my life as a witch

In clearing out some of my file cabinets I came across several folders of my old drawings and sketches..during one period I was fascinated by some characters I created who happened to be witches.  This is the one I felt should be "Lois".  (I am having trrible trouble making the type behave on this blog so I will publish this now and return later to add more pix.)

Pygmy Possums.....Who Knew

Holy Moly- the past few days have confounded me with some amazing discoveries.  First --, I nearly fell out of my chair the other nite when I saw Pogo the Possum gobbling away at the porch buffet and thought I was seeing double.  (with my strange vision anything is possible).  After pressing my nose to the glass that separated us I realized that there was not one Pogo but TWO !  And they are identical twins no less so all this time I do not know which one has been the object of my Possum Watch.  I now suspect that instead of observing Pogo on multiple appearances during an evening it most probably was his sibling who came on the second visit.  Sadly. in my eagerness to get a  better view of them chomfing away at the kitty kibble, I frightened one of the Pogos away and consequently spent the rest of the evening wondering if I dreamed it all.  I have not seen both of them together since that nite, but I am sure there are at least two......for the time being I will have to call them Pogo-1 and Pogo-2......  sorry about that.  Until I can see them together again and can examine them for distinguishing features or differences I can't do any better than that.  (If there were three of them I would be tempted to steal Walt Kelly's wonderful names and call them Bewitched, Bothered and Bemildred.)

AND before my head stopped whirling over that discovery I found myself puzzled over the fact that, over the several months that I have been watching this delightful (baby?) critter, it does not appear that he has grown a single smidgeon.  Considering the amount of food he scarfs down on every visit this is simply not possible so I was driven to Google to look up "pygmy possums" to find out if there could be any such thing.......and, lo and behold, there sure as hell are.....a large selection of same including one called a Vampire Possum which rattled me mightily because of my encounter last week with what I am sure was Vampire mosquito.  I have not been able to find that site again, dammit, because I would dearly love to copy a picture or two.....I did manage to grab one image of one of the varieties and I will try to paste it in here somewhere.

   

There he is.....looking a lot like my Pogos.  Needless to say, there will be more to come about these wonderful little creatures. (apparently these miniature varieties make wonderful pets and I even watched a video on Utube showing cats and pygmy possums mingling and cohabiting........no I am not going to go there.....my life is complicated enough already.

The other shocker happened last night when I was peering out  at some traffic around the porch buffet and I saw what looked like Mamma Raccoon standing up on her hind legs and grinning her raccoon grin which bares all the teeth trying to frighten me away  (Poor misguided thing......if she only knew that it  makes her look so adorable you just want to hug her.)  I promptly hid behind a chair and tried to sneak a look around the furniture to see what she was eating and I saw....(gasp)......3 babies munching away.  Those of you who have followed me for a while will remember that my raccoon adventures started just about a year ago when Mamma brought her 4 babies to eat me out of house and home.  After they grew up I would see only one at a time and I never knew which one of the 5 it was.  Now it appears that Mom or perhaps one of her daughters has continued the tradition.   OMG......remembering how much kibble those young 'uns went through I am not sure if I can afford this newest generation.  Sigh.  Well, at least I do not have to crochet them afghans.

So, if you have been wondering what I have  been up to now you know.....up to no good, as they say.  Old Lo is ear lobe deep in critters.......... again.

More Boring Yada-yada-yada About ..........Me

I am taking advantage today of this recent parting of the iron curtain around my Blogging Ability........for some reason the blockade has lifted and words seem to be accessible to me once again.  I don't know if it is a temporary or a permanent thing, but I am taking advantage of it like crazy to get a few blogs into storage for the leaner times.   (like today, for instance.)

One of the reasons I was so quiet last week was the strange fact that I felt like my convalescence had hit a serious bump in the road.  I had  been somewhat smugly commenting that, during my entire adventure with the broken hip thing,  I had really suffered comparatively little pain in the damaged leg.  Oh, I don't mean that it didn't hurt like hell most of the early time, but as I struggled along and did my exercises etc. and staggered around the house and environs the agony abated greatly and for a few weeks, as I graduated from wheel chair to walker to cane, I really did not say "ouch"  (and other things)  all that much.  I should have known that I would get my comeuppance for my arrogance.........one should really try to stay humble at all costs. 

