summer day

a deceptively simple game of addition
which, if you're into these kinds of things
should keep you busy the way a bit of yarn
amuses a cat. (forever)


https://play2048.co/

Facebook account

It's like trying to lose a burr while wearing mittens.  Baaack and forth baaaack and forth...

Apparently some years ago my husband opened a 'temporary" (long chuckle here) account at FB, to communicate with some members of the  planning board here in town.  Then he forgot about it. I had no idea he had an account,  until the other day when I started getting (we share the email account here) 'notifications' from FB that someone (ominous music in background) had 'tried to access' his account. 
O, really.

He said, what account?  Then he said, 'oh, wait a minute...'.    He said, go in, and delete it.  He could not believe the number of friends he had picked up in that time period, including an old friend of mine  AND her greatgrandchildren,  and I must admit it was neat seeing  her holding the last baby.
But.  I started deleting and deleting AND deleting, and ten minutes later the account was clear and it only took twice that long to get out completely. They really want your business in there. 
I said, I want to delete the account. REALLY?  ARE YOU SURE????  '
 yes, please.  IT CAN'T BE UNDONE, YOU KNOW.

yes, I know. Delete.

WE GIVE YOU 30 DAYS IN CASE YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND. ARE YOU SURE?"

I'm sure. Delete.

YOU HAVE UNTIL SEPTEMBER 11 TO CHANGE YOUR MIND.  AFTER THAT...

Delete.

WELL. OKAY...

I just KNOW by September 11 we will be getting at least five poignant emails...

(So the sad eyed puppy has gone to his new owner as we wave goodbye from the driveway.) 

Poem #5--

The Horses --Edwin Muir

Barely a twelvemonth after
The seven days war that put the world to sleep,
Late in the evening the strange horses came.
By then we had made our covenant with silence,
But in the first few days it was so still
We listened to our breathing and were afraid.
On the second day
The radios failed; we turned the knobs, no answer.
On the third day a warship passed us, headed north,
Dead bodies piled on the deck. On the sixth day
A plane plunged over us into the sea. Thereafter
Nothing. The radios dumb;
And still they stand in corners of our kitchens,
And stand, perhaps, turned on, in a million rooms
All over the world. But now if they should speak,
If on a sudden they should speak again,
If on the stroke of noon a voice should speak,
We would not listen, we would not let it bring
That old bad world that swallowed its children quick
At one great gulp. We would not have it again.
Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep,
Curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow,
And then the thought confounds us with its strangeness.
The tractors lie about our fields; at evening
They look like dank sea-monsters crouched and waiting.
We leave them where they are and let them rust:
“They’ll molder away and be like other loam.”
We make our oxen drag our rusty plows,
Long laid aside. We have gone back
Far past our fathers’ land.
                                        And then, that evening
Late in the summer the strange horses came.
We heard a distant tapping on the road,
A deepening drumming; it stopped, went on again
And at the corner changed to hollow thunder.
We saw the heads
Like a wild wave charging and were afraid.
We had sold our horses in our fathers’ time
To buy new tractors. Now they were strange to us
As fabulous steeds set on an ancient shield
Or illustrations in a book of knights.
We did not dare go near them. Yet they waited,
Stubborn and shy, as if they had been sent
By an old command to find our whereabouts
And that long-lost archaic companionship.
In the first moment we had never a thought
That they were creatures to be owned and used.
Among them were some half a dozen colts
Dropped in some wilderness of the broken world,
Yet new as if they had come from their own Eden.
Since then they have pulled our plows and borne our loads,
But that free servitude still can pierce our hearts.
Our life is changed; their coming our beginning.

now and then simple works best

I was futzing around with my terribly old  Photo Draw program and thought, let's see if I can draw a flower.  I am ridiculously proud of this. 

this 'n' that

Arm and Hammer

Ligget and Meyers

Fred and  Wilma Flintstone

Jack and Jill

Pat and Mike

Roy and Dale

Sonny and Cher

Simon and Schuster

Penn and Teller

Lewis and Clark

Martin and Lewis

Black and Blue

Princess and the Pea


Thursday13

4. Poem of the week --Lester Clark Rudd

In the golden age of women's magazines, when they were less glitz and more good reading, they would have as many as a dozen or more poems scattered through the pages.  Robert Frost, Edna Millay,  Dorothy Parker.  Some of my favorite poems came from there, and I mourned the ending of this practice.
This was one of the first I saved.



Lullaby For an Ill Child
                   Lester Clark Rudd

North Wind's hair is very black
     and thick, if you happen to see it;
North Wind's face is very soft
     and smooth, if you happen to touch it;
North Wind's voice is very strong
     and sweet, if you happen to hear it.

I'm telling you this, for you ought to know,
And you mustn't be afraid.
If you're chilled by the ice and the terrible snow,
You can find a nest in her braid.
You can curl like a kitten and ride in her hair,
And find it quite warm behind her.

I'm telling you this, because I was there--
And she waits now for you to find her.
       

Custard-- Letters from the Rescue Bear Society

I found him on the toy table at the Salvation Army,
looking sad and puzzled. 

His name, he told me, was Custard.  Charlie approves. 
He looks a bit shaggy, but I think he was a sleep bear,
not a play-with bear, since he's old but not worn. Just
matted.  All in all, a good day in all directions.

