Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

It is inevitable that when we venture to California, at least one large family gathering will be planned and photographs are taken. Always. All of us “kids” are now on the far side of 50, and one of us is on the far side of 60. There is now an empty spot in the photographs where my mother used to sit, and one never knows when it will be before yet another face will be missing from the picture.

Having said all that, taking the photograph can be an adventure. We usually start off somewhat composed and behaving ourselves…

 But inevitably, one of my brothers (usually the one with the beard, but sometimes the other one, too) wants us to do something silly. And we always do.

  Naturally, some of these silly pictures are the ones we cherish the most. 

I recently took Molly Wolly Doodle to the groomer to get her spruced up and I thought it would be nice to have a picture of her. But because it is almost impossible to get her to sit still long enough to get the picture taken, I decided to recruit my dearly beloved to help me out.

He is normally quite reluctant to have his picture taken at all, much less to allow me to show it to anybody, but indeed he did this time.

And it started off OK...

but then, well, this happened…

And he did it all on his own. I think he loves this family he married into very much.

Mistakes happen

It is inevitable that anyone who writes is going to make some sort of mistake in grammar, spelling, or punctuation.

I get paid to find the mistakes in grammar, spelling, and punctuation and other style issues in manuscripts written by physicians and other health care providers, as well as those written by my own husband, and I am reasonably good at it. Yet, I often later find mistakes in things I have written for this blog (and other stuff as well) that I simply did not see when I read the post for the “umpteenth” time before finally uploading it.

One of the most embarrassing mistakes I made occurred  when our boy was applying for a grant to attend the Vocational-Technical school: I spelled his name wrong on the application papers and we had to begin all over again, which caused some delay in the grant. So I get it that “mistakes happen.”

A few years ago, two young men, Jeff Michael Deck and Benjamin Douglas Herson, who called themselves “The Comma Bombers,” wrote a book about their cross-country quest to persuade the creators of signs with errors in them – signs of all sorts but mostly signs in businesses -- to fix the signs. Sometimes they were able to persuade the business owner to fix the sign, and sometimes not. 

And sometimes they took it upon themselves to fix the sign without permission, and once when they did that, they ended up in a spot of trouble. They corrected an apostrophe on a historic hand-painted sign near the Grand Canyon and were sentenced to a $3,000 fine and a year's probation by a federal judge.

Which brings me to a recent mistake I saw. One of our town’s best and brightest decided to add her personal opinion about someone to the back wall of one of the businesses in town. I say “her” because I am guessing this was a teenaged girl. I dunno, it just seems like something a teenaged girl would do.

I was walking the Mollynater down the alley behind the building when I happened to see this:

Which resulted in some laughter when I came home and told Richard about it. 

That in turn, led to what happened at the conversation we had yesterday. I had read on the National Public Radio Web site that guinea pig is being promoted as a good source of meat in South America because, among other things, it has a small carbon footprint and a good conversion ratio of food to meat, is economical to feed, is small, and easily housed. Groups like the Heifer Project, which tries to provide sustainable food sources for impoverished people in undeveloped countries, has added guinea pig to the list of animals it provides in South America.

I had guinea pigs as pets when I was a kid, and I remember them as delightful little animals. I like guinea pigs. In fact, not all that long ago I talked about getting a guinea pig for a pet.

Richard wanted to know if I wanted to start raising guinea pigs for us to eat.

Honestly, could you kill and eat a guinea pig?

Sure. Why not? I like chickens, and I killed them and ate them. I like ducks, and I killed and ate them. I have killed rabbits. Yeah.  I could kill a guinea pig and eat it.

He looked at me with a very straight face and said, 

“You’re a heartless bicth.”

And then we laughed and laughed.

Do you hear what I hear…

In some areas in the eastern part of the country there will be an emergence of the 17-year periodical cicada this year, if it hasn't started already.

Missouri is also home to this particular insect, and the last time there was a fairly large emergence was  in 1997. It was not very loud at our house because there was a great chunk of open land between us and the woods.

