Ah, another urine analysis with dubious results, so more cipro and pushing of the fluids. Cranberry juice, here we go again. I’ll be heading down to Fairborn, so I’ll sit and watch movies and let Der Bingle wait on me.

Quentin’s nose isn’t blinking red, but it’s noticeable and I don’t think the doctor wants him to play any reindeer games for awhile. This is his second sinus surgery and was not as rigorous as the first. However, I don’t think it was much fun.

He sent a picture of his gauze mustache. When I emailed it to myself from my phone, it was obviously enlarged and I saw the calendar I had made of Shane pictures over his shoulder.

It is December. Shane is lying with his Santa Wubba in the pictures. I am going to believe that Shane is a playful elf that you can’t see, but follows us all around and, in this case, would be very happy to help Quentin sleep off the tiredness of surgery nestled up at his side.

Yesterday, as I was driving through LaGrange, I noticed the flags were at half staff. At first I wondered if someone had died, and then I thought about it being Pearl Harbor Day. That is telling; I am 66 and my first thought was not of Pearl Harbor Day. When I was young, the question asked by a lot of my elders was, “What were you doing on Pearl Harbor Day?” I heard so much talk about it, I sometimes thought I could remember.

Then it was about JFK and now the September 11, 2001. As my mother watched the coverage of the latter, she remarked over the phone to me, “This is what it was like when Pearl Harbor happened.” She recalled the students being called into the gym on the following day to listen to FDR speak over the radio.

It sometimes feels as if the smallest things are disasters; I need to keep my perspective.

It occurs to moi that I have been writing posts that mark me as eccentric, which is somewhat misleading. I am extremely eccentric.

Perhaps I have not mentioned a UDO (Ugly Doll Object), to cite some information about me that could be considered very odd. Well, to remedy that, here’s a picture of Guido – a bat who is afraid of the dark and who hangs around the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse.

And here is our newest drop-in, whose official UD designation is Gorgeous, but answers to Lucy Mae and likes to keep things orderly.

But wait, I think I did write about Trunko and Babo, so let me check the archives:

Well, yes, HERE. Oh,and here’s Guido actually documented in March, along with some other friends.

I have been making fiber-filled throws today and 3-D snowflakes. This year I decided to try a bit of tacky glue with a smattering of glitter. It looks okay, which is good because it takes six lobes to make a snowflake, the assembly of which requires tape and staples. It gets tedious, so after having done that, you don’t want to add glitter and find yourself thinking “tacky.”

This picture is blurry because my hand was shaking in fear of divine retribution.

This is a corn husk angel after I attempted to reposition her on a wreath; I broke her halo . . . and actually managed to rip her head right off. Glue and special tape and maybe, just maybe I will not be zapped, as long as I follow her instructions: Don’t touch me again!

It was rainy and gloomy in Ohio and Der Bingle and I were trying to eat light and relax. And then the sun came out, and so did we. He took me to a place some the people in his office area call “The Dead Meat Place.” Its real name is City Barbeque and I think I have found a new favorite spot, complete with beaver.

No, beaver is not on the menu, which was fine with me, and I suppose, with him.

You can get all sizes of portions and I went small, but had a Big Festive Moment when I spied the ice-filled cooler of bottled soda with Cheerwine included.

Because the mid afternoon period was as cheery as my wine – sorry, I guess, I’m feeling the lingering festivity – we decided to drive down to what they call The Green and walked around.

Yes, it does look a bit too perfect, but then this is a place with a lot of engineers at the Air Force Base and at the universities – not to mention hangers where supposed aliens may or may not be housed.

Then, because we had eaten lightly at lunch and because we had no will power, we stopped in The Cheesecake Factory for a drink and a slice of the calorie-laden delights. And because I was feeling a little sophisticated, I had Der Bingle take a picture of the ceiling and wall.

I scarfed all my cheesecake, but Der Bingle brought half of his piece home and this morning I got a message on my phone from him: It’s diet time again.

