playing with the earth....

Mr Elk who lives over at the Sheridan Wildlife park

A big, fat happy Thursday to everyone! Gosh, I can’t believe we are almost at the end of another week! I could swear I was just sitting here a minute ago talking about last weekend.  They say as you get older the time goes faster but sometimes, it’s a little ridiculous.  I was talking to some neighbor kids yesterday as they passed by on their way home from school, asking them about Easter break and they were telling me that Easter wasn’t until April 8^th and that they just didn’t know if they could make it that long!  I remember back when I was that age(the kids are around 7-8), holidays seemed to take forever to get here. Now, I’ve already starting planning for next Christmas because I know that sucker is gonna sneak up on me in a month if I’m not careful!

Anyway, I ‘m doing great this morning, as Tony the Tiger would say!  Whatever that weirdness I had the other day is all gone and I’m back to my old self, whew!  I’m still trying to figure out exactly what got into me Tuesday, if for no other reason than to avoid it again in the future.  After talking to a bunch of people, it seems it was a weird day all around.  I guess, though, you have to have a bad day every once in a while to remind you what good days feel like.

Yesterday morning, I finally got to try out a new exercise video that I’ve been waiting for in the mail.  I just absolutely love it!  Can you hear the singing in my voice?  I just have to share it with you in case you are like me and secretly hate all the exercise stuff you do.  I mean, I love my yoga, but really, all the other stuff I do, I do because I have to. This new dvd I got, I just happened to stumble on while reading my favorite online yoga magazine called the “Elephant Journal”.  If you’ve never run across the journal, I highly recommend it.  I’ve been reading it for years and it’s chocked full of all kinds of neat stuff.  They seem to be always ahead of things in their articles.  Anyway, this dvd is about a concept in exercise called “Nia”.  Evidently, it’s been around since 1983 but I had never heard of it.

Nia is a “love your body workout”, an expressive movement practice that results in holistic fitness, personal growth and lifestyle change for your body, mind and spirit, according to the jacket.  It takes its concepts and dance movements from India. It is really just the coolest thing I’ve done in quite a while.  Instead of making you follow certain steps, it’s more of a free form, flowing thing where the instructors just “guide” you with what to do with your body.  There’s a lot of swaying and shaking and dipping and just plain old free form dancing you do with this.  At the end, instead of a “cool down exercise” on the floor, they do what’s called “playing with the earth”. You get down on the floor and just move around however you want, stretching what feels good, rolling around, etc.  I have never been good at instructional stuff.  I really suck at things like step classes where you have to know a certain routine or those choreographed cardio classes.  This one, though, you just go to the beat of your own drum.  I gotta tell you, at the end of the video, I was sweating like a big dog!  Since the dvd encourages you to do your own thing, you can’t get bored with it, either, which is another of my problems. Best of all, it’s 120 minutes, so you can do as little or as much as you have time for each day!  I found myself “Nia dancing” the whole rest of the day, too…just floating through my day! In case you look it up, I found it at www.nianow.com and the best dvd to start with is called “Global Unity”.  Interesting name for an exercise video, eh?

After exercising, I had to stop in on my good friends, Jim and Karen, because I saw from a post by their daughter on FB that they lost their dear dog, Rex, the other morning.  Rex was an awesome older dog but he’s been having health problems for a while now.  He had just been diagnosed with hepatitis right after they returned from their vacation a few weeks ago and it was touch and go, even then.  His poor lungs filled up with fluid and just as they were trying to make that awful decision of whether to take him to the vet to let him out of his misery, he took the decision out of their hands.  We had a nice big, wet, hugging session together and I spent most of the morning with them. Duchess, their other dog, looks very bewildered as I don’t think she’s ever been without Rex, either.  While they were on vacation, Rob and I had been out on one of our full moon photo shoots in the wee hours of the morning and he got a beautiful shot of the full moon in the dark behind the motel and cabins that they own. I brought that to them yesterday and they really liked it.  You can even see stars really bright in the photo.  Karen says she’s going to hang it in the motel office.  They have quite a few of Rob’s photos adorning the walls of their cabins for the guests.

