Full moon out there....

I'm sitting here typing and just shaking my head. Our neighbor V was here a little while ago, knocking on the window of our TV room. We were in there watching the guys from Orange County Choppers as they toured Australia.

V nearly scared us out of our wits-- she was wearing a long white nightgown, and she has very pale blonde hair, and I swear she looked like a ghost through the tinted windows of that room. She pointed towards our back door, and my husband and I went to open the door, and there's V, telling us that she just put AngelBoy back into our screen-porch. She said he had been in her yard. What?!

I had let AngelBoy out just before it got dark tonight, which I hardly ever do, because he sits under the bushes in the flowerbeds and waits for the lizards to come out. And that's what he was doing tonight, so I just let him be, figuring I'd get him back inside and into the porch before we went to bed.

Well, somehow, AngelBoy managed to get his little fluffy blue-eyed self into V's backyard. I know there are two small holes in the bottom of the fence separating our yards, but I didn't think they were big enough for AngelBoy to get through. And that cat doesn't have front claws, so there's no way he could climb up and over a six-foot wooden fence. Or is there? Somehow, he either got under that fence or over it, and found himself in V's yard. Thankfully, her dog wasn't out in the yard at the same time. Although, V's dog (twice our dog's size) can be a little on the timid side, and V has called him "The Cowardly Lion" from time to time. Still, you never know what a dog will do when there's a strange cat in their yard.

Needless to say, before I let either AngelBoy or ShadowBaby out into the backyard tomorrow, I will have to check every inch of that fence to see if there is indeed an opening large enough for them to get through. I sincerely hope not... there are enough things on the to-do list around here.

My husband spent the better part of this afternoon looking for wood to match the two pieces of wood siding that need to be replaced near the front porch. Both of us thought that either Home Depot or Lowe's would have the same wood, but apparently they hadn't seen that style of wood siding for quite some time. So right now, there's a big piece of plywood covering the spot where the old rotten wood was taken off. Hopefully, my husband will be able to find the wood he needs tomorrow and finish what he thought would be a fairly simple job. Somehow, the words simple and job just don't go together.

The new washing machine was delivered today, and the laundry is all caught up now. I never thought I'd be missing that machine, but as I watched the laundry pile up, I have to admit that it was like Christmas when the Sears truck pulled up in front of our house this afternoon. They sent three men to take away the old machine and hook up the new one. The new one hadn't been in place for three minutes when one of the guys told me that we'd need to call a plumber to install a new cold-water faucet for the washing machine.

What?! He said the cold-water faucet that was there was just old, and was leaking, and needed to be replaced. And they, of course, don't do that-- they just deliver the machine and make sure it works. Which it did, but that faucet was leaking a little bit as the machine filled up with water. I called my husband at work..... he said he'd be home in an hour to take a look, and asked me not to call a plumber until he had a chance to see if he could fix the problem. Fine.

Two minutes later, as I was trying not to look at the new machine and the pile of laundry I had to do, the phone rang and it was young Miss C's mom. She wanted to ask me something about the Pajama Program, and when we finished with that, I asked her if she ever had to replace the cold-water hook-up for her washing machine. When I told her what the Sears guys said, she told her husband and he said he'd be right over to take a look.

So there was S, with his tool box, and there came my husband, home from his office... and the both of them looked here, looked there, tightened this and tightened that.... and the cold-water faucet is really just fine and isn't leaking.... and I spent the next four hours doing laundry. Oh goodie. And I sincerely mean Oh goodie this time. So nice to have all that laundry washed, dried, folded, ironed.

But...... how in the world did AngelBoy get from our yard to V's yard? I can only imagine the look on AngelBoy's face as V picked him up and carried him from her backyard to our screen-porch. AngelBoy has never liked V's voice because it's high-pitched and fairly loud, but it was after ten o'clock tonight when she brought AngelBoy over here, so maybe she was whispering because it was so late.

