Huh?

We just heard some guy on Geraldo call Bill Clinton an "intergalactic figure".

Really? Now he's picking up women in other galaxies?

Old friends

I am so loving the Facebook. I have reconnected with so many old friends. But, it's also made me really miss a lot of people. My friend Dale being one of them. My soul-mate! She now has four beautiful children and reports that mostly what she does is spend her days putting kids' shoes back on. And occasionally she will send me pictures with priceless captions like this one, which she titled:

"Cotton Pickin'"

This kid is a trip

Me: [on my deck, covered in dirt, planting my fall containers]

NM: [Laying in a box in his driveway, currently pretending it's a pirate ship, with his feet up in the air] Ms Sonya!

Me: Yes bud?

NM: Could you....go.....inside the back of your house...and go to your room....and change your shoes.....(I told him the day before I wouldn't go in his house w/ dirty shoes).....and go out the front of your house.....and go out your gate....and go in my house.....and bring me my tools?

NM's Dad: [Listening to this from the other corner of the backyard] NM! You get up and get your own tools! [Then looks at me and just shakes his head.]

Me: [Cracking up] That kid is a stone-cold trip.

NM: [sighs and decides he really doesn't need his tools right now]

Mom's arm update

She's had surgery and they put pins & plates in it. Now she's going to therapy and she doesn't have to wear her cast @ home. It's still shaped sort of wonky though, I'm hoping it's just sort of still swollen in places?

Thanksgiving 2008

I can't believe I didn't take one single picture of everybody. Here are some random pics:

Scot & Alex

Jason hates me to take his picture, so he's usually glaring at me when I do it.

Me & my bubby

Dad and his #1 girl (Maddie)

Mom getting out her stuff for the Christmas tree.

We ate, we napped, we talked, we laughed. and Mom, Alex, and I went to the "Ladies' Night Open House" @ the flower nook & bought new ornaments. It was a good day.

Fall in the Tulip Street garden

Pics from the garden today in an album linked to the right. I'm loving the colors I finally picked for the container plantings, and I'm loving the alyssum. This is the first time I've used it and it is doing great.

On episodes we hope to avoid repeating

At Christmas every year I take off at least a couple of week. After about 2 days I get bored, and then I start baking like a crazy woman. Last year I did this in 2 days:





Well if I've learned one thing over the years, it's to put away everything edible so Greta can't get to it. Of course, sometimes I forget (she got an entire new bag of Pecan Sandies Thursday, man I really wanted one of those with my coffee this morning...).

But who would've thought that FLOUR would be attractive? So after carefully filling every non-accessible nook and cranny with the things I thought she would like (nuts, chocolate, ginger, etc), I confidently left the house for some reason or another.

And returned to find this:


And then followed the trail of flour to the water bowl. Now we all know what happens when we mix flour and water, right?

So then I followed the trail of GLUE to find this:



And then Greta and I had a long discussion while I washed and cut the glue out of her fur. Boy it was fun. And so this Christmas while I'm baking, Greta will be enjoying the day in her CRATE.

Return to World of Warcraft: Geekdom Revisited

Conversation @ dinner two weeks ago:

Me: How are the guys you are raiding with? (Jason is playing Warhammer Online)
Jason: OK
Me: I miss WOW. (World of Warcraft) Is your new game like WOW?
Jason: It's more oriented towards Player vs. Player and there aren't as many quests.
Me: But is there treasure? And presents?
Jason: No, and there's no dancing, and you can't have pets.
Me:[Looking @ him, stunned that someone would WANT to play a game with no dancing, pets, presents, or treasure...]
Jason: There's a war going on. We don't have time for that crap.

We are nerds, we take our games seriously.

And thus, Blizzard's marketing department once again sucked me in. You evil, evil, bastards. The newest expansion came out a couple of weeks ago, and I haven't broken down and bought that. But I am still able to take advantage of a lot of the new upgrades, like now there are beauty shops where you can get your "hurr did"! And flying carpets! And new pets!

It's silly, and fun, and addictive. We'll see how long until I get sick of it again...

Friday after Thanksgiving Grab Bag

Several things that were on my camera that I wanted to post about. Just random, pretty much.

This was a weird knife I had @ lunch @ Cafe East last week. Do you see the problem? The only way to lay the knife on the table is with the serrated side facing upwards, which can't be the safest thing.

Grape from breakfast @ La Madelaine.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a Master Gardeners' meeting @ lunch, and the topic was using things from your yard in flower arrangements. I think they should adopt Ms. Jennie's terminology, personally, which is "Road Kill Bouquets". This one had Salvia, Rosemary, seedheads from some Purple Coneflower, and something else I can't remember.

Conversation @ work Nov. 21

Internal auditor [glancing @ my planner]: Wow! You are so organized!
Me: um....yeah....did you happen to notice which WEEK of the planner I am working from?