Suddenly, for reasons unknown, putting my weight on the bad hip caused me to say a lot more than "ouch".  In fact, not only my hip and leg, but other joints in my bod was hurting unmercifully too.  After checking myself out for other signs of the Flu and not finding any I decided that what had happened was that I was healing.....,that meant that the nerves severed  during the installation of various titanium nuts, bolts and plates and baling wire  were healing too and as the numbness left me the aches might well begin.  Bummer.

At the same time that I was accepting this misery as a part of my recovery process I was also puzzling over a bunch of vampire mosquito bites.....I think they were mosquito bites because I was able to kill one of the evil critters as he was biting my ankle (but this guy was about 5 times the size of a normal mosquito incidentally) and I observed the curious fact that he left behind not one puncture but two......hence my christening him the Vampire Mosquito.....there were a several more of these strange bites here and there....he must have been busy before I got him........and they not only itched like crazy but formed huge welts which lasted for days.  I was speculating about a number of rare diseases I might be suffering from including West Nile Virus, but when I didn't shrivel up and die immediately I decided it might not be that after all.  Finally I just gave up and surrendered to my fate whatever it might  be, but I can tell you I was NOT happy about gimping around the house uttering piteous groans and shrieks all the while scratching my odd bites like a flea-ridden hound dog.

If anyone has any clue about WHAT really bit me, I will  be ever so grateful to hear your ideas.  Even though the welts are mostly gone the strange puncture marks remain faintly visible.  Is there really such a thing as a Vampire Mosquito?  And, if so, would wearing a bunch of garlic around my neck be any help whatsoever   in protecting me from future bites?   I must say that the whole idea makes me  vaguely uneasy..........I may have to go back to sleeping with my head (and especially my neck) completely covered by the sheet except for the tiny area of my right nostril as I did for years after first seeing the movie "Dracula" with Bela Lugosi ....... (in MY day vampires were not beautiful, adorable, sexy  or anything but .........simply Bela Lugosi Ugly.)   I am equally as puzzled by the current mad fad for vampires as I am by the possibility of there being a vampire mosquito...........how and why does the formerly abhorred become the deliciously desirable??  Beats me.

WTF....sometimes I feel like I have outlived sanity as I used to know it................sigh.

Desperate Call For Backup

As I mentioned in my last blog, I may have to resort to a photo now and then to keep you darlings amused when I cannot summon up words to titillate you.  (it's kinda like  being in a virtual coma and having to communicate by blinking my eyelashes).  One blink for yes and two for no.  As a person who is in love with words, you can imagine how unsatisfying this is for me, but, better than nothing, I have come to  believe.

Here is a photo of my beloved ex-caregiver, Consolee, modeling her first crochet project, the Prodigious Scarf.  Damn, I wish I had taken photos of her subsequent marvelous creations, a series of gorgeous afghans that made me proud of my student and amazed at my dubious teaching  abilities.

 In the background can  be seen my wonderful Power Chair which enabled me to descend and ascend the ramp to the outdoors during my convalescence.  Happily, now that I am on walker, nay, Cane, I no longer use it and I think it is time to return it to its parking place in the garage to be reserved for street racing with my neighbor, Marge, on her power scooter.  I have no idea how my 2 lb. weights got on the seat.....I blame Consolee since I doubt if the cats know how to use them.

Here is another one of Consolee
with my two babies, Winnie, left and 

Gussie, right.  In the background can be viewed 2 spare oxygen tanks which, happily, are no longer needed,  and in the left middle ground,  a portion of my fabulous front door, designed and partially built by yours truly.  If enough requests are received I will try to dig up the real photos I took of it upon its creation.  (Oh my, you can see how low I have sunk .)

Well, as you can see, I am resorting to photos to hide my lack of creative blogging skill today. (I know I should not consider it that way, but blame it on free floating Jewish Guilt of which I still have a smidgeon......one cannot claim to be properly Jewish without at least a smidgeon of guilt.)

Another even more endearing shot of same photogenic personalities.  Gussie looks like a dissolute alcoholic with a dreadful hangover.....I swear I only give her some of the milk from my breakfast cereal........neither I nor my cats consume alcoholic beverages, honest, though I frequently use same in my sadly far from gourmet cooking endeavors.....not to worry, the alcohol cooks off they assure me.  Another great shot of parts of my door, my parquet floor and the grand retro armchair which has been rescued from obscurity as a cat couch and restored to splendor as a thing of beauty and caregiver resting place in Crochet Corner.  I am still trying to figure out why, when I sit in this chair, the cats, rather than rushing to cuddle with me, ignore me with impunity.  Could it really be that my lap is simply not adequate for proper cat nestling?  Sob.....who knew till now that I had such a handicap?  I used to blame it all on fat thighs, but now it appears that is is more likely too-short lap bones.  Well, I'll  be damned if I will have them lengthened for the likes of those guys.....I already know how much that would hurt.......

