Tag: meal

Low Key Saturday

Today I didn’t color anything or reread anyone’s novels or rewatch any movies. I only reread the Book 7 manuscript of the Neverending Saga and resumed working on the chapter I’ve been stalled on for a while. There are no photos to illustrate that, or the dinner I cooked, which is noteworthy only because I cook so few meals these days. We’re eating light or picking up from restaurants (not fast food, which is even rarer than homecooked) this summer.

Maybe things are stalled at Houndstooth Hall because a few things are waiting for Mercury to go direct. I don’t mess around with Mercury. =)

I uploaded the cartoon below early in July but don’t think I ever shared it. Conventional wisdom has it that we don’t particularly enjoy hearing accounts of other people’s dreams. My own dreams have been busy, with very large casts, and I’ve kept them to myself. But imagine if you were a therapist…or went to a therapist, and… 🤣

May Day!

Anime in January after dental surgery.

I don’t know how your May Day went, but part of ours was planned back in early January. In the first week of the new year, I thought Anime had a toothache and possibly a loose tooth, so her vet told us to bring her in. The poor girl ended up getting twenty teeth extracted because she had an infection in her bone! (Dogs have 42 teeth, so she lost almost half of them.) She had a tough time of it for a couple of days, but she’s so naturally happy that she bounced back with lots of affection and good meds. It took a while for all her sutures to dissolve, and she loved her modified diet so much that we’re still spoiling her by making it part of her daily meals.

ANYWAY, it was so sobering, that vet visit and the dental surgery, that Tom immediately called a vet where Pollock once got his teeth cleaned, and made appointments for Delta and Jack. The earliest they could get them in was today (four months later!), so off they went. Things went much better for them. When we picked them up this afternoon, they were quite stoned and the reproachful looks they gave us…. BUT neither of them needed any extractions. And while they were under, they also got their nails trimmed.

Not to leave out the others, while Jack and Delta were at the vet, Tom took Eva and Anime separately to Petco for nail trimmings, too. Here are a few pictures to show you the dogs’ May Day moods.


Delta says: My mouth hurts, something happened to my toenails, and I am high AF. Why do you treat me this way? Is it because I’m the middle child?


Jack says: I won’t forget your betrayal. My dew claws seem oddly shorter. My breath is not frightening people away. It was my superpower! I think I’m just gonna try to sleep the rest of this day off.


Anime says: The gentleman at Petco said I was a very good girl when he cut my toenails. Fooled him: I am ALWAYS a very good girl. I deserve a treat.


Eva says: It took two Petco people to handle me and my aversion to pedicures. No. You may not see my toes. I had JUST gotten my talons to dragon length, like the fierce creature I am, and now they are nothing but stubs. Maybe if you bought us all…

BALLS! Tom got us an entire rainbow of new balls!

And then all the dogs were able to eat, even the two with sore mouths, and so were Tom and I because I prepared a good meal to cap off this busy May Day of errand running and dog drama.

Hope you had a great first day of the month whatever you did.

Photo Friday, No. 906

Current Photo Friday theme: Mother


Dorothy Jean, March 2007

Her 81st was her last healthy birthday. Tom and I took her out for dinner (she chose Red Lobster), and she ordered a decadent chocolate dessert to celebrate. When the waiter, Bryce, couldn’t find a candle, he lit his Bic while we sang happy birthday so she’d have something to blow out when she made her wish. She was ready to make him an honorary grandson. Photos like this one keep me grateful for cameras.

Fun fact: I did my first Photo Friday post on An Aries Knows on July 14, 2006.

A bit of Thursday

The good stuff: Tom worked a half-day so that he and I could go into the old ‘hood to see our friend Larry and get haircuts. Spending time with Larry is always fun and full of conversations about a random range of topics. Somewhere in the middle of it, he dropped the information that his partner has for years been a collector of Barbies. I had no idea. It sounds like the collection is one I’d be likely to drool over, so I hope to see at least some of it one day and promise not to drool on anything.

Afterward, we picked up dinner-to-go from one of our favorite restaurants and were home in time to feed the very aggrieved dogs who were sure they’d been abandoned (as if Debby isn’t here for them when needed).

The eh stuff: Not a lot of writing got done, but while I thought about writing, I did some coloring. It’s unfinished, and at some point, I got very frustrated with the pens I was using and slapped on a bunch of star stickers to cover up some of the coloring that displeased me. I don’t like that either. I’ll take a couple of days away from that activity before I decide what to do to fix it.

In any case, even that ended the day on a much higher note than how I started it, dealing with the frustrations of canceling a website I’m tired of overpaying for and no longer using. Technology…. I understand exactly how this woman feels.


Photo © My Computer Works®

Brunch

Tom and I had a great time cooking, eating, and socializing today with Rhonda, Lindsey, and Timothy. (Debby wasn’t able to join, so Jack and even Delta hung out with her and Stewie for a bit, and we sent her a plate of goodies and dessert.) Lots of cooking happened, like some Millennium Falcon waffles from Tom.

