My dinner

Try to follow me on this…

Yesterday I was feeling like crap and I asked koshmom to come and walk Byron for me. I had taken a small bit of pork out of the freezer intending to eat it last night. But I decided white rice and diced tomato was a better idea.

While koshmom was gone walking Byron I decided to make a pot of Thi Tea. I had had 3 cups of coffee, and she had brought me a fourth cup. I figured we could sit for a little bit, but she had errands to do and had to go. How amazing a person is she to divert from her own errands to take care of me!

Anyway, after she left I had a cup of tea myself, leaving me with about a cups worth of liquid. I did not want to just toss it out, but I was totally done on drinking it. Then I had a strange thought I decided to toss the still slightly warm tea in the zip lock bag with the defrosting pork! Kind of strange I know, but hey I had to give it a try. The tea did not add anything to the taste of the steak, but it did give it a nice brownish hue. I should have maybe tried it without adding any spices, just to see how it would taste. After a few flips I decided to add a few spices, some ground garlic, salt, pepper, parsley and oregano. My four go to spices.

I should have taken a picture of dinner before I ate it, but I forgot. Sorry! The taste was different, and I think I might play around with tea again. I think maybe I might sprinkle the tea on to a bit of meat. I tried that with coffee, both using it as a marinade, and as a spice. I found it added a little bit of a color to the meat, but not any difference in taste. Has any one else tried something funky with or an unusual ingredients? .

Kept my hammer in it’s spot all day, and was able to put up some tiny wreaths in the bathroom. I need to get some more hanging wire to put up a few more things.

Identical hoots

Identical hoots
I went out to Hopkinton to pick up my Mom. She wanted to spend the weekend with her identical twin sister. I made a point to bring Byron with me because he is ever so popular with my aunt and grandmother. I got a chance to meet with the hospice nurse who comes in three times a week to bath my grandmother. She is only a few months from 100 years, and as many of you know I have a very poor relationship with her. But the both love Byron so we have that in common. I should have sent that letter into the etiquette column years ago. It would not have made us close, but it might have helped.

My aunt made a roast beef for lunch first she cut up a bit of roast beef for Nana, then started cutting up another piece for Byron. He got his own plate! And when he finished what she had cut up, she started feeding him under the table!

When Byron and I got in the car he jumped into the back seat and looked back toward the house. I think he expected Mom to get in the car with us. At the end of the street Byron looked out the back window and started barking. I told him he would see her again soon.

Tin Hilda

Went down to Plymouth at noon to pick up my Mom, I made it there in time for lunch so the 4 of us sat down to eat. Byron has been given his own personal bowl and he goes right to it when we get in the house. I brought him in to see my Mom's mom, I gets up along the side of the bed and she just pats his head.   It was funny, when she heard a new voice (mine) was was told that I had arrived, she asked "Did she bring her dog?" 

I had brought my Halloween stuff with me, because Mom was going to go through it and see if she wanted to hang any of it. She like TinHilda and I put that up on her porch. When we got back from grocery shopping.

Mom went on a major restocking trip, lots of meat, bread, and staples. Me, I grabbed a pack of mini cereal boxes, and toilet paper.  I can't do a lot of shopping at BJ's, while the prices are low I would have to carry a cooler to bring it home. So for me, I just like to wander the aisles looking at what the have for sale.  I need to replace my garlic press, I went looking for it last night and could not find it.

I went to the hairdressers and got my roots dyed. I felt kind of selfish wasting money on me, when I owe so much money to the Vet for Byron. But I needed the positive feeling of getting my hair done. My hairdresser is nice, she keeps forgetting how thick my mane is.

Nope not a Barbie

Just watching the evening news and they had a story on the new collectors Barbie doll. The reported did a person on the street interview showing people a picture of the doll and asking if they would allow their children to play with it. The answer for the most part was no, which makes sense, since this doll is not a children’s toy.
Tokidoki Barbie She is a limited edition, already sold out Gold Label doll.

There were only 7400 dolls made! That is it, for the entire world, only seven thousand four hundred people have this doll. Trust me, non of them will be playing with this doll. I doubt more than 100 of these dolls will even be taken out of the box. At least they do mention the doll is a limited edition, at the end of the piece.

I keep failing at this blogging thing

I post in to many pages, but then not enough.

Busy, tired, books

What a busy day. Swung over to the doctors office this morning. She has been having me check in once every 6 weeks since my Dad died. Agreed to drop the amount of Prozac I have been on, dropping back to 40mg each day. I can’t get her to agree to take me off of a second antidepressant, I take it at night and it is suppose to help me sleep.