Well.......Th....th....that's all for today folks.....do come again for more goodies and perhaps even a humorous word or two.

Diary of a Failed Blogger

No use uttering a string of "mea culpas" or whatever it is that the sinners and the fallen utter prior to seeking the solace of the confessional.  For one thing, what is a nice (though very unreligious) Jewish girl doing lurking about looking for a door to a confessional booth?  I fear there ain't no such for the likes of me, unless one could consider the blogosphere as one huge confessional booth.   Hmmmm, in my feeble attempt at humor I may not be so far off the mark at that,  but I do not intend to go there now.  I have tied my leg to the dining table and sworn that I would publish a blog today, even if it be merely one loud, screeching, "AAARRRRRGGGGHH".

There.  Having  managed that I guess I could untie myself, but perhaps I had better leave the rope tied till I actually hit "Post"......I have discovered during this strange convalescence that I am absolutely  not to be trusted when it  comes to things I "oughta" do as opposed to things I "wanna" do.  No, No, it's not that I don't want to blog..........perish forbid the thought.........I desperately want to blog.....it is simply that when I sit in front of the blog screen's pristine, unsullied whiteness and tap, scrabble or  bang on the door in my brain that shuts me off from my true blogging nature,  the door does not open.  In fact, I can hear 6 or 7 more deadbolt locks snap into place (you would think it was a New York apartment) as I feebly wrench and pluck at the unyielding doorknob. 

I do NOT know why a part of me has developed this strange resistance to blogging, but I can tell you that it is a swift pain in the ass, as my beloved Mamma used to say (only occasionally referring to me).  Prior to the Great Klutzy Fall there was hardly a moment or a subject which I could not sit down and blithely blog about.  I have no idea what has happened, but that ability is no longer always accessible.  As far as I recall, the old song goes, " The Hip Bones connecka to the Thigh Bone...." not to the Head Bone, for crissake....but in my case I am beginning to suspect that I have been assembled (or perhaps reassembled) incorrectly.  At any rate, wherever that surgeon put my ready ability- to- blog, he did not leave me a map damn him, so here I am, searching frantically among the mended joints and other parts trying to find it with only occasional success.  Believe me, it hurts me more than it does you.........or maybe it is a toss up, but I just want you dear, faithful followers to know that I have not deserted you.........I am here each day scratching on that damned door trying to break in to access my blogging equipment and I will not give up.  In fact, I have already considered hiring one of those TV Police battering rams or simply having the pins pulled from the hinges (like we had to do with my bathroom door in order to get the walker through the opening.)  

However, since we are dealing with a sort of virtual reality here, I do not quite know what part of the yellow pages to consult to obtain an expert in this undertaking.  Just be assured that I have not abandoned you and, being incredibly stubborn, I intend to beat this handicap.  Please do keep checking in and I will try to keep you entertained even tho it be intermittently for a while.

If all else fails I guess I can always just publish a photo or two......if I can find where I have stored them........they do not seem to be under Photos, Pictures or any such.....I know I filed them in a Safe Place and that I fear is the problem....I hope when I find them my boom box, extra camera and the original copy of my Will will be with them.

Love you madly.

Invasion of the Alien Commenters

I am still reeling  from a weird happening on this blogsite yesterday and I don't know quite what to make of it.
Like most hungry  bloggers, after publishing my offering I checked back later to lap up and/or roll around on the ground in any comments you darlings left me, I found (to my utter horror) 8 piles of poop from some Asian travel agency.

The words were nearly meaningless and were not necessarily evil but they caused  a shiver of horror to go up my spine.  I felt somehow defiled and vulnerable.  I suspect the same generic garbage was probably posted on a multitude of blogs so I do not feel like I was personally singled out, but suddenly the Blogosphere (sp?) did not seem its usual sweet, friendly place and I am somewhat shaken and a mite furious ..........nay, make that hugely furious.  Gone is my peaceful if foolish complacency.  How dare those commercially motivated illiterates burst my bubble?  Grrrr and arrrrgggghhhh!

