Today's movie is about "So what that I'm an old person and screw you for thinking so." Pause. "I'm doing it anyway." My Humans are those kind of people. At least I think so and they think so. That's all that counts. Purrrrrrrr. Redwood Highway (2013) Setting: Oregon Marie lives in a retirement facility in southern Oregon. She has been invited to her granddaughter's wedding on the Oregon coast about 80 miles away. Because Marie is a difficult woman, meaning she and her kids have major friction, she can't get a ride there. So what else can the old coot do but sneak out one morning with her backpack and fishing pole and start walking up the Redwood Highway. Road trip! Is Marie a experienced hiker? What does her family do when they find out she's gone from the facility? Does Marie's orneriness get ironed out by the people she meets on the way? Does she meet someone who may be her true love? What caused her to be such an unh...

This drawing started with some free styling with glitter pens. La la la. . .    A couple weeks later I pulled out the crayons. Yesterday I took a photo of the drawing and played with it in Photoshop.  Voila! Now to find space for the drawing on the refrigerator.

Warning: This is a grumpy story that happened this past summer in front of one of my happy places. The encounter did not sour me on continuing my visits, but for a moment after the event I felt like what's the use of living when people like that guy we met is alive. I was parallel parking into a tight spot in front of the library where a whole lot of children and their parents were lined up in front of the bookmobile. The kids were signing up for a how-many-books-do-I-want-to-read-this-summer type of program. The car in front of me hung over its rear parking mark and the car behind me was nearly up to its front parking mark. As I turned off the engine, the Husband and I heard a very angry "HEY!" We looked over to see a man standing against the building, his arms crossed, glaring at us. "Are you talking to us?" the Husband asked. "You hit my car!" the middle-aged man shouted. "We did not," said the Husband. "We would've hea...

Find out what the monthly amount for my health insurance premium will be next year.  Shudder. I think the worse so that if it's not worse, then all the better. When the Husband tells me we received a bill in the mail, I say something like "How much—$2,503.18?" Of course it isn't. It never is. Well, untrue. We paid at last two bills like that for my not-so-hysterical surgery last May. Now, I'm back to thinking about health insurance. Being older and now having pre-existing conditions, I'd be crazy not to have health insurance. Shudder.  

A long time ago when I was a young single thing living in the City, one of the things I enjoyed was creating a jungle in my apartment. On Sunday mornings, my church was the house plant section of Cost Plus down by Fisherman's Wharf. Wandering around philodendrons, umbrella trees, and ficus plants, oh my. Pothos, rubber plants, and ivies, such oxygen heaven. I didn't always go home with plants, but when I did it was with the small ones that cost less than two bucks each. With houseplants you can get a lot with a very slim pocketbook. Now and then the Mama gave me a houseplant to take home after a weekend visit. I don't know how many times she sent me home with a ti plant. "They're good luck," she said. The ti plants never made it, which I realize now is because I lived in very cold apartments. I wore a heavy sweater or snuggled under blankets and pillows rather than turn on inefficient wall heaters. Once, sometimes twice, a year, I would repot and propag...

That picture exemplifies a good reason why the Husband and I don't like to move things in the office. Yesterday, I finally repotted the umbrella plant that has been crying for a bigger pot for a couple of years. Yaay! We decided that the better place for the plant was in the corner by the window next to the Husband's desk. There wasn't much stuff on the corner table but there was quite a lot of stuff on the floor to get to that corner table. Much of that stuff got dumped on the floor next to my desk. I try not to look down.

The Husband I have taken to conversing with Molly the Cat, responding as her in what we each imagine is her sweet, cute high-pitched voice. "You don't like your food," one of us humans says. "No," says Molly the Cat. "We try to find something you would like to eat." "Phiff." "You used to eat it." "Then you haven't found what I like to eat." I'm sure that if she wasn't so polite, Molly would've added "have you?"