Yesterday afternoon was another run to Sheridan for more of my blasted prescriptions and to pick up a few groceries.  It was such a glorious day, though, the mountains were shining and reflecting the sun so brightly the whole way there.  I really don’t mind that drive most of the time because of the gorgeous scenery.  We joke around here that we could do our nails or write a letter on I-90 while we’re driving because of the lack of traffic, too.  The only time it gets busy is in the middle of summer when all the RV’s and traveling tourists are in the area.  The rest of the time, if I run into 6 or 7 cars the whole 35 miles, that’s a lot.  Sure not like the rest of I-90, eh? With the 75 mph speed limit, it only takes me about 20-25 minutes to get to Sheridan.  Not much different than going 5 miles back east in traffic. Of course, yesterday, all the fields were filled with brand new calves, bucking their little legs all over the place.  Gosh, those new little guys just make me smile! One sad note, the eagles seem to have left for the year, again.  Usually, in winter, I see lots of baldies on the drive but yesterday, I didn’t see a single one.  Every time I thought I did, it was a hawk or a raven.  So funny, I went to a high school back east called Loch Raven and never saw a raven, here they are like robins, you see them everywhere! They sure are big fellers, too!

Mtn Plains Heritage park at sunrise

Today’s a pretty easy day, so far.  I’ve got my usual tanning this morning after I do my Nia workout.  I think Thistle and I will see what trail looks interesting for hiking this afternoon.  If the wind is cooperative, I think we’ll head over to Mtn Plains Heritage Park.  The mountains are still really covered in snow from that dump and cold spell we had the other day so I’m better off out on the plains.  The trail over there has one of the best views of town and the mountains.

I hope you have a lovely day planned and if you are stuck in an office or something, you can make your own haven in your mind, at least.  Friday’s coming fast!!

stranger than friction....

The Waxwings are back!!

How is everyone today?  I hope you are doing well!  I had the strangest day (for me) yesterday and I’m still trying to put some sense into it.  You ever have one of the days where everything goes just a little wonky and you can’t put your finger on why? It’s almost like the Creator sticks his thumb on your life and makes it tilt in a direction you don’t want. I had a day like that yesterday.

Everything started off just fine.  Rob and I had a nice chat in the morning before he went to work, excitedly talking about all sorts of upcoming things.  I got my exercise in for the day before I went to see Carmen for my massage because I wanted to make sure that if I was gonna pull a muscle during my routine, I should do it BEFORE I saw her, right?  Well, that all went smoothly, no surprises there.

At Carmen’s we decided to start on my legs this time, after I explained to her about Joey working on my shoulders and giving me all those exercises to help strengthen those little muscles.  Gosh, Carmen has magic hands, she really got my legs all straightened out!  It was toward the end of our session and Carmen was doing some energy work on me and that’s when  all the weirdness started happening.  She was concentrating on one side of me and we could both feel the energy flowing and then all of a sudden, Carmen’s hands flew off me!  She asked me if I felt something unusual and I said yes, it felt different from the other side.  She told me that I had some built up anger somewhere and she was feeling it really strongly! So, after a few minutes discussion about what it might be, she went back and said it seemed to be better just by me acknowledging it.  So, we finished up the session and I was feeling pretty darn good, even humming to myself as I went back to the car.

But, for some reason, for the rest of the morning, I couldn’t get warm.  You ever have one of those days?  The weather was starting to moderate back into the 50’s and the sun was shining, but no matter what I did, I felt cold.  I actually started thinking I was coming down with something.  Shortly after that, Rob called and asked if I’d like to go to Pizza Hut for lunch.  Now, I love going there because I’m a salad freak and they have a great salad.  We always go early, before they let the kids from the high school out for lunch at noon, as they are like a swarm of bees on the pizza buffet!  Well, we got there at 11:15 and they must have changed the schedule for the kids because it was packed with the little munchers!  Poor Rob, every time they’d bring out a pizza, those kids would swarm it and there’d be nothing left but the pan.  Finally, they got enough and Rob was able to get his pizza.  I’m glad I don’t eat that stuff, apparently salad is not high on the adolescent hit list as there was no fight for the lettuce!

Eating lunch did nothing to stoke my inner fire, I just got to feeling even colder. As Rob was dropping me off back at the house, friend Ginnie called and asked me if I’d like to take a drive in her fun little beater truck (not her regular vehicle) out to Klondike Ranch to see how all the baby calves were doing.  I explained that I was really cold and I just didn’t think riding in that little truck was sounding like a fun time at the moment.  She suggested I try warming up in my little portable infrared sauna, which, of course, I hadn’t even thought of.  So, that’s exactly what I did.  That did help warm me up as the sauna gets up to 130 degrees.  But the minute I got out of it, I was cold again. So, I grabbed my blanket and snuggled into my recliner and took a nice nap for most of the afternoon.