A full moon is out there tonight...... Sears delivery guys who swear you need a plumber, neighbors in ghostly-white nightgowns knocking on your window, a blue-eyed cat who thought the catnip was greener on the other side of the fence.

Pajamas at the lake....

I've just returned from delivering 65 pajama sets to a shelter up near the lake cottage. They are so grateful to receive any and all donations that they get, and they are completely overjoyed that they've been getting brand new items. They keep saying "Bless you! Bless you!" when I go there with the pajamas.

They have no idea that part of the reason I'm doing all of this in the first place is because I have already been so blessed, and sharing that is giving me much more joy than they could ever imagine.

The shelter that I deliver to is so old, and so ready to just fall apart in the next storm. Makes me wonder how old their buildings actually are, but I dare not ask. I don't want to embarrass them. They have two buildings, one of which is their "store." Not a store in the general sense, but a free store. Their residents and clients are allowed to go into their store and just pick out whatever it is that they're needing.

They've never had pajamas in their store, much less new ones, or new anything, for that matter. One of the directors of the shelter told me that the mothers who are "shopping" for their children's pajamas are just overwhelmed with the choices that they've had since I've been bringing the boxes and bags of pajamas to them.

Hearing something like that, of course, only makes me want to bring more. Which I will, the next time we go up to the lake cottage.

The lake cottage. Here we have not one, but two, comfortable homes, and there are so many people up here struggling to just make ends meet with the one that they have. Which is why I say, and have been saying for years, that I am very lucky, very blessed.


I heard from one of the stores about pajama donations--- Marshalls sent me a $50.00 gift card, which I will use for pajamas, of course. That seems like a rather small donation, coming from the company which owns Marshalls, but I can make that go very far. I will look at all the clearance and sale racks, and I will see to it that their $50.00 gift card will buy as many pajama sets as possible. Which isn't hard to do, because with careful shopping on those clearance racks, I can find pajama sets for as little as two dollars each.

Memorial Day weekend at the lake was busy... boat-traffic busy, but that just added to the fun of it. So many power-boats and jet-skis, and I saw the first sailboat on the lake. It had a multi-colored sail, similar to the one on my husband's boat. He didn't take his sailboat out for its maiden voyage yet. We had company up at the lake this weekend-- friends K and B drove up there for the first time. It was a sunny and not-too-hot afternoon and we all had lunch on the back porch. They drove up just for the day, but didn't stay overnight. We all had a great day, and it's truly nice to spend the day with just the two of them. We don't often get to do that, since they come to our parties where there's so many people in the house that we don't get much time with individual people. We found out that K is an expert sailor, so I know that they'll be back when my husband gets the boat in the water. I think that B is like me-- just as happy with her feet on the dry ground.

The weather was so "iffy" all weekend long... cloudy one minute, sunny the next, with a bunch of quick rainshowers tossed in to make sure we were all paying attention. But it was sunny during the important days, like when K and B were there. We didn't want them to see the property for the first time in a pouring-down rain. The property is beautiful at any time, but just more fun on a sunny day.

So many ducks and sea-birds all over the lake this weekend.... I feel like we're living in a nature preserve when we're at the cottage. And the two white ducks that come up onto our property-- they're like our own private weather station. We know that rain is on its way when those ducks settle down into a nap on our back lawn. We also had four brown/green ducks that have made their home on our back lawn... but now there are just three of them. Don't know what happened to the fourth one. Guess he found a mate and is now off on his own, or maybe he has found a new cottage property that he liked better than ours.

We also have our own squirrel that comes out every morning and evening to dig little holes in the flower beds. We know it's the same one because he has just a teeny stump of a tail, and his coloring is slightly irregular. Gracie chases that squirrel up into the trees unless I catch her before she starts to run after him. I keep trying to get her to understand that the poor squirrel has been caught once too many times before, given the absense of his tail. But she's a dog, and just doing what a dog needs to do.