However, I cleaned houses then, and the noise at one of the houses, which was surrounded by woods, was quite deafening. I did not envy that family very much. The wife said the noise was making her crazy, and she was very grateful to have a job in town.

The sound they make is very different from the low-pitched buzz saw sound of the other kind of cicada that we hear on hot summer days.

The people who know these things say that our turn will come again next year. Even so, a few of these insects do emerge every year…

 ...looking very much like an alien life form.

This evening, in between the noise of big trucks and cars on the highway, I can hear the high, thin sound of a couple of them in the big oak tree by the house. It's not bad at all... sort of a soothing sound offering a little bit of competition to the "wind tunnel" tinnitus in my left ear. Not sure what it will be like here next year though.

Remembering…

My father, who is 88 years old, normally calls me on Saturday mornings at about the same time, so I usually organize Saturday morning so that I will be sure and be here when he calls. This past Saturday, we had decided to go to Town to have a meal in honor of Mothers Day at about the time he would normally call, so I decided to call him before we left.

He answered the phone and started talking about how he was waiting for my brother to come and pick him up for church. When he got up, he thought it was Sunday and that my brother was coming, so he had gotten  dressed in his Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes and waited… and waited… and by the time I called him he was beginning to worry that my brother was not coming.

I explained as gently as I could that it was Saturday, and of course he was rather upset and frustrated at himself for getting the days mixed up.

“Boy, am I ever dumb” he says.

“No Dad, you are not dumb. You are almost 89 years old and this sort of thing happens…”

I made light of the fact that he had forgotten it was Saturday and tried as best I could to smooth it out for him and assure him that he wasn’t going crazy.

I don’t know how much good I did. I suspect he fumed at himself for most of the rest of the day.

Fast-forward to this morning. I went to the post office to buy a roll of “Forever Stamps” because the postal service is continuing to hemorrhage money and the cost of a postage stamp is forever going to increase. I intended to pay for the $46 roll of stamps with the $100 bill I had in my money pouch. Only when I went to pay for it, I had some $20 bills but no $100 bill.

The only recent purchase I could remember was buying a card for my uncle who was recovering from an operation. Had I mistakenly given the clerk the $100 thinking it was $1? Had I accidently dropped the $100 in the store when I was getting out the $1 and change and not seen it?

Had I not zipped the money pouch all the way when I set it down in the car? Had some of the money slipped out and worked its way under the seat?

Came home and searched under the seats. I did not find the $100 bill, but I did find a card for a 2007 appointment at the urology clinic for the former owner of the car.

I tossed the wad of old receipts and notes from the car on the dining room table along with other assorted notes and receipts and stuff that has collected there. Richard tried to console me.

I started going through the scraps of paper and putting them in the trash, and then noticed a receipt over by the fruit basket and took a look at it. I had purchased a pair of athletic shoes on May 4. Paid $100 cash.

I have not forgotten that I bought the shoes – the ones am currently wearing have just about fallen apart. I have twice used coated fine cord designed for sewing leather to sew the seams that have come apart, and every time I put them on I think, “Should I just give up and start wearing the new ones now?”

I totally forgot how I had paid for them. What state am I going to be in when I reach 88? It’s a little bit scary.

A little bit of Henbit

Not too long ago, when it really did feel like Spring….

and life was bursting forth with vigor…

and Sprinter (spring + winter) had not made an appearance with light snow in some areas and some rather chilly temperatures, and…

it had not started raining again (which we really are not complaining about after last Summer’s drought) and brought a soggy halt to yard work, although the yard has been growing with glee…

Judy arrived at aerobics on a Monday morning feeling very pleased with herself that over the weekend she had finally finished weeding the strawberry bed but grumping at the volume of Henbit she had had to pull up…

Did I know Henbit? she asked.

I had to admit I did not. What garden we have is grown in half whiskey barrels, which cuts down on the weeds.

I could, however, tell her all about Lambs Quarters and how good they are to eat.

