A little bit of drama!

The Red Shoes!

Down by the Creek Bank
Coming...June 14, 2009
Don't miss the Musical!!

Bats in the Belfry

We had to hire our friendly animal trapper again. Racoons in the attic! He says he got everything and will release her into the forest where she can happily build a nest for those new babies she's about to have. Whew! Dodged that bullet. But sometimes I still hear noises.

I woke up feverish a couple of nights ago and to my horror saw the shadow of a bat on my ceiling, right above the bedroom. I stopped myself from screaming...just barely. I didn't want to make noise or movement and startle the very still animal. Then it moved a bit. And I realized that it was a shadow. So where is the critter?? Where's the source of light. I carefully turn my head. There's no light coming in the bedroom window to cast such a shadow. Oh! Just a minute. It's in the circle of light cast by our old people clock -- the kind that shows the time in digital figures on the ceiling. Then... Think, Phylis, think. Oh, it has to be tiny then. A funny shaped bug on the lamp of that clock.

Then the creature moved yet again. It's not a bat; it's a beetle! A beetle on the clock. Then it moved again and lost one pincher. At some point, my brain overcame the feverish stupor and figured it out.

"Shadow Animals." Made by black spaces between digital numbers projected on the ceiling and one malfunctioning brain.

And that boys and girls, is the end of the "Bats in the Belfrey" saga. You figure it out. Who has bats in the belfrey?

. . .

Warning: Humor May be Dangerous to Your Illness. The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. --Mark Twain

What is there about being ill that brings out the grouch in me? I'm driving home from the doctor yesterday morning grumbling -- yes, out loud -- about something that happened two or three weeks ago.

Coming home from work through the park, a couple of kids were standing in the street with their hands outstretched. I thought they might have a remote control in their hands, or a kite strings. One was standing on the edge of the street, the other blocking the entry to a small parking lot there. They were right at the beginning of a backward Z configuration with the lagoon on my right. I grabbed my cell phone to call the cops for the kids safety, but wanted to get past before I dialed. They didn't appear to be in trouble, had happy expressions like they were playing some role. As I turn down the long trunk of the Z, there's a man in the street. He's actually standing in the lane where oncoming traffic would be. I'm creeping along at about 3 miles an hour trying to figure out what's going on, when a woman starts yelling at me. She's blocking the lane I would have turned into on the final leg of the Z. And still yelling. Suddenly a line of bicycles appear coming from the parking lot that is behind me now. My car is now in the middle of the intersection, the woman is yelling stop, and I'm still confused. I slowly edge left trying to get out of the way of the bikes, which I do. No cyclist is ever in danger from me, but that woman sure was. I called the cops and left some innocent telephone intake person with my opinions about idiot civilians who place young children in the street, stand in the wrong places, don't have any identifiers to let motorists know what's going on, and try to stop traffic. Albeit for a good cause.

The irony? It was the bicycle leg of a triathlon for cancer!!

And now, weeks later I'm sick with influenza and fussing about it!!!

And now that I think about it, that's not such a good effort at humor!

Better luck next time!!

To Oink, or not to Oink

That is the question!

This morning I thought I had an allergic reaction to some perfume in my first hour classroom. It's happened before. I do my usual coughing, followed within an hour or two by sneezes and a raspy throat. By the time I left school, I had the congestion in my chest, well on my way to bronchitis which is a bit ahead of schedule for an allergic episode. Usually it takes a couple of days for the bronchitis to set it.

It's a beautiful day here. I came home and finished planting flowers, but really didn't have my heart in it. I just didn't feel very good. I quit when I got a headache, thinking that besides the sinus reaction, I had sunstroke as well. Then I began to feel warm.

And I decided to rethink it all. . . The thermometer is still only registering 99.2, but I took a couple of naproxen so a fever would be curtailed somewhat.

I shall go tomorrow and find out if I have that nasty little virus: N1H1. Wouldn't that be the irony of ironies? I've Poo pooed the media over reaction to this virus. And now guess who probably has it??? LOL It's good I can laugh on the keyboard, cause if I try in person, it sets off the coughing!!! hack! hack!!!

