Wardrobe Malfunction
In a bit of a hurry today, I grabbed a new bra, tore off the tag, threw away both of the little pieces of plastic that held it on cause I hate to find them lying around, put it on followed by a tank and a blouse and ran out the door. Before I got to the freeway I was thinking how uncomfortable I was. In the front, where the wires meet, it was digging into my chest. I’m sure that must be how a heart attack feels.
Not a stranger to heart issues or the acid reflux stuff that often mimics them, I tried to calm down. And I got on the freeway trying to tug at the offensive wires a bit to little avail. I don’t think I was paying much attention to the traffic cause I kept going over and over in my head trying to figure out what bra I had put on. It was a twin pack special deal from (I’m embarrassed to admit) Walmart. But, hey, it’s a name brand and getting two on the same hanger was a real deal. My point is, I’d worn the other one before and never felt like I was being embraced by a python.
By the time I reached my off ramp, I was seriously considering going braless for the day. I am, after all, nothing if not a child of the 60s. Still, now that I’m in my sixties I can’t quite imagine what my students would think. And, unfortunately, though I’d layered a couple of tops, neither one of them provided that much coverage. So, I tried to convince myself this was indigestion. And to help it out, I drove thru McD and bought a hot tea.
When the tea didn’t seem to help, I took a detour thru the local shopping area and ran into the drug store where I bought some Tums. I briefly looked around for a bra, but the closest bet I could find were tank tops with a skimpy kind of thing sewed in. I decided that might be worse than braless. So, I chewed up a couple of Tums and told myself I was feeling better. Not.
Got to school, parked nearby, snagged a big pile of books that I needed to return to our little library, and sprinted most of the way to the office hoping to find a female with a safety pin. Having already rummaged thru my trunk, I figured there must be a better Girl Scout amongst us who really would be prepared. I found a sewing kit, contact lens cleaner, and q-tips, but no safety pin.
Off the elevator at the 4th floor and down the hall only to find the office dark and a little note saying it would be closed until 11:45a. As my class meets at 11am that wasn’t going to work. And, of course, I had left my wad of keys in the car so I couldn’t even get into my office although I was fairly certain I have didn’t have a safety pin there either.
Knowing I couldn’t carry the bunch of books all over campus, I decided to leave them in a stack in the nearby ladies room and hope for the best. What can I say? I was so uncomfortable by now that I just didn’t care much.
Back down to the second floor, which, at Cal State, is ground level at one end of Academic Hall where I spied a friend teaching in one of the computer labs. Desperate, I opened the door, interrupted her lecture and motioned for her to come out. I must have looked awful because she didn’t hesitate. Sadly, she didn’t have a safety pin either. She offered to ask her female students, but as half the class were men, I opted out.
Not too far away, in the big courtyard, there’s a coffee cart and the woman who owns it and I have become friends over the years often running into each other at the nearby Nordstrom’s Rack while getting in some retail therapy. I knew she’d understand and her cart is not far from the little store on campus which I was 90% sure didn’t carry sundries, but… Eureka! She had 3. I grabbed them all and went in search of the nearest restroom
Cheap bras, for some reason, are made of thick material, so once I untangled myself from the lycra python I could hardly get the safety pen thru the fiber. My plan was to use two and sort of make an extension which ought to relieve the pressure in the front. Finally got both thru the fabric and hooked to the other side. My fix didn’t provide much of an extension, but an inch would have to do.
Of course, now that I’ve got this mickey mouse extension in place, I have to figure out a way to get the bra back on. So, I go over the head like a sweater. Wrong. That wasn’t going to work. In the process, one of the safety pens quickly came open and stabbed me.
Gently unhooking both of them, though I wanted to scream, I put the bra on conventionally except instead of closing it with hooks, I fastened it with safety pens. And adjusted the girls and – yes – it was possible to breathe. I could feel the color returning to my face. Whoops, one came undone again. Still calm, while wanting to scream bloody murder, I simply dug it out of my flesh and decided to go with one – the one that seemed to be the stronger of the two.
Finally on my way to class, I returned the smaller of the three pins along with the monster that kept attacking me and wouldn’t stay shut. After grabbing a folder I needed from my car I ran into a friend and shared a laugh. She knew I was on my way to teach my English thru Music class and suggested it probably wasn’t the day to demonstrate the bunny hop. After telling me to “hang in there,” she left and I walked carefully on to class looking much more confident than I felt.
Fortunately, the students were presenting today. So all I had to do was call names and make some notes as one group after another shared a bit about the musical that had been assigned to them: Les Miserables, The Sound of Music, Grease, Cats. If I recall, it was about halfway through Memories that I felt a sudden loosening and realized that the one and only remaining safety pen had given up the ghost.
Thanking Allah for my folder, as I have many Saudis in my music class, I clasped it to my chest while I reminded the students of their assignment for next week and shooed them out of the door. Of course, two or three wanted to gab and must have wondered why I wasn’t my usual talkative self.
Finally, when the last student had picked up the last book bag and sauntered out the door, I locked it, checked the shades which had been drawn so we could show videos, and tore my clothes off. Yanking the lycra python off, I discovered that the pin had not only come open, it had broken in two. And I stared at the pieces, my plan for a safety pin extension now completely thwarted.
So, I changed tactics. It’s a cheap bra, I figured I ought to be able to stretch it out a bit, so I tugged and pulled and twisted before bravely putting it back on. As I did, I loosened the straps as far as they would go. My tugging and this loosening seemed to help and I was able to get back out to my car and even get thru my next class, but not before I noticed that I’d drunk my McD tea without putting the teabag in the cup. Not that I was distraught or anything!!!

