Well, while waiting for my butt exam tomorrow,  I decided to get off my butt and go see Mrs. Feller at the nursing home. Her birthday is on the 23rd and she will be 94. She asked about Sydney and Shane and I told her Shane was up to his old tricks – digging holes.  For a couple of years  I was really nurturing my grass in the back yard . . . and my hostas. The hostas are now ghost holes and will new ones will be replanted behind a little fence I am putting up. The grass, well it was the first casualty, I filled in the holes this fall and put some grass seed out (I think) and hoped winter would give me run at it.

HA!

Not only do I have no grass and three holes, Shane has decided to plant a Wubba to see what happens. Or, perhaps, when you trip because of the hole, he will run up and say, “Since you are already down, would you mind throwing that Wubba right there by you?”

This picture will also be posted on www.keepingsanewithshane.blogspot.com along with the others we have taken to help Quentin stay abreast of his dog’s boarding school days here.

I have my prep stuff I need to start drinking this afternoon and my laxative pills – six of them, all a once. I have Jell-O; I have clear sodas and Crystal Lite Packets, I rented two films from Redbox and happened across a copy of  Wolfen – not the best movie made but the first one we watched almost three decades ago on our new VCR. The book is quite a bit different because you can do a species such as werewolves more easily in writing than in film. Well, unless you’re Jack Nicholson and he was quite convincing.  Albert Finney was in Wolfen, but he wasn’t one of them. The movie was more Albert Finney vs. The Great Furry Things.

Enough of that.

I watched an episode of Fatal Attractions last evening about 1) a lady who kept venomous snakes in her trailer home and got bitten by her Gaboon Viper and died and 2) a man who kept cobras and was also bitten but was saved when his neighbor returned something he had borrowed and found him. Then I dreamed and woke up in an anxiety attack involving really scary and tense situations that I don’t remember now. I would guess that dreams can take werewolves and snakes and do all sorts of things with them that film and language can’t even begin to encompass. I do remember thinking I was concerned about going back to sleep.

I am not supposed to remember my experience with the actual colonoscopy. I wonder, though, if on following visits to the hospital, I will suddenly spread my arms and legs like a cat when I approach the door. Of course, the automatic sliding doors could make that interesting. A news photo wouldn’t do it justice; they would have to use the film option. YouTube, here I come.

Ah, there was a lovely sunrise this morning – but that’s not my mood today. I’m having my hair trimmed and colored today and then tomorrow I’m on the clear liquid diet, followed by the massive laxative treatment in the evening. All in preparation for Colonoscopy Day. I can’t truly say that the hair deal has anything to do with the colonoscopy directly, but I don’t care.

I JUST DELETED A PUNNING SENTENCE! So, you see, I have some standards . . . I just have to watch out that I don’t trip on them.

My mother was born in October; Jack had been born the previous January. They lived across the road from each other did not remember a time when they were not friends. When Jack was six and ready to go to school, Mother was about a month short of reaching that school age number. The story is she put her foot down and said if Jack was going to school, she was also. My grandfather knew a fellow on the school board and he said to send her and if she couldn’t cut it, she could try again the following year.

Well, she cut it okay and graduated with Jack in 1944.

When she died in October of ’09, he sent a very nice message in a card. I stuck it in with some other correspondence and couldn’t find it again until today. I’m glad I did and I’m going to share it with you.

I am listening to music –  a playlist burned from my computer onto a CD disk. The little CD player is sitting on a chessboard/checkerboard that is the top of a table. That top is hinged and I do have to be careful that I place things so the player does not splat itself on the floor. But aside from that minor complication, it works well – my little music setup.

I just pulled songs out that took me to parts of my life – aside from any philosophy and beliefs. Some are tunes I heard before I could remember and some of those were refreshed in the poignant scenes of a movie, such as Roses of Picardy in the documentary about TR and again in The Whales of August with Lillian Gish and Bette Davis.