As my friend Charlotte says..."CLICK TO EMBIGGEN"

I LOVE YOU CHARLOTTE!

Charlotte reminded me that some of my old favorites may be on you-tube after she posted a great one on her blog (http://www.digital-legerdemain.com/). There's one of my all-time favorites. One I still sing, but Jason didn't remember, and of couse I couldn't remember all of the words. YouTube RULES!

Finishing Touches

I need a giraffe topiary!!!!!!

Zoo!

I had to be in The Big Sleazy on Monday and Wednesday last week. Tuesday was Veteran's Day. As per current Agency policy, I did not return to my residence which would have required me to prepare a cost comparison. #1, I didn't want to do the cost comparison. #2, my neck and shoulder are a disaster from driving back and forth so much and I did not want to exacerbate the issue, and #3, I wanted to go to the zoo. So Jason came down for the day and that's what we did. It was perfect weather, the zoo wasn't crowded, and most of the animals were out and about. I got some great pictures and a few crappy ones, but I'm getting better with the camera. I think this time there were more good ones than bad ones.

I've been wanting to go to the zoo for awhile so that was good, plus it was just a good date with my hubby.

In process

Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace - I'm about 370 pages into it. It's about 900 pages so nobody get too excited about be finishing it any time soon. It's great. I'm loving it.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad (on tape in the car) - making me look at what an "asset" is in a different way and wishing I was a little more bold and courageous as far as business goes.

Thinking about loading Abundance onto my i-pod next.

The Joy Luck Club

I got a little too excited about all the books I was ordering on half.com and ordered this one, which is ABRIDGED, which I hate. I listened anyway because I needed something on tape to drive to New Orleans one day and didn't take the time to load something on my i-pod. It was actually pretty good, at least as far as making me want to read the actual book. Plus it was read by the author, which I love, because then you get the pronunciation of names and such correctly. The book is going on my "to read" list.

Best Poems of All Times

Was only 1 tape, but ok I guess for $1.99. Poems from ancient thru the 1850's. Glad to hear them read to me alound by good poetry readers. Made me want to order a few more of this series.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

Finished (on audio): A Thousand Splendid Suns - Another Wow. Another one that really opened my eyes to what it's like to live day to day in the middle east, and made we want to learn more about what has happened and continues to happen there. The thought of not being safe is so alien to me. The closest I've ever really come to feeling like that was during Hurricane Katrina when we had 100,000 extra people wandering around...some angry, most at least disoriented. Many wandering around our neighborhood because we live close to the River Center which was a major evacuation point. We heard stories of violence, but never actually saw any, but there was this constant undercurrent of tension which was so odd and also oddly distracting. I can't imagine what it must be like to ACTUALLY be in constant danger, never feeling safe, never being able to relax your mind. How do people survive that? What must it do to a person's psyche?

"A Delta Wedding" - Eudora Welty

I'm glad a read this one. It was nice to recognize places, people, speech patterns, and habitats that are my own. It took me a while to get through it just because it wasn't the most tremendously interesting story I've ever heard, but it sort of felt like little pieces of home.

Planted, pruned, weeded, mulched, hauled, entertained, had a conversation that involved the words "no goldfish crackers please", collapsed

Caveat: this may sound like a lot, but my yard is about 2 inches by 2 inches :)

Planted: 7 foxglove, 1/2 a flat of pansies, 2 million bells petunias, swiss chard, 2 six-packs violets, cat whiskers, lemon grass.

Pruned: lemon tree, papyrus, butterfly bush, shrimp plant, indigo, roses (5), plumbago, pomegranate tree, elephant ears, vitex (2) lantana, buford holly, duranta, lorepetelum.

Weeded: front 5 beds and paths, bed outside picket fence on side, back patio, back courtyard, 3 back beds. I did the whole back from 8:00pm -11pm last night. I just got on a roll. And it was cool and no bugs. It was quite enjoyable, actually.

Mulched: all front beds.

Hauled: giant pile of cuttings and about 10 bags of weeds and leaves to the front.

Entertained: Don't know if I was very entertainING, but I was entertainED. Neighborman kept me company all afternoon. He even brought me 2 snacks - on his own, unbidden. One was goldfish crackers in a cup of water which was disgusting, but how do you argue with "you need to try just one before you say you don't like it." Then later he split his peach with me. Too sweet. Then he offered to bring me water, and I said sure but please no goldfish crackers in it.

Collapsed: It's 8:30 pm and I'd like to go to bed now thanks.

In process: unpotting and repotting all of my succulents.
Left to do: get more mulch more violets and finish planting (rest of flat of pansies, 2 flats of another color pansies, dianthus, and alyssum, 2 wallflowers, cuban oregano)

THE BEST PART OF THE WEEK: Jason fixed ALL THREE FRONT GATES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! woohoo!!! I bet the postlady will want to kiss him.