Not being one to not know something that someone thinks I might know about, I dug out my Wild Edibles of Missouri after I got home, and sure enough, there was Henbit and it is good to eat as a potherb and in salad

 

And I wondered around my yard looking for it and could find none at all.

However, I did find some growing somewhere else...

 

And I think it is is rather pretty.

So I told Judy about it and suggested she pull her weeds and eat them too.

Much ado about nothing…

Three slatted sections that once were the fold-up frame of a futon bed have taken on new life as barricades to keep the dog confined on the porch on these mild spring days until a prefabricated dog pen we bought can be arranged under the walnut tree.

Although she has definitely found her voice, and is somewhat noisier now than when she left the animal shelter and came home with us in late November, she is not a yappy little dog. We are very grateful. I visited some friends Sunday who have a miniature Pinscher. They threw her outside when I arrived and she barked just about continuously for the 90 minutes I was there. I don’t know how they stand it.

At any rate, we have come back from our morning walk, Miss Molly is resting comfortably on the porch, I have settled down in my chair and am working away... and all is well.

And then suddenly it isn't. A barrage of frenzied barking shatters the peaceful morning. She has gone ballistic.

I heave myself to my feet, order my knees to cooperate – they seem to stiffen up after I have exercised and then sit down – and I make my way out to the porch to judge the scale of the threat we might be facing.

I expect she is barking at a squirrel or perhaps a chipmunk. But she is not staring up into the trees, she is staring down the driveway.

I look down the driveway in the direction she is staring. Now that I am there to appreciate her vigilance, the volume increases.

Look Out! Alert! Danger!

A box turtle is about to cross the driveway.

A face in the crowd..

I am not a professional photographer, and I don’t even play one in my imaginary games, but that didn’t stop Judy from asking me to take pictures at her birthday party last… no, it was 2 weeks ago now (where does the time go, for cryin’ out loud!)

Because one never knows where the flying fickle finger of fate will point next, I recruited Richard to bring his camera and also take pictures in case something went wrong with my camera. And it was a very good thing I did. Both of us ended up making mistakes with our cameras in some of the pictures, but because there were two of us, she got a good selection of pictures to remind her of her birthday.

There were several groups of people at the party, and with the exception of her family who came from Indiana, I had seen nearly all of the same people at the party she gave last year for Charlie, her husband. It was the fact that she got very few pictures of that party that reminded her that she needed to document this party.

A certain woman ended up in a lot of the photographs from both of our cameras.

Have you ever been in a small crowd where one person seemed to draw you to them? Something about them that made you want to be with them? They aren’t necessarily the most beautiful or the most handsome, in fact, often times they are neither one. It’s happened to me a few times, and it happened at this party. Donna. There was just “something” about her. I wanted to throw my arms around her and hug her.

She seemed so relaxed and comfortable in her skin… and just plain “happy.”

A few days later I took the flash drive with the photos from both of our cameras to Judy’s house. Their precious friends who had driven down from Michigan were still there – ever noticed that the friends of people you really like tend to be people you like as well? The two couples are the sort you could sit up all night talking with and not be bored for a second.

I apologized for the mistakes in some of the pictures but pointed out that one of my favorite photos of the group happened to be a mistake caused because my camera’s shutter speed is so slow. They all laughed...

Don’t say it’s a mistake – say that’s your “art photo.”

And then the topic turned to Donna, who attends the same church as Judy and Charlie (the man standing in the background with the friends from Michican).

He said he felt exactly the same way about her. Besides, he said, she is the only one who laughs at my inane jokes.
What is that certain “something” about someone that catches your eye… these “ordinary” people with something extraordinary about them? I dunno, but I am sure glad they are in the world...

W-h-o-o-s-h...

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
Douglas Adams

I particularly like this quote from the late Douglas Adams who gave us witty and zany science fiction novels about people hitchhiking around the galaxy. One of the most fun times we had at the movies was when we saw the movie made from his novel Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. We were the only people in the auditorium and we had a wonderful time laughing and talking out loud and otherwise behaving badly.

