Grocery List- Delicious Reading (?)

Having sunk to the depths of despair over my struggles to incorporate a new kitty into my household, I confided my agony and barren bleakness to my dear friend Anne in the UK.......I call her St. Anne of Devon......I have written a bit about her in the past.  She is the amazing personage who caters to a devoted (demanding) seagull named Spud, a  bird who ungraciously bangs on her window with his beak demanding  more cheddar and who sometimes meets her at the bus stop and follows her home probably uttering all sorts of unprintable comments and requests.


She, in her incredibly compassionate way tried to comfort me and paid me the greatest compliment I have received since my friend, Bob, assured me that "my worst was good enough".  After enduring my whining for half a page that I was unfit and unable to blog worth a damn, she kindly reassured me that my followers were so loyal and true (and implied that my talents were so vast) that folks would probably enjoy it if I simply wrote a Grocery List.

Well, let's just see about that!

It so happens that I have my list from yesterday's shopping excursion, so be prepared to be entertained by:

2 lbs. Turkey Pastrami - one of the staples of my freezer and frig meat tray.  I try to deceive myself into believing that this stuff, since it is supposedly made from turkey rather than beef and shows no visible fat, might not be so bad for one and might even be good for one.  (we do not count nitrates and preservatives, you understand.....I mean, let's not go overboard with this).......I know, for a fact, that it is certainly good for one fine sandwich when paired with some Dijon Mustard a slice of  Jarlsberg Swiss and a bit of sauerkraut all embraced by some real deli rye bread.

1 lb. Jarlsberg Swiss Cheese - (see above)  also divine on it own with simple lettuce and tomato on wheat, not to mention melted into Cheese Fondue with some garlic, white wine and a touch of nutmeg and crispy sourdough morsels for dipping..

1 lb. Black Forest Ham -  fine for sandwiches, Quesadillas and exquisite when used as a stuffing with above Jarlsburg rolled up into sinless  (should be skinless, but I love the idea of no sin) herb-rubbed chicken breasts and sauted in butter, white wine and lemon juice with a few mushrooms tossed in for the joy of it.

1 lb. Provolone Cheese -  good for so many things it is impossible to list 'em

5 pkgs. Nibblers Pretzels - Honey Mustard & Onion flavor and Garlic flavor for any moment when a food emergency strikes 24/7 and for munching while watching NCIS on TV featuring the Sexiest Man Alive, (Mark Harmon.....my secret crush.......and,pray tell me why the hell, after living it up for 83 years a person is not allowed to have a secret crush?......I ain't dead yet and if I were that smile would bring me back to life)

OK my dears, there is yourentertainment for today .......I am not sure if you have been amused but I'll bet I have managed to make some of you drool and salivate just a bit.  What the hell......hungry is an  OK feeling....take what you can get.  Go nosh something.  As my Great Grandma, Sarah, (or anybody's  Jewish Great Grandmother) would  probably say,  "Ess, ess, mine kindt"  (sp?)

And by  the way, out of deference to your delicate feelings I did not mention that the last thing on my shopping list was a package of Depends.......after all, I AM 83............and I tell it like it is......
.

Update: re "Here Pussy, Pussy, Pussy."....

Well, right off the top I can tell from your comments that I made a huge mistake in describing my search for the little cat using the call, "Here pussy, pussy, pussy". I apparently elicited lots of giggles with that one.   Actually, I have a number of different desperate calls that I use, but it seems the only socially  acceptable one must be ,"Here kitty, kitty, kitty" and I will remember that in the future.  (The rest contain words far more unacceptably than "pussy").   I guess I have been lucky so far that my plaintive shouts and pleas as I run up and down the alleys have only brought cats into my life and not, for instance, say Working Girls or Lesbian Vampires........