Awesome

As many of you know, I make my living teaching English as a Second Language. Teaching came about as a mid-life career change and it has been a joy. And my students never fail to amaze me. And when they’re not amazing, they are, at least, amusing.
At the moment, at CSUSM, we’re all getting ready for the International Fair, a day in which many groups showcase their talents and share their lives. Last year, my students decided to do body art and it was hugely popular. The line at our booth never let up as students waited to have some fancy Oriental calligraphy painted on them.
Being fairly wise, my students who were taking part, a mixed group of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean had decided it would make sense to make templates and then one could just fill them in, rather than having to create a new design for each person. So, they carefully designed and then cut out various words that they thought might appeal to the other students: happiness, luck, joy. Of course, they also decided we needed to be enthusiastic about our school, so they created a CSUSM template and a cougar which turned out to be one of the most popular patterns. They also decided they needed some modern themes.
Fast forward to this year. I dug out the templates I’d saved and encouraged this year’s group to come up with some others and, perhaps, reinforce the ones we had. After just a few minutes there was a low giggle going about the class. And when I asked to be let in on the funny, they showed me a template labeled “awesome.” Modern indeed. And I said, so what’s funny?
After some time, they stumbled around and tried to explain to me that “awesome” is a slang word and doesn’t exist in Chinese, so whoever originally drew this one had put two characters together which kind of translated into the idea of awesome, but read rather strangely. Sensing more was afoot, but somewhat satisfied I just let the class continue their efforts.
When the class met the next time, the same twittering went around the room when this card was shown to a fellow who’d been absent. Finally a couple of the Chinese women told me we couldn’t use it. The class chimed in – some pretty much in agreement and some who said it was fine. Still, I knew something more was going on and I pushed for an explanation. None was forthcoming. The young man who’d been absent, though, had something to say. He’d been in my class the year before and, apparently, had drawn this design. And he was prompt to defend it. As busy as we were, I let it go again.
Until the class met the third time to continue this project – the International Fair now less than a week away. And, somehow, the awesome template had made its way back into the stack of patterns we are going to use this year. When one of the young Japanese fellows noticed it, he pulled it out and gave it to me and said, somewhat solemnly, we can’t use this one. I’ve had him in one of my more academic courses and knew that he respected me, so I was really perplexed and I asked why – again.
He sort of looked down at his feet while that same giggling started again going around the room and bouncing off one another as some fought to hold back their laughter and others just couldn’t. Before much longer, one of the younger Chinese boys (technically a man, but barely) came close to me and mumbled under his breath, “It says “f*king awesome.” Before I could help myself I repeated what he had said which caused the entire class to just about roll on the floor. Afterwards I could truly report I was ROTFLMAO.

