...Happy New Year...

...I don't do holidays well...

...under the best of circumstances, and this year is hardly the "best".

I probably won't post until way after the new year, so to my two constant readers ~ Bernie & Tachitup...Merry Christmas.

To the shitweasel who still snoops here and utterly destroyed my Christmas this year, I sincerely hope that everything you've given this year is returned to you twenty~fold.

....I ask myself ~ is all hope gone?...

I don't think so.  I hope not.  This business in Connecticut has me all bolloxed up.  I don't have children (a combination of inability to carry and a very quiet biological clock).  To be honest, most times I don't even *like* small children (I don't steal their candy, or tell them the Easter bunny is a big fat lie or anything like that), I just don't have any experience being around them for long periods of time.

But I have a younger brother.  He's going to be 50 (gah...it pains me to write that) in March.  When I heard about this horror in Connecticut yesterday, I immediately thought about this favorite picture of the two of us:

It was taken when we were both under ten years old.  The cabin in the background is where my grandfather was born and we were visiting there with him.  We must have have gotten bored and wandered away and someone took this photo.  I love it...it shows two children simply being children and enjoying the sun and family and just being alive...something those sweet little ones in Newtown will never be able to do.  

Most people who know me think I'm some sort of tie–dye wearing, bleeding–heart liberal, but I like to think of myself as a "nice"–ican or a "kind"–ocrat.  I hate knee–jerkism on both sides of the aisle.  I think that people who need it should have assistance, but that it shouldn't be permanent enough to cause it to become a generational source of income.  I think people with eleventy billion dollars in assets should probably pitch in more, but more importantly should do good things with the blessings in the their bank accounts.  I don't think kindness and generosity and love and morality can be legislated.  

I don't have any answers.  I don't think now, when the details about this horror are changing by the minute, is the right time to start debates.  I guess the one thing I will say is that I don't understand why anyone (excluding military, law enforcement, blah blah blah) needs assault weaponry.

If Nick Lowe hadn't already written this, he would have surely written it yesterday:

"What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understanding?"

...you can keep your Elf On A Shelf...

...I have a Dog By A Log  : )

It's a cold damp day here in Bugtussle, so a fire is just the thing

(the match holder was the victim of an unfortunate encounter

between a German shepherd and a Murphy's Oil Soap'd floor)

...much better...

Why yes...that *is* a pink Christmas tree.

Most of the ornaments are vintage Shiny Brites

Greenery courtesy of my neighbor's evergreen, 

that suffered its demise during the big storm

The piano.  The birds' nest is genuine.

All put together by lil ole moi.

"Flowers" are made from vintage book pages.

I made the sign.

If you'd like your house styled for Christmas, or know an individual or a corporate entity who might have use of that type of service, please let me know. (I'm also an event planner...from birthday and dinner parties to corporate shindigs)

...it's beginning to look a lot...

...like Christmas.

Sorta.

I'm alone this holiday season for the first time in several years.  Some machinations by someone who I never thought would be so weaselly has made it so I can't be with a group of friends that I have come to cherish and who are extremely upset by this high school drama.  Whatever.

Thursday night, I put up my sunroom Christmas tree (translation = a Craigslist tree for $5 and some white lights...it looks like hell up close, but it looks so pretty from the drive).  I was feeling kinda blah in general about decorating for Christmas, even though it's something I really adore.  I had put up my indoor tree and had the lights on it and was sitting there contemplating whether I should even get the rest of the stuff out of the garage when my cell phone buzzed with a text message.  One of my neighbors had driven past the house and saw the lights; the text said "Your house looks so magical with all the lights...you make me want to start decorating *my* house"

So I thanked her (profusely...wanna get on my good side?  Tell me you like something about my home...lol)

And I sat there some more and had a glass of wine.  And did some thinking.  And a little crying.  And some more thinking and I decided that what this person had done to me spoke volumes about *them* and their insecurities and cruelty, and very little about me.  I also decided I wasn't going to let this spoil my holiday.