Oddly enough, I don’t mind the bouncing from one emotion to another.

Count Your Blessings; There’ll Always be an England; Hello Love; I Saw the Light; Buckle Down Winsocki; Running Bear; God Bless the USA; This Little Light of Mine: Forever and Ever, Amen; Love Lifted Me; The Stein Song; Old Time Religion (Tennessee Ernie Ford); Roses of Picardy; 1234; Wabash Cannonball; Men of Harlech; Achy Breaky Heart; Surfin’ USA; Where the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day.

I was going to add The Minstrel Boy, but 1) I forgot and 2) I was running out of CD space.

Maybe one is here if I can add it to the post. And if I can’t, well. hum Buckle Down, Winsocki.  Or any tune of your choice.

I have things to do today that involve getting other people to certain places and, frankly, I don’t know when these things are supposed to happen. I’m certain someone will come and tell me – they always do.  I have decided to go where the day takes me today and, for heavens sake, I hope it is not into any cleaning job. Since I am the queen of the two minute showers, I am not worried about getting my act together. See, I have some talents . . .

For some reason that reminds me of some 11 years ago when we were in Fountain County to bury my father beside his parents in the Kingman Fraternal Cemetery. We stayed at my oldest cousin and his wife’s house and got there, oh, sometime in the late afternoon. I don ‘t know how I was dressed, but I suppose it was utilitarian and I imagine my hair was going a bunch of different ways. I only remember this probable scenario because the next day when we got up and got dressed to go to the funeral home, my cousin-in-law remarked that I looked quite nice . . . and my cousin blurted out, “Why, it’s like she’s another person.”

Yes, it’s true. That’s me. I’m grinning now; I like things that make me grin.

So, it’s off to go with the flow today – starting sooner or later with that two minute shower. Well, I shouldn’t have added that because now I am thinking of the flow of water whirling around the drain. Hey, it looks dark down there.

Barker’s Jewelers called that my amethyst necklace had been restrung and was ready to be picked up. So I go in my car and went to get it because it is one of my favorite things – the stones are irregular and polished and feel like silk sliding through my fingers. That, of course, means a lot to someone who has always found comfort in the satin edge of a blanket – a “feeler” my father dubbed it.

I went farther south than the store is so that when I turned east and then north, I would be in a position to park in front of the store. That route took me past the Strand and there it was on the marquee: The King’s Speech – 7 pm.”  So at 6:45 I was tucked in my seat with popcorn and soda and waiting for the movie to begin.

I thought it was a really good movie. A very good movie.  I thought the make-up of the actor playing Churchill was awful, but then the name of the movie wasn’t Churchill’s Speech.

I didn’t think of it at the time, but remembering the scene of King George walking out of the broadcast room, the thought “Bertie plays the Palace” crosses my mind and I am proud for him.

I started to write a bit of a post yesterday and then stared at the screen and thought well, perhaps later.

Well, in that “later” my DVD player broke and so did my little firestove. I called Der Bingle to tell him and the first thing he said was, “Good thing you don’t have a pacemaker.” Then Quentin called to console me and laugh a little with me. . .and my phone beeped “low and low and cannot get any lower” battery and the charger was not near me.

My blog did not put itself out there yesterday . . . and maybe you were very lucky.

So many people probably are aware of my war on dandelions and the gnome army that is alliance with them, thanks to the efforts of LZP. So many people are probably not and they are lucky. So stop reading now if you want to remain in that category.

If you want to delve into the history, you can type dandelion or gnome into the search slot and get more than enough. If you type in POW, you will see THIS.

But, anyway, spring is coming and both sides are preparing. I received this in the mail this morning from Himself, LZP.

Then on the back of the envelope:

This is part of the note:

This is what they will be listening to.

Well, the Lawn Home Guard is practicing “Men of Harlech” and we have word that the Scottish Brigades are joining in – gotta love the bagpipes.