This will only be a short work.......I am still too exhausted from yesterday's adventures to mumble on at any great length..........for one thing, I had to get up at the ungodly hour of 6 am in order to deliver the patient to the hospital for hr spaying and had to wander all over the east Valley trying to find the place.  I had forgotten that it is still pre-dawn at 6 or 7 in the am and I  am nearly blind when it is dark.....am not supposed to drive after dark or before dawn.  but being so unfamiliar with that particular piece of the day I hadn't considered that problem  until I looked out and realized that I could  barely see my car in the driveway.

In addition, I had printed the map and directions off of the computer  and inspected the map carefully and thought I knew exactly how to get there. It was only after having to retrace my path several times without finding the street that I stopped and, with the help of my little flashlight and glasses, read the directions and found that the reason I couldn't find the effing  street Clybourne was because it actually was the well known and highly traveled Sherman Way which, unbeknownst to me,  somehow suddenly dead ended near the Burbank Airport,  zigged at right angles to the left and thereafter became Clybourne.  Sigh.  Who knew.

Anyway, I just want to report that after that  the sun came up and all went well.   I retrieved Kitty at 4pm, installed her in my bathroom with assorted beds, delicacies and kitty box and found her an hour later (having rejected all the beds) comfortably curled up in my lovely oval hand painted Talavera sink which cats seem to be unable to resist. OK with me......I did not have to bend down to hand feed her and my knees were VERY grateful.

Since then she seems totally content to lounge about in my small but cosy bathroom where I intend to keep her for a few more days while she heals.  She has learned to use the kitty box and has begun to eat on her own, tenks gott, so no new disasters.  I do not want to think about the day I will have to  try to bring her out of seclusion to have lunch with the girls...........no.......I definitely do not want to think about that tonite.

There is another chapter to this melodrama which I will relate at a future date, but , fear not, it has a happy ending  So good nite, my dears........I finally hope to get an anxiety-free nite's sleep.  And the same to all of you!

Get Ready Wall.....Here Comes My Head Again

Yes, yes......it's true ........I am back at that point in my existence where it has  become necessary for me to hit my head against the nearest wall 4 or 5 or half a dozen times.  Don't feel sorry for my head.......it deserves this treatment.  Hopefully it may knock some sense into the so-called brain that lives in there making all kinds of idiotic, ill-thought-out decisions which the rest of me then  has to deal with.    As Ollie used to say to Stan, "This is another fine mess you've gotten us into!".

I can see all of you reaching for the phone to call for the White Coats and the strait jacket.........don't bother, please.  I have not quite split into multiple personalities which talk to each other (although I have often overheard me saying to myself out loud, "If I were you, Lois, I would do such and such."  Sigh.  It is just that, despite endless promises to myself, I have once again become embroiled in another one of those Save the Poor Critter" melodramas

Of COURSE I know better.......  Hence the head-bashing punishment routine.  But no matter how much I know better that does not seem to save me.  So here I am, running around the neighborhood in my bathrobe with my kitty carrier calling, "Here, pussy, pussy", catching up the little waif of a grey kitten/cat and schlepping her home (after first having emptied my bathroom  of anything breakable and installed, cat box, food and water dishes, kitty beds and various toys thereby making the room unusable for anything but temporarily housing a kitty).  And, at the stroke of midnight there will be no more food or water and at 7 am tomorrow she will be on her way to FIXNATION CLINIC to, as they say in the animal world, be "fixed".  Not that there is anything wrong with her, you understand....except that she is a succulent tempting female and two of the males that my 84 year old neighbor and I feed have been following her around drooling, making moon eyes and acting like she was the feline Marilyn Monroe........uh oh.

Some Wretch dumped this sweet child out into the cold before the holidays and she has been dining at the Califa St. buffets but when the other diners, Whiskas and Buster, suddenly would not let her out of their sight for a week we feared the worst and now that they have lost interest we are fearing even worse than the worst.  Her virginity lost, apparently knocked up, abandoned by the men who stole her innocence.......the old familiar melodrama enacted one more time...........

