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/