keeping busy in the summer heat

now that the cat days of july are finally over, we're heading into the dog days of august. this would easily be my least favorite time of year, unless, that is, i were able to be at the beach. you'll probably be able to tell by the tone of this, i am not able to be at the beach this summer. in fact, the closest i've come to getting sand in my shoes this year has been that grit sometimes found in the hearts of romain from the grocery store. not at all the same.

the mice continue to haunt me. the memory of the mice-a-thon in wheatland and the daily adventure of living at disney world north. i find myself sitting up suddenly, in stealth quiet mode, to grab a hard heeled shoe, or a steel toed boot, so i can once again target practice with the resident rodents. so far, i've managed to kill a cockroach (damn, he was huge!), i've maimed a mosquito (equally huge!) and i've missed my mark, the mouse, every single time. the funny thing is, several time, as i've been steadying my aim and locking and loading my arm, my brain has shouted "abort", "abort"....the house flies with my low watt lighting and poor vision in general, have taken on four legged characteristics befitting mice, but not men, and have caused me to retrieve said ammunitions from across two rooms with barefooted trepidations.

for the 20 minutes or so a day of mouse thinking, it really does get me out of my non-functionality phase. ah, how strong the appetite for the luxury of life...i struggle and hide, but the survival instinct still beats all else.

he's alive - he's alive!!!!

just when i was absolutely convinced that my tete-a-tete with the ever beguiling bob was his final downfall....

who, or should i saw what, scampered by the window with the sort of speed generally reserved for emergency vehicles or persons with severe bowel issues....it's bob!

and when i stuck my head out the window to see where he'd gone in such the fired up hurry (and of course, while out the window, i planned to grab the sun tea that i'd been brewing all day, as one does...), wouldn't you know i barely saw bob's flat little tail disappear into the leafy confines beyond my fire escape, when, with one hand on the tupperware of tea, low and behold, an identical varmit, who can only be known as bob number 2, ran across the fire escape, jumped over my hand, previously full of tea, now full of nothing but air....

why am i so damn scared of that rascally bob family? i think of them as my pets, yet they keep popping up, popping out, popping in (apparantly) and causing me no end of spilt sun tea. for bobs being my pet on the cheap, he's/they're starting to cost me a lot in tomatoes, tea bags and tupperware.

anyway, i felt the need to share the joyous news of bob's return (or is that bobs returns), since i hate to think of scaring him (or is he an her?) into cardiac arrest, after all, that's one thing small vermin are always able to lord over the larger bi-peds among them, that is the ability to induce strokage.

feeling like karen carpenter (on top of the world, not dead!)

ok, maybe a little dead too....(but nothing like ethyl kennedy).

bull!

hay you!

now that's a purty party hat m'am!

fire works and a sparkling personality.....

i've fallen....and i can't get up

how the west was fun....

words to live by....

The more you give, the more you get-

The more you laugh, the less you fret-

The more you do unselfishly,The more you live abundantly...

The more of everything you share,The more you'll always have to spare-

The more you love, the more you'll find that life is good and friends are kind...

For only what we give away enriches us from day to day.

i would make a terrible cowboy....

i could never keep the calves together!

that is my puppy, splash....best dog ever.

haven't seen her in a while though. wonder if she's still alive and if she ever misses me like i miss her?

i saw sunset last night

it was spectacular as it spread out across manhattan island. i used to watch it every night when i lived in jersey city. at the time, i had the perfect apartment, and i used to rush home nightly so i could sit on the deck attached to my upstairs bedrooms. i would drink a glass, ok, a bottle sometimes, of merlot and talk on my princess phone with the extra long retractable cord. the trick back then was to catch the sunset's reflection so i didnt' hurt my eyes. at the time, i lived directly across the waterfront from the world trade center. oddly enough, i was told that if the trade center were ever to topple over, my apartment, and my neighborhood, would be decimated from the falling debris. i moved out of that apartment when i moved to sydney, australia. which is where i was when life stopped for most new yorkers. since the towers collapsed neatly into themselves, my old building still stands, as does the neighborhood. i wonder sometimes why anyone would want to live there now - the commute sucks and the view is gone....but that's just my train of thought.