3. Poem of the Week--Wild Geese

Wild Geese--Robert P. Tristam Coffin

Beauty is coming North again

Slanting eager as the rain;

With necks like arrows on a bow

Across the sky the wild geese go.

Beauty is coming moulded by

High winds of the upper sky

Into shapes that burn to be

In a patterned symmetry.

Loveliness comes like a host

Of lean ships headed for a coast,

Every sail and every keel

Pointed at a common weal.

Comeliness in company,

Every wing where it should be,

Their feathers are communal things.

They help each other with their wings.

Microsoft Security Alert phone call

got one of these just now, a recording with a stern warning that if we do NOT call this number immediately we will be charged for them reinstalling  a Microsoft Security Alert, to the tune of 249 bucks.
Got a phone number.

Once my heart went back into it's proper place I thought, hey.  Microsoft doesnt work that way. so I checked out online, and apparently a lot of people thought they did.

if you get one of these calls, just ignore it.

wow.

T13 let's eat!

Meat and potatoes

Bread and butter

Soup and a sandwich

cake and ice cream

cheese and crackers

tea and toast

coffee and doughnuts

peanut butter and jelly

toast and jam

salt and pepper

table and chairs

eggs and bacon

pancakes and syrup


T13

2. Poem of the week A.E. Housman

                                                                      

 A.E. Housman

Oh when I was in love with you

then I was clean and brave

and miles around the wonder grew

how well I did behave.

But now the fancy passes by

and nothing will remain,

and miles around they'll say that I

am quite myself again.

Monkey see, monkey do (Thursday 13)

elephant in the living room

quiet as a mouse

dog days

bird in the  hand

turkey day

eagle eye

fish out of water

dovetail joint

plumber's snake

sittin' in the catbird seat

fight like cats and dogs

horse of a different color

mine canary



Thursday13

Butterfly days

Mourning Cloak

In this light it appears to be black, which slowed me down a bit in finding out what it was--turns out it's actually brown (but then I bet you  knew that already).  They are  the kind of butterfly that gets moisture from gravel driveways, probably because with that wingspan if one tries to drink from standing water, one good flap and the wings are trapped by the surface tension. Not good.



http://www.butterflyidentification.com/mourning-cloak.htm

1. Poem of the week-- Richard Wilbur

Some poems seem okay to reprint, but this one does not,
and I respect that.  It's also long, and not everyone likes
poetry, so this gives you a chance to
read it at your leisure, or whiz on by.

Richard Wilbur "Advice to a Prophet"

If you're having a slow day...

Hire me.  I may not make the day any faster,
but by criminy I can make it way more interesting
and get your heart thumping in a most terrifying way.

It will enable you (as it did me) to discover the innards
of your computer, your programs, and what that
strange inner distress is.

It's called "omg what did I just do" and I just did it.
The trick is not to TELL anyone who will sneer
at you and look at you as if you're one stupid
person. "why did you DO that?" they ask.
Don't tell them about it, not even after the fact,
in case it happens again.  The other reason to
not-tell them, or even ask for online help, is
that you cannot take a screen shot of what you
don't know you did, nor can you describe the
steps you took to get to where you are.

And after you have not-told them, you open every
damn window and program you can find,  open
Chrome if you have it, root around in FireFox,
and start looking under all the rugs, behind all
the slightly ajar doors and don't touch ANYTHING.
Yet.

Then you suddenly discover a quiet, overlooked
bit of stuff, you think, oh. That's it.  You can't make it
any worse, you reason, knowing that is almost a
given, but hey, nothing else has worked. So you
push the button, reboot, and viola, you're home.

I was so excited I went downstairs  and moved furniture. =)

Two by Two (T13)

Burns and Allen

Cagney and Lacey

Abbot and Costello

Dick and Jane

Batman and Robin

Laurel and Hardy

Adam and Eve

Martin and Lewis

Simon and Garfunkel

Penn and Teller

Bert and Ernie

Cheech and Chong

Lewis and Clark


T13

The cat and the cardboard

when we first got Charlie, he was terribly careful--not shy, but careful--boots made him back off, cardboard boxes sent him right out of the room, especially if someone wearing boots was carrying it.  Over time  he got used to us. He trusted our boots, if no one else's, and also started shredding cardboard;  aha, I thought. He's got some stress going on.  He's not the first cardboard shredder I've had, so I just let him have at it.

There was a large collection of soft corruguated cardboard pieces that hadn't found a home yet, and he made them his playplace.  Hid his toys there,  played games around it. gradually they slid  down flat on the floor, and he started sleeping there, maybe having a chew or two before sleep, like a baby with a pacifier. 

He weaned himself off the cardboard-as-comforter, but never really slept anywhere that I would deem comfy;  no chairs were large enough,  and anything too soft, apparently, was a heat retainer; and with his double coat of fur the last thing he needed was heat retention.  He chooses, usually, sisal rugs. I have them all over the house, and he uses every one of them.  

However. I did notice that when he has a Moment, because  either the other cat tries to beat him up, or he's had an encounter outside,  or he's disciplined for trying to eat the silverware,  he retreats to his cardboard comfort place.  It's time out,  maybe, time to think things over and regroup.  The last time he did this,  Toby had just beaten the starch out of him, and Charlie spent two full days and nights on the cardboard, shredding bits of it,  working things out. 

He still likes large 3-sided semi-enclosed spaces with lots of crinkly noise-making paper that he can crash into, CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH, and he hides his toys in there.