When I woke up at around 4 p.m., having had almost a three hour nap, I actually felt worse than when I went to sleep.  Rut ro, I kept thinking to myself, I must be coming down with something! Not only that, I felt angry!  You ever do that?  Just wake up mad? Now, I’ve done that on occasion, but I usually have a good reason.  Yesterday, however, I had no reason whatsoever to be feeling that way.  Playing with Thistle didn’t help, either.  It was almost like someone else had taken over, like it wasn’t me.  Rob came home and I told him that I was feeling this way and that I apologize in advance for any curt remarks I might make.  Of course, everything continued to conspire against me for the evening, even! 

I had just cleaned the barbeque grill last week so I decided to make Rob a nice ribeye on the grill for dinner.  I went out and preheated the grill and came back 15 minutes later and the temp had only gone up to 300 degrees.  What?  We fiddled and looked and fiddled some more, the gas was fine, full as a tick, the jets were clear…. Ugh!  I ended up having to finish his steak on the stove, which just added to my lovely mood! Rob likes his steak well done so I practically have to ruin a pan if I do it inside.  So, we got through dinner (mine was leftover Chinese veggies from the weekend) despite all the crap I had to go through. 

So, for the rest of the evening, I just sat and did Reiki on myself while Rob and I watched television and he went back and forth to work on websites during commercials.  Rob was very understanding about my mood, although puzzled.  You see, I’m a really happy person and this just wasn’t like me.

We finally went to bed and I was sure that this was the end of a bad day, just chalk this one up for the record books.  No, not so fast, lady!  About 1:30 this morning, dear little Thistle decided to hork on the bed!  THAT was the crowning of the long day!  Not only that, but as I was going to get a towel to clean it up, I returned and she was eating it! Yuck, yuck, yuck!!! She’s fine, of course.  Dogs hork like we cough, unfortunately.  I had just washed the bedspread this weekend, of course and will now have to do it again.

Thistle the horker

So, I’m hoping that I’m over whatever that was yesterday.  I feel fine this morning.  I don’t feel angry or sad or anything. I actually woke up with a song in my head again, so that’s good.  I have no idea what could have triggered all that meaness in me.  I’m just glad I recognized it and stayed away from people.

Today is supposed to be gorgeous weather again.  I think first thing, Thistle and I are going to go for a nice long walk and drop in on some friends down the street on our way back.  Just in case I have any lingering madness, that should push it right out the backdoor of my brain, right?  Whew, maybe I was just making way for spring, clearing out the cobwebs of winter, I don’t know.  Thanks for listening……Let’s all have an awesome day, shall we?

Spring equinox....

Spring Sunrise!

Good morning, my fine friends!  Today is the Spring equinox!  Most of you are probably thinking it’s a day early as it usually falls on March 21^st and you’d be right.  This year, thanks to it being a leap year, it falls early on March 20^th, instead.  I’m practically giddy that we can now say it’s spring!  Yesterday was quite a wild weather day here in old Buffalo, I tell ya.  It started off a bit gloomy and then began spitting a mixture of rain and snow, which later turned to all snow throughout the day.  It was that big, fluffy, wet spring snow that blanketed the lawns and the mountains but really didn’t mess up the streets much at all. I persevered and wore Capri pants, despite the darn snow. I don’t think my sneakers appreciated it but, oh well! I did have to break down and light the woodstove yesterday to get the chill out of the house

So, we got through yesterday’s messy weather and today we’re supposed to start seeing major improvement again.  I told you that snow yesterday was just to soak the manure in the garden and that’s just what it did.  Well, it also left a beautiful white covering on the mountain foothills. That will probably be gone by this afternoon as it’s supposed to get back up into the high 50’s, at least. 

I had a great session with Joey, my physical therapist, yesterday. He gave me some new exercises to help strengthen my neck some more and praised me on doing the ones he had already showed me.  One of the things we concentrated on was proper form for the exercising I already do at home.  Seems I have been doing a little bad posturing when swinging my kettlebell around and he thinks that may be contributing to some of my neck pain. So, all in all, it was very productive.  After I left him, I went home and tried out all the stuff he taught me, while trying to keep Thistle from getting in the way.  She was a bit riled up yesterday as it was just too soupy out to go for a walk and it never got above 35 degrees.  So, there was a lot of house playing going on for us, instead.

Today, I have my bi-weekly appointment with Carmen at Spirited Hands Massage.  I think that we may actually get past my shoulders this time, thanks to Joey! For the first time in a long time, I don’t have massive knots in my shoulders that usually take up our entire hour. Maybe we can actually work on my hips and legs today.