this was my old apartment

snow and cold weather, like mexican food, somehow always makes me feel better. this was outside of my old apartment last february during the one blizzard we managed to squeak out all year. i tell you, i wish i knew what the world was coming to with this lack of weather around here! i remember huge snow drifts as a kid, and given my age, that wasn't exceptionally long ago...where'd all the cold and snow go?

haven't seen hide nor hair of bob since his escapade yesterday.

either i scared the life out of him too, or maybe he really did plummet into the yard. either way, i hope the very large feral cats didn't enjoy him as a summer snack...i noticed they've been very lazy in the back yard lately, which can only mean one thing - a big meal....

i'm not much of a morning person

but i never faced sunrise in the fire island pines with trepedition.

my dear friend ned, and his partner, michael, are here from london this week for michael's work. that means ned and i will trek out to the beach for a few days, no matter how bad my mood.

beautiful dawn, light up the world for me!

most beautiful full moon seen at the beach!

and given that i was living on fire island, that's a whole lot of moon to compete with!

i wish i were living on the beach again

for all the years i looked down my nose at wasting money to live on fire island (you know, why pay all that money to be ignored by the same people who ignore me for free in the city?!), but last year i was presented with an opportunity at the last minute....

sure, i earned the sobriquet "ethyl kennedy" from the locals (you know, old woman who never left the compound - didnt' find it offensive until i realized she was already long dead before summer!)

still, it was the summer of my dreams.

gamble with your head - not over it.

i just finished the new harry potter

which has not brought my mood any closer to normal. with that in mind, i'm going to make myself go out to eat so i can talk to some strangers and not have to do the dishes or deal with bob at home.

i wish i had a soft taco supreme right about now

why is it mexican food always makes me feel more normal?

i'm under a crushing veil of depression

if you have ever been depressed to the point of wanting to hide from the world for no reason, you might have a vague sense of how over powering this can be. i wish i were able to snap out of it. or climb out of it. hell, i'd be happy at this point, to crawl out of here right about now.

this is bob

he is the closest thing to a pet i have at the moment. and today, after all this time watching one another, i find bob has been closer than i thought -- he came in while i was out of the room and helped himself to the three beautiful red tomatoes i'd been ripening on the window sill.

of course, bob came back to finish them off, moments ago, actually, and i happened to be standing at the sink when he popped in the window. smarmy little bastard! scared the ice tea out of my hands. i think he fell off the fire escape...haven't seen him scamper by since....

living in new york city - mine is the house of mouse

i fear there is a country mouse missing from wyoming since i got home and seem to have a herd of new city mice living with me....is it remotely possible something stowed away for the trip back cross country?

a picture is worth a thousand words

and since i despise typing, i will sign off for tonight and leave you with some fan faves....

heaven by the dashboard lights

meatloaf had the idea (hmmm, meatloaf...mashed potatoes....that reminds me, i need to re-file my cd collection, the theory behind sorting by category was great, but food groups have really left me wanting...oh the cranberries got mixed up with the classic bread which really bothered me since meatloaf is great cold on bread but, i prefer my fruits and vegetables separate. and of course, putting the b-52's with all of that might have been the wrong choice, especially since i can't hold my liquor). so, anyway...this was actually sunset in the rearview mirror of Clark's truck parked at the circle by the haylot.

the prize winning photos

as an new york city dwelling singleton, of a certain age, i'm used to surviving, thriving and even driving in a concrete jungle (look ma, no hands!), so as one imagines, being confined behind the 'rents in the goat-cart, or covered wagon if you will, disguised as vacation, added to the extreme dry heat of wyoming (which is only to be enjoyed more if you're staying in tin lizzy with no air conditionning) and very little hope of a breeze, i can verify that not a single one of us would have survived the first leg of western expansion as settlers. heck, truth be told, i honestly wouldn't have ever seen the 'rents again probably, since the journey from new york city to new jersey, at a mere 58 miles door to door, is more than i can handle in an air conditionned commuter bus for the 2 plus hours it takes.