My fingers are still twitching in a frenzy to fasten about their probably grimy necks and beat their skulls against the asphalt while gleefully squeezing the life out of them, (oooops....got a bit carried away there) but I decided that all I could do would be to edit out the offensive comments, delete the whole blog and republish............sigh.

Have any of you more seasoned Bloggers had similar experiences?  I am suddenly understanding why some of you choose to approve the comments before allowing them to be published.......perhaps I should consider doing the same.  (if I can just figure out how to do it).  I dunno.......I guess innocence lost can never be regained.......sob.

Anyway.....if any of you detect strange anomalies about the dates or times in the republished blog you need wrinkle your brows no further.  It's only Lo doing her best to fight Blog Graffiti.....or should I call it Soft Porn?

Lesson for today.....nothing (not even the Blogosphere) is sacred.   (What...it took you 83 years to learn THAT?)

Update of Some Sort

There's no use my whining about my delinquencies and grovelling for mercy and forgiveness....again......I think I have worn out that gambit.  I might as well just charge right in and tell you what it has been like for the past week since I had to bid a tearful farewell to my caregiver, the amazing Consolee. The sad fact was that she required a 12 or at least an 8 hour shift in order to live and I, growing more impoverished by the minute, had to cut her down to 4 hours or file for bankruptcy.  After a lifetime of penny pinching and frugality of the most wicked sort I have been watching my dollars flow in a torrent into the coffers of the Home care agency.


The brutal fact is that Medicare does not cover my being waited on hand and foot..sob........for the first 60 days of my invalidism the cost of care is all mine, after which, hopefully, my long term care insurance will kick in and pick up a goodly part of the tab.  (the claim has been filed and the paperwork is being faxed...as soon as the paper shuffling is complete I should be getting some relief from that disgustingly expensive Insurance I have been paying for for what seems like half of my life......huzzah! )

Still, there was much moaning and shrieking and rending of garments as I  watched my Angel trot down the walkway to a job offering her a 12 hour shift and I was sure I would never find an acceptable substitute.  However, I dutifully called the agency and, in a moment of desperation, told them that I would consider either man or woman .....in fact, I hinted that perhaps a man might be even better because he could more easily pick me up if  I (perish forbid) fell down....roughly translated that meant that he could more easily shlepp 20 lb bags of birdseed  and kitty kibble from car trunk to garage etc. )  Needless to say, that task is not on the list of accepted items for maintaining patient health..........(though it IS crucial to maintaining MINE.)

Well, oh hell, you have all been so kind and patient  so I will not drag this tale out interminably.  I fear you will consider me fickle and flighty if I tell you that I have been fortunate enough to get a remarkable replacement.......I know....I can't believe it myself, but would I lie about such a monumental thing?  Let's just say that I am undoubtedly the luckiest idiot on the face of the planet because the owner of the Agency  appeared the next day with a miracle named Mickey who has turned out to be perfect in so many ways that I still can't believe it.  Sadly, he does not want to learn to crochet but he is a demon at hauling those bags of birdseed and kibble and, are you ready for this...he is more than willing to feed the birds, fill the hummingbird feeders replenish the porch buffet and SCOOP THE KITTY BOXES even.  (Oy.....I can't believe I could be so blessed).  Even better, he wants only a 4 hour shift so I do not have to fret about my depriving him of more income.   Beside his various skills and abilities, he and I share so many likes, dislikes and opinions that we can sometimes talk for hours..... or NOT...... making for a very pleasant and comfortable environment.  So, although I miss Consolee as one misses a friend who is suddenly less available, I will get to see her on her days off and, in the meantime, I am being cared for excellently by my new friend, Mickey.  Seems like there should be a blare of trumpets here or something.  Perhaps a few fireworks going off or some cannons booming.....well, you know what I mean.

Meanwhile, I am still working toward 100% recovery......not quite there yet but I am using a cane part of the time now.  I am finding myself getting impatient  because the progress is much slower but I know that I cannot expect huge improvement every day......I will learn to be patient.........somehow.  I am, of course, hugely grateful for my recovery so far and for all the wonderful things that have come out of this adventure.


As my pal,  St. Anne of Devon might say, "life is bloody amazing."  And as my old pal, Dorothy, would probably have said, "damned right and shit, piss fuck besides."