Pretty sure Pepper was hoping for a handout.

We also had pancakes from Rhonda and a quiche from Lindsey. I baked Jim’s popular egg casserole, and we had lots of fresh fruit and bacon. It was good to be together and catch up, because it’s been way too long.

Also, we were celebrating Lindsey’s birthday, so of course there was cake!

She got the unicorn decoration to keep. I didn’t want any chocolate frosting staining those hooves, and if you’ve been around a while, you might recognize the unicorn’s “platform” from several stories about the lime slice coasters through the years.

Happy Caturday!


I don’t have cats, but in solidarity with those who do, I thought I’d dedicate part of today’s post to cats. Mainly because Debby gave me this cool Haunted Cat Tarot deck for Christmas. Any particular card you’d like to see?

When I took her to an appointment earlier in the week, I took this coloring book with me.

I’d already torn a page out of it at some point, and I decided to color that one. But I wasn’t sure how to color it, so I looked up various wild cats and found this one to inspire me.

Here’s how it turned out.

What I do have is dogs. The other day, after a frantic round of digging, which she isn’t supposed to do, Delta apparently found somebody’s last marble.

It’s all cleaned up and put with the other marbles now.


Meanwhile, Anime had dental surgery yesterday morning, and she’s had a miserable two days. She started drinking water again sometime around noon today, and this evening, she took some meatballs (canned dog food rolled around her regular meds and her pain med). She’s finally stopped dripping blood from her mouth and is overall a lot more comfortable tonight. Through it all, she’s been very sweet and stoic, so clearly it wasn’t her last marble Delta found.


The tree has been stripped and all the ornaments and decorations have been put away.

Except we have to find the bin that has the box that my vintage Holt Howard angel goes in. Meanwhile, I posed her with an appropriate old Southern novel that I haven’t read in decades and probably should read again.

Sometimes when I get really busy, I forget to eat. When tonight’s light meal of a BLT, half an apple, and some potato chips seemed ridiculously good, it occurred to me that I’d only eaten yogurt with the water and coffee I drank today. It was a good sandwich, though.

random hump day post

Managing a day when Mercury goes into retrograde…

When I woke up and was about to take a shower, I noticed for who-knows-how-many times that a button was missing off my pajama pants. (I have a tendency to call procrastination “don’t sweat the small stuff.”) This time, I did something about it before my shower.

I found this coloring book recently, and as it was within my sight, I looked through it.

Most of the pages are pretty detailed, and this one appealed to me. It makes me think of my fictional Texas town, Coventry.

Then I was all NO! You need to get ready to write. So I grabbed the yellow book that has all the notes for the first chapters of the seventh book. And that’s the CD I ordered and will be listening to next of various artists performing John Prine’s songs.

I had to make a decision. Start writing, in which I would get lost for the day and into the night, or do some of the holiday things that need to be done soon (mostly mailing things out).

I spent a few hours in the kitchen pre-cooking tonight’s dinner and prepping the dough for cheese straws, some of which will be shipped.

Little dough balls for the cheese straws for Tom later to season with pepper and form into larger dough balls for pressing through the cookie presser.

They look like this pre-baked.

And then like this.

Sometime during the day I ran a shopping errand and an impulse item I grabbed was this little metal tray.

So that I could make the dining room table more festive and NOT a catchall place for the stuff I’m trying to get done.

I filled the tray with unshelled pecans, and I usually put those with Hersheys Miniatures as a snack for anyone who’ll sit with me and shell pecans. Since I had no Miniatures, I dropped in Kisses. (Shelling pecans is a zen activity in that it relaxes me and makes me reminisce about good times when I was growing up.)

There are picks and nutcrackers in that cup. That beautiful maple bowl is one made by Tom’s father and gifted to us. The table runner is a gift from Lynne (the reverse side has a fall theme).


Added an older dish to the other end of the table.

For the time being, it has the favorite candies of Tom, Tim, and Debby in it. This will change at Christmas.

Throughout the day, I worked on addressing Christmas cards. I’ve been sending them out in groups every other day. Now I have a few more and a package ready to go out, as well as contents for seven packages that I’ll box and ship tomorrow.

And…no writing got done, but a lot of other things did, and we had a good home-cooked meal, so it was time well spent.

Button Sunday

Today is National Pizza with the Works Except Anchovies Day. I’m not sure I’ve ever known anyone who eats anchovies on pizza. They were part of an ex-boyfriend’s homemade Caesar salad dressing, and they didn’t bother me, so it wasn’t anchovies that broke us up. =)

What’s your favorite pizza AND do you feel passionate enough about no pineapple on pizza to wonder why there’s not a National Pizza with the Works Except Pineapple Day? (For all I know, there could be.)

Today is my nephew Daniel’s birthday, and if he were here, I’d make him any kind of pizza he wanted. EVEN if he wanted anchovies or pineapple. Happy birthday, Daniel!