AH, and the pen is mightier that the stick.
This, then, is the cause of so much disruption in the house on the hill.
Imagine, if you will, meeting this thing early in the morning.
Enough to ruin your whole day.

And so I thought, as I do so many mornings when making the bed..........
why?
Why do I have to make the bed ? Why can I not be more like the long-ago boyfriend of Miss Alice who refused to make his bed because, as he said, it just gets messed up again when you go to bed.
Following this path of logic, a reasonable person might argue why wash your hands as they get dirty again, or why do the dishes as they get all messy again; but then I don't think he, the boyfriend, was a reasonable person, in fact not even a very intelligent person, in my estimation.
So why?
The one time I did not make my bed a friend of mine stopped by unexpectedly and said, loud and clear, that he had never ever seen my bed not made. Any explanation would have been redundant, so I just smiled and swore to myself that this would never, ever happen again.
And that is why I make my bed, first thing in the morning, fearing that some person might wish to visit and might see my bed unmade.
Since the first time, no-one has, but just in case.....
I make my bed. First thing.

When people ask me about the names of The Worthless Ones, I have to admit that they have none.
Always expecting that one day they might leave for a better home, I have refused to name them, making that the right of the new master or mistress.
Till now.
They are soon to be 5 years old, and chances of finding homes for them have dwindled to less than zero, so, I thought the other day, maybe now I ought to give them names.
The mother is named Priscilla, a pretty name for a mangy mutt, which gave me the idea to use the names of Jane Austen heroines for the names of the bunch.
I checked and I blanched.
We are talking names such as Eleanor, Marianne, Lizzie, Fanny, Emma, Catherine and Anne.
None of them in the least suitable for either of the mangy mutts.
I think I shall stick to : You...Hey You...You there...yeah you.
They don't listen anyhow.

This must be the punishment for sins committed in my youth.
The stick wielding chubby lady is back, and she has upped the ante.
This morning as she minced by my house wielding the stick, scaring the mutts to seek shelter and bark frantically, I stood guard at my front door, watching her progress.
When at a safe distance from the door, but close enough for me to hear her, she bent down and picked up a rock and said, loudly
Gringo Loco
I don't know whether she wanted to throw the rock at me or the mutts but the remark was most certainly for me; it translates to something like Crazy White Person.
So now I wonder what I did in my youth that was so heinous that I have to be punished this way.
What ?

And there she was again, the chubby lady armed with a stick and bad attitude and oozing malcontent.
She is now daring the mutts and me by walking as close to the house as she can, swishing the stick to defend her dubious virtue.
I stand in my door and follow her progress with a stern stare, and this morning at a safe distance, she flipped me the bird.
Not a nice way to start the day, but then, a bit later on, a beautiful bird flew into my house, got a bit concussed and when i finally caught it, to help it find its way out of the house, it grabbed hold of one of my fingers with its little feet and sat there, breathing fast, for a while till the breathing had slowed down when it took a mighty leap and flew away in to the jungle.
But it sat there, on my finger; and it was beautiful
and that made me realize, comparing that little bird and the sourpuss of a chubby lady,that the bird won, hands down.
More birds and fewer--way fewer--sour-faced ladies with bad attitudes, please.

When at the funeral of my mother the pastor asked if anybody wanted to say something, I wanted to but I did not, and for many reasons.
At this point in my life I am more comfortable speaking English, and addressing my family that way would be silly;
and my Danish would leave me open to much ridicule and pity, and I did not need that.
So I did not speak
but for many years, in quiet moments, I have gone over the remarks in my mind that I never got to say at the passing of my mother.
I know what I wanted to say and she, wherever she is, must know that by now.

And so I got a new fridge. A big fridge. An eighteen cubic footer. And white, like Moby Dick.
And with all the stuff transferred from "Little Leaky" and the freezer, it is still a pretty empty fridge.
I could have done with a much smaller version, I am but single.
I open the door and look into this pristine and empty interior of my new fridge, and wonder, what did I think?
Were I so traumatized by the "Little Leaky" fridge I had before that nothing but this hulking thing would do ?.
I keep buying things to fill this new thing, but I seem to fail. It still looks pretty empty.
Ah well.
At least it does not leak.....yet.

I am really such a wuss.
And why, you might ask, do I think I am a wuss ?
Well, the other day, when a former acquaintance of mine decided to steal my bag containing all my cards and cash, and I in fit of misappropriated machismo elected to chase him down the hill in my car and on return from this hapless venture stalled the vehicle and locked the steering wheel, and abandoned it there to the next day when James with brute force and luck, got the whole thing free and functioning.
And I was thrilled and grateful
till I had to go to town, and the thought , the mere idea that the car might do this stunt again--for surely it was the car, not I --gave me an upset stomach and a good excuse for no going. That day.
But today I ran out of excuses, and slowly and carefully I started the journey to town with lots of twitters in my stomach.
And it all went well.
Whatever happened before was a freakish happening
but I still had a whole colony of butterflies in my stomach when I drove to town and returned.
And that is why I am a wuss.

When Chuck and I first tried to mate my Schnauzer Frau,we chose to go to Renee and Joe, a lovely elderly couple in our neighborhood , the owners of the delightful Fritz, a male Schnauzer.
It did not work out and thinking that Frau might be too young, we decided to wait a while for the next try.
So when we showed up some years later,we had the the exquisitely bad timing of choosing the anniversary of the death of Joe.
So that did not work out either. In the end Frau never had a litter.
All that happened so many years ago, and I have not thought of Renee for as long, till last night when she suddenly appeared in my dream.
And with exquisite timing, on Chuck's birthday.

AHH, the follies of Mother Nature.
I was resting secure in the superior wisdom of Mary Ellen and her helpful hints, telling me not to clean my windows when it was sunny.
And then the clouds rolled in and we had a gray and sunless day.
So I could either pretend not to notice the hint from Mother Nature, or I could bow to her inimitable ways and clean the goldanged windows.
I chose the latter.
And I feel better about it, looking out of freshly cleaned if still a bit streaky windows.
Now for mopping the floors.
Nahh, maybe the next gray day, whenever that might be.
Mustn't overdo things.

I was checking my "Mary Ellen's Helpful Hints" about homemade window washing products, and right there, on the page listing ingredients for such a product she said:
Never wash windows on sunny days. They will dry too fast and show streaks.
YUUBI, I thought. Now I can legitimately put off this onerous task for oh, say a couple of months, til the rainy season, and then , what will be the point with all the rain....
SO many thanks to Mary Ellen and her helpful hints, they saved from doing this hateful job
at least until my inner houseproud person takes over. And that can be a while.