PURPLE CAT HAS A NEW HOME!

Purple Cat finally made it to my office.  I came in Saturday to do a little housekeeping and brought him with me.  I think he looks GREAT! 

Here is my desk from the doorway...  (Remember, that wall is 15 feet long, so you can see how big it is)

...and here is my bookshelf.  (can you find Gumby and Pokey?)

Yes, Purple Cat feels right at home with the Matisse...

...and the Picasso's...

...and the Rachel Campbell's!

I meant to show this picture earlier.  This is where you would sit if you were in my office.  I did not want you to think I didn't have chairs for people to sit in!  That would just be silly.

MURDER ON PENNYLANE

Weekend before last Rachel and I went to Petsmart and bought Sally and Spike some new toys.  As I have mentioned previously, Sally has actually gone insane this Winter.  She played with her mice and her feathers on a stick with the upmost vigor!  She acting like a true lioness!  Then, she went outside and killed something.  It was either a baby Squirrel or a big field mouse.  She deposited the head right by the carport door.  You can see the blood below....

 ...here, let me point it out to you using my handy dandy dust pan.  There was even blood on the leaf!

Rachel and I had stepped out to smoke.  I looked down and thought "Hey, that kind of looks like a head" and then I noticed the blood.  We went screaming back into the house and then out the back door to finish our ciggarettes. 

Rachel informed me that in no way was she going to touch the head to remove it from the smoking lounge.  So, I resolved myself to the fact that I would need to take care of it.  The funny thing is, it took about 3 hours to convince myself that the head was actually dead, and was not going anywhere, and that it was actually safe to scoop up and put in the garbage!  I would have Rachel go to the back door and check to see if it was still there.  I don't know what we were thinking!  I mean, a head can't really regenerate the rest of its body, can it? 

Ahhh, good times!

SFT - OLD FRIENDS

 As I have mentioned before, I am so fortunate to have a group of old friends that I love to spend time with.  And when I say old I am talking about knowing them for over 25 years.  We had a wonderful time at Big D and Triple T's house Saturday night.

List of Characters:
Big D            Triple T
BJ                 BLT
Marky Mark and The Funky Bunch
Mini Mark    TCW
Jimaymay      Rayray
Punkin           Jack
Lizbet           Marsha Marsha Marsha (really, her name is Martha, and she is a new friend)

There was good food.  There was good wine.  There were good stories revisited.  There were tears.  There was laughter.  There were tears of laughter.  (getting confused on when to use "were" and when to use "was")  And there were my two favorite Guitar Heroes - Big D and Mini Mark!

Here's to Good Times and Old Friends!  Hope you all are as blessed as I am!

USELESS INFO TUESDAY

 ~  Chopped onions, bell peppers, and celery are considered the "holy trinity" of Louisiana's Cajun and Creole cuisines.

~  Ian Fleming, creator of fictional super spy James Bond (Agent 007), was known as Agent 17F when he spied for British Naval Intelligence during World War II.

 ~  Name the eight ducklings in the children's book "Make Way for Ducklings" - Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Oack, Pack, and Quack.  Their last name is Mallard. (I used to read this to Rachel)

 ~  North Dakota was the last of the 50 states to become home to a commercial winery (in 2002).

~  When they walk, the feet of all four-legged animals normally hit the ground left rear leg first, followed by left foreleg, right rear leg, then right foreleg.

FLASHBACK FRIDAY

I loved "In Living Color" in the early 1990's.  I used to laugh my A** off watching this.  I turned Rachel and Josh onto Wanda before Christmas.  Rachel then bought me all 5 seasons on DVD.  We have had a blast watching these...

 Wanda made me laugh the most

 Loving me some Blaine Edwards and Antoine Marryweather as "Men on Film"...

Start for Jim Carrey seen here as Fire Marshall Bill...

Homey the clown was so cruel, but you had to love him - "Downt wit the estblishmnt"

If you need a laugh, look up some old clips on youtube.  Don't forget the one where the Wayan's sister does Oprah!  Hilarious!

SOUTHERN FRIED THURSDAY

I love my Mema.  As I mentioned a few weeks back, sometimes I think of her and it makes me feel all good inside.  We had a certain bond.  I was her youngest grandchild, and the only daughter to her baby boy.  Both of our birthdays were in February - her's 02/10/1900 and mine 02/05/1969 - so we were born under the same sign.  She never learned to drive and only went to school through the 9th grade.  She lived a humble life, and was one of the sweetest ladies I have ever known.  She didn't cook much in her older years.  But the things I do remember eating with her bring back fond memories....

 ...whenever my family went on vacation (like the rest of you - 98% of the time to the beach in Florida) we would stop by her house on Yancy Avenue in Montgomery to pick up a chocolate chip cookies she had baked for us.  She must have made 4 batches because it was always an upside down Tupperware cake storage full of cookies!

She love her instant grits for breakfast!  I still get these during the winter.  They are kinda gross but I love them because I can still see myself sitting at her Formica table eating a bowl with her.

 One of the last meals she would still prepare was salmon croquettes. (not patties, now, but croquettes - everyone in my family still refers to them as croquettes)  She ate hers with ketchup on them, and she always served Kraft Macaroni and Cheese from the box when she had them.  Funny, now I couldn't think of eating croquettes with it!

But my favorite place to eat with Mema was McDonalds!  She always, always, always got the fish sandwich and a vanilla milk shake.  We would walk about 5 blocks from her house to this little section of neighborhood that had a McDonalds, a grocery store (where Aunt Louise was the manager) and a post office.  We would eat, buy stamps, get a few groceries and then head back to her house.  Her little house on Yancy Avenue with no cable TV, a furnace in the floor for heat, one bathroom with no shower, one window unit air conditioner that you could talk into and make your voice sound funny, filled with lots of love.