BFF

Yesterday I went to brunch with my dear friend, Fran, and she brought some pictures of her first born's recent wedding which brought the conversation around to the "good ole days" when we first met and married and had our kids.
We met at work so it wasn't odd that our conversation went back and forth to the world of work and, at some point, I mentioned how jealous I used to be of my sister-in-law, Mary Lou, who watched my first born when I had to go back to work. I've often thought if I'd have stopped to figure out all of the costs, I probably wasn't very far ahead by working, but it was the choice I made. And it was one I regretted every single day when I had to drop him off.
And as I told Fran yesterday, I don't know how Mary Lou managed. She had a little boy just a few months older than mine. It was like having twins. I used to marvel at her. They were always fed and clean and dry, but more than that, they all seemed happy. Her oldest wss only about four and wasn't yet in school, so she really had her hands full. I can't even imagine.
She and I became close during our pregnancies - her second, my first. We were married to brothers and their family lived nearby and were quite close. Most of my family was around, too, but they were much younger and not into the "married with kids" thing yet, so it was logical, I guess, that this shared journey would bring us together. And Mary Lou didn't have any siblings, so that probably contributed. In fairly short order, then, we became BFF and though we'd drifted apart the last few years after I remarried and her husband retired, we managed to get in a "quick" phone call every now and then which inevitable turned into an hour long visit.
It would be safe to say that Mary Lou knows me as well as anyone on the planet and there is nothing that I couldn't and haven't shared with her. And vice versa.
So, this evening, I can hardly breathe. I don't know how to function. I don't know what to do. I want to talk with my best friend and tell her how awful I feel, but I can't.
When her husband called me this afternoon, I knew it was bad news, but I never dreamed would never have guessed what he'd called to say. Sadly, a mutual friend has been quite ill, and I thought he might be calling about him. No. Perhaps even more sad is the fact that one of his younger sister's is battling cancer. I thought he might be calling about her. No.
No. No.
No.
He was calling to tell me that his wife and my best friend had died this afternoon. OMG!
I want to call Mary Lou and tell her awful this feels, but I can't. She's gone. I want to scream. I want to throw myself on the floor and have a tantrum like a two year old. I want to hear her voice.
Please call someone you love today and tell them how much they mean to you.

Pecan Pie

In my fairly usual rush to get ready for the holidays, some things have gone missing. The realization started before Thanksgiving as I was planning on making some pies – the family chocolate pie from my Aunt Estelle’s recipe and our famous pecan from a recipe of unknown source. And as I thumbed through the recipes I’d found in the cigar type box that originally held Christmas cards, I had come across three handwritten pecan pie recipes. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, the store I went to right before Thanksgiving was out of pecans, and I couldn’t muster up the energy to go to another, so Thanksgiving has come and gone and the family had to make do with store bought pecan pies.
Not wanting store bought pies for Christmas, I rummaged around and found the index cards that, not surprisingly, had not made it back into the cigar box-come-lately-recipe holder. It was only today that I really looked at the recipe cards and realized they were written by three different people. The handwriting on each was distinctive: one was written in my mother’s rather fanciful printing, not as elegant as her beautiful cursive, but still showing clear evidence of years of penmanship in school, an art so sadly lacking today; the second was written in my oldest sister’s sort of practical cursive, not as flowery as one might expect, but lovely nonetheless; and the last was written in my barely legible print.
I think graphologists, those who study “the relationship between handwriting and the character of the writer,”(1) might label me schizophrenic if they could see it as I note that my E in pecan and pie resembles a cursive capital letter without the adjoining loop while my e in eggs looks like a lower case cursive letter. Oy vey!
Back to the box – not realizing that I hadn’t returned the recipes to the box, I looked there first and discovered yet another index card in yet another person’s handwriting. This one, I don’t recognize. I think it’s my youngest sister’s hand, but I’m not positive. Still, it makes sense that I wouldn’t be as acquainted with Shelly’s handwriting as I am with my mother’s or Carol’s.
Writer that I am, I had to sit and put some thoughts about this on paper which means that the pecan pie remains unbaked. But there are questions to be posed. Why are there so many recipe cards for the same pie? I look for answers in the details. Two are carefully encased in plastic, three calling for 1 cup pecan meats, mine calling for 1 C pecan pieces. One calls for 1 cup red Corn Syrup (Karo), a second asks for 1 Cup red Corn syrup with no brand specified, a third lists 1 cup corn syrup [Karo] without mentioning the color, and the last says 1 C dark karo using the brand as the noun and adds (I bottle makes 2 pies). Given that I come from a very large family, I’m sure that last note was a welcomed addition.
But the questions I have about these recipe cards does not address the larger question which is where are my two "real" recipe holders. One is some kind of stainless steel and looks like a file for larger index cards. The aforementioned index cards are all 3x5. And the stainless steel is stuffed with papers of all sizes, many torn out of magazines, a few hand-written fairly neatly on the smaller index cards, and some, if I recall correctly, are written on "regular" 8 1/2 x 11 inch notebook paper. But here the details are not important. The important thing is that I haven't found that box since I moved and unpacked over a year ago. And I've no idea where this cigar box came from.
The other "real" recipe holder is a green plastic box full of Betty Crocker recipes with lovely pictures that I somehow inherited from my mother-in-law. Years later, I found one just like it on e-bay and purchased it for my daughter. Of course, I could borrow those recipes from her, but I'd still like to know where MINE went.
All of this chatter about recipes would make one think that I cook a lot, and that would be wrong. I cook as seldom as possible and am not particularly fond of the practice. I simply cook to eat - a practice that I am very fond of. And now you might think I would be sharing the infamous pecan pie recipe, but I'm not going to. Family secret - although how it has remained so having been written down four different times is beyond me. The one I would share is our truly remarkable recipe for homemade ice cream. It's to die for. Indeed, it's so wonderful that we simply refer to it as, "The Recipe." Sadly, it's in the missing recipe box! Hopefully, it will turn up before summer.
Did I mention the killer fudge?





