The Cat, The Sugar Plum Faerie And A Plan For A Funny Week...

'Cat' our cat

Last night (AT our dinner table):

Husband, "Erin, don't forget to pick up the hairball on your bedroom floor when you go upstairs."

Erin, "Eeeewwwww!  I don't want to touch that with my hands!"

Nicole, using the eldest sister tone, 'Then use toilet paper."

Husband, "If you don't want to pick it up with your hands, you don't have to.................."

Erin, "I  don't?"

Husband, "Nope.............  You can pick it up with your lips.  Then you won't get anything on your hands."

Danielle Halloween 1994

Last December 

Me, "Whatever happened to the Sugar Plum Faeries?"

Husband, "Twelve gage bird shot.  They never pay attention to the 'Do Not Trespass' signs."

Lemon Leaf Garland DIY by styling genius Jordan

This Morning:

Mama Mia Culpa and Meleah Rebecca is having a Stay-cation.  I thought about what I would do if I had a week off.  A couple of our kids went to a Pirate Renaissance Faire this past weekend and I wondered what was happening today that might be fun to enjoy. 

Although most of this Adventure List may seem a little tame (I believe you shouldn't always be formal)... maybe a little boring... just the application of a little imagination (but don't hurt yourself thinking), a dash of humor (actually,I've found the more humor, the higher the entertainment meter seems to peg) and the possibilities of merrymaking each and every day this week are:

A. Limited only by (whether you have enough money to pay the bondsman) your own pluck (I can't use that adjective seems a little fowl)    intestinal fortitude (I can't use that description. It sounds a little digestively challenged)   own bravery (this adjective seems a little staid but it's sedate enough for my purposes here, I guess).

B. The scheduling of your accomplices (maybe I shouldn't start off already in the jail cell?)    cohorts in crime (ah... see previous note)   abettors (There seems to be a trend here.  I must be looking in the wrong section of the Thesaurus)  Friends (again, an earnest and steady adjective that doesn't nearly cover the closeness of bond required for something really quite adventurous.  I guess it will have to do or I will miss my lunch trying to finish this post)  and Family's availability. (Knowing your Family's availability is just good planning....  you need SOMEONE to pay the bail.)

And Now This Week's List For Promising Adventures... (Just remember to let your imagination fly, but not too high or without the proper equipment... a parachute.)

June 13th is Weed Your Garden Day (Guess this depends on if you have a green thumb or the black stare of death to anything green.  I myself, have been very happy the Jolly Green Giant has never stopped by for tea)

June 14th is Flag Day, Pop Goes the Weasel Day AND World Juggling Day

June 15th is Fly A Kite Day and the Power of A Smile Day

June 16th is National Fudge Day!!!! (Do NOT forget to mark this on your calendar!)

June 17th Eat Your Vegetables Day (Probably to make up for fudge day)

June 18th is International Picnic Day

June 19 Father's Day, Garfield's Birthday, the Tasmanian Devil's Birthday, my daughter Erin's Birthday and my Birthday (although my age really won't change.... It's stuck.... HONEST...) 

From: Special Days Holiday Calendars on about.com.

QOTD: "Be careful going in search of adventure - it's ridiculously easy to find."
~ William Least Heat-Moon 

Lemon Stand's A-Z Of Blogging...

Reasons I might not be able to blog:  [Warning: The passages in this color are random stray thoughts... it's more than obvious that I need to get out of my house more often and find 'adult' conversation opportunities...]

A) I am not able to blog because I am in Tahiti (without kids) lying on a beach (with umbrella, of course... because the 'lobster look' is soooo not me) with Mai Tai in hand, enjoying the honeymoon my husband and I never got to go on.

B) I am not able to blog because I have discovered one of our daughters could give Einstein a run for his money, but still can not find her bedroom floor.  [Mrs. Who - Thank you for showing me there IS hope... I wonder if she'll make a good marine... ;)]

C) I am not able to blog because Peter Jackson begged me to be an 'extra' elf in his film adaptation of "The Hobbit" which I immediately (duh), accepted.  I have been  flown to New Zealand and am currently in places that, happily, have no internet (or cellphone) service. [List of potential dwarves: Happy, Sleepy, Sneezy, Dopey... hmmm... sorry... wrong list... my kids, Kelly's kids, VWBug's kids, Ack! Thbbbt's kids, Bou's kids, Meleah's kids, AFW's kids, AWTM's kids... etc., etc, etc... but not Sarah's baby daughter... she's too cute to be a dwarf... I wonder what J the large would look like as a dwarf... food for thought...]

