Patty’s Neighborhood

Show us something you love to hate.

It's a love hate relationship

And the answer, btw, is cows and ducks.

I have brilliant insights into life, love and the cosmos as I go about my daily chaos, but unless I scratch some cryptic, no not cryptic, very obvious message to myself I forget what it was that I was going to dazzle you all with and have a zilch memory for blogging time.

No death defying stunts this morning – thank you to all those people who expressed gratitude for my continuing survival. Very much appreciated. I have a small suspicion though that it all makes you feel better about your own lives when you read that my life is in fact the basis for the formation of the chaos theory and maybe even an argument for eugenics. Loved the fact that my demise could have been brought about by a Flamingo Flattener as so named  by gcgal . I had this vision of little pink flamingo legs sticking out beneath the carnage of me. I laugh in the face of adversity…that’s a lie. I usually perform an adversity dance something akin to a Polish Polka for at least two days. My children can confirm. Mr FD can’t as he is usually 45 polka steps ahead of me and not looking behind only onwards to more global disaster…

Crazy season at work is drawing to a close, earlier than usual. I would like to think it is because my little department is such a well oiled machine, but I think it is really just God given luck. Either way, gratefully accepted. Next crazy season Feb next year…as regular as clock work. Lots of time to plot revenge and sabotage.

Today's Basement of Discontent issue however was that at 3pm MegaMegaBoss sent out a mass email to all permanent employees calling them to a meeting in the Boadroom on Tuesday morning....mass hysteria. MegaBoss was nowhere to be seen and Boss was off site, so I had people coming to me, as next inline, asking me if they were all getting the sack and should start stockpiling one minute noodles. I was not 100% in the loop about this meeting, but have gut feeling it is about the takeover of the related work section and an overhaul of it into a new format as was told to me last week, but I couldn't say anything. It may not be that either - I may need to ask you all to mail me one minute noodles shortly. I can't help but think it was so cruel to send out a short, noninformative email on a Friday afternoon and worry people all weekend. I know it was probably due to the fact that they wanted to ensure everyone was there, but MegaBossBitch the self-proclaimed HR expert should have looked at the wording and made sure it didn't send people into a spin. Stupid people.

Midnight epiphany last night was that I started to become worried that my mother’s old photograph album, which must be about 60 years old, might have book worm. Her housekeeping, never a major strength, has slipped a tad or two in the last 20 years. Daughter 2 thought she spied some tiny weeny creepy crawly. As we have a large home library and I had not cared over the past 5 nights I decided Thursday night was my night to be concerned. So at 3 am I went downstairs and found the album and sealed it in a zip lock bag until further examination. I walked back twice to make sure the zip lock was really zip locked…and am not 100 % sure now but have to accept for now.  I was going to put it in two zip lock bags, but we only had one. I think I may have even “borrowed” it from work, as you do.

Daughter 1 off on a lunch date with her new elove friend Saturday . When they speak on the phone all I hear is lots of laughter from behind her closed door (yes you still have to speak to boys behind closed doors if you are 29 and live at home)  I think the shared sense of humor is a big plus, something missing in her other relationships. One of his first questions was whether she wanted to have children, and she does, very much, so that cleared the air on that one too. So, for the very early stages,  a couple of positives there. Mothers must just wait and see… I wont say what else we are capable of, but I hazard a guess you all know anyway! I have 3 children and I would like to play mother of the bride/groom at least once. I can be hysterical with the best of them.

Daughter 2 is very against my decision to return my hair to its grey beauty. Well, not that it has ever really been grey before, but it is now. She told me in no uncertain turns that I was not going to and if I had to dye it weekly I would. Her expression was akin, and speaking to Australians here, Aunty Jack promising to Rip Yur Bloody Arms Off!  I am at the stage of letting it fade a little with a lovely grey stripe down the part area which I try to camouflage each day with some artistic fluffing of the hair and very specific application of hair spray.  My BIL asked me the other day if I had been in a wind storm – I thought I was looking good! My sister said don’t speak to a woman like that and BIL replied That’s not a woman that’s FD. BIL’s give you no respect if they have known you since you were 13 and watched you grown up….he is 67 in October so I may have mentioned that he might need the wheel chair before dear old Mother. End of conversation. Sister, who though 8 years older, is not as grey as I, and having spent $160 on a dye job last week, which 1. she cannot afford, and 2. still looks like a bad home job, is considering following my lead. I can sense a ground swell of boomers forsaking the bottle. Come on ladies, and gentlemen too, let’s get off the bottle and face the rest of our life au natural. Hair, on head, only of course. Not the body au natural. That would lead to a major lobby group calling for euthanasia, I feel.

I am thinking now of a Springsteen song in which he described making love to a red haired woman. He made it very clear and went into some depth at the concert making sure we understood that it 1. was his wife he was singing about and 2. that it wasn’t the hair on her head he was referring too. We wont go there, shall we?

I am going to sleep for 37 hours tomorrow and not rise until lunch time ... just in time to wave off Daughter 1 on her e-date. Then I may go back to bed again. Mr FD arrived home tonight - said hello and settled down to watch Friday night football.  Isn't marriage grand?   I know he is just waiting for me to fall alseep and then he will come up all full of chatter and wake me up with some crazy remark about tiger penis soup or something. It is how he gets HIS big jollies.

Another day, another $1.50.

I HIGHLY recommend this marinade from Trader Joe's. It was so good, I wanted to bathe myself in it and hop on a hot grill.  Okay, not really.  But it was so good my imagination got carried away. :)

prep

ready to grill

kabobs

Kind of sleepy.

photo.jpg

The latest photo of the babies along with a context photo for gunderson bee.

Hummer1

Ruby-throated hummingbird, anyone?