Things In My Yard That Are Blooming

1. Forsythia
2. Squill
3. Merrybells
4. Bloodroot
5. Wild Plum
6. White Violets

I can't wait for the May flower parade to begin! So far I have managed to stay out of local nurseries because I go in intending to just look around and then I come out with multiple tender transplants I have to nourish & protect for the next 3 weeks or so before I can plant them. Must.resist.little.plantlings.

I Think They Pee In The Shower

In fact - I hope to god that they pee in the shower! You know, the ladies from my pool.

When you swim on weekday afternoons as I do most of the people are older with quite a few retirees. In fact, the men are almost all retirees while the women range from maybe 30 on up. And I know for a fact that older women are more likely to be frequent pee-ers.

On the way from the changing area to the shower room we all walk past a toilet area with 4 stalls available. Usually I 'go' before I shower & enter the pool, just to be sure I don't have to interrupt my routine for a bathroom call. Occasionally I go right after I exit the pool & shower again. What can I say? I'm old!

I have been going to the pool regularly since early February. I think in all that time I have seen maybe 3 other people in the toilet stalls. This does not compute. Since the pool ladies are all old enough to have the good sense to not pee in the pool (I hope I hope I hope I hope) then they must be going in the shower. Right? Because older women pee often - they just do. I am very careful now to never let my suit touch the shower floor when I strip it off in there!

Who Are Your Peeps?

I don't know who my peeps are anymore. You know, in an existential sort of way. I am adrift...

Oo! Ah! New Bra

Things that are new, re-newed or newish:

New: I have that new bra glow this morning! The girls are so happy. It's just a basic daily-wear playtex but the fit is perfect. It's a new color for me too. Kind of a bronzy chestnut.

Re-newed: I found my long lost recipe for Indian potato salad. It's spicey!

Newish: Mr Swami has been cleaning inside with the leaf blower again. But with my blessings this time. He cleaned a few window screens by blowing out. Much easier for the second floor windows than removing the screens, hauling them down to the driveway & hosing them off.

Bonus - this weekend I finally get going in my gardens. First thing? Rake out the late fall & over-winter debris.

D's Birthday!

Today is my middle child April's 25th birthday! We are taking her and her boyfriend to Red Lobster for dinner. This is her favorite place to eat, mostly because of the free biscuits they serve with your dinner, lol. And I admit - they are very good biscuits! Of course she also likes lobster.

After dinner we will come back here for a ColdStone Creamery birthday cake. She has picked out some strange flavor but I'm sure it will taste very good since everything ColdStone does is very good.

I got her an assortment of smaller gifts: a stick blender, some nice colanders, a kitchen timer, some cool kitchen shears shaped like a woodpecker from Target, some new toss pillows, and a whole bunch of packaged food items for her kitchen since she & BF are church mouse poor at this point. Oh yeah - the pillows are for the sofa we gave her last week when her "rescue" sofa bit the dust. So I think she'll be happy.

This is my bright & beautiful daughter who, while growing up, was always about a year or two behind in her social/emotional developement. This all the while she was the tallest & most mature looking kid in her class - a difficult combination. She also had a 16 month younger brother with autism and unfortunately this also marked her as "different" so she (and we) all had our struggles during her childhood. But Tom & I were proud of her then, and we're so proud of her now. She is an admirable, honest human being & her heart is in the right place. Happy Birthday April!

Temptation

When you skip lunch & breakfast, and then you try to drive home with a rosemary-garlic hot deli chicken on the seat beside you - it is all you can do to avoid pulling over to the shoulder of the road and going all apeshit on the aromatic little bird. I barely made it into my kitchen.

*burp*
"Scuse me.

Are You Shy When You're Nekkid?

Now that I am swimming a lot I am often entertained by how differently people handle the locker room. My pool's locker room has 3 small curtained "privacy" booths which some people use every single time. They shut that curtaqin and check the edges to be sure the curtain is SHUT. Most people just stand or sit by the benches and calmly go about the changing thing. A very few spend a prolonged time naked, like while they stand at the hairdryer & dry their clothes.

I belong to the middle group. I do my changing discretely but without hiding. I have never gone into one of the curtained booths.

Some people look when they think they are not observed. Some never look and some just do the casual glance thing. I do the latter. Pretty much everyone looks at the few who walk around naked a lot - which I guess is just the way they want it!

Biggish News

Somebody is going to be a grandmother again!

Just when I thought she had decided to stop at one. I was so surprised! And so, according to DD, was she. But everyone is happy about everything so all is well. There's just a matter of getting that pesky due date nailed down because someone wasn't paying much attention to what her body was (or maybe was not) doing. Uh - been there; done that, lol.

