Happy Birthday Alice Paul....

Along with Lucy Burns (a close friend) and others, she led a successful campaign for women's suffrage that resulted in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.*

*Credited here

Thank you for that, Alice. Where would Hillary (and all of us females) be without you?

Alice Paul

12/11/1885 - 7/9/1977

"There will never be a new world order until women are a part of it."

“I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction.

Most reforms, most problems are complicated.

But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.”

~~~

xoabb

Doin' the Talkin' and the Walkin'

I joined Weight Watchers Online with my seeester Care yesterday. We figure we'll spur each other on during our weight loss endeavors. Besides, misery always loves company.

I was SO GOOD all day....until I got to The Mental Pause Mama's house for bridge. As you will understand after you read her post, we are incapable of playing bridge if it doesn't include chips, dips, and all things baaad for you. Of course, all of this must be washed down with a champagne toast (Veuve Clicquot of course, the BEST champagne in the world in my humble opinion) among other things.

I'm allowed 24 points on any given day. I got to Lauren's (you know - The Mental Pause Mama) at 5pm and I'd only used 6 of my daily allotted points. I was feeling quite proud of myself for showing such willpower, and on my very first day! By the time I left, I had added at least two days worth of points to my total. This is not good. In fact it's quite bad.

Whoever invented Helluvagood dips and potato chips should be shot! And that's all I have to say about that!

~~~

xoabb

It's D-Day.......O Dear........

I always feel like January 9th is my true New Year's Day, as that's the actual day in the new year I begin to address the resolutions I've made. We have a large family that's scattered around the USA and some or all of us are together during the Xmas holiday every year, then there's New Year's Eve, and then there's my husband, GB's birthday on January 8th. His mom is always with us until the day after his birthday - she left today - so things don't really calm down before then.

Of course, there's also ~the birthday dinner~ to contend with......and it is SO not diet food! Whenever a family member has a birthday, they get to choose their birthday menu. Mine is reservations. Our son's is chicken. Both of our girls and GB's favorite menu is always always stringy roast beef (much better than it sounds), mashed potatoes with gravy and peas. GB's birthday cake of choice is a chocolate cream pie. There are about 1000 calories in every bite of this meal.

So here I sit on my "New Year's Day" getting all hot and bothered about the fact that reality must now be faced and I gotta start ~talkin' the talk~ and ~walkin' the walk~! Oh dear.

~~~

xoabb

GB's Birthday Present? It's Our Ducks - They've Come Back!

That's the birthday boy
With our three pretty ~babies~
And his mom, Mimi

Our ducks have come home
It's so good to have them back
Hmmm...where have they been?

~~~

xoabb

A Salute to a Very Nice Lady

Our middle and only son, Bly, went out to dinner with the family (minus me - other plans, YAHOO, thank you) last night. He had been out with a friend of his, who dropped him off at the restaurant. When Bly returned home, he grabbed his car and re-met up with his buddy and a bunch of other friends. Upon returning home around 8 that evening, (it was a very early dinner, pardon me, not very posh), it slowly dawned on him that he was no longer in possession of his wallet. "O what a shock!!", I cried, "you lost your wallet???" He looked at me with what can only be described as great irritation. Fortunately he refrained from verbally expressing his irritation. It most certainly wasn't the first time something important has been "misplaced" by Bly and most likely not the last, (sigh). Given the circumstances, I thought the sarcasm was well justified on my part, thank you!

Parents everywhere will empathize with the next part of this tale: Bly had been given cash or gas cards from various relatives for Christmas, along with a $300.00 monthly train pass from Santa. Both his dad, (GB), and his mom, (that would be me), suggested to him MORE THAN ONCE that it might be a very good idea to keep his non-replaceable train pass in his room during the weekend along with excess amounts of cash. Did he listen??? Hmmmmmm............what do you think?

He spent the next hour frantically looking through his friend's and his own car, then went back to the parking lot and looked all over the asphalt - basically retraced his steps everywhere.

While I was sitting at the kitchen table I had a brilliant and was hoping also a fruitful thought. (It's not often I have a brilliant thought that could be fruitful; they're usually just contemplative and not very fruitful...) "Hmmmmm......", thought I, "I think I'll check our voice mail.....maybe, just maybe someone has found his wallet and has left a message." BINGO!! There was a message from a lady who said she had indeed found his wallet and would he please call her. Bly did, and after a 20 minute conversation, he took off in his car to get his wallet. I, of course, was listening to his end of their conversation and it was obvious they were talking about more than just directions to her house. Of course, being ever the romantic mama, I had the two of them instantly falling in love, living happily ever after, and, of course, giving me grandkids to love, etc., etc. Motherly pipe dreams!