Frankly since vet rates have skyrocketed I have renounced this role of Rescuer, but I have just been advised by Catsters that there is a Blessed organization called Fixnation which supports the principle of Trap, Neuter and Release for feral and homeless kitties and dogs and will spay/neuter them for FREE.  This is a project close to my heart......no more homeless kittens and pups by some year or other  in the very near future ....hence I reluctantly got sucked into donning my red cape  in the nearest telephone booth  and jumping off the roof with my kitty carrier.

Now, if I can only manage to get myself out of bed at 7am tomorrow to transport her to the hospital, and if I can just tolerate not being able to use my master bathroom for a few days or a week till she recovers from surgery then all we need is to find some wonderful soul who will give her a good home.  I have my Cat Sitter working on this as we speak.

Please pray that Mr. or Ms. Wonderful appears miraculously ..............I do not need nor can I accept being the mother of 4 cats.  Winnie and Gussie have hissingly and growlingly expressed their violent objections to the idea........Baskin has not voted yet but I don't care what he wants in this case..  Sigh.......now, where is that damned wall again..........
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Make note of this address all ye who care about animals.  They neuter wild/feral animals free and tame animals for $55........a great price which includes shots and all that good stuff.  They will even lend you a trap if you need one.  And they have locations all over.  Please.

                                       www.fixnation.org
                                   

the 2011 Challenge

           I am in a very strange meditative, contemplative, brooding or otherwise introspective state.  Unfit for communicating with decent folk for sure.  During my annual year-end Inspection I have  become painfully aware that The Body which has housed my Spirit for, lo these 83 years, has been  broken, mended, re-mended, battered, tattered and torn too many times to count and seems hardly fit for further habitation. However, it is the only vessel I possess to occupy in this life so I guess I am stuck with it for the duration.  I have been trying to figure out  how to Charleston or Turkey Trot or even Boogie into a new year in this dubious condition and don't yet have the answers.  I do hope you precious and beloved people will all stick with me while I figure this out.        I also wish, while I am cogitating, that one of you would advise me about how to control where the type goes when I install a picture or illustration into my blog.  I find I am trapped into this endless column of words which the Blog God keeps rearranging on the page as I type, but am not permitted to create a spaced paragraph without going down to where my so-called toes are.  This is all very disconcerting and I am afraid if I continue to struggle with it I will get so annoyed, enraged and generally hot-under the collar that my glue will melt......a result which I fear would be tragic indeed.....I mean....who knows what the lower portion of my Spirit,now modestly hidden by its fragmented container,  looks like.......mustn't frighten the children, you know.   Or frighten myself for that matter.     Therefore, I am going to quietly withdraw and continue my pondering.  I will surely let you all know if I arrive at any bloggable conclusions.                                                                        

AARRRRRGGGGH ! * See Below for Translation

Well, old dears, I somehow seem to have made it to the final day of 2010
and what I would really like to say is something like "Good Riddance"  or "Tenks Gott, Not a Moment to Soon" but I will be dignified and grown up and won't say those things...........

Instead I will report on the funniest and most absurd piece of junk mail I have ever received......I tried to scan it and put it into my file to be extracted and down (or is it up) loaded to this  blog space, but I cannot locate the effing thing so I will simply reprise it for you. 

It was a promotion from one of my  credit cards (an airline) and it offered me an opportunity to earn enough miles to fly free anywhere in the world AND take a companion with me if I would only charge $30,000 in purchases to my card before December 31, 2010.

Needless to say I haven't tried,  but I am sure that even if  I had given it my best effort I would have failed miserably.  In fact, if I had a loose Thirty Thou lying around I can think of a number of things I would rather do with it than buy stuff so I could fly free to anywhere in the world......unless, of course they can promise me that the companion I would  be allowed to take with me would be my secret crush, (are you ready for this?)  Mark Harmon.........or possibly Hugh Laurie.

So, instead of trying to spend  all  that gelt on frivolity I have decided to save my strength and merely tell you all one more time how much I appreciate your loyalty and cyber-friendship.  You all were the  bright spot in my 2010 and I love you for it.  May you all have a lovely holiday and a warm, safe, healthy and love-filled 2011.