I have constant deadlines, but I am almost never late with meeting mine, so I seldom get to hear the whooshing sound of a deadline flying by.  

But then we turn to “tax time.” I don’t love money in the Biblical sense that doing so would cause me to do something evil to get it, but I do work hard for the money I earn and I do like having it.

I also like living in this country, and unlike Adams with his deadlines, I don’t particularly like the “whooshing” sound the money makes as it flies out of here on its way to the IRS and the State tax collector. I acknowledge that paying taxes is something we need to do to help keep the state and the country running, and so on Monday morning I signed here... and here... and here... and… and Richard handed me the envelopes, and I presented myself at the counter at the local post office with our tax returns and off they went.

I have no idea what sort of wasteful spending goes on in the halls of the state government and out in Washington, DC, and I suspect I am better off not knowing.

But I do appreciate very much the state employees who climb into the huge yellow trucks with the plows anchored on the front and who keep our road cleared so we can get out in the winter, and the crews who come by and pick up the dead animals on the highway in front of our house so we don't have to smell them rotting. I appreciate very much the highway patrol officers who put their lives on the line to help keep our roads safe. I appreciate very much the government-funded system that was in place when our son got sick and which took care of his medical bills.

Tax time is not an easy time for us. Because we are both self-employed and work out of our home, the returns are rather complicated. Rendering unto Caesar isn’t always fun, and I am not going to go so far as to say I am “happy to do it,” but I am thankful I am paying it to our government. It could be worse.

Not-a-laughing cow

Just about every day I walk by the white house next to the microwave tower and the field they had refenced some time ago. The land sat unused until the winter. Then, a man who keeps cattle and lives further down the road, apparently rented it and put some cattle on it, including a big Black Angus bull.

The man who lives directly across the road from the white house also has a small beef operation, and his Blank Angus and the new bull stood at their respective fences and periodically bellowed at each other for several days. Miss Molly and I happened to be walking by when they were doing this and they scared the dog so badly it took about a week before I could get her to pass that area.

I guess the boys got it worked out, because they eventually stopped.

Now, along with the bull were 4 cows and a large bull calf – probably born last year or maybe even the year before. One assumes that the man intends for the bull to be the daddy of four new calves when the time is right. One of the cows, a very pretty Hereford, was letting this rather large “baby,” which was almost as big as she was, continue to nurse.

Then, late one afternoon a few days ago the bellowing starts again. It continued off  and on for most of the night and into the next day. Wondering if perhaps if the “boys” were picking up where they left off, I headed off to see who was making the racket.

I noticed that there was one less animal in the field – the young bull was gone. It wasn’t the bull dong the bellowing, it was the calf’s mother.

Missing her baby. I wanted to sit down next her and do some bellowing myself.

The unexpected guest

The teenager at church likes to go what he calls “herping” – hunting through the woods and bottom land for reptiles and amphibians. Had we been teenagers together, we would have been good friends, I think.

Not too long ago he was lamenting that it has simply been too cold to have much success at finding these creatures. Although there is a frost warning for tonight, it has most certainly warmed up in the last week.

It is unfortunate he was not at my house yesterday afternoon. We could have done a bit of herping together and would not have had to go far to do it.

At about 1:15, I had said goodbye to a friend who came to eat with me on her lunch break and took the Mollynater for a walk. We got back a little before 2:00, and when I walked through the kitchen and reached out to turn on the light in the living room , I did a double-take and changed my mind (the brown square is the light switch).

This is not the first time I have found one of these on the counter. Fortunately, he was just checking things out and did not try to entice me to eat any forbidden fruit.

Unfortunately, when a photo opportunity like this presents itself, one doesn’t have time to dust and remove clutter and set up the subject so the perfect shot can be taken. Had I taken the chance of turning on the light so the color would be better, I am not sure he would have continued to sit there.

And on the off chance that anyone might be worried about the outcome...

the story has a happy ending for all concerned.