Bly returned home with wallet - and it's entire contents - intact. "How did that go?", I asked coyly, as mothers are wont to do when they want more information than they're willing to let on. "Fine.", he replied. "Tomorrow I'd like to get her a gift certificate to a restaurant or send her some flowers." After picking myself up off the floor, because in his near recent past, (you know, those ~less mature~ years), that kind of thinking would have never made it through his cranium, let alone out of his mouth, I said, a crazy mother thing: "Oh, maybe this is the start of something good." Bly looked at me as if I'd grown pink horns out my forehead. "Mother, she's at least 50 years old!." I slithered out of the room hoping he would forget our entire exchange. I'm sure he won't.

Nice, decent folk still exist! That's so lovely, don't you think? Thank you Ms. B. for being good to my little boy. You're the best!

~~~

The Iceman goeth
The ducks should be winging back
Where the Hell are they???

~~~

xoabb

The Iceman Goeth

The Iceman Goeth
The ducks should be winging back
Any day now - YEA!
~~~

xoabb

Wild Turkeys in the Big City

Wild turkeys are back

Increasingly numerous
We had so missed them

~~~

Our pond, still frozen
Our ducks, winging their way south
Come back here soon. Please?

~~~

xoabb

The Pet Chronicles

As GB said to me: "How is it that every time one of the kids heads off to college, we gain another animal???"

We used to obtain pets the normal way - well, only if you call my getting a puppy on the eve of our wedding, at our rehearsal dinner, from my groom normal........ Actually, come to think of it, we've NEVER gotten a new pet in the "normal" way.

Sheba was our first. She was an adorable black lab puppy that became a part of our family before we even were a family (see above). She was a dear who was with us for just short of 16 years. When Sheba was six months we moved from Chicago to New England and into an old old house. It immediately became apparent we were in desperate need of a cat. The mouse problem, scratch that, infestation was terrible. Off to the Humane Society we went and came home with a wonderful all black cat we called Spooker. Hmmmm...looking back, I now realize I should never have told GB, (or our kiddos for that matter), where the Humane Society was.

When Sheba was two and I was pregnant with our first kiddo, GB called to me from the front yard of our house: "Ann, come out here! There's a surprise for you!" I'm thinking "yipee, new car!!" Nope, it's "yipee, new dog!!" If there ever was a Disney dog, it was this big half Irish wolfhound half old English sheepdog GB was standing next to. Of course, Waldo had a terrible past and was a rescue from the Humane Society so what was I going to do, send him back??? (This is a question I've been forced to ask myself often over the years.) I'll tell you about The Waldo Chronicles another day.














Hmmm....next came our cat Tinkerbelle, a lovely lady who replaced Spooker. We were in a new house and though we didn't have an infestation of mice it was obvious having a cat in residence was a very good idea. Next came our beloved and still sorely missed Doofus, a German shepherd muttley mix. GB found him on the 18th green of the golf course. Every time someone hit their ball on the green, Goofy Doofy would pick it up and drop it in the sand bunker. Then he would hide when the golfers came up to the green. GB was watching all this from the 19th Hole. When he got ready to come home, GB went out and called to the puppy. He immediately came over and home they both came. Doofy was with us just over 16 years. And yes there are The Goofy Doofy Chronicles.

Next came Jordan. Off to the Humane Society the kids went because they just knew Doofy needed a companion. Home they came with the tinest puppy I've ever seen. Off to the vet we went to have said puppy checked out. Turns out, she was way too young to be separated from her mom, and because of this, she was the most neurotic dog we'd ever seen! Who has a dog that has to rock back and forth to store up courage before scrambling up stairs? And coming down them? Amazing she didn't break all her legs doing so!


Our eldest daughter, Remy, went off to college petless. She came back at Christmas break with, you guessed it, another pet. Tally HOO-Hoo, The Crooked Kitty (because of a congenital ear issue, his head was always cocked to the side) was the most wonderful cat that ever graced the earth, 'tho he did have a habit of getting stuck in trees (don't worry, all will be revealed some day in The Crooked Kitty Chronicles). We still miss him!

When Tally had been with us for about a year our two girls, Remy and Brynn (youngest daughter), decided to go to the Humane Society "just to look, mom". They came home with a cat. The folks at the Humane Society told them Good Girl was a year old cat who had just had a litter of three kittens. The next day, our veterinarian told us she was at least 12 to 14 years old and had obviously been a kitten-producing stray her entire life. She only had three teeth and as it turned out, breast cancer. Our dear vet. never charged us for a penny of his time because he felt we were giving her the only good time in her life. She was only with us for about a year. One day she just disappeared. I was upset, obviously, but when I called our vet. he told me that this is typical of cats and dogs when they are about to die.















Our next acquisition happened when Brynnly came home from her first year of college with, yep, another kitten. Trey-you (second picture down) never did go back to college and we have him to this day.

The top photo is of our Pippen (also pictured with Stella in the third photo), again gotten when Remy and our son, Bly, went to the Humane Society "just to look mom!" Of course there was this adorable, most likely abused and most definitely malnourished puppy that had just been transferred to our Humane Society from New York. Of course, she came home with the kiddos. Of course, GB and I couldn't say no. Well, we could have, but we didn't. Pippen is a dear doggy. However, in the three years we've had her she still can be skittish, and she still looks very anorexic tho the vet. says her weight is just fine (I wish I had that problem: "Oh yes, Ann, your weight is simply perfect!!).

Finally, Bly came home for the summer in June of '06 after his junior year of college. He brought a dog with him. A very big dog. He said he was walking his friend's dog one day when this big puppy came barreling out from under a bush at the two of them. The dog scared the hell out of him (and his friend's dog) at first, but then he saw that her tail was wagging and she was whimpering pathetically. She was just desperate for someone to take her home. From what we and the vet can tell, Stella (second and third picture) is a purebred German shepherd. Bly (he's so responsible!) phoned all the local vets to see if anyone had called about a missing dog and, of course, he also phoned the dog pound, Humane Society and newspapers. Miss Stella has been with us for two years. No one ever claimed her. I take that back. GB and I have claimed her!

Bly is not getting her back............ever.

And yes, as I write this The Stella with a bit of Pippen Chronicles are being lived.

However, I have informed all family members that if anyone brings another animal into this house, I'm leaving! I'm hoping they all view this as a threat and not an invitation.