Oh did I mention that the absence rate at our school right now is somewhere between 6% and ???. Twenty-five kids were sent home today with a fever. And, trust me, our nurse doesn't send kids home for nothing. Do I hear school closing??? AND...guess who wouldn't get to enjoy the days off!!! Hack! hack!!! hack!!!

I'm going to bed!!! Keep well! Take the vitamin C...eat well, get plenty of rest...and drink lots of water!!! Hack!! Hack!!! Hack!!! Be glad you're not my neighbor!

Nighty-night!

Matthew 18:3
And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Mark 10:16
And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.

LINGERING TWILIGHT

Coming home from class tonight, the air was crisp and cool, just enough warmth to bring out the moms and babies in strollers, the neighborhood children on bikes. It was 8:00 p.m. There was plenty of light for an evening stroll. I love this time of year. When the days are long, the twilight almost as long as daylight itself, I feel better, my soul lighter, my mood brighter, my vision clearer. It's light when I wake up, even if I wake up at 5 AM. I do like that.

Something about the beautiful light tonight lifted my spirits, energized my waning energy. I wanted to go for a long walk. Okay. I wanted to want to. I didn't, of course. But I do feel better, even if I didn't take that walk.

I thought about making parallels between long twilights, short twilights and the twilight of life. But I think I won't. I'm not really in the twilight era yet. Not yet. I still have some daylight left. And energy to get something done during those evening hours before twilight, and then sunset.

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

Mother's Day

FOR MOMS EVERYWHERE!
Anita Renfroe's "Mom Song"
with apologies to "William Tell Overture"

Happy Mother's Day to ALL

Who Knew??

There's a Far Side comic that has a kid complaining about how boring life is in his neighborhood when outside the window there are all sorts of things happening: aliens landing, banks being robbed, monsters in the street, a guy climbing up a skyscraper, etc.

Today I can relate. I just discovered we had a drive by shooting on our street last Saturday night -- no Sunday, in the wee hours.

And I missed it.

I didn't get my camera out and take photos.

I didn't even get out of bed and peak through the windows.

I didn't run out on the lawn in my p.j.s.

Nope. None of those things did I do.

So, What did I do, you ask?

I slept through it. I didn't hear the gunshot. I didn't hear the police sirens. I didn't hear the ambulance. None of it. I heard nothing.

I slept. Z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z. This is a boring neighborhood. I slept! I could have had a news story. Z-z-z-z-z-z I could have had something to talk about around the water cooler at work. Z-z-z-z-z-z-z I could have been interviewed by the TV reporters. "Mrs. H. how did you feel when you heard he shot? Mrs. H. do you like to hear shots in your neighborhood? Mrs. H.did you know the victim? How sad are you that someone was shot? Are you afraid of shots in your neighborhood:" You know. Those wonderfully intuitively deep questions that reporters ask.

But did I get to answer these questions??? Nope. I was very busy cutting Z's.

What happened? Well according to the news I researched, the young man across the street had been at a night club, argued with someone, and then was shot by that someone from a car driving by as our neighbor got out of his car at 1:30 A.M. last Sunday morning. He's in the hospital, but doing better, I hear.

I sincerely hope he recovers completely. And is able to come home to our boring neighborhood. .

Betcha can't guess what I did this afternoon!
I filled fourteen pots with flowers.
I can hardly contain the excitement!

Bob asked what I wanted for Mother's Day.
My reply: "Anything for the deck and back patio. I'd like to make it look nice."
And he knew I hated the evergreen trees that cluttered up the place, so he had them removed while I was at school on Friday. Hurray. Doesn't it look nice?

He also bought the flowers for my beloved flower pots....I don't do in-the-ground flower beds, but I have learned to do container gardening. I think I love it because it isn't related to "farming" like putting the plants directly into the earth would be. This way it is "decorating."

So I had wonderful fun this afternoon -- although I must say, my back is aching somewhat!! But what a lovely day!!

Thank you, dear, for a marvelous made-for-me Mother's Day present!!

"Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead."

—Louisa May Alcott

Down By the Creek Bank

A lovely Day. Nothing a little soap and water won't fix!