is it any wonder that we all fell for Mona's ruse of a photo contest? it did get us outside, and by us, i really mean me. after all, with the chance to stumble onto a rattle snake at any time, be attacked by large, viscious and too-many-legged bugs at any time, provide a home and launching pad for vermin at any time...i think wyoming really does offer something for everyone....

the equality state? you betcha! doesn't matter if you were cowboy, cowgirl, cowpatty or undecided -- you're fair and equal game for anything that can bite you, sting you, burn you, crawl on you or just scare the wits out of you without a word (read that silent but beady eyes).

darlin' i love you, but give me park avenue!

green acres at the double md....

so sue me...i couldn't rhyme anderson or circle with the tune to green acres running thru my head.

if you can picture the green acres of my childhood and much more recently of nick at nite's tv land (tv people the world over rejoice at this fact!), you will have a great mental visual of my summer vacation.

it doesn't matter which of us you choose to place into the roles made famous by zsa-zsa, eddy and arnold, the fact is their "plein aire" home was eerily similar to mom and jim's tin, lizzie, particularly when it comes to thed live-in livestock factor (a nice way to address the resident vermin). fortunately, since the field mice were rather large (think in terms of "sit", "stay", "good puppy"), they were very easy to see. that is, unless you happen to fall victim to the bad habit of sleeping with your eyes shut. lucky for me, i have very sensitive skin. my forehead breaks out when i think of sweating, and i sit straight up in bed as soon as someone runs up my arm.

fans of the muppet show will easily recall pigs in space, the timeless and classic vehicle created to launch piggy's career...fans of tin lizzie at the circle, may now become familiar with the house of mouse (not to be confused with that of mickey and minnie). the ceiling in the living room, near the hanging lamp, may well have a small, rodent-esque indent where i launched the initial participant in house of mouse from my supine and asleep position on the bed.

how i spent my summer vacation

looking back on my recent wyoming adventures with the 'rents, i can't stop myself from sharing this classic bit of poetry:

love flies like an arrow,
time flies like a sparrow,
fruit flies like a banana.

this was the first "real" vacation i have been on in years. in fact, it is the first time i have travelled, other than to see the 'rents, or to do an antique show with P.J., since finding out nearly 5 years ago that my life was going to be flipped upside down by colon cancer and the subsequent treatments.

life may never be the same again for me, as my body fails me regularly in more ways than i can count, and often when the body is compensating for itself, my brain manages to misfire. given the de-mylanization evident on several parts of my brain, i expect that i'm going to be prone to occasional synaptic misfires that can include troubles communicating verbally (often what i'm thinking is not what spews forth in a seeming endless barrage of banter - there was a time when i was succinct, i rose through the ranks at work in part from my ability to distill and gather info in 25 words or less).

i can't thank Mom and Jim (and subsequently, Mona and Clark!), enough for an amazing time.

Jim, as usual, was a hoot, with a heart of gold, driving non-stop from sun up to sun down because he was so eager to be a full-time cowboy. in the 25 years we've been married to Jim, he still manages to catch me off guard with his quirky humor and his quiet wit (a few hours from being home, after hours of being stuck in traffic along route 80 east, he read the vanity phone number from the back of a semi - trailer, except he switched the first and last letters coming up with a prolific, and un-repeatable phone number that people would really remember if they saw it!)

truth be told, i have always been a momma's boy. i'm o.k. with that. my Mom has always been the kind of Mom that other kids would kill to have as their own. that said, a little dose of super-Mom can go a long way, and since i'm so similar to her (hello, birthdays 3 days apart, we're both typical for sign of the archer), when together, our fire signs unite with combustible (and exhausting) personalities to overwhelm and conquer the unwitting, you know, the mere mortals we chill with.

the background 4 -1 -1

howdy!

wade here.

i have a penchant for nicknames -- both giving and getting them (all my friends call me wadeo, pronounced wade-Oh), a few hundred folks in europe and asia call me wadeio (pronounced like radio), and of course i went thru a long period of being wademeister which evolved to wadester as i matured. we see how that worked out for me, eh?