So, here I am, taking a break from the decorating.  I lucked out this year, because due to the big storm, an enormous evergreen tree went down in a neighbor's yard.  He was kind enough to not only let me have whatever cuttings I wanted from it, but he also helped me do the clippings.  My SUV is filled with what would probably retail for about $300 worth of beautiful greenery that smells heavenly.  I've been collecting vintage Shiny Brite ornaments, and I'm going to have a pink tree this year.

This person used to tell me I was much too good for them, and you know what...they are very, very "correct".

...Happy Thanksgiving...

...I've been doing a little interior painting...

Welcome To The 21st Century, Upper Mount Bethel Township...

...not.

Here's an update on Upper Mt Bethel:

Everything seems to be back to quasi-normal.

Except, of course, where I live :D

Turkey Ridge Road as far as I can tell is completely without power from Church Street in Portland at least as far up as Gallery Lane. It's been out since 4:30 PM on Monday, 10.29.

Before I make the following statement, I'd like to say I've (A) checked the official website for Upper Mount Bethel Township and (B) the Facebook page for Upper Mount Bethel Township.

A lot of people don't like Sal Panto for a variety of reasons, none of which I'll get into here.

Sal is a FB friend of mine; I only known him socially and very briefly at that.

He was *ALL OVER* Facebook this past week. Not on the Easton page or any "official" page, but on his own personal page. There were multiple daily updates from him telling residents where the utility crews were working at any given time, where power had been restored, where you could get gas/charge your devices/find food/shelter - whatever. I mean he was *everywhere*.

Upper Mount Bethel officials FB updates?

(chirp) (chirp) (chirp)

The "official" Upper Mount Bethel FB page is a "like" only page - it contains the brief township bio from Wikipedia.

I even checked the "We Don't Want A Prison in UMBT" page - the last post there was May 9th.

I honestly don't know why UMBT doesn't have an active FB presence. You know where I got what little information I had about what was going on in UMBT? From the Mt Bethel Diner.

I don't have an active Twitter account, so there may well have been a presence there, but as it stands, UMBT social media presence seems to be zilch. I think they should definitely investigate becoming more modern in their approach to notifying residents in times like this.

Let me also add that the great folks at the Upper Mount Beth Fire Department opened the hall for charging devices/facilities/hot coffee and more information than was available on social media.  They are nice folks there at the station.







UT

...through the heart...

A year ago, almost to the day, I made a new friend.

It was during that epic, weird Halloween snowstorm that hit here in the northeast.  We ended up talking for 8 hours on the phone and soon became very close.

In the ensuing year, we became fast friends.  We would talk or text at least 4 or 5 times a week...sometimes daily.  We listened to our mutual problems and offered help and ideas, and sometimes just a friendly ear.

When I was in the hospital in July, he called me at least 3 or 4 times a day, and the same pattern continued when I was home recuperating.

I liked him very much; not as anything more than a friend, but I thought that after a year, we had a pretty firm foundation.  We had shared so much and it seemed like something good for both of us.

This "Frankenstorm" that seems imminent reminds me of meeting him that day and what a nice addition to my life his friendship was.

I say was, because about two weeks ago, he cut me out of his life and sold our entire friendship down the river over the most petty of reasons ... a woman.  We had talked about her many times...about how she had hurt him and treated him badly.  About how he kept going back to her even though he knew she didn't care for him the way he cared for her (and had told him this point blank).  He was resolute about not doing it again.

He failed.  And instead of telling me about it, as he had many times before, he slammed the door on our friendship and that my friends, as they say in the movies, is that.

I've been hurt and betrayed by men I've been in love with...that's the proverbial story of my life.  I've never had a friend betray me like this.  It's a different kind of hurt, and loss.

...words to remember...

"SO WHAT?!"

...my favorite room

I love my little house.  My favorite room is the sun room.

When I finally found a job after being laid off for 11 of the scariest months of my life in 2009, my first project was downsizing.  I was living in a huge 3500 SF house on 7 acres with a private lake, and was desperate to move.  Sounds crazy, I know - but that house had a lot of sadness and painful memories attached to it.

