sick as a dog

needless to say i haven't felt much like posting these past few days. everyone's been sick at my house: the son, the two dogs, and now me.

i'm so tired of cleaning up all the assorted messes these past few weeks. i could never be a nurse. even so, i'll never regret the two years i spent taking care of my mom as she fought her last battles with cancer. she took care of me as an infant and i was more than glad to return the favor. dang, i miss that woman.

travel bug

should i start with my earliest journey? is the most romantic trip to be addressed first? well. perhaps i'll start with my birth.

on a warm july evening a baby girl was born harriet and william of the scottish clan in the city of angels. i was delivered via cesarian section by an obstetrician who happened to be married to the orange juice hocking, homosexual lambasting singer known as anita bryant. not that that's anything of note, but it's a trivial pursuit bit of info at the very least, to be sure. my father, being the entrepreneur that he was, was not present at my birth. my mom drove herself to the hospital and, according to her recollection, was left strapped on a gurney in the hospital hallway to travel the journey of labour alone.

my first two years were spent in an upscale cottage home within a quaint L.A. suburb from which my parents decided to leave, as los angeles was growing too fast for my father's taste. L.A. was left behind for a sleepy beach town no one had heard of. our new home had the romantic sounding name of corona del mar (to this very day, few know of its existence, yet for the memory of beautiful coastal drives between newport and laugna).

my first memory is of resting in my crib within a sunny room, enveloped by a warm glow of pink. maybe this is the first glance of how compatible my nature is. i never screamed to be let out of my crib. i was content to meditate on the toddler view of my world. and what a world it was, for my view was the undeveloped expanse of the southern california coastline. i could look out my window (which was the whole friggin wall - top to bottom, left to right - all glass and view) and see forever. brown desert prairie summertime grass with roaming herds of cows,... and nighttime visitors of cougar, coyotes, foxes, possum and skunk, if one were to count the critters from largest to smallest. forget cable tv - all we had to do was put a few table scraps in our backyard, sit on the living room floor with the lights off and wait to see all our nocturnal beasties that lived in our neighborhood.

does it really need to be said that i could spend eternity contemplating that view? i truly spent hours upon hours gazing out my 4th wall....


to be continued.




here's a look at the states where i've been. i'll go into the stories why i visited a bit later...


create your own visited states map



here's a map of the countries i've been blessed to visit:


create your own visited countries map

Jennifer Aniston called up People today to get it into their thick heads (my words, not her’s) that she's not engaged to Vince Vaughn. She says in an angry interview:

"I'm not engaged and I don't have a ring and I haven't been proposed to. Normally we don't even acknowledge these things because they're endless, at this point, the thing that got me was that I was getting phone calls from Greece! My Aunt Mary in Greece is getting accused of lying! I mean, they're getting angry. My dad calls and he says, 'Honey, it's on the CNN crawl,' and I'm going, 'Wait a second!' When it starts to travel over into the Today show and CNN and supposedly reliable and accurate news programs, then you just go, 'This is insane. People are getting fed a lot of bull. I don't feed into that. We (her friends) don't talk about it. We don't hash it out because it's not true. The only reason I'm saying something is because if we're listening to the news, we're supposed to be believing in the news. Tabloids are going to lie all the time. You’re prepared for that. But it's the news. And you think, 'Well, we need to trust what our newscasters are saying when we have this horrific situation that's actually taking place in the world, I mean, we are getting reported the truth, right? The American people need to believe (the news). Please. Get it together. So that's all.”

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mckay says:

Bravo. Well said. now i must continue to watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s, darlings, to escape from the humdrum madness that is my life.

p.s. dang, i just copy/pasted that blurb from some gossip blog. i sure hope it’s true.

p.s. again. my sister and her hubby just got back from puerto villarta last week and they confirmed that they did not see jennifer and vince at all.

p.s. again, again. this is why i am so glad i’m not famous. all this talent left undiscovered is oh, so worth it.

the debate has been settled. most guys say, "yep, that's sexy (unless they belong to a dude)."

the chicken guessed it. the lengthy gams belong to Tim Curry.

settle this debate

i was having a silly debate with a friend and i need to your input.

sexy or not sexy?

shut your trap

Terror Plot Suspects Planned 'Dry-Run' of Attacks in Next 2 Days, Sources Say
Thursday, August 10, 2006
LONDON — Suspects arrested Thursday for planning to stage a massive mid-air terror attacked were in the final stages of planning and planned to run a dry-run of the plan within two days, U.S. intelligence officers said Thursday.

One official said the suicide attackers planned to use a peroxide-based solution that could ignite when sparked by a camera flash or another electronic device.
The test run was designed to see whether the plotters would be able to smuggle the needed materials aboard the planes, these officials said. They spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject matter…

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mckay says,
is it just me or does this piss anyone else off? if it's supposed to be confidential then KEEP it confidential. this is not juicy office gossip. lives are at stake.

one reason why i like steve martin

truth

sometimes i want to post something, not because i have something to say, but because i want to connect with you.

and the winner is… !!!

the tamagachi family!

i.e. not me. …and i’m perfectly okay with that. well, to be honest, i’m a little disappointed since all my fantasy brain power was working overtime on designing my beautiful italian courtyard with all the nifty items to be bestowed upon me as the beautiful divorcee contest winner. in my fantasy i would be a gracious and humble winner, delightefully surprised in a semi-serene, classy way…no wild jumping or flailing. picture audrey hepburn winning an academy award ..

okay, so i have an active and glamorous imagination.

What i’ll miss about my contest fantasy not coming true is losing the designer contractor part of the prize. i need that leader/contractor/partner to help me move forward and set the course of action. at times i can be a leader, but lately, my cocoon has become a bit paralyzing. perhaps that’s part of the grieving process. i haven’t done anything to this new house other than change out a few plants and bushes in the front courtyard and buy some potted plants for the back. i really need to get off my licking-my-wounds / feeling-sorry-for-myself butt and start doing some of the stuff that’s on my home improvement list.

i think it has something to do with living alone. having a spouse or partner with whom i can work on projects makes it fun and manageable.

“here, honey, hold this nail while i use all my strength to pound it into submission.”

see how fun that is?

one of my favorite home improvement memories was 'helping' my hubby install the satellite dish on our former home. he chose to attach the dish to a wall on top of a huge slope; therefore, having to scale the heights on slippery ivy, past eucalyptus trees and through some very overgrown bushes. while he was struggling with the wires, the dish & assorted tools he got frustrated and was on the verge of a hissy fit, so i offered the only help i could at that moment.

i flashed him. if any of you knew me, you’d know how out of character that is. i’m not a flasher kinda gal. i’m a bridget jones'-undie & victoria's secret-bra wearing, support-is-my-friend kinda gal. but on that particular morning i wasn’t wearing a bra, so…

from then on, my offering to help always brought a smile.
like i said, help is good.

mel's meltdown

by now everyone's heard and perhaps commented on mel gibson's drunken tirade. i, myself posted the following comment on saur's blog:

i've liked some of mel's movies, mostly Braveheart. I didn't care for the gore of Passion yet I didn't see anything in the movie as anti-semitic. Being a born & raised Catholic, i was never taught that the Jews caused Jesus' death.

the thought that crossed my mind when i heard the horrible things allegedly spewed from mel's mouth was that many saints had huge vices they had to overcome and renounce to finally become better people.

here's a brief bio on Saint Paul:
"Jewish Talmudic student. Pharisee...Saul the Jew hated and persecuted Christians as heretical, even assisting at the stoning of Saint Stephen the Martyr. On his way to Damascus to arrest another group of Christians, he was knocked to the ground, struck blind by a heavenly light, and given the message that in persecuting Christians, he was persecuting Christ. The experience had a profound spiritual effect on him, causing his conversion to Christianity. He was baptized, changed his name to Paul to reflect his new persona, and began traveling and preaching. Martyr."

if Saint Paul started out as a bigot full of hatred, perhaps there's hope for today's bigots to repent and change. Perhaps this arrest could be a life changing event (like Saul being struck blind) to give mel the wake up call he surely needs.