I want it to be a girl so "I" have a matched set.

I've Run Out of Titles

It looks like we will have nice weather all weekend, then a bit of rain, then (cross fingers & knock on wood) it may finally be Spring!

*happy dance*

Mr Swami opened up all the Easter candy last night. As usual - we both bought candy for our son - so there is excess to be eaten. Dove dark chocolate truffle eggs are simply divine! Way too good for the son, so I have claimed all of them lol.

Mr Swami had his ears flushed yesterday. Turns out he is not going deaf like he thought. He just had an extreme earwax situation. He is so relieved. Mentally he was adjusting to the idea of a hearing aide. He wanted to get an aide like those ones they used to advertise on TV where you can hear your neighbors gossiping & stuff. I might have borrowed a hearing aide like that! Although I don't need it for my neighbors to the SE who never ever stfu.

That's all I got.
Happy Easter/Passover/Spring everyone!

A Symphony of Complaints Update.

1. Gracie has a hairball. I got some goop to give her. Cats do not appreciate caring medication.

2. Mr Swami has too many late meetings this week. I totally appreciate him - but I miss him, ya know?

3. When you live next door to a family who does minimally annoying things on a regular basis for about 15 years eventually they will drive you batshit crazy. I now understand people who snap over "nothing" and get a big fat knife.

4. I have a budding pimple on my twat and it is annoying the heck out of me.

5. It is STILL winter.

6. My mind does not work quickly anymore. This frustrates me no end in learning Bridge. I used to be so quick!

7. Like for instance before I say anything even moderately clever online I go all blank-faced and drool for 3 - 5 minutes. TG you guys don't see this step.

8. My first husband (who I don't think I have ever talked about here) has totally, emotionally abandoned our daughter. This makes me want to go back in time and ratch up the animosity level in our very civil divorce. You know, post-preemptively put the screws to him. I coulda done that; I shoulda done that!

9. Taco Belle discontinued their Border Bowls. This is just about the only drive-thru, fast food item I like to get. The gal at the drive-in window said they were discontinued because they couldn't get the right size bowls any more. How dumb is that? Nothing else on their menu is worth stopping for.

10. There is NEVER a place to park on the main street of Stillwater. Never! You're supposed to be able to park on the main street of a small town. I think that's in the Constitution or something.

Bonus complaint: My keyboard has become so stiff that you have to bang at it like an old-style typewriter. ARGH!!!!!

Brown Eggs. More on Spices.

Brown eggs are de bombe for making colored Easter eggs. I used to buy white eggs just to dye because I figured the brown eggs would be a bust - but last year, just for experimental information, I dropped a brown egg into each cup of my usual PAAS Easter colors. They came out beautifully! Rich, jewel-tones colors, even the yellow! And intense, like you had left each egg in the dye cup for hours. I will never color white eggs again. (The colors, like I said, are more jewel-toned than with white eggs - but I would rather have ruby-red and emerald-green than primary red and green. The orange looked like saffron. Beautiful.)

A couple of posts down Boo commented that I didn't have Lawry's Seasoned Salt in my Spice List. I left it off because I didn't include most of my "convenience" seasoning mixes. I will now add them, beginning at #88, since I left off at #87:

88. Emeril Seafood Magic
89. Grill Mates Pork Rub
90. Grill Mates Seafood Rub
91. Italian Seasoning
92. Lawry’s Seasoned Pepper
93. Lawry’s Seasoned Salt
94. Lawry’s Seasoned Salt Red Pepper
95. Lemon Pepper
96. Louisiana Cajun Seasoning
97. McCormick’s 1-Step Garlic & Bell Pepper
98. McCormick’s Worcestershire Black Pepper
99. Montreal Chicken Seasoning (which I use on pork chops)
100. Montreal Steak Seasoning
101. Old Bay
102, Original Burger Seasoning
103. Poultry Seasoning
104. Pumpkin Pie Spice
105. Salad Supreme

Ta da!!! One hundred and five! I think I am now officially the Spice Quees!

First Wednesday

One of my D's is named April, and this is her least favorite day of the year. It turns out that there is a fair percentage of people in the world who will either call out to her or walk up and say to her, in conversational way, "Hey April,," and then when she looks at them yell "April Fool" at her and burst into raucous laughter. She considered taking a sick day from her new job just to avoid all this 'fun'.

So if you know an April, don't do this to her today. It probably drives her nuts - and not in a good way.