I learned of a little place in the Slate Belt that was for rent.  It had everything I wanted - most especially lots of closets!  It also had a fireplace, which is something this Florida girl had always wanted.  Of course, it took me 2.5 years to be brave enough to actually light a fire in it, but I used it almost every weekend last winter.

But what sold me on it was the sun room.  It's old-fashioned, with jalousie windows.  There's a terracotta tile floor and it has views of my little front porch and a lake just down the lane.

The porch railings are covered in morning glories now, and they are so charming and fresh to look at in the early mornings.

I love to have breakfast out here on the weekends.  Sometimes, if my weekday mornings aren't too frantic, I'll at least have tea out here.  While I love autumn, it signals the end of lounging barefoot in my robe out there - reading or doing a crossword puzzle.

I'll still use it into the early winter - I can bundle up in a throw and have cocoa while Cody snoozes on his rug.

It's my favorite room.

...back to normal (for me, anyway)

The Miracle League raises funds to build specially designed baseball complexes/facilities to meet the needs of disabled kids.  Everyone gets an "at bat" each inning and there are "buddies" to assist the players.

The Miracle League of Northampton County will be dedicating their new baseball field and complex today. It's located at the Charles Chrin Community Center in Palmer Township.

Ground was broken in December of 2011 and it's really exciting how fast this has all come to fruition.

Please come out and support the kids who have looked forward to this - I'll be there assisting in honor of a young friend of mine who is a dedicated sports fan and I can't wait to watch him play.  I'll most likely be the one covered in cotton candy tufts, so please feel free to say hello.


Opening Day - Miracle League of Northampton County
Sunday - September 9th, 2012 - 12:30 PM
Charles Chrin Community Center
4100 Green Pond Road - Palmer Township

...why bother?

What I see in the mirror:

What men see:

No mas...no mas.

Things I Learned In The Hospital

1.  You just *think* you're not allergic to surgical tape.

2.  If the Federal Bureau of Prisons had invested in the same light bulbs used in hospital rooms, "Escape From Alcatraz" would never have happened.

3.  The keening wail of the "pumping stopped" alarm on your IV machine will haunt your dreams until the day you die.

4.  Hospital roommates are worse than any college roommate you could ever imagine.

5.  "Visiting Hours" does not mean seeing exactly how many family members you can cram into your half of a hospital room.

5.A  That dividing curtain is *not* sound proof.

6.  Nothing will get a male nursing assistant's BVDs in a wad faster than asking him to please *not* call you "Honey" (mine ignored me - literally - for 2 shifts)

7.  Some nurses really do look like pre-Raphaelite Madonnas.

8.  It is apparently actually possible to fark up vanilla pudding.

9.  It takes up to 4 days for a diagnosis of "acute appendicitis" despite repeatedly stating "It's either my appendix or my IUD...it's either my appendix or my IUD".  If I had gone in with a hatchet in my forehead, God knows how long it might have taken for an answer ;)

10.  It's *good* to be home.

Cody - the World's Least Scary German Shepherd

he's been my constant bedside companion since I was discharged Sunday afternoon

Happy Birthday, Mom

1928 - 1976 

 Anything good about me came from you; the cranky curmudgeon part is solely my doing.

 I miss you.

Happy Fathers' Day, Dad

 My father was a hard man. He didn't want children and my mother wanted them - desperately. We were estranged for many years, but grew closer in the years before he died in 2003. One thing he did give me was my love of gardening. I used to say plants grew for my father - not out of nurture, but out of fear. He truly had a green thumb; things that should never have grown in our north Florida yard miraculously flourished, and things that were commonplace grew to monumental proportions. Witness this "hedge" of poinsettias:   

 To this day, the sharp scent of tomato leaves reminds me of my father.

Happy Mothers' Day, Mom

I miss you every day.

(yet another) Happy Birthday!!

Happy Birthday to Cody, The World's Least Scary German Shepherd © !!!