Yesterday I also stopped off at Artful Hands, which is an art and consignment store downtown and dropped off two huge bags of spring and summer clothes I no longer wear.  I did that thing this past year where you put all your hangers in the opposite direction and if you don’t wear it for a year…get rid of it.  I have to confess I am a clothes horse but I am a frugal one.  I just love shopping second hand, it’s sort of a game for me.  Artful Hands lets me just use whatever I’ve made there as a credit and I just love that, so I came home with 5 new tops.  Now that’s what I call recycling! I have lost a lot of weight over the winter so it was fun to get some new clothes. I swear, I can’t figure it out, though.  I weigh less now than I ever did in high school but it sure doesn’t sit the same way, no matter how much I exercise.  I used to have a great hourglass figure, now I have almost no butt to speak of.

Anyway, there’s not much going on around here today.  That’s a good thing, I guess, all in all. I have to get my rear over to Sheridan at some point this week to pick up my prescriptions but I’m putting it off as long as I can.  I guess if nothing pops up this afternoon, I’ll pile Miss Thistle in the car and we’ll shoot over there.  It never fails that those darn rx’s are ready right after I’ve been over there.  I have them on auto refill and of course, never keep track.

I’ve been messaging back and forth with my Aunt Becca about the trip to go see them for my birthday.  We’re all so excited that we get to see each other!  Becca is a long distance owner/operator trucker with her husband and we’ve seen each other twice (very briefly) when they’ve come through Buffalo on their runs but we haven’t had a good visit in ages.  As you can imagine, we are getting a little giddy about the prospect of spending some real quality time together.  Becca is also a writer and a darn good one. I adore her husband, as well.  I haven’t seen her boys since they were quite young, although I am friends with them on facebook.  Both seem to have turned into quite intelligent young men.  Mack, her older son, will have moved to NC by the time we get there, so I probably won’t see him but Zander is still living at home and I look forward to talking with him.  He’s become quite the prolific poet.

Western Tananger - saw one of these guys yesterday!

Well, I won’t bore you any further today.  I’m going to go hit the coffeepot and see what mischief I can get into before Rob gets up.  Have a beautiful day, today.  We made it to the official first day of Spring!

Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love! ~Sitting Bull

monday is popping up again!

Oh my, Monday sure came around quick again! Good morning, everyone!  I hope you had a lovely, productive weekend, as Rob and I surely did.  Stepping out on the back deck this morning for my greeting to the mountains, I caught a good whiff of the lovely, fresh manure Rob blanketed on the garden yesterday.  That’ll sure get your senses going in the morning! It took Rob yesterday and last Sunday to get enough to cover the whole thing, our veggie garden being the size that it is.  Today we’re supposed to have a mix of rain and snow and that will be just perfect to get that manure soaking into the garden.

We actually have kale coming up already in the garden, too. Rob says there should be some ready for eating in a few weeks! I just love that stuff and it’s so good for you. I used to hate it when I was a kid as they used to serve it in elementary school in the South but I learned that the reason I disliked it so much was that they chopped it up, stems and all when cooking it.  You have to remove the bitter stems and it tastes just like spinach, only it doesn’t get all mushy like spinach does. Now, it’s a staple in our house when it’s growing, which is all but the depths of winter.  It’s actually a perennial vegetable!  The first year we planted it, we did a whole row and Lordy, that was way too much! I found out that year that not too many people had ever eaten it, only seeing it as garnish in restaurants.  But, that was the year I found out you can grind it up and freeze it (I hate to waste food) and I found this awesome recipe for Kale pesto that I used the ground kale for.  I hope the cops never look in my freezer, because it looks funny with all the baggies of ground kale in there! They’d be in for a surprise when they got it down to their lab and opened it and smelled the distinct odor of garlic emanating from the baggies! I’ve already had a few friends do a double take when looking for something in my big freezer.

The garden last year!

Anyway, as you can tell, I’m starting to get really excited about spring.  We are supposed to have just today and tomorrow that’s a little nasty and then we’re to return to the glory of 60’s and 70’s for the remainder of the 10 day forecast.  Since we cleared the front gardens, things are really sprouting now, I guess they just needed a little sunshine to get motivated.  Last year, we had hollyhocks mysteriously appear in our garden and this year, I’ve been having to pull little ones all over the place.  Don’t get me wrong, I really like them but they need to stay in the back of the garden if they want to stay!  Hollyhocks are very pretty but they are an invasive plant and will take over your garden. Not only that, they get about 8 feet tall.