Then I went over to housing and grabbed my paper work back. I needed to bring copies of them to the IRS office and since I had sent him the originals I needed them back. I am going to copy them here and send them back next week. He has not even done the calculations for annual income yet. It’s just a simple algorithm, I already did half his work for him! Really, the memo I attached to the forms has every thing he needs. But, he insists on doing all that himself. I guess he has the right to review the paper work himself, but I am concerned that when he does run the numbers he might want to increase my rent, and decided to pro rate it to cover the months since he has had the paper work. I have to send in my rental renewal information in April, and my rent is suppose to be modified in May. Well it’s June and they have not changed any thing yet. He use to have an assistant who did most of this work for him, but she has been let go. She was great, she gave people a copy of the short form she made to help her with the calculations. I just have to remind myself that I am not a normal tenant of this facility.

Having Nightwing here this week has been so very fun. One of the speakers at the conference she is attending is Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, who wrote the wonderful “Well behaved Woman Seldom Make History” Her newest book out in paperback is “A Midwife’s Tale” and Nightwing got me a signed copy!!!!! That so rocks,

Started the process of moving my bank account away from Citizen’s Bank and over to the smaller East Boston Savings Bank. It was quite a pain in the ass, but well worth it for the reduction of fees and better personal service. I am so jealous of the woman who helped me out. She has an autoimmune disease, and a husband who has stuck with her. She has a real winner there, if only more woman could be that lucky.

Just going to sit for a bit. Byron was a very good boy today, staying just out of the office at housing and curling up and falling asleep at the bank. It has been to hot to put his vest on him so I think today I am going to write Service Dog in big letters on his leash. Not that any one asks for proof, which I have, but just in case. I always carry his license, and service dog vest with me where ever we go. He was so adorable as we were leaving the bank, there was a little girl who wanted to pet him, so he sat down and turned his head away. Once he did that she felt comfortable petting him.

cleaning

Ya, I’m exhausted.

Nightwing arrived last night she is in Boston for a week long conference. I am letting her stay here, so she can afford to do the conference for less. I spent yesterday fooling around, went to Marshalls to get a few skorts. I love the shorts / skirt compo, I find it to be very comfortable to move in and even swim in.

Byron was having a bad day yesterday, his stomach was reacting to all the people treats he got on Sunday and the heat from yesterday. He ended up with explosive diarrhea! I kept trying to get him into the tub, but I just could not lift him over the tub. With Nightwing’s help she got him into the tub where I grabbed the Mane and Tail and gave his butt a needed bath! Since my bathtub has horrid drainage, really not just my tub, the entire building once Byron got his bath I needed to clean the tub. Instead we went out to eat!

While we were gone Byron got up on the bed and did his stress activity, scratching like he is trying to dig. Which does not do much to the living room carpet, but rips the hell out of my nice sheets!!!! I stripped the bed this morning and went to look for the third and fourth pair of cotton sheets I own. I could only find the top sheets to both, so I said F it, and made the bed with two top sheets. Within moments of doing that I saw the fitted sheet sitting under a pile of old t-shirts. I should go do laundry, but man it’s to hot to walk away from the air conditioning unit.

Bathroom is almost clean, the tub and toilet are done, I just need to clean the cat box and wipe down the sink. Still have dishes to do also. Right now I’m drinking so soda and nibbling on grapes. Just to kind of rest and re spoon myself. I almost need a nap.

Some this is up with the radio, I can’t get WBUR in very clearly, I have a second signal kind of piggy backing in. So I have gone new generation and flipped to the web site and I’m streaming. As long as I don’t ask to much of the computer I will not loose the stream.

WBUR Spring Festival

Byron and I went to the WBUR Spring Festival I was looking forward to a fun day and the event did not disappoint. The station gave out free t-shirts; well since you had to pay to get in, I guess they were part of the price of admission. Several local companies who purchase sponsorships on WBUR were there handing out samples of their food. There were two different companies selling baked goods, one sold bread the other pastry. They looked great, but I had to stay away from both places. The pastry group only brought one kind of pastry, the one covered with almonds and made with marzipan. The bread people had one bread with almonds, but had used the very same knife to cut each loaf. Happily the sherbert and ice cream were nut free! The flat bread pizza was delicious, and I got a chicken & cheese piece for Byron to snack on.