( http://handwritingfoundation.org/graphology-history)

What Your Car May or May Not Say About You

FMRO (For Mature Readers Only)

“What Your Car May or May Not Say About You”

On Yahoo’s finance page a while back there was an article titled “What Your Car Says About You.” It was from Forbes and dated October ’09. In Forbes’ highly intelligent fashion, it reports that driving a Bentley indicates that you’re wealthy. Gee! Now there’s a revelation. A bit less obvious, it says that Buick owners are stodgy. As two thirds of them are apparently over 55, that may be a safe bet, although I personally would take issue at being labeled stodgy simply because I am over 55. Indeed, I’m well over 55, but then again, I’d never buy a Buick.
My Dad used to have one, though, when I was little. The model was called a Roadmaster. And at the time, he wasn’t much more than a whipper snapper. According to Wikipedia, “Between 1946 and 1957, the Roadmaster was Buick's premium and best appointed model.” Maybe he just had good taste. Wikipedia goes on to say, “The 1953 Buick Roadmaster station wagon, Model 79-R, was the last wood-bodied station wagon mass-produced in the United States.” Buick made a Woodie! I didn’t know that. According to The Old Woodie web site, “In their heyday, woodies were often the most expensive cars offered by a manufacturer and many tallied impressive sales figures.” I didn’t know Buick made a Woodie and I didn’t know a Woodie was expensive, but I do know a Woodie was not stodgy. I can’t imagine the Beach Boys ever thinking of themselves as stodgy.
If you own a Chevy or a Ford, I’ll have to explain my numbers a bit because according to Forbes, 25% of you (13% of Chevy drivers, 12% of Ford) don’t use the internet. That’s an amazing finding. But if you find yourself in that category, I can help. I can teach you to use the internet in about 20 minutes. And you’ll be hooked in less than an hour. Trust me on this. I came into the tech world early on, but I came kicking and screaming, but it’s SO fun. Not as much fun as driving a 4 speed ohc, but fun.
Truthfully, though, I’m no techie. I’m not a computer expert at all, but I do fancy myself as something of a car expert. And therefore I can take issue with much of the Forbes’ report. I fancy myself a car expert precisely because I am over 55 which means that I cut my teeth on the muscle car - in my case, the GTO. Fond memories, yet just the other day, I saw what may be my favorite bumper sticker of the decade: “Officer, I wasn’t speeding. I was qualifying.”
I don’t know where the Forbes’ author hails from, but the data he cites was gathered by a San Diego based “market research outfit.” Now that is hard to believe. In other parts of this country, the car you drive may reveal something about you, but in California, you are what you drive! And I think, like the GTO “… we’re really looking fine!”