~~~

Our pond, still frozen
Our ducks, winging their way south
Come back here soon. Please?

~~~
xoabb

An Uh-Oh Realized & Other Grave Issues

My pond, 7 a-m
Totally frozen over
The ducks, they are gone


My pond, 3 p-m
Totally frozen over
The ducks still are gone

~~~

I'm a Grave-Digger
OK, so I don't actually "dig" graves in graveyards,
BUT I really ~dig~ taking pictures of graves in graveyards!



If no one snaps the
Crumbling stones of the long-gone
Words soon are long-gone


Stones sink in the ground
Dates forever lost to view
Our loss, not the dead's



In Memory Of

Elizabeth Reed? That's an
Allman Brother's song!

~~~
(ok, so my haiku skills need some work)
~~~

I've been "digging" into the history of my family for quite a few years now. While googling one of my GGG grandparents names, I discovered Find A Grave's (FAG) website. That was the beginning of a minor obsession, tho there are those who would beg to differ and say it was a major and majorly weird obsession of mine. What person in their right mind would spend their time in graveyards photographing stones of dead people???? OK, I must admit it might sound rather strange, but I must tell you there's a true peaceful "thing" that happens to me when I'm alone doing this. I love it. Anywho, back to why I first started doing this. We have many graveyards in our area that are or, until recently, were photographically undocumented. As you can see by the above photos, this is not a good thing because stones have a finite life. It is FAG's (and all of we volunteer FAG photographers) goal to photo every gravestone possible before they disintegrate and are lost forever. I've really enjoyed my time "walking with the past", and because of the generosity of fellow FAG photographers, have "found" the stones of quite a few of my ancestors. Someday soon I'll tell you about the time I literally half-fell into a grave in the cemetery....it was quite memorable, to say the least!


Hmmmmm.....what will we explore tomorrow?? You'll just have to wait and see!

~~~

xoabb

Uh oh....the ice is coming back.....

Uh oh......see the ice that formed overnight on the pond?
The temperature has been dropping all day.
I'm afraid that by tomorrow there'll be no open water for the ducks.
At least it's not raining as it did all day yesterday.

My husband, GB, goes through an enormous amount of bread when the ducks are here. I used to be able to get a bag with about 10 loaves of "duck bread" at the Pepperidge Farm Outlet, but they now require you to buy 10 trays of bread at a time. That's 150 loaves and even our ducks with their voracious appetites can't manage to eat all that! GB has gotten the ducks trained to the point that when the sliding door opens onto our deck overlooking the pond, they come swimming and flying right up to the edge. GB stands at the end of the deck and "frisbees" slices into the water. When it's warmer out, bread consumption goes up considerably because then the bluegill and occasional bass and catfish are active and fight the ducks for it. I cannot tell you the number of times I've gone to make a sandwich for myself only to discover
NO BREAD to be found.

Maybe we could use 150 loaves at a time!

Good Grief!! I just looked at the flat feeder - there must still
be at least 9 finches left on it and this is after I scared most of them
away while trying to motionlessly get to my
camera - HA - I'll have to work on that move!
I really must take the time to find out the difference
between a "house finch" and a "purple finch".
Anyone out there know?


Look! The sun just came out.......for the first time in days it seems.



Here's a glance of our peninsula and island.
It's shallow there - that's where the dam is as well - and
that part always freezes first.


Tomorrow I'll let you in on why I'm a graveyard digger.

~~~
xoabb