Ah, the good old days...

My Poor Friend...

...can never seem to get an idiom right!  I love her to death, but for years I have been going behind her and cleaning up her paraphrasing messes, whether it be in email, blog form, or in person.  Thought I would share some with you...

"Put a sock on it" - in it
"Don't toot your on whistle" - you toot a horn, you blow a whistle
"You live some you die some" - its win some loose some
"Don't look a gift horse in the eyes" - mouth
"That's par to the course" - for the course

I just laugh thinking about her saying these things!  Shout out to - - - - -!  (You know who you are!  Love!)

USELESS INFO TUESDAY

PLEASE, JUST PRETEND IT IS TUESDAY...

 ~  Goat is the most widely consumed red meat in the world.  An estimated 63% of the red meat consumed worldwide is goat meat.

 ~  In 1976, Issac Newton was pictured in the very first Apple Computer logo.  The logo, showing Newton sitting under an apple tree, was used for the Apple I computer.  It was almost immediately replaced with a rainbow-colored apple with a bite taken out of it.

 ~  At negative 40 degrees, the temperature readings on both Fahrenheit and Celsius thermometers are exactly the same.

~  According to culinary legend, tortellini pasta was inspired by the belly button of the Roman goddess Venus. (kind of gross)

~  The great white shark has the strongest bite of any known living creature.  Its powerful jaws can snap shut with the force of two tons.

Thanks to Rayray for my 2011 Useless Trivia Calendar!

JUST PRETEND THAT I AM NOT HERE...

...because I have absolutely nothing worth blogging about today, or nothing I feel like blogging about today.  Motivated....not. 

The most exciting thing I did this weekend was go see Black Swan with Rachel.  It was pretty freaky!  (which of course means )I liked it!  Other than that, it was a pretty lazy weekend.  Lot's of TV watching, book reading, sleeping, eating...typical weekend at our house.

Sally committed a crime on Saturday night, but I want to blog about that with pictures later in the week.

SOUTHERN FROZEN THURSDAY

Here is what my yard looked like when I woke up Monday!

 Back yard and field...

 Rayray's poor car...

Looking down toward 1709...

It was beautiful, but I am ready for it to go away!

In case you didn't hear...

...Just making sure my readers are informed...

USELESS INFO TUESDAY....

...on Wednesday, because of snow, and because I want to, and because this is my blog...

 ~  Merv Griffin's gravestone includes the tongue-in-cheek quip, "I will not be right back after this message."

~  OreIda combines the first 3 letters of two states - Oregon and Idaho.  The name was chosen in 1952, when the company was formed, because it had a processing plant in eastern Oregon near the Idaho border.

...Speaking of Oregon, did you know they lost the National Championship Game on Monday night?  Just asking...

~  (Can't stand her, hence the hideous picture) In 1990 Sinead O'Conner achieved two Grammy firsts with her album "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" - She was the first winner of a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Performance and was the first artist to decline a coveted Grammy award. (We see how far that got her)

FLASHBACK FRIDAY

Remember Jabberjaw?  Loved it!  Jabberjaw, Biff, Shelly, Bubbles and Clamhead made up the rock group "The Neptunes."  Oh, to be young again...

"Jabberjaw and the Neptunes live in an underwater civilization in the year 2076.  They travelt o various underwater cities where they encounter and deal with diabolical villains who want to conquer the undersea world."

Have a Great Weekend!  War Eagle!

SOUTHERN FRIED THURSDAY

Do you think it is strange that I consider myself (and take pride in being) a true Southerner, and yet...

 ...I don't like banana pudding...

 ...my favorite comfort food is egg drop soup...

 ...I prefer my iced tea unsweet...

...and I don't put hot sauce in my greens?  Hummm...

CHRISTMAS ON PENNYLANE

As I mentioned yesterday, Christmas 2010 brought many surprises, some of them not good!  But, one surprise that was good was waking up to a WHITE CHRISTMAS!  I don't think I have ever had a white Christmas.  If I have, it was not in Decatur.  The last one on record was in 1964...

 ...our Crazy little house on Pennylane...

 ...Josh building a snowman...

 ...his name was Jeffrey.  He had a celery nose (no carrots) and Hershey nuggets for eyes!

Thanks Rachel and Josh for making the parts of Christmas I could enjoy very happy and fun!  Love.

USELESS INFO TUESDAY

 ~  The original name for the cheerful Alka-Seltzer mascot who has a tablet body and hat was Sparky.  Soon after he was created in 1951, his name changed to Speedy to reinforce manufacturer Bayer's promise of speedy relief.

 ~  Benjamin Franklin wrote and published a "letter of advice" on the subject of choosing a mistress in 1745.

 ~  PSI trailing is the uncanny ability of a cat, dog, or other pet to find its owner in an unknown distant location or from an unfamiliar place.  PSI stands for psychic.

 ~  Polar bears who wander into the town of Churchhill in Manitoba, Canada when the ice covering the nearby Hudson Bay thaws are held captive in the jail of a former military base.  Up to 23 bears at a time can be held until winter, when they are airlifted to the newly iced-over bay.

~  The Flash (January 1940) was the first comic book hero to acquire superpowers as the result of a lab accident.  He was a college student who became capable of super speed after inhaling "hard water" fumes during a lab mishap.

I'M BACK!

Well, so much for a healthy and relaxing Holiday!  I was still sick until yesterday, and Mom spent 5 days in the hospital with an e coli infection in her colon!  Fun fun!  This was sure a Christmas to remember...not in a good way.  Hope you all enjoyed yours.