Really old Ford folks joke about how early on in the 20th century, you could buy a Ford in any color you wanted – as long as you wanted black. And it seems to me these days that we’ve gone back to that. There are hardly any cars of color today. My girlfriend used to drive her father’s Mercury and it was pink. Another friend had a ‘57 Chevy with turquoise fins. And I drove my Dad’s two-toned green ’55 Pontiac. Cars came in colors.
When I got older and was in the market for my GTO, I wanted to buy a yellow one, but my husband wouldn’t have it. He liked the orange Judge model that came out in ’68 or ‘69, but frankly I thought it was a bit garish. Besides, the body style was round and ugly. It looked like a hunchback to me. We settled on the much more stylish l-o-n-g ‘67 burgundy model.
I learned how to drive in that old two-toned green Pontiac of my Dad’s, but my friend taught me how to drive a stick in his dark blue ’66 Mustang. It was a three speed on the column. He hardly flinched when I ground the gears: my definition of a nice guy.
When we got our GTO, my husband said I could figure it out. It was a four speed in the traditional H pattern. And the gearshift was located between the bucket seats where it belongs. The only pointer he gave me was to pay attention to the tachometer. He said I shouldn’t let the engine go into the red zone. And off I went.
It wasn’t until he went on his first ride with me a couple of weeks later that I actually got it right cause I asked him:
When do you ever get to 4th gear?
He looked at me a bit quizzically.
You see 2nd gear wound up to about 2400 rpm and the red line wasn’t until 2500. So, I’d been driving on the freeway in second gear for some time. Whoops.
My husband did flinch when I’d grind a gear which is why I asked my friend to teach me in his car, but once I learned, my husband used to love to watch me race folks – especially guys. He’d even egg me on.
Come on, Sherry, you can do it.
Get over there – indicating the right lane where cars are supposed to park. And he’d watch the lights for me.
OK. Ready?
The guy driving the other car would look and me and kinda smirk. And I’d just smile. Then he’d rev his engine and I’d rev mine. The light would change and off we’d go – clutch out, gas pedal to the metal, ease up a bit so you don’t just spin the tires. Winner.
In all modesty, it was hard for anyone to beat me. Pontiac’s 400 cubic inches produced over 350 hp and as the song says about the little deuce coupe, it really could catch rubber in all four gears. According to Wikipedia, “It was a muscle car classic of the 1960s and 1970s era. Although there were earlier muscle cars, the Pontiac GTO is considered by some to have started the trend with all four domestic automakers offering a variety of competing models.” According to me, it was just pure fun.
Cars aren’t much fun anymore. Although I test drove a Dodge the other day with a Hemi and my grandson said he’d never seen me grin so much.
Another friend of mine used to have a little sticker on his dashboard that pretty much summed up my sixties driving experience for me: gas, grass or ass – nobody rides for free.
I wrote this in 2010 just as “General Motors officially announced the end of the Pontiac brand.” On November 1, the headlines read, “Pontiac dealership agreements expired yesterday, marking the official end for GM's 84-year old.” I should look so good at 84. 10/31. Damn. Halloween will never be the same for me. And GM will never be the same. Period.

(http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/107938/what-your-car-says-about-you.html?mod=family-autos)

(http://www.oldwoodies.com/welcome.htm)

What's in the Box?