Today is my usual tanning day.  That’s first thing this morning, after which I’m going to have to stop by Gin’s house and see how the festivities out at the Lake turned out over the weekend. This afternoon, I have my second physical therapy appointment with Joey about my neck.  I have been faithfully doing the exercises he showed me how to do and by gosh, I think they are really helping!  He’s had me doing very subtle exercises where you push very lightly on the front, back and sides of your head, just enough to exert pressure, to strengthen the deeper muscles of your neck.  He says we use the big muscles to hold up our heads instead of these smaller ones and those are the ones I need to strengthen.  I feel a little like Mr. Spock when I do them, because you only use two fingers and I’m glad no one’s around when I’m doing them. But, heck, whatever works, right?

The other big thing Rob and I did over the weekend was to plan our trip to see my relatives in Alabama in May.  It was supposed to be for a memorial for my Great Aunt Becky, which we are still planning to do in a fashion, but it’s not looking like her daughters will be joining us.  I am really excited about this trip as I haven’t seen some of my family in decades.  I think the last time I was in Alabama was 1993, when my mom and I did a trek through the south, researching and looking up family records and dropping in on family.  That was also the year my birth father died and I just happened to be a state away and was able to be with him to say goodbye in North Carolina.  So, this is gonna be a lot of fun!  We are going to stop in on our friends, Denny and Paula, who live in Oklahoma on the way down and back, as well.  They used to own one of the motels here in Buffalo and they still come back frequently for visits as they have property over in the Black Hills of South Dakota. We arranged the trip so that I’ll be spending my birthday with my aunt and uncle in Huntsville!  Becca, my aunt, is working on getting my uncle Kip and my cousin, Chuck, to maybe drop in while I’m there, too.  Kip lives in Georgia and Chuck lives in North Carolina.  It’s been so long since I’ve seen Chuck, I don’t think I’ve ever met his son, Chip, who I believe is in his middle 20’s, at least. Kip had come for a visit with his family back when we lived in Manchester, but his boys were very young at the time.

Visit to Denny and Paula's a couple of years ago, Paula is the redhead.

It’s crazy how far apart families can get as we are trying to sort out our own lives.  Becca, Kip and I were pretty darn close when we were little kids, as we are close in age. I think I told you my grandparents had two sets of kids, practically.  When my mom and Uncle Charlie were practically old enough to leave home ( well, mom was 15, and Charlie was older), Nana had Becca and Kip.  Just a couple of years later, at age 20, Mom had me.  So, Becca is only 6 years older than me and the same age as Rob and Kip is 4 years older than me.  Then, when Mom decided to move from California to Maryland, we moved in with my Uncle Charlie and Aunt Dot in Kingville, MD for almost a year until we got our own place, so Chuck, Rick and I were pretty close for a while, too. I doubt that Rick will be able to make the trip to Alabama as he lives in MD, still, but we’re going to be there in August for my mom’s 75^th birthday, so hopefully, I’ll see him and his family then.

Being an only child, these offshoots of my family are very important to me.  Sometimes, I regret not keeping closer in touch over the years, we all do.  But, life got in the way and I’m just happy we’re all getting back in touch with each other now. They all have great kids and have been busy raising them and now, we have all raised our children into fine young adults and it’s time to reconnect! I have a feeling there won’t be much sleeping going on in the Burke house while I’m there, as we have so much story telling to do and catching up will be our highest priority.  Can you tell I’m excited?

Well, it’s Monday and there’s lots to be done before I head out into the town to do my errands.  I hope you have a wonderful day planned, too!

sweeeet Sunday!

Melody's Great Dane in his "Security" shirt, ready to patrol the Moose!

Good Sunday morning to all!  I hope you enjoyed your day, yesterday!  It was just glorious here in Buffalo, let me tell you.  Rob and I spent as much time as we could outside after I fixed him a lovely Irish breakfast of corned beef hash and scrambled eggs.  Personally, the only way I like corned beef hash is the way my mom used to make it when I was little and we’d have it for dinner on occasion.  She’d bake it in a highly heated oven, in which she’d made indentations in the hash and would put raw eggs in those spots.  After it baked, you’d have what looked like fried eggs sitting in the corned beef.  Rob does not like egg whites so I wasn’t able to do this yesterday.

After filling his tummy with a good breakfast, we went outside to continue our clearing of last years’ debris from the front flower garden.  Man, just about everything is coming up already! It was so awesome to see all the little green tentacles of plants pushing up in the soil!  We raked up about 4 huge bags of leaves that had accumulated and got the garden looking pretty spiffy! It looks like this year, we may only need a small amount of allysium and maybe a few salvia to fill in a few spots and we’ll be set!  Last year, we had a very overcrowded garden and a lot of the flowers got lost in the madness.  The only things I really have to put in are our dinner plate Dahlias and the new sapphire blue Eryngium I just ordered.  These are both bulbs that I have to dig up in the fall to keep them from freezing over the winter. 

We headed down to the Moose Lodge at noon for some fine corned beef and cabbage that Terry A. made for the lodge.  She cooked it in a combo of white wine and beer and it was just awesome.  I made six loaves of Irish Soda bread that came out pretty good to contribute to the meal.  It’s weird, I made 3 of the loaves on Friday and they came out dense and wonderfully chewy and then I made 3 more loaves yesterday morning and they came out kinda light and crumbly.  Must have been the difference in the weather on the two days!  Other people brought Irish black-eyed peas and lots and lots of desserts!  There were a lot of people there that we only see when there’s free food, so there was a lot of conversation had before we headed back to the house to continue our chores.

The wind had picked up something fierce when we got back home so that was the end of our outside work for the day.  While it was still warm, it was useless to try to rake leaves in the gales that were swirling around.  Now, if you are a WY resident, you know the winds always herald a change in weather.  It’s supposed to be nice today but believe it or not, we are expecting snow tomorrow!  That won’t last, though, the weatherman says it will return to the 60’s again later in the week.  Good thing I didn’t move my winter clothes too far into the depths of my closet! Of course, I’ve learned in the many years of living here to keep all kinds of clothing at the ready all throughout the year!

Rob has been swamped with web work so that’s what he concentrated on for the rest of the day. I mostly piddled around with Thistle.  She’s gotten into this annoying habit of digging in the back yard, so I spent most of the rest of the afternoon refilling holes.  It worries me because she digs pretty deep and I’m afraid she’s gonna break something if she scampering around back there at full speed and hits one of her own holes with her legs.  At least she stays away from the fence, though, preferring to dig right out in the middle of the darn yard.

I went back down to the Moose at 5 pm to listen to my friend, Melody, play her guitar.  Rob decided that was the perfect time for him and Thistle to take a nice nap. Boy, the Moose was seriously hopping by that time.  Green everywhere!!  Some of my besties were there, getting tuned up to go to the Lake Stop for the evening festivities they were having out there.  At least they had the sense to get a room for the night so I don’t have to worry about them driving back into town in the middle of the night.  The Lake Stop had the Jackdanny band, who is just awesome, playing out there last night.  I’m positive the girls had a really good time!  I’m sure I’ll hear all about it sometime today when they get their lazy, hungover butts back to town.  I don’t think I’d want to be walking back and forth across that parking lot out there at the lake, though, in this wind! The motel is across the parking lot from the lounge and when it’s cold or windy, it can feel like a really long trek!

The "girls" priming for the evening festivities

Today is going to be a lazy day for the most part. I have to do my weekly laundry (ugh) and this is my cleaning day.  I’ll see if I can suck up enough dog hair to make another golden retriever! Gosh, I swear Thistle has more hair than I’ve ever seen fall off a dog!  I brush her every day and still we have big wisps of hair sitting in the corners of rooms around here by the end of the week.  Thank goodness, when we had our addition put on, I had them pull all the carpet and put down cork flooring in the addition and laminate in the rest of the first floor.  I was tired of buying a new vacuum cleaner every few years because they’d burn out from the hair! We still have carpet upstairs but not for long, if I have any say in the matter!

Well, sorry to be so boring today…but boring can be good! At least that means I have no crisis rearing at the moment.  My knee is pretty much back to normal, so much so, I’m having trouble finding where the scars are!  I totally forgot about it yesterday when I was running around the yard with Thistle, that’s how good it feels.  It’s only three weeks post-op as of tomorrow, too!

SO, get out there and have yourself a lovely Sunday!  Be kind to people you see, treat them like you want to be treated.  Before you open your mouth to say something to someone, think how you’d like it if it was being said to you.  If you have nothing nice to say, just smile and walk away.  Lastly, remember you are a unique individual and the world would turn a little wobbly if you weren’t here.  We all have worth, every pea picking, nose picking, (drunken assholes, too) one of us.  Everyone is created in God’s image.  Amazing how compassionate you can be, if you keep these things in mind! Don’t hate the person, just hate the behavior.

 

Love and Light to you all!

Slàinte (health) and Erin Go Braugh!

That's the Cat's Eye in green in the middle

Good morning, my fine friends! Slàinte (health) and Erin Go Braugh!  Coming from a Scots-Irish family on my mother’s side (Burke and Rogers) and three of my four great-grandparents on my father’s side (Rafferty, McClafferty, O’Brian & Weichel), I always have celebrated St Patrick’s Day.  It’s my husband’s favorite holiday, as well.  In our younger days, this would have been a day of heavy drinking but, alas, we’ve passed that gate and now just look forward to gobs of corned beef and cabbage, Irish Stew and soda bread!

My very first bartending job was at the Cat’s Eye Pub in Fells Point, MD.  If you’ve never been down to the harbor there, you are really missing something. Fells Point is a unique little area of Baltimore City and only encompasses about 8 square city blocks. It ends on Thames St., right at the water’s edge of the Inner Harbor in the Chesapeake Bay.  These days it’s the hotspot of the young crowd and has always had at least 60 bars in those few blocks. Back when I got my job there, it was still a little bit seedy, full of foreign sailors docked on Thames in their big fishing trawlers.  I had taken one of those 2 week bartending courses where they teach you 500 drinks and all the ins and outs of bartending.  Back then, you only had to be 18 to drink in MD.  Having always looked a little more mature for my age, I waltzed into the Cat’s Eye and told them that I was older and had been bartending for years!  The manager, who looked like the spitting image of Abe Lincoln, actually bought my story and hired me. 

The pub is housed in a 18^th century rowhouse that was very narrow and it was amazing to me how many people could fit in there and still accommodate an Irish band.  We had Guinness on tap and IRA jackets with real bullet holes hanging from the ceiling back in 1976.  They even had real Irish wakes in the bar, propping the deceased in his coffin up where the band played. It was a wild, wonderful bar to work in. Back then, most of the clientele were foreign sailors and local Fells Point residents, with bands of college co-eds on weekends.

The bar still looks the same 36 years later!

Although I don’t like beer, I do love Guinness, as I think it tastes more like molasses! The first thing you learned in the bar was how to order your beer.  If you were pro-IRA, you ordered a Black and Tan; if you were loyal to the government, you ordered a Half and Half.  This, of course, is half Guinness and half Beck’s beer.  Many a bar fight ensued over the beer ordering, as Black and Tan is a slur on the government.  As you can imagine, St Patty’s Day at the Cat’s Eye was legendary! Oh, and we always dyed the water in front of the pub green!

But today, Rob and I are just going down to the Moose for some corned beef and cabbage at noon.  I’m taking along 6 loaves of Irish Soda Bread for everyone.  It’s going to be too pretty today to waste it on drinking.  We might return later in the evening, as a friend of mine, Melody, will be playing her guitar, but it certainly won’t be like the “old” days.  While I may have Irish blood running in my veins, I am thankful it’s not the alcoholic sort! 

I hope all of you have a wonderful day, whether you celebrate St Pat’s or not.  I hear we in the US do a better job these days than the Irish over there, according to Celtic Woman, who I saw on the Today show the other morning. 

day of remembrance....

Ms Thistle is getting pretty gorgeous!

Hey Campers, we made it to Friday, again!  Gosh, I love me some Fridays, how about you? There’s such a sense of accomplishment at the end of the week!  We’re in for a glorious weekend here in the little town, too!  I am looking forward to my happy hour tonight, that’s for sure. 

I was pretty lazy yesterday.  After tanning, I took Miss Thistle for a nice little walk along the Klondike trail, just on the edge of town.  Although I took a jacket with me, I really didn’t need it. Thistle and I walked about 4 miles in the beautiful sunshine, trying to get her used to walking on a leash again.  It was pretty hilarious, at first.  She had been used to playing in the backyard by herself throughout both her surgery recovery and mine and pretty much forgotten how to “heel” with me.  The first ¼ mile was rough for both of us until she got it back in her head what all the instructions meant.  Luckily, she’s a very smart little girl, and by the time we turned around at the 2 mile marker, she was walking right next to me, not pulling or anything!  We’ll see if she can remember that again today.

I have a lovely morning planned before Thistle and I go walking later.  A friend of mine had given me a gift certificate to one of the other massage therapists (Cheryl Roth) here in town for Christmas and I’m just getting around to using it.  Since I already have a schedule with my own therapist every other week, I asked if it would be okay to use the certificate for one of Cheryl’s herbal body wraps, since they are basically the same price.  Cheryl had no problem with it so that’s what I’m going to be doing this morning!  I’ve never had one and I’m really looking forward to it.  When I set up the appointment, she asked me which herb mixture I wanted and we almost didn’t get to do it at all because both of the ones she had listed, contained strawberry leaves. I am very allergic to strawberries! I love the things and that’s how it happened, eating too many of them over the years, darn it!  She looked around, however, and found that she had a rejuvenating herbal mixture that contains lavender instead of strawberries, so we are back in the game!  I’ll have to tell you all about it next time!

Today, I’m going to be spending a lot of time by myself as it’s the anniversary of a dear friend’s death.  My friend, Dave Ruby, died today 12 years ago.  He and I were introduced to each other by my psychologist back east about two years after I got diagnosed with AIDS.  Dave was gay and didn’t know he had been infected until he ended up in the hospital with PCP pneumonia and a t-cell count of about 25, on death’s door. Frank, my therapist, introduced us because Dave not only had a problem with having AIDS but with being gay.  Frank was worried that he would die because of his self-loathing attitude and thought that my bright outlook might help him.  We used to get together at least once a week, just to talk about his feelings and what was going on his life.  Dave had parents that wouldn’t let him tell anyone about his disease, either.  Luckily, he also had a very nice partner in his life, who would do anything for him.  It’s hard to describe, though, the things he used to say about himself. I think he had more of a problem with being gay than with having a terminal illness.  Personally, I grew up around a lot of people who were gay and so it has always been a part of my life.  One of the things I truly credit my mother for is my lack of “judgement” towards anyone’s lifestyle.  She always told me that as long as they are good people, it doesn’t matter what other things they choose.  I don’t think anyone “chooses’ to be gay, I think they are born that way. I also think we are ALL created in God’s image.  I’ll never forget when my mom, Dave and I were sitting around the table once and Dave made a comment that he was “just a damn queer” and my mother got very mad saying she didn’t appreciate his use of that word, as she had both relatives and friends who were gay.  That’s the kind of self-loathing Dave had, though.

We became very close until I moved here to Wyoming in 1998, so we spent many years together, helping each other through a lot of scary times and close calls with death for both of us.  This was back when there were hardly any drugs for the virus and people were dropping like flies, including a lot of Dave’s friends. I went to more funerals than I can count back then.  When we moved to Buffalo, I was very concerned about Dave, so much so that I even asked him if he’d like to move out here, too. I really was pretty much his only support system.  He didn’t want to, though, as he still had a great job at Random House Books back in MD that he was trying mightily to hang onto, despite not even telling them he was sick.  We tried to keep in touch as much as possible after I moved but I heard less and less from him until one day I got a call from Frank, my therapist back there, telling me that Dave had passed away from Cytomeglovirus.  Dave had never told me on the phone or in his letters that he was even sick.

What really ranckles me to this day about the whole thing is that his family pretended that he died of a heart attack.  His mother called me to thank me for being a good friend and wanted to know if we could continue to keep in touch as she realized that we had a special bond.  The things that came out of that woman’s mouth about her own son still make me want to throw up. You’d think a mother could accept her own son for what he is, but not this lady.  I tried to be as polite as I could with her as Dave had just died but let me tell you, it took every ounce of restraint I had. She told me that she didn’t even allow Mike, his partner, to be there at the end with Dave. You can insert any expletive you wish here, I probably am uttering them now…  Needless to say, I have never written or called her back in all these years.  Every year, however, I set the day aside as a tribute to my funny friend. I only hope that Dave has now found peace.

So, Thistle and I are going to head up on one of the mountain trails this afternoon and I’m taking my last picture of Dave with me and I’m going to spend the afternoon remembering him.  The last time I saw him, we went to an all you can eat Crab shack in Union Mills so I could get my fill of MD steamed crabs before heading off to Wyoming.  Gosh, I must have eaten at least three dozen that evening!  When the waitress came over, she asked some question and I told her that I was moving and that this was my last chance at crabs and she looks over at Dave and says “So, are you going to Wyoming with her?”  and he says “No, she’s going with her husband” The look on the waitress’s face was priceless!  It was obvious that she then assumed I was having an affair with Dave!  After she walked away, Dave busted out laughing and excitedly said “OMG, she thought I was straight!”  He got the biggest kick out of that!

Anyway, thanks for reading this, there are so many people who are gone from my life now, thanks to this horrible virus.  I have to say, though, they are also people I would never had met otherwise and so at times, I have to say I am grateful for the experience. I went to the Capitol Mall in DC when they laid out the AIDS quilt for the last time because it was getting too big to lay out anywhere else, they now only send out pieces for exhibition.  That was one of the most humbling experiences of my entire life.  Seeing so many relatives clinging to pieces of quilts was just heartbreaking, the whole mall just one big flowing mass of tears. I found the 20 or so pieces that held the names of people I'd known myself and had a good, hiccuping cry, too. You know, some of our best and brightest are gone because of this horrible disease. Artists, actors, playwrights, even heads of state.... I hope you don’t think you are immune, either and you practice safe sex.

Have a wonderful weekend and I plan on doing the same.  We have a lot of living to do for those who are no longer able to.