Washing Machines and Pirates

We had to go to Sears tonight and order a new washing machine. The one that we had just decided to die, after 13 very good years. And wouldn't you know... it stopped running with a tub filled to the brim with water and heavy towels. Of course I had to wring all of those out, and while I did, I wondered how in the world my grandmother washed all her clothes by hand for so long. It was the late 1960s when she finally got a washing machine. Until then, she insisted she didn't need one..... and she did all the clothes by hand, and that includes towels. She brought the sheets to an Oriental man who had a laundry nearby, just because he was a neighbor and she wanted to give him some business.

Anyway...... we bought a new washer, to be delivered in a few days. Until then.... no laundry. (Pardon me while I do a no-laundry dance.) Except for that load of towels, I was all caught up anyway. Does the laundry ever really get caught up? By the time you're finished folding the last clean piece, something else finds its way to the dirty-clothes hamper.


As for the Pirates....... we just got back from the new Johnny Depp Pirates movie. It started at 8:20 tonight (the premiere showing) and ended at 11:15. Very long movie, but very good.... and Johnny Depp was his usual Sparrow-self........ I don't think anyone else could have created such a flamboyantly grand character as Jack Sparrow.

One of the best parts of the movie began even before the film-- so many people were dressed up in pirate costumes--- everything from the most simple to the very ornate, and everything inbetween. We felt like we were at a huge costume party. I love to see that..... the way everyone here just gets right into the "fun" of every blessed thing. Very refreshing, and makes me smile every time.

As the credits started rolling after the movie was over, nearly half of the people left the theatre. We heard a girl telling her family to "stay put till after the credits," and we did that as well. We usually like to hear the ending music anyway, plus we thought there might be out-takes at the end of the credits. No out-takes, but there was one last scene that we're glad we stayed to see. And to think that everyone who left missed out on that. Makes me wonder why they put it after all those credits...... and the credits seemed to be especially long.

Last days of school....

School is over now for our young friend Miss C... today was the last day for her. She was here yesterday, when school let out at noon-time, and I picked her up today as well, when school let out just before 10:00 a.m. for the tenth-graders.

The message board on our refrigerator had the countdown days listed till school was over-- C wrote the countdown days herself when she was here last week. Before we know it, C will be listing the days till school starts in August. She's anxious to get started with her summer plans, but being that she'll be starting her junior year in mid-August, I know she'll also be excited when school starts up again.

My husband and C went to ride "go-karts" yesterday afternoon. Do they still call them go-karts? Whatever they're called, that's what they did. I went along, but not to ride, just to watch. The bump-and-jerk of those little karts just doesn't appeal to me. It was more fun for me to watch them ride.

But that was yesterday for C--- a guy's afternoon. I took her today on errands.... mailing pajamas to one of the across-downtown children's shelters (easier for me just to mail them rather than driving all the way across town and back). Then we went to one of the local stores to look at their clearance racks.... only found three, so that's all I bought. I'm keeping myself to a fairly reasonable pajama-budget here. I'm enjoying buying these pajamas, but I'm also trying to get the most for my money.

On the way out of the Palais Royal store, I remembered there was a children's resale shop in the same shopping center, so we went into there as well. And I'm so glad I did--- they were having a "sidewalk sale," and there were so many pajama-sets on those racks. Brand new children's pajamas (still with the store tags, for goodness sake!), mostly for kids under two years, and all of them were under $2.00 a set--- most of them were less than one dollar. Now honestly, how could I not have bought those. From now on, I'll be checking that store instead of Palais Royal-- especially since I never did hear back from Palais Royal about pajama donations.

The collection numbers so far, as of today--- 541 pajamas, 370 books.

Gorgeous weather, but the humidity has started. Oh goodie. I've stopped trying to blow-dry my hair straight in the mornings, because the waves come back into it before noon-time. If I blow it straight, it looks like a bad-hair day before noon. If I let it just do its own thing with the waves, then it looks nice all day long--- looks like a body-wave, so I might as well just let it be what it is and stop trying to fuss with it.