I’ve done my share of traveling. I’ve seen most of our fair country and I’ve been to several countries in Europe a number of times and to Japan a few times. I’ve seen much of Canada and most of Mexico. In all this time though I continue to be amazed at how nice it is to get home and how exhausted I am by the time I get here. And, of course, everyone has their funny travel stories.
One of mine happened as my second trip to Japan was about to come to a close. I’d been in Japan on a job interview and the college I'd interviewed with had made the travel arrangements which involved several changes of planes and a truly grueling return trip.
It began on the wrong foot. As I was leaving my hotel in Nagoya, one of my pieces of luggage just fell apart. It gave up the ghost right in the lobby while I was trying to check out, the seam of the zipper just gave way ripping apart from both sides leaving a gaping hole from which all my Japanese treasures spewed forth: a kimono, some sake, a tea cup, a camera lens, assorted carefully embroidered handkerchiefs.
I just didn’t have time to go shopping for another suitcase and the hotel desk clerk must have realized. In any event, he took pity on me and snagged a box. We emptied my suitcase into the box and he fastened it securely with clear packaging tape.
Domo arrigato.
I was so grateful.
The flight to Tokyo was brief and uneventful. We checked in thru customs and made our way to the next plane and the longest part of the trip. We were returning to CA via British Columbia then to San Francisco then to LA. Although I had a business class seat on this leg, I was still exhausted by the time we got to BC. Oddly, U.S. immigration was there and checked in the US passengers.
The layover in SF was brief, but I practically stumbled off the plane in Los Angeles. I’d been traveling for close to 24 hours. And I’ve never been any good at sleeping on board an aircraft. I’ve always sort of felt I had to stay awake to help the plane stay aloft. Besides, the captain was awake. I hope. I hope. I hope.
Once we disembarked, I got my luggage and loaded it on one of those carts and began pushing my way thru the international zone toward the lobby where I knew my family would be waiting. And because we’d cleared customs in Canada, I didn’t have to wait in line in passport control which was a real blessing.
Avoiding passport control was fine with me until a customs agent stepped in front of me and blocked my path. He looked at me and at my luggage and at the box and asked, “What’s in the box?” “Gifts,” I replied. He looked at the box again and moved aside.
But I hadn’t traveled another 25 feet when a second customs agent stepped in front of me, looked at my luggage and looked at the box and asked, “What’s in the box?” Exasperated and exhausted I snapped at him. “Gifts!” He squinted at the box and then at me and moved aside.
By now I could see the bank of exit doors. The exit. Freedom. Home at last. Home at last. Thank God almighty, home at last.
But it was not to be. Barely 10 feet from the doors, a third customs agent approached me. He sort of held up his hand in a universal gesture that means stop, halt. So, I stopped. I’ve traveled some and I know that the customs agents around the world take their job very seriously – even then way before 9/11 - so, I knew better than to get smart with him, but by now I was getting pissed and reason was about to give way to emotion. He looked keenly at me. He looked at my luggage. He looked at the box and asked, “What’s in the box?”
I simply had to count to ten or explode. I needed to calm down or his thing might escalate into God knows what. One, two, three… I said to myself, but when I didn’t promptly reply he bent down and put his face about four or five inches from mine and very slowly and carefully said, “Do you speak English?”

Little Beasties

Little Beasties

We’re been plagued – some might argue – blessed with little beasties since moving in here nearly a year ago. And it’s surprising. This development is the Oceanside equivalent of NY’s concrete jungle. Nonetheless, the ants were so bad last summer, they got in my car. In the fall, Salvador got run off the sidewalk by a pack a coyotes. This spring, it wasn’t long before we discovered the bunnies having done what they do best – procreate. But lately it’s become invasive.

I’ve battled ants before, but never like this. I have a touch of asthma as do my grandkids, so I don’t like to use poisons and I’d read up on safer options some time ago. So, armed with an enormous container of my baby powder, I put out our line of defense – several, in fact. I left a swath in front of the each entryway and in several of the window sills. Then I put a wide border around the bed even pulling it away from the wall. While any talc will do, I like the smell of baby powder and I covered my dashboard, front and back floorboards, as well as the rear window area. I figured that would do it for the car and I was fine until my teen-aged grandson said the white powder looked a lot like cocaine and asked if I was really sure I wanted to drive around campus that way.

Thus when the tiny beasties showed up this summer, I headed for Lowe’s and armed myself with ant stakes. I put them all around the front entrance pounding them into the hard ground at about half the recommended intervals. When the ants were still about a few days later, I capitulated and got out the big jug of bug spray I’d seen in the outside cupboard. After a liberal squirting, we’ve been ant free for several weeks.

But ants are just the beginning. Just after we moved in, I had turned around in the kitchen rather quickly to grab something when I saw a huge lizard dart across the beige tile floor. Fortunately, I startled him as much as he startled me, so he turned and ran outside, and I made a mental note to keep the sliding screen door closed. It wasn’t a week later, however, when one of his kin meandered in thru the front doorway presumably under the screen door which doesn’t meet flush with the floor. The sounds of my screams sent him a scrambling and he must have spread the word amongst his family that a crazy lady lives here as I’ve not had any more unwelcomed guests of his species.

Not following my own advice, I left the screen door open again and invited on two different occasions a local bird in. The first time, I completely panicked. A child in the days of Hitchcock’s famous films, birds terrify me, even parakeets, but a wild beastie in the house was just too much. I ran for the hallway cupboard hoping to get a big bath towel with which to shoo him back outside. When I returned tho I found him walking to and fro in front of the sliding screen door in my bedroom, but it was closed. A clever fellow he, it didn’t take him long to figure out his dilemma and having done so, he hopped back into the kitchen and made his escape the same way he entered.