I believe the corn husk angel is hiding out in a foxhole until she is certain I am gone. Just thought I’d share that.

I’m in Ohio; I’ve been having some side effects from Cipro; I’ve been doing other things. But I am not dead as of this typing and so that is not the reason for the long silence. I have been playing Words With Friends with someone, but that is not the reason either. There is no reason.

There is a reason as to why I got myself in a bad spot in the WWF game – and it involves the dead. I hate putting it like that; let’s say it involves the influence of my late father.

I was stacking a word and it would only work with SHI* or SHIP. The second choice left an opening for my opponent. The first choice, obviously scatological, was fairly safe, but not from the voice in my head that said, “I don’t believe a lady would do that.” Now, let me tell you, I have adapted to this new game that lets you try out a word without risking a challenge and accepts slang and foreign words and words that are followed in the dictionary provided by the information that said word is a valid word but no definition is available. As I remarked to someone: This is not my Daddy’s Scrabble.

But I couldn’t play SHI*; I can’t even type it here. I could have just abandoned the whole thing, but I believe it was for quite a few points and I was greedy. I figured it was early in the game so I went with SHIP, although it left a good opening for my opponent.

She didn’t need it; she made a brilliant placement move of QUID and there sat my “s” in SHIP. I had drawn yucky letters and couldn’t add MATE or PED to SHIP. So it is still open. Of course, the SHI* word would have taken the same “s” but I couldn’t play it and if I had really listened to my dad about not being greedy, I would have let the unwise SHIP go as well.

So now I am sitting here feeling dumb and greedy about SHIP . . . but ladylike. And that’s why I’m looking at the game and thinking, “Oh, DRAT.”

I have purchased many gifts from Shutterfly, always waiting for their special deals of course. And, now, they are offerring me a free calendar, with the sale ending Friday. So I think I’ll talk it over with Der Bingle and pick out a picture or two for each month.

The 2014 calendar was all about Shane. I am going to have to decide about 2015. Maybe we will choose some landscapes – pictures you can stare at and envision yourself climbing into.

Spell check wants me to use only one “r” in offerring; usually I just give in to the new wave of computer spelling. But, today, I am feeling not really rebellious, but a need to say, “We’re going to do this the proper way.”

Yesterday, sitting in a car in a sparsely-filled parking lot was like a kiddie theme park ride. The car rocked as it was buffeted by winds gusting around 50 mph. Watching the canvas canopy over the walkway into the building was almost entertaining – Is it going to go? Whoa! Did you see that?

However, we managed to later be blown into Logan’s Roadhouse and took advantage of the Two for $14.99 dinners. I had salmon grilled over mesquite with a tangy sauce on the side and, although it tasted great, it also activated the effects of not having a gallbladder. The food went through me like the wind and I don’t think many calories had a chance to be absorbed. Uh, that was way too much information.

However, it was worth it for the taste and the atmosphere, although you can no longer throw your peanut shells on the floor. You have to be neat and drop them in the “shell bucket.”

That title up there sums up my day. Yesterday I made a comfy thing out of two $3 WalMart fleece throws and some fiberfill. It didn’t turn out half bad. But today, today I had to get in the Christmas/Holiday spirit by “doing.”

Yes, I again enjoyed the zoning out work of crafting something, but yes, I also was reminded of the endless repetition with very slow visible progress. I have a wee bit to yet yet, sprucing it up and whatnot, but, for the most part, it is done. It glitters. It pleases me to look at it and imagine it reflecting a bubble light.

It reminds me of my grandmother teaching me to embroider; it also reminds me of my mother’s setting at the big oak table with a huge Christmas tree skirt and bins of sequins and gold lame thread and reindeer stuff. I have that tree skirt still. I had to sew those sequins on and I used my grandmother’s engraved thimble from the days when such things were considered special gifts.

Suddenly I am thinking of making a sequined voodoo doll . . .