He's going to be this many on Tuesday, 5.1:

I adopted him when he was 6 months old - he was "too much dog" for the family that spent about eleventy thousand dollars to get him straight off the boat from Germany.

Look how fast he grew between - he's 1 here (and yeah, I sometimes torture him like this>

He has provenance papers about 40 miles long, but I never bothered to register him because he's always just been Cody. In deference to his heritage, he's sometimes referred to as "The Uber Goober", but he also answers to "What are you doing in there and why are you so quiet?".

Age has begun to show; his snout is getting greyer by the day, and it sometimes takes him two attempts to hop up on the bed, but the sonar generated by his enormous ears can still sense a refrigerator being opened at 500 paces.

He's my friend, and when I open the door at the end of a long commute, it's good to see him and his big dorky face waiting for me.

...Happy Birthday...

...to the Jesus of Cool - Nick Lowe!




He has aged...



...as beautifully as his music.

...I enjoy being a...

...guy?

I was accused of being Bernie O'Hare today. Frankly, I'm not sure which of us should be insulted.

I've never met Bernie. His reputation, however, has preceded him and I realize he's one of the most polarizing bloggers in the Lehigh Valley. He's done a lot of cruddy stuff in his past, and has been disbarred as an attorney because of it. To Bernie's credit, this is something he's very open about and does not fail to discuss whenever it's brought up on his blog (and believe me, it's brought up often).

After the experience I had with a certain nameless malignant Narcissist bass player, I'm not one to take *anyone* at face value any longer. So, when another blogger posted something that Bernie claimed to be a lie, I checked up on it and found out that it was indeed a lie. So I asked the other blogger about it, and was accused of being Bernie. Unfortunately, I didn't take any screen shots of the postings, because this blogger immediately deleted (A) all my questions about this lie, (B) the request for me to provide identification that I wasn't Bernie and (C) my response to this. Shame on me.

I post on enough blogs and newspaper websites that even a cursory comparison of my writing style should enable even the most feeble reader to realize I am *not* Bernie O'Hare. The other blog I write is about fashionable women from past decades; Bernie may be a lot of things, but I'm pretty sure a fashion maven ain't one of them. If he knows the difference between a Balenciaga and a balaclava, I'll eat my pony-hair leopard-print Coach D'Orsay pumps. If that doesn't do it, then this here very blog in which I whinge continuously about my life should be the deciding factor.

Here's what I look like:





Here's what Bernie O'Hare looks like:





We're not the same person, and accusations that are flung when you've been busted only make Bernie look *good* - and we can't have that now, can we? Other things I'm not are a Bernie-bot or a minion. I make up my *own* mind about issues.

...my Valentine's garden...

...we interrupt this program...

...for a rant.

I stopped at Home Depot tonight to pick up some spray paint for a project. I used the self-checkout line.

I scanned the first can and a message saying "please show ID to cashier" popped up. I thought "I'm paying cash, so meh". I ran the 2nd can over the scanner and it wouldn't scan. Tried it again...no luck.

The cashier finally stepped over and said "Oh - let me clear that for you. We have to see ID to keep kids from purchasing spray paint to huff"

Is there a "WTF" icon on blogspot? If so, I'd use it about eleventy billion times in this post.

Making people (regardless of age) show ID to purchase 2 cans of spray paint, or a package of cold medicine, or whatever other substance has been relegated to that grey area of "not illegal, but we're going to give you agita for purchasing it because we *can*" is NOT going to stop people from huffing or making illegal drugs.

What it's going to do is lose you business over the long run. Touchy-Feely-Nanny legislation like this accomplishes nothing. But I guess it *is* easier than tackling those silly issues like the highest property taxes in Christendom (I was purchasing said pseudo-contraband in NJ).

Gah.

...I take some comfort in this...

You are not a fool for trusting someone who lied to you.

They are the fool for lying to someone who trusted them.

It's the easiest thing in the world to get away with temporarily, and the hardest thing to recover from permanently.

Please don't let it change you. There are already way too many of them, and far too few of you.