Later that day, I saw him preening on the roof of my garage. I spoke to him and he cocked his head, like a dog, as if to hear me more clearly. I just explained that I was sure we could occupy the same relative space and be good neighbors, but he would have to stay outside.

He may have talked to his family as well because no one else came to visit, but he came back just a couple of weeks later. This time, he found the garage door open and in he went. The problem is that I was in the garage. And once again, when he was ready to leave, he calmly hopped to and fro this time in front of the sliding screen door in the garage. Finding it closed, he once again figured out his predicament and rather quickly made his way to the garage door and escaped from whence he’d come.

I saw him outside many times after that and we spoke once or twice, until one day I didn’t see him anymore. I think his family may have grown up and left him with an empty nest. I can’t be sure although I can surely empathize. I do hope his wife is still around as I can vouch for him being a good provider risking my wrath and his neck in search of resources.

We’re up on a bluff here, so the green belt outside our unit consists of a fairly steep slope and that I believe has kept the larger creatures at bay. I do see bunnies down to our left just a couple of doors where there is a smallish green belt between two buildings. There is another green area in the other direction by the small visitors’ parking area – just two spaces - and I often see rabbits there bounding about. I hope they stay there. I love to watch them, but I’d rather they didn’t make a personal call.

Of course, we have a myriad of flying creatures who visit frequently. There are some bees currently buzzing about my peach tree, and several different kinds of gnats plague my kitchen. Some around the limes that my husband hid behind a basket and I didn’t find until they’d generated enough mold to provide a chem lab with several experiments. Then there are a persistent few from a different family that would like to make their home in my canisters. Those I’m ashamed to admit, I have to destroy pretty quickly. And there’s yet another variety that have found my house plants attractive. Those I just try to shoo away.

Of course, life wouldn’t be the same without a mouse or two and we’ve just recently encountered one. She came flying across the kitchen floor from the patio door and slid under a shelving unit that is about two inches off the ground. My grandson screamed as if a large coyote had found its way in or at least a giant sized foot long rat, but no, this scream was generated by a little fellow about 2 inches long. My husband jumped up and shoved some dirty clothes under our bedroom door, so it wouldn’t get in there all the while hollering at me to get something,

“Give me something. I’m going to kill it.”

“What?”

“Something. Give me something.”

Meanwhile, I’d grabbed a broom and tried to roughly coax it out of hiding, but it escaped my reach and ran back to the window seeking refuge behind the venetian blinds. When I pulled them back, the little creature scurried outside.

Unfortunately, the screen on the screen door has come out from the frame and this little creature has discovered that it is all too easy to come in even when the door is closed. Thus she has come back a time or two. And none of us were able to get her to leave. Rather, she just disappeared. Thus my husband argues that we should sleep with the doors closed, so she won’t come by. I argue back that by now, she’s probably taken up residence inside.

But the strangest encounter happened just last night after we came inside following the fireworks show. My grandson and I had been sitting out watching the show and he was eating some German chocolate cake with a glass of milk. I had just been snacking from the kitchen – a forkful now and again. This method makes me feel as if I’m eating less than serving myself a whole piece. My husband got home just as the display ended and my grandson took off for the fair. As he put it, it was his shift. We’d both been sharing the responsibility of watching his kid brother in Del Mar while his mother nursed a new litter of puppies in Fallbrook.

As usual, his plate only made it as far as the dining room table where the pizza boxes still sat. I had him take the leftovers of the chicken bar-b-q pizza down to the fair for Patric but my husband had quickly spied the remaining Hawaiian one with Canadian bacon and pineapple. Thus, I’d no sooner gotten John out of the door when Salvador sat down at the table. And, as per usual, he just snagged the nearest plate. A moment or two later, as I was getting into bed, he called out to me.

“What’s dis?”

“What’s what?”

“What’s dis taing?”

“What thing?”

“Dis?”

“I thought it was someting to eat…”  he muttered as I crawled out of bed and went into the dining room. Well, the French do, I thought to myself as he pointed to his plate and gingerly picked up our latest guest then took the snail out to the back door and put it on the patio. Yummy.