It was hot in the sun, and after a while Byron and I sat by in the Community Rowing building. It was out of the sun and felt much cooler. We listened to Livingston Taylor sing and he made several small friends. They had a guy making balloon animals for kids, which I kept Byron away from. He does not like balloons at all. When we were sitting, a few people who had balloons let the balloons touch the ground where the cement was in the sun and warm. Byron just about jumped out of his skin. It took a while to calm him down. When the event ended he was more than ready to head home.

I posted all the pictures I took on Byron’s face book page Byron at Spring Festival We got to meet several of the radio hosts. The Car Talk guys were there, and the pictures I got of the two of them with Byron are precious!

batting cleanup

I don’t know why I did not do this sooner! When I went to my storage unit to get my summer clothing I also started opening some more boxes. I know I did a bit of that with koshmom, but I did not bring a lot of stuff back. When I found my favorite shirt, one that I thought was lost, it kick started my brain. I was missing my stuff, my books, my dolls, my stuff. So starting last week, I started bringing home my stuff. Now of course this apartment does not have even a quarter of the space my home had, but with a few careful nips here and there, it can. So I posted a few things on Craigslist, got one taker on the monster Kirby vacuum cleaner. I love the thing, but I takes up as much room as a chair. Room I don’t have!!

I also took a look at what was around me, I realized I have empty boxes sitting on top of the kitchen cabinets. They can be tossed out, and a few of my Dept 56 houses can safely sit up there. Many of the dolls I have are pink box dolls that I can easily sell on Craigslist also. I am sure I can find buyers, I will not make back the price of the doll, but some one will enjoy them. I have been going through my clothing and weeding out stuff I don’t fit into and stuff I don’t wear any more. I mean really I’m 50, time to stop wearing mini skirts. I actually emptied out two drawers when I finished putting stuff away.

I hung a few more pictures, including one of my dad, and put up the shadow boxes of collectable Barbie and Ken clothing I have. I even put up a few things in the vast white space that is the bathroom.

Called my neighbor this morning and asked him to help me put together the three story wooden house I am using to display a lot of my dolls. With the top on it becomes a four shelf unit and I can put a lot more dolls on it. I also took down the empty boxes I put on top of the Ikea clothing rack and shelving unit and after measuring one of my Barbie houses from the storage unit realized I could set up a two story doll house.

I decided that I am going to get rid of dvd’s I will not watch again, or books I don’t have an interest in reading again. I brought a small box of DVD’s down to the building library, which I am sure will be snapped up quickly. I also started a box for books I am going to put in that library also. I know I can’t keep every thing, but with any luck and a bit of care, I can end up with a nice balance. I even found my clarinet!

I sat down to watch the game, when suddenly I had the urge to jump in the shower. Not sure why, I mean I usually shower before bed, not normally at 8 pm. But it was just so strong, it had the same urgency as a need to pee. Well during the second inning when the Sox were screwing up so badly I got up and took a nice long shower. I washed and conditioned my hair (which has not been washed in about a week and did kind of need it. I scrubbed and scrubbed until I started feeling clean. Purrball likes to watch me shower, I don’t know why, but she tries to grab the water that hits the shower. When I step out of the shower she tries to steal my wet towel. She is just an odd duck my cat.

Bit by bit step by step. It will happen.

I have a calm.

It struck me just a little while ago, normally my annual battle with the IRS, where I have to sit down and justify each and every deduction I make. Where they block access to my bank account, and then take their time getting around to me. Yet I’m calm. I don’t need gas for the car, my monthly bills are already covered, or due late in the month. I went up to my storage unit today and brought back some more clothing and boxes of Barbie Dolls. Most of what is still in storage up there is Barbie stuff. Really the entire village many many bits of furniture. Opening boxes and seeing things I though were lost to me is so exciting! I have food in the fridge enough soda for a week. As much milk as I will ever drink. Both Byron and Purrball have plenty of food.

Normally I would be in a corner freaking out, normally I would be a big ball of panic. But I’m not, I’m calm. When I stopped at Stop & Shop I saw my former next door neighbor David. I gave him a big hug and we chatted for a bit. He said he missed me, and that a group of kids were living in my house. He asked me to please come back and visit as he missed me. Which made me feel good, it was so nice to know I am missed. We even joked about him renting me an apartment. I only have the dog and cat now, but I think moving in next door to my old house would be to painful. Seeing him did remind me that I have real friends back on Arcadia street, and I should go back and visit them.

Well I have some boxes to get out of the car. Think I will spend the evening sorting out books to drop in the building library. Going to put all the DVD’s and tapes I don’t plan on watching again there to. Yesterday I put up some more pictures on the walls and I think I am feeling happy. I have a calm.