September 19th

This post is going to begin with the stupid things I see on television.
No, I don't mean "Keeping Up With The Kardashians", although that particular show, in my opinion is stupid. These so called "reality" shows are never real. They are scripted just like any others. Just Jerry Springer without the audience.
Then there are many that I just don't understand how they manage to get on the air.
I was channel surfing, and I came upon these gems......

Now, I get why they'd name their cosmetics company IT, but in light of the recent remake of Stephen King's IT - maybe not such a good idea.

 

 so, with the primary colors and white face, it should cover your blemishes nicely,

but it'd scare the crap outta your family!!

Too much?

Ya think?

 

Then there's this.........

How should I know?

 I do, however, know when I poop too much.

I have to break out the Imodium and hope that I can trust a fart.

But, do we really need a 30 minute TV infomercial about it?

Come on!

 

 

And if your colon issues are not enough........ there's always bladder relief.

Aren't you glad that the bladder is finally the focus after so long being neglected by the media?

Jeez, our plumbing may be fodder for the Emmy's!

Is nothing scared anymore?

Another 30 minutes viewers will never recoup.

 

Then there's the shopping channels that are everywhere!

There's QVC, QVC 2, HOME, JTV - and that's only 4!

In actuality, there's more like 20.

Who spends that kind of time and money ordering from these channels? I certainly don't. I'm so bad at shopping that I own clothing bought way before the century changed.

Inquiring minds wanna know.

 

My personal television viewing preferences are eclectic.

I love watching movies.

I'm entertained by the Science, SciFy, National Geographic and History Channels.

I routinely watch HGTV and Travel channel.

I tune in to BBC America when I get the inkling. The Weather Channel's are fun sometimes too. Just watching those assholes brave a Cat 5 hurricane (along with their dumbass cameraman) to bring it "to the masses", should win a comedy award.

My guilty pleasure is ION or ID channel. Love me some "who dunnit's".

That sounds like I never watch the big 3.

I really do.

There are several shows that I am highly entertained by, but I typically don't watch any television ALL the time.

 

I read.

Plain and simple.

That, to me, is by far more entertaining.

 

Pssst!

Segue to the chickens..........

 

OK, already!

 

I was trying to think of a chicken star of a television show.

I don't know of any famous live chicken that has been on TV or was the star of a show.

There was Arnold the pig on Green Acres, 

but no chickens.

Oh, I forgot about Foghorn Leghorn,

but that's animation.

So, sadly, the girls have no poultry to look up to.

I don't think they realize they're chickens anyway.

They self identify as dogs.

 

 

This is Ethel. She's getting braver.

She'll come up to listen while we talk to them or eat something out of our hand.

 

 

Ethel and Sandy

 

 

Nugget (background) and Pepper.

 

Not much is being harvested lately. We do have a few okra and bell peppers still producing.

I usually just pickle the okra.

I save the liquid from a jar of pickles. Then clean off the okra well.

Next, I immerse them in the jar and leave it for a week or so in the fridge.

Sometimes, I add some pearl onions or garlic cloves too.

They are quite tasty.

The refrigerated pickles are way easier than the conventional way.

And,

they come out the same.

P.S. those pickled okra taste really good in a bloody Mary.

Just saying......

 

September 11th

September 11th. Not just a typical date anymore. I thought of this when I wished my good friend a Happy Birthday.
Just saying  "9/11", conjures up all kinds of horrible images. I used to think of 2001 only as Stanley Kubrick's "A Space Odyssey". As a matter of fact, I viewed that date as so very far into the future that things had to be so much better.
It wasn't so.
Sadly, it's still an unsafe world.
Things seemed so much easier and safer years ago. Maybe that's just my naiveté, but it feels like our innocence is lost. Or maybe its knowledge found.

I remember that the world was focused on the Space Race. I was caught up in it too. We were glued to the television watching rocket launches and orbits by the brave men who took a calculated chance they'd make it back in one piece to do it all over again.

"One giant leap......."

 

I remember, as a sophomore in high school, sitting cross legged on the floor on front of the TV, hearing Walter Cronkite drone on while Neil Armstrong bounced around on a surreal landscape. My Grandmother mumbling in the background her disbelief of the whole thing and that it was just "movie magic". She was the first person that spoke of a "conspiracy" on the moon landing. Looking back, I think that her doubting Thomas ideas stemmed from the Kennedy assassination and the potential cover up of that whole mess. It kind of left us with a jaded view of the world.

But for me the grandeur was still there!

As a seventeen year old, being influenced by the nightly news of atrocities in Vietnam and potential cold war aggression, the idea of a man on the moon was now a credible thing!

 

I wanted to become part of what was currently happening. I had begged my Mom to let me go to the Beatles concert in 1965. No! Even my Grandmother weighed in on that. All I could do was listen to them on the radio. Woodstock was in August of 1969. There was no way I could have managed to go to that. So, I made do.

Sears catalog pictures

Wearing my Poor Boy sweater, hip hugger skirt, go go boots with my fishnet hose, I thought I was the absolute in fashionable!! I had to save for a couple months to buy those boots. My Mom thought they were "ridiculous", even though they hurt my feet, I'd never admit that to her!

 

I tried to keep my long wavy hair straight. Nope! I tried sleeping on stupid brain damaging torture devices known as rollers. Nope! Louisiana is too humid. So, a pony tail it was for most of the time.

 

These were the ones my Mom had. My sister and I sometimes used soup cans. Still didn't work, so we ironed it. Sounds harsh, but it got the job done. I wish we had the foresight to put that rudimentary technology together with an electric hand held device. We'd have been wealthy. Who knew?

 

The other, solely female, thing was what we had to put up with, when it was that time of the month. I swear a man had to invent a sanitary belt! I used to wish to I could have found him and forced him to wear it all day in Louisiana heat and humidity!!!! I have never had to deal with something so extremely uncomfortable.

I'm sure Torquemada invented this! Or maybe Atilla the Hun!!

Now, the fun part, wearing this with something the size of a newborn Pamper. Ugh!

 

 

When I got to college, I noticed something fast. None of the girls my age wore especially fashionable stuff.

The "uniform" was bell bottomed well worn jeans, with patches, all the better, and a peasant shirt with JC sandals.

(leather flip flops with a big toe smaller leather piece)

 

 

 

 

Being not comparatively well endowed, I eschewed a bra. I left my hair down in the wavy mess it usually was. I did however, wear eye makeup. Mascara and liner. Nothing else.

Oh, and I did have an awesome shoulder bag made of leather and fringe. I loved that bag!

This one is similar.

 

 

So, we spent time studying and driving around. There wasn't much else to do. We listened to an 8 track of Hair & Jesus Christ Superstar till we knew the entire score.

We read stupid pretentious Rod Mckuen poems, existentialist Albert Campus, and Thoreau's essay on Civil Disobedience, because Avant garde was what the Literature Dept. was passing off as necessary to learn at that time. Yes, we should all know this, but come on,  give the budding mind something else to work with. A little diversity in the curriculum would have been nice. I eventually read much of what I didn't even know existed back then.

 

That brings me to the chickens.

What, you say?

Well as you know, I read to them.

Sing and talk as well.

But,I figure if people talk to plants to get them tomorrow, then maybe reading to the chickens will get them to produce more.

Probably just me.......

 

 

Pepper and Nugget listening to my current reading of a Nook murder mystery.

 

These girls always seem disinterested. They try to get farther and farther way.

They are giving me a complex.

 But black hens matter.

; )

 

September 7th

The kids are getting anxious for Halloween.
Yes, I agree that its too early, but its kinda fun to decorate the house and tell scary stories and poems. We love to make up stories as well. The only criteria for these tales are that they have to begin with  "Once upon a time...." and end with "and they lived happily ever after." There's no "bad" endings that way.  The body of the story, however, is fair game.
We often do a set up too. That means someone begins with a particular idea and after a few minutes they hand it off to the next person to tie in to the story line. These are also fun. Zombies are a frequent theme around here. Although, when the kids were younger, the stories did take on a convoluted air. We'd have the story going off on some tangent. That's when Grammy had to steer them back to the original idea. Now that the kids are older, they get creative. I really should be writing some of their stuff down for posterity.

(A beautiful wallpaper picture of sunflowers. Looks so autumn)

In the vein of Ghost Stories, they've asked me if I believe in ghosts.
Hmmmmm.
Good question.
Don't really know the answer to that. I mean, I've have had a few ODD occurrences happen to me that I can't explain, but I'm not really ready to commit totally to believing in ghosts. I think that I would like to believe and have the possibility to communicate with departed friends and relatives, but I just think that once you're dead, you're dead. End of story.

To elaborate on the ODD occurrences......
The first time something like that happened to me, I was 17. My Grandmother had recently passed away in our house, in the kitchen actually. She lived with us ever since I could remember. Every time my sister or I would be sick, she'd come into our room and gently touch our foreheads to check for a temperature. This particular night I had a cold, complete with a temperature and was trying to sleep. I had spent most of the night coughing and blowing my nose. I had my eyes closed when I heard a scuffling of shoes on the linoleum floor in the hall outside my bedroom. I remember thinking that it sounded like my Grandmother's gait in her scruffy slippers. I waited for a bit but didn't hear it again. Then, just as I was dozing off, I felt a gentle touch to my forehead. Instead of being a frightening ordeal, I was profoundly comforted by it.
The second time was after I was broadsided in an accident in my '67 Volkswagen Beetle. I was 23 this time. I don't remember the accident at all, however, I do remember looking down on myself from about several feet above while I was still in the car, bleeding from a cut to my head. I saw myself slumped over against the drivers side window. My eyes were closed and I wasn't moving. I remember looking at the door handle and noting it was covered in blood. I felt nothing. No pain. No fear. It just felt like I was floating. My next memory is awakening in a hall outside the emergency room of the hospital and attempting to sit up on a gurney. There was blood everywhere and I had an excruciating headache. I had a concussion, assorted cuts, bruises and a broken right ankle. My car was towed back to our house. When I was able to walk, I went to check on the blood in the car and it was just as I had seen it.
The third thing is a quick dark or gray movement that seems like a play of light or a trick of the eye. Its happened for about four or so years now. Its usually when I'm home alone reading quietly while sitting on the couch, but its happened when the entire family is around too. I'll notice, what seems like someone has walked into and out of my line of sight, but I can't seem to make out anything of substance. I thought it was my eyes, but as funny as this seems, I think my dog sees it too. She'll follow the movement as I do. Whatever it is never feels threatening. I've never mentioned this to anyone before. They'd think I'm crazy!

On a different note..... I took this picture of the full moon last night.

Yeah, I know.

Can't really see it.

I tried waiting for the clouds to clear, but they never did. It was pretty breezy though. Felt great!

The Native American name for this September moon is "Full Corn Moon". That sounds so Disney, but it is totally real.

 

 

Had to add a picture of the Hens.

That's Sandy, Ethel, Nugget and Pepper waiting for a handout.

We checked to see if the girls would eat Cheerios.

The answer to that burning question is a resounding YES!

Seems to me that since they eat bugs, frogs, lizards and even their own feathers at times, they certainly do not have a discerning palate.

 

Can't close without a cool Halloween picture

 

At least this has a full moon shot!

;)