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.