Now this does make you wonder...
the other day for no reason that I know of, I thought back on a time when I was taking millinery lessons from a designer who lived in my neighborhood in Seattle.
Across the street from where I took my lessons lived some good friends of mine as well, so it all became a nice memory trip back to the days in Seattle.
Here is where the wondering comes in.
Today I received a mail from one of the guys from the house across the street, who had run into Sara at the opera and gotten my address...
what are the odds of this ? me thinking about those guys and they--he--responding.
There is so much we don't know and don't understand.
Now if I think really hard about.....who?
I'll save that for when I really need something good to happen.

I have been painting my kitchen and I have discovered that unless you are super careful
--and I am not
you will end up with stains on your clothing.
Now I can add to my collection of t-shirts with rodent holes the latest
the paint stained t-shirts.
Such a fashionista I am.

When I lived in New York I sported, according to the times, rather longish hair.
At one point I also sported a rakish goatee---I have one now, but it is neither rakish nor new, merely hiding sagging chin and wrinkles--and so, when once I was negotiating for some wonderful plates of costumes in a small and out-of-the-way bookstore in the east village, the woman I was dealing with stopped short, looked at me and let out a yell, screaming:
Herman, will you come here, right now. This guy looks just like Jesus Christ.
I got my plates.
And she got the thrill of seeing someone she thought looked like J.C.
A win win situation.

I normally feed the mutts around four in the afternoon...like a late lunch or an early dinner...and giving them time to digest their food before the all important nap through the night.
And I sort of got into the habit of pouring myself a glass of wine watching the mutts scuffle down their kibbles.
Now, due to the cold weather ( for us ) the mutts are demanding their dinner earlier and I have complied.
I have also poured myself the first glass of wine earlier, watching the mutts scuffle down their kibbles.
So I want everybody to know that this is a nice thing done by the mutts. A very nice thing indeed.
I don't feel guilty starting drinking this early because the mutts made me do it.
See ?

One of the bonuses of baking, aside form the fact that you get freshly baked whatever, is the smell.
Few things are as comforting as the delicious smells emanating from the oven when you are baking, unless of course you have rodents nesting in and below the stove.
I do.
So the other day when I was expecting sweet scented airs from my apple galette in the oven, I got the nasty smell of roasted rodent nests and rodent kaka, and I swore yet again that I would do something about the problem. Something. Soon.
It didn't, I am happy to report, interfere with the taste of the galette but it did deprive me of the joy of smelling baking apples in the oven.
This is war now.
No more rodents in the oven. Basta.

To A dead Chachalaca

The Chachalaca is a turkey looking bird who, when in company with other chachalacas will make the most goshawful racket, and many times I have been mildly annoyed at them for having a party in a tree close to the house.
Noisy buggers, they.
When checking on the car in the garage, I found a very dead and torn up chachalaca and I felt a bit of remorse for my bad thoughts.
Some nocturnal predator had caught this bird and done a messy job of getting to its vitals with feathers scattered far and wide. One sad and torn up bird which I threw into the jungle, feathers and all.
Next day all that was left was a few of the feathers.
Now I am listening for the chatter of the chachalacas, wanting to hear that they have not given up on me and my surrounding trees.
So far nothing.

They did it again.
I was gone for a while, getting a new supply of dog food and when I returned I found that one of the mutts had thrown up on my bed. Again.
Big deal, you might say. Clean it up and be done with this, you might day.
And that would be the case if it had not been sitting on my bed for hours, seeping through the cover to the blanket to the top sheet to the bottom sheet to the mattress cover and ultimately to the mattress.
A mess.
And so I hauled all the sheets and blanket and cover off the bed and out in the sun to dry, only I was not about to wrestle the mattress out, so it had to dry out all by itself, inside.
Why, I wonder, do the mutts do this to me?
I am fighting my way in hideous traffic to get to the store to buy them food, and the reward is this.
Some thanks.
I long for the days of the Schnauzers and my beloved Scottie.
They never did this.
Never.
They might have chewed up some books and such things, but they never threw up on my bed.
There. Breeding will tell.