D) I am not able to blog because I tripped over a chair at 3am about three months ago and felt my 'S' undershirt get a little dented and am now awaiting a new one.  [This is sooooo NOT AFW... she's much more graceful than I am and  although her undershirt recently needed mending, she didn't require the necessity of procuring a blacksmith's (or should that be farrier's in my case?) assistance to hammer things back into shape. Although... I'm a MUCH better patient than she is... why, no... my nose has always been this length, why do you ask?]

E) I am not able to blog because I have become a beanbag character in the video game, "Little Big Planet" where my mouth has been permanently zipped shut. [I had a dream about this and I know it doesn't take an expert to figure out where my mind was going with this...]

F) I am not able to blog because I have been doing extensive behavioral research on the good and bad habits of teenagers, particularly cutting.

G) I am not able to blog because I have run away from home (without laptop and cellphone) [Although, if I run away from home... I'd still have to take the kids with me which generally defeats the reward of working up a sweat...]

H) I am not able to blog because our cats ate my computer.  [The hairballs made up for it in entertainment value]

I) I am not able to blog because I have been determined not to be pathetic... especially in public.  I try to let idiots and politicians (oops... I'm repeating myself...) shine in that arena. [Pathetic is one of those words that is fun to say.  It's up there with tintinnabulation, troglodyte, pulchritudinous or petrichor.]

J) I am not able to blog because I have discovered the meaning of relativity. [Now if I could only discover a cure for our daughter's teenage years that doesn't include the extra-extra-large helping of PMS...]

K) I am not able to blog because I have started a grass roots effort demanding the scientific community return Pluto to it's full planet status.  At the VERY least, they need to stop describing Pluto as a dwarf planet. 'Horizontally Challenged' Planet is much more politically correct.  [It's bad enough that Pluto was kicked out of the high class of planet society.]

L) I am not able to blog because I have been memorizing every rap song known to man for future preservation.  I have plenty of time before Alzheimer's sets in...

M) I am not able to blog because I ruptured a disc in my lower back. [Ow]

N) I am not able to blog because I broke a vertebrae in my lower back. [Double-Decker Ow]

O) I am not able to blog because whilst lying flat on our living room floor, I discovered dust bunnies gathering an immense guerrilla army under our couch, readying for a home invasion.  I have been extremely busy planning the defense for all fronts. [Karen - Beware the bunny.  Kelly - you will NEVER have to fear the bunny because my kids are right about this]

 P) I am not able to blog because I have been taking stock of all the spider webs and paint necessities for the ceiling of our bedroom. ['Itsy Bitsy Spider' theme song playing in the background]

Q) I am not able to blog because I am being used as a human pincushion. (and they didn't even bother to stuff me first) [a box of chocolate eclairs would have been a lovely prelude along with massive doses of pain killers...]

R) I am not able to blog because my personal household Mt. Laundry has now reached Himalayan proportions. [I wonder what will happen when it hits the vacuum of space... will it get sucked up and disappear?  A true ray of hope...]

S) I am not able to blog because my kitchen floor has been torturing me with cries of anguish, just begging me for water (and a commercial vat of disinfectant) to save it.

T) I am not able to blog because the Zombie invasion has begun... [although... since they only eat brains, there are quite a few people I know who will be perfectly safe.]

U) I am not able to blog because although outdoor tornadoes have given us a break on stopping by for tea, it's brethren, the indoor tornadoes, have already done it's worst (or best as the case may be).  Disaster area achieved...  Category level  5.  [I'm pretty sure FEMA won't help monetarily with this cleanup either.]

V) I am not able to blog because I have been awaiting the return of my sense of humor.  Do not EVER let your kids borrow it.  It takes forever to find it again in their bedrooms. [I have discovered that if you WAIT for your sense of humor to return... it never will... so you have to get off your posterior (another fun word to say) and find it... or better yet... go where ever your sense of humor takes you... just remember to still have dinner on the table at six pm.  Humor needs sustenance (another fun word... just sayin').]
 

W) All of the above.
 

X) All of the above  except for L [I'm not a masochist]

Y) Some of the above.
 

Z) None of the above.

See below FOLD LINE to see how many you guessed correctly... 

FOLD LINE

A Day At The Zoo Is For The Birds... Literally...

For Mother's Day this year, our daughters gave me the most beautiful copper bird feeder.  At first I was a little worried because we have neighborhood visitors who think nothing of rummaging through even our EMPTY trash cans (As you can tell, we're real high society out here), so putting a bird feeder outside our house would have been tantamount to personally handing out engraved dinner invitations to some of the largest members of the animal kingdom... on expensive vellum... handwritten... in gold leaf... .

To steer clear of any unintentional ringing of the dinner bell, my husband suggested hanging it outside of our second floor bedroom window.  It's absolutely perfect!  Our bedroom has large side-by-side windows and as soon as the bird feeder went up, we washed those windows inside and out.  I wanted them to be clear enough for me to be able to look out of them and take a few pictures occasionally while I am immured. 