Our dog Gracie is now wearing a red Hawaiian lei around her neck. She looks perfectly adorable, and doesn't seem to mind. She likes wearing a bandanna, but I thought the red-flowered lei would be fun for the summer. I got the idea from Miss C, who recently had a party at her house with her school friends-- the theme of the party was Hawaiian, so she got those leis for decorations, and also put one on her dog Molly, who has been wearing it since the night of the party. I remembered that we had a red silk-flowered lei up in my party closet (part of a Halloween costume) so I tried it on Gracie---I wrapped it twice around, so she doesn't trip on it.

She looks too cute, and so far, the cats aren't trying to pull it off of her neck, so I'll let it be for a while. I can tell you right now that the lei will probably come off her neck the next time my husband goes to walk her-- I don't think he'd want to be walking a flower-bedecked Border Collie/Black Lab around the park. (Men-- they just don't realize how important it is to accessorize.)

Mexican Lunch

My friend A drove in from Pearland at noon-time today and we had lunch at one of the local Mexican restaurants. We were celebrating her birthday... today was the first day that we could both get together. The funny part happened even before lunch--- I had left early so I could stop into the Marshalls store, just to see if they had any interesting summer tops to go with my new capri's. I was keeping one eye on the time as I browsed through the clothing racks, and I even had time to pick up a few children's pajamas from the clearance racks ($3.00 each!).

When I saw that the time was 11:45, I rushed up to the checkout counter, hoping to get on a short line so I wouldn't be late in meeting A at the restaurant. I laughed out loud when I saw who was ahead of me on the line-- A herself. She had left her house early also, so she could see what was new at Marshalls before meeting me for lunch. So we were both late, but it didn't matter.

I can't even remember the last time I'd been to a Mexican restaurant. My husband and I used to have Mexican dinners once a week, but then for some reason, we just got out of the habit. Maybe it's because we kept going to the Italian restaurant every time we went out. This restaurant, Lupe Tortilla, had the most delicious shrimp quesadillas-- on corn tortillas (instead of flour tortillas). That made all the difference, I think. And the shrimps were grilled perfectly, so that didn't hurt the taste either.

Speaking of restaurants, we haven't been to our "favorite" Italian restaurant in weeks and weeks now. The last time we went there wasn't such a great experience. Our friend and favorite waitress K hadn't been working that night, and the waiter we had was fairly new and didn't really know the menu. Plus, the fish special that my husband ordered wasn't up to the usual five-star quality that we're used to in there, and the portion was the smallest fish portion I've ever seen at any restaurant. Add to that--- my husband's dinner price was $30, which is ridiculous for what was on his plate. My dinner that night was fine... I had just ordered a fresh crab and shrimp salad, and that recipe has been the same since the beginning, so it's always been good.

But... we haven't been back, and I don't know if we'll go back. The atmosphere is always nice in there, but the plates coming out of the kitchen are only top-notch if they're cooked by the owner, and that's not always the case. They will soon be moving to a larger restaurant, which means the owner can't possibly be cooking everything that comes out of a bigger kitchen. The last time we went there may well have been our "swan song" at that place.

I just don't know why restaurants can't be consistent. There are two Greek restaurants here that we've been going to for years and years.... one locally, and one downtown. Without fail, their food has always been delicious, service is always excellent, the prices haven't gone up all that much over the years, everything is fresh and looks beautiful on the plates, and portions haven't ever been cut down. We always leave with to-go boxes, and we've never felt that we didn't get our money's worth. As I said, both are Greek restaurants, and both of them are family-run. Easy to keep up with quality-control that way. But the Italian place is family-run also, so I don't know what has happened there. So sad, though, because we truly loved going there, and we miss it. Even so, we're not in a hurry to go back.

Sunday Stuff

Gorgeous day today...... picture-postcard weather.... and when I see the breeze blowing the fronds of our recently transplanted palm tree (from the backyard to the front), it just makