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I saw an article the other day that made me look twice.
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I’m extremely environmentally conscious, so color me intrigued.
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Grandma = a nice Marsala sauce?
Stranger things have happened. ( To me anyway, you might lead a normal life. )
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All kidding aside, why not?
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$1,350?
We paid a lot more for my father in law’s coffin… and ain’t nobody going to harvest that for risotto.
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I forgot to mention this on the broken water line fiasco post, but my run of bad luck continues.
Yes, the fun just keeps on coming.
Torn meniscus in my right knee?
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No water or shower for three days?
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Rodents in open rebellion and probably surrounding the house as we speak?
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So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that just after the well was covered back up it started to rain…
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And our roof sprung a leak.
But wait, another sign someone has put an evil curse on yours truly?
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Birds are literally falling out of the sky in front of me.
Dismembered birds.
Pieces of birds.
Plop!
Right in front of me as I walked down the driveway to the mailbox this morning.
Whaaaaaat?
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Seriously.
Enough already!!
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I fear for our old, always pregnant, doe.
She had a very late fawn this year and I think it’s taken it’s toll.
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We’ve watch her age and slow down over the past few years, but now?
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The poor girl is skeletal.
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She comes every night for grain and apples, and is now showing up during the day for lunch…. which yes, I provide. She literally just stands there, looking in the window and waiting to be served. How can I not?
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But I think this last Bambi was just too much for her, and I doubt she’ll survive the winter.
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Hopefully blue eyes will continue us to visit after she’s gone.
Life goes on….
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On Sunday morning we drove up the coast of Maine to say goodbye to a very special man.
The kind of man you meet once in a lifetime.
A humble man so good, so kind hearted and so generous of spirit… his celebration of life had to be held in an airplane hangar.
Was it because he was a pilot?
Maybe, but more likely it was because he touched so many lives no other space was large enough to hold the mourners.
I stood in 90+ temperatures (pressed against a wall and wearing a mask) for over 2 hours. I listened to emotionally wrought eulogies…. and saw grown men openly weep when they tried to speak of what Kevin meant to them.
The outpouring of love and respect was almost physical. You could feel it, in the air and in your heart.
When the service was over and four planes from the airline he started, nurtured and bled for flew over in the missing man formation?
Spontaneous applause and not a dry eye in sight.
Fair skies and tailwinds Mr. Waters….
The world will be a lesser place without you in it.
In the midst of a viral apocalypse, it’s hard not to think about your health.
Am I safe? Will I be infected?
And if so, should I be binge watching Netflix… or picking out a granite color and font?
Thankfully I’m a very healthy person. One might say boringly so.
I’ve never broken a bone.
I’ve never had the flu, an ear infection, strep throat, the measles, pink eye or a cavity.
I still have my tonsils, appendix and wisdom teeth.
Until I was 48 years old, I’d never had the chicken pox either.
And trust me…. when I caught them from the husband because he came down with shingles?
I was not a happy camper.
No, those aren’t pimples….
And if you think it sucked having chicken pox as a kid? Try doing it when you’re almost 50. It’s not only Hella uncomfortable…. but dangerous to boot.
Matter of fact, it was such an oddity to present at that age, all the doctors and nurses stopped by the exam room to take a peek.
You know all those times in your life when it was nice to feel special?
That wasn’t one of them.
But aside from that week of polka dotted misery, I’ve been blissfully healthy.
Heck, I’d never even been in the hospital until a few years ago…. and naturally, everything that could go wrong?
Did.
Quite spectacularly.
Because if you’re going to screw something up?
My motto is don’t do it halfway.
Starting today there’s going to be a new lifeguard keeping an eye on Florida’s beaches.
Heck, I already look like death warmed over in a bikini….
I don’t need the reaper to remind me.
Because I saw this in the store a while back….
And have to admit it was a little frightening.
For anyone interested in a life threatening coffee experience, you can find it here.
Their advertising tag line is “It will wake the dead”…. so please be careful who you give it to.
The world has enough overly caffeinated zombies as is.
We live in the country with a large back yard…
A field….
and some woods.
This leads to a lot of avian visitors.
Some of whom sadly commit suicide on our windows.
I wasn’t here when this particular bird went splat, but it did leave me a rather prominently placed clue in our bedroom.
A perfect dead bird body print.
Complete with wings.
RIP little one.
So the last time I did one of these quite a few people knew what I know, and that’s disappointing.
So I’m upping my game, reaching deep into the grey matter to find some heretofore unknown tidbits because….
Did you know….
Hedgehogs were called urchins in medieval times?
The first recorded use of the word “hedgehog” wasn’t until the 15th century.
Did you know…
In France you can marry a dead person?
Article 171 of the French civil code states, “The President of the Republic may, for grave reasons, authorize the celebration of the marriage where one of the future spouses is dead.”
Maybe it’s just me, but is that really cause for celebration?
Did you know….
Pope Adrian VI died after a fly got stuck in his throat as he was drinking from a fountain?
That couldn’t have been pretty.
Did you know…
Robert E. Lee wore a size 4 1/2 shoe?
That doesn’t speak well for the size of his….
Oh, never mind.
Did you know…
Endurance training that involves alternating between high and low intensity is called fartlek? It comes from the Swedish word fart, meaning speed and lek, meaning play.
Oh, those silly Swedes.
Did you know….
The amount of potato chips Americans eat each year weighs 6 times more than the Titanic.
Damn. That’s a lot of spuds.
The only truth in advertising you’re ever apt to see.
We had a really wet, cool fall last year with a really wet, cool spring this year…. and it was rough on the landscaping. The blueberry bushes look punky, the rhododendrons are spindly and we had 2 deaths.
While garden deaths usually don’t make me cry, these did.
For those of you who don’t know, my mother died July of 2014 from Non Hodgkins Lymphoma, and it was rough. I’m an only child and lost my dad when I was 15. I never knew my grandparents.
She was my family. Pretty much all of it.
Mom hated the fuss of funerals and wanted to be cremated. Said it was up to me to decide what to do with her ashes. Since she loved spending time at our home and enjoyed our gardens, I planted a tulip tree with part of her nourishing the soil.
The tree had been growing well since then, but didn’t survive the winter and spring. We had to remove it…. and I cried.
Cried.
Silly, I know. And yes, I can always plant another one, but somehow it just feels…. wrong.
Then there was the beautiful red rose our neighbor gave me to mark her passing.
It was stunning, and always filled with riotous blooms.
I would walk by, think of my mother and smile.
I mean damn…
The crazy thing would even bloom in the snow.
I figured nothing would kill it… and then we had a really cool, wet fall and a really cool, wet spring.
Yeah.
The beauty that I’d been enjoying for years…. gone. Just like my mom.
And I cried.. again. I couldn’t help it.
But I decided to replace the rose.
With this flashy lady.
The blooms looked almost painted….
Which made sense when I removed the tag.
I’ve always loved impressionist paintings, so that felt right.
Fingers are crossed this one does well.
I think my mother would have approved.
❤