At first, I was amazed at the amount and variety of diners at my humble second floor dining room.   Until now, I could only recognize by sight and name not much more than a Blue Jay and a Robin.  It's been the one brightly shining silver lining in my being hog-tied to a horizontal position.  I never thought I'd say this, but I miss the arguing and bickering while driving the kids to school.  If I'm not soon certifiably insane, this healing process of a herniated disc and broken vertebrae just may kill me.  If not from the boredom, then from the nausea I get every time I try to use the computer while my pharmaceutical elixir holds sway.  My body has stubbornly declared it does not really want to get it's groove thing on and be done with this for whatever half-baked reason it has, so no doubt I'll have more exciting adventures to describe in microscopic detail...

For this particular adventure, I've decided it was inevitable with the amount of time I have invested in the right hand side of this bed, attempting to discover the secret of levitation... without success, that I would start to wonder just what KIND of birds these were.  I've lost count of how many seasons of this For The Birds reality show going on outside my window that I have had the opportunity to watch.  Our cat named 'Mouse' has not been impressed with the quality of glass we provide here at casa de Lemon Stand.  She looks at me with disgust and loudly meows that that bird feeder is only twelve inches away from being a cat feeder...  

Back to the mystery of these birds... I have been blessed in the fact that my friend Jan is a renowned bird aficionado, so I have been able to email her pictures I take and she very kindly tells me what I'm looking at.  And not just what kind of bird they are, but also a cornucopia of really amazing facts about them.  She makes me feel like we are living in the middle of 'Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.'  Jan is like having the Jacques Cousteau of the bird world for a neighbor and how cool is that?

Lately, however, I've started feeling like the birds have started dropping by just to watch ME and are merely eating the seed like it was popcorn.  They literally stare at me and Mouse through my now squeaky clean windows and I'm starting to get the sensation of being the star attraction at the zoo around here.

And now, as you can see, the suspiciousness of the situation is not influenced by narcotics (at least on my side of the glass).  Tweety Bird was practically standing on her head by the time she felt she had gotten her full entertainment value of people watching.  I was tempted to open the window for Mouse... really, really tempted...

QOTD: "You did! You did! You taw a puddy tat, a moo moo cow, a big gorilla, a giddy-up horsey, and a wittle monkey." ~ Tweety Bird

Comments Awaiting Moderation...

And here I thought you couldn't teach old dogs new tricks.  I leave my measly little blog to go patch gaping wounds with itty-bitty band-aids and when I come back, what do I see?  I have "comments awaiting moderation".  My first thought (because I've been hanging out with my husband for WAY too many years) was, "I have already earned my girl scout expert badge (which I imagine is synonymous in today's society for, "I've got an app for that!") in "comments awaiting for moderation!" " I've been waiting for eternities for moderation in our family's comments.  Hasn't happened yet and I'm not holdin' my breath.

And one more word on dogs and new tricks... As I said to a friend recently, I'm still going deaf, but our daughter, Rachel has declared that we MUST get a hearing service dog for me and then train it to growl menacingly at the doctors who say certain words... like... needle, test, pee?  I honestly don't know how I could survive without my family.  No pity parties allowed here... unless you want to be tormented mercilessly.  Kinda keeps you humble.... and in a constant state of imagining if you could get a really full load of groceries around the dead body or would you have to go back for seconds?

TELEGRAM FROM LEMON STAND:

Doing fine STOP Will be back soon STOP At the moment I sound like a duck being strangled STOP Rather slowly and with great malicious delight STOP Am one step away from the "shoot me now" stage of bad head cold STOP Courtesy of youngest of mongrel hoard STOP and two herniated disks in my lower back STOP courtesy of eldest of mongrel hoard STOP' I'm not dead STOP yet STOP but it IS time to go take some more 'good night Gracie' and grab another 587 pristine crisp white linen handkerchiefs from my dresser drawer STOP each embroidered in the corner STOP with bright red thread, mind you STOP with the letters P. M. S. STOP I kid you not STOP at least about the initials anyway STOP  Just ask Ruthie STOP There are six ladies (and I DO use that term rather loosely because IF cleanliness of boudoir were included within this description, well, let's just say they should be darned thankful I am too sick to reach for my thesaurus) living in this house now and there is not a microscopic-sized amount of chocolate anywhere on the entire property STOP  Unless you are a delivery service person of the aforementioned necessity STOP and actually HAVE the aforementioned necessity STOP  then  STOP  for your own personal safety  STOP  I would not suggest you physically cross our property line without a significant chocolate sacrifice arriving well before visitation  STOP  at least until hostilities have ceased OUT.