*  Happy New Year !

A Brief Note from the Grinch

Before I begin to muse about my feelings about this time of the year I have to make one thing perfectly clear. My feelings for the abomination which has come to be called the"holiday season"  are beyond words for me.   A nice idea totally ruined.

Now,  I have never  been a  big fan of holidays in general.....of course when I was going to school or working I loved having a day off but mostly I would go around muttering, "Bah, Humbug"  even on the 4th of July and Labor Day. It wasn't the idea of what the days commemorated..........I always felt that the ways they were celebrated demeaned them.  And I  REALLY dislike the year-end holiday season.......no....dislike is not good enough.....detest, abhor, loathe are better words to describe it.  For one thing,  I hate the ends of things......even when they are followed by a beginning of something.  The ends create a definitive mark in the saga of your life and rub your nose in it.  No more ignoring how much of the journey, the adventure, the struggle, the whole wonderful effing thing is behind you.  No more just shuffling along happily procrastinating about everything and pretending that you'll take care of it tomorrow.  At the "ends of things" you must face your shortcomings and acknowledge your failures.  And then go on....... somehow........

And the "beginning of things"  is even worse"..........a measured span of time during which you have the obligation to try to correct the flaws and committed disasters.  I used to falsely promise to do better before the next "end of things",  a ghastly charade I have abandoned in my old age.  NO, NO- No more resolutions for me......they simply set a person up for more failures.  I much prefer to see time as an unmarked span .......a road of ups and downs during which I try to do the best I can.  I have been doing that for the past gazillion years or so and am still working on getting it right.  The quality of my "best" varies a lot ............sometimes it is more like my worst, but I have been working on the lesson of trying to accept my "best" whatever the degree of quality.

At this moment my "best" has consisted of some  very strange undertakings.  I am convinced that I must apply instantly for membership in  marvelous Ms. Mary Moon's (Bless Our Hearts) Church of Batshit Crazy.  If ever anyone deserved to be a congregant it's gotta be me.  The recent downpours in Southern California found me cutting apart plastic gallon milk cartons to make teensy awnings for the hummingbird feeders that are not protected from the rain.  Can't have the little monsters getting drowned while trying to sip their 93 or so meals a day, now can we?  And then, of course, when the concrete around the pool developed puddles as deep as lakes I had to construct a makeshift  bridge of some 2 x 4's I had in the garage so that Baskin, my crazy cat who chooses to live outdoors and eat indoors, could enter the house through the door I leave open for him to dine on kibble without being up to his kitty knees in water....(I don't think they make galoshes in sets of 4, especially in such a tiny size).  The best thing about such bizarre projects is that no standards have yet  been established....consequently I can bask in the glow of having really done my  best.

All of this reminds me of the most wonderful compliment I have ever received.  One of my dearest friends (now gone) was Bob, a brilliant man I worked with for many years during my days as a starving artist.  He founded the little greeting card company for whom I designed cards and subsequently ended up as Art Director and my boss when we worked at UCLA designing and producing all their publications.  When I was struggling against a deadline  to produce a poster for one of the Theater Arts projects and groaning about  being unable to come up with anything I felt was acceptable, he stopped what he was doing, turned to me, looked me in the eye and said, "Lois, believe me, your worst is good enough". 

Happy Holidays  and God Bless Us Every One!

Were You Ever So Happy You Had to Cry?

Ladeeeze and Gen'mun  ...............Step right up an meet the cat who finally had  enough sense to come in out of the rain!  Well, not literally "meet him" but you faithful readers will know that I am referring to Baskin, my mentally challenged orange kitty.

This is the third day of our rainstorm and as I sloshed out to the far corner of the garden to feed the  birds and squirrels I saw the dry little orange shape tucked cosily inside the garden shed where I have fixed a bed for him and left a bowl of kibble.

Sigh........Sob..........rejoice everyone........my work here is done!