Ocean Spray now makes a cranberry juice product that has 5 calories per serving. The Light version has 40. I love cranberry juice, so I bought it. It isn’t as good as the stronger brew, but it is delightful to just drink it freely – from a nice glass with ice. I don’t know why I like to drink out of nice glasses but I do; then again, I like festive acrylic ones.

This juice may have its own potency – I feel a little “happy” so here’s someone else to carry the ball – Say hello, Bob.

“Uh . . . I’m Bob and AmeliaJake wants me to tell you hi. So “Hi”. Oh, wait, she says I don’t need quotes if I’m the one actually typing and saying stuff. So, is this a forum for me? I am thinking of becoming an ice road trucker bear. Sorry, a little free association there . . .  hope this cranberry juice doesn’t stain.

Hey, look at this thing AJ and I found in  a drawer. We don’t know  if we should cook with it or if it is intended to receive signals from the mother ship. AJ is making us cute little foil hats to wear, just in case. We will sit here in our foil hats and stare at it and wait for instructions . . .

Speaking of folks here at The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse, you may or may not remember Lydia, nicknamed Sparky, who occasionally plays the upright red piano for us. She is pretty certain a hard winter is on its way and is making sure her hat fits.

A sample of her playing in a dreamy mood

It came to me this morning: I blog for me. I like the crisp way things show up on the template; I like expressing myself with some restraint – it’s good practice for being out in public this election year. I like going to The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse and mingling with the denizens, some of whom look like, ahem, “ragdolls”, to those who get it and can look like normal people to those who don’t.

It’s sort of like housing and clothing – you make it fit your preferences and no one else need be bothered. Well, it’s better than housing and clothing. That is to say, I don’t have to visit someone’s blog where the girls wear flipflops to school – but I have to see it when I pick my grandkids up.

I like that people I care about may stop by and keep in touch with me and know I am thinking of them. And I like meeting others who wander in and share a foldover.

Excuse moi, but what is this “look like normal people” remark? We might just have to talk with AJ . . .

You wouldn’t suspect it, probably, but a lot of us here at the PBC really have a soft spot in our hearts for Feist and listen to her often  . . .  and even watch her videos. We sort of discovered her because she and one of our favorite friends share a name – okay, for our friend it’s a nickname: Feisty*.

So we are very pleased to post this YouTube video:

* This is Feisty:

That tremendously wonderful dog two posts down? He reeks of the smell of flea medicine. Maybe a little too much got on the fur as opposed to the skin; it is hard to access his scalp because his fur is thick. It is not so hard to give him the heartworm medicine anymore because I have finally learned the technique used by our vet: toss it down the throat . . . “I haven’t had a dog choke yet,” he said”

However, now we are trying half a big arthritis pill every morning. He hasn’t choked . . . but he still manages to spit it out. Then I pick it up and try again; sometimes that pill gets quite mushy before it gets to where it is going.

I have tried the hot dog pieces game with little pills. Toss a bite of hot dog; toss a bite of hot dog; toss a bite of hot dog with a little pill in it; have in my hand another bite of hot dog to throw. I throw it and watch as it hits the top of his head when he looks down to spit out the hot dog with pill. Then he eats the one that bounced off the head to the floor.

I get frustrated.

I suppose he does as well.

This morning those of us in the Cafe & Roadhouse were talking about chemotheraphy for animals. I don’t believe I would put a dog through it unless he were quite young, the chemotherapy was “mild” and the statistical chances of it working were very high.

We put Little Ann to sleep when she had a tumor on her jaw. She was old and the tumor came back quickly after it was removed surgically. Further surgery would have been radical and chemotheraphy needed. She was such an indomitable little dog that I couldn’t let her suffer, fighting a battle that could not be won. When she couldn’t get up to go outside to urinate and lay in her urine, I took her in.

The vet looked at her and said, “Little Ann, you’ve been a good and faithful dog.” About a minute later, she had accepted the shot and was gone.

Now, I’ll bet Der Bingle’s friend is sitting somewhere with tears in his eyes . . . she always loved him best.

We been sitting here in The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse, looking at pictures of the Obama Speech Stage at Invesco Stadium. Takes your breath away. My goodness.

This is surreal and it’s very scary that it is sure real.

UPDATE: 2013

Not very many people read this blog and that’s okay with me because I it’s about me writing and not about me being read. Today I noticed that on Labor Day, 2013 clicks had been recorded on this Pioneer Woman post. It was Memorial Day – maybe there was a marathon of her cooking show or perhaps her name appeared in a newspaper article.

A lot of people like her; a lot don’t. But it was Memorial Day and I’d like for this to be the first thing you see:

Diane Sawyer of CBS News once said that because of all the people who’d told her stories about where they were on Pearl Harbor Day; she sometimes felt that she too could remember that day — even though she hadn’t even been born by December 7, 1941.

This is interesting. Oh, THIS is an article in Working Range magazine about the Drummond Ranch – the place Pioneer Woman calls home. It loads a little oddly, coming up in the middle of the article. The Drummond Brothers are the 76th largest landowners in the US, according to the Land Report. Ted Turner is number one – sort of Turner Classic Ranches.

July 30, 2011

I see that the THIS link no longer worked, so I scrounged around and found another; now I have decided to take screen shots. The link will allow you to enlarge the pages; I have no idea what the screen shots will do.

Yes, not too much is going on here tonight. A few people sipping tea, a couple of others with a cola, a pair of cute polar bear cubs tossing back some salmom . . . and an angel of two just sitting and relaxing. Friday (our dog, remember) is stretched out on the plank floor under my leg which rests upon the neighboring chair rung. I can feel his fur soft on my skin. And I guess he feels me.

We still have to do our nightly call checks on a couple of folks, make certain they are tucked in all safe – especially Sarah who pretty much drives us crazy . . . especially when she goes down in the bunker and hears water dripping. She can’t hear anything else too well, but let one drop drip and she’s on alert. In which case she grabs a flashlight and comes to report, her face leaning down close to yours. Just like this Christmas Eve . . . “I think there’s a pinpoint leak in the bunker . . . ”

And now that we’re thinking of her, we are also remembering she always checks her tires before she get cleaned up to go anywhere. Might have a flat, dontcha know. We’d call Sarah on the old Candlestick brass phone because we know she hates its tinny sound and we like to hold the receiver to our ear while we wrap the other hand around the upright part and lift the speaker cone to our lips, but Sprint to Sprint is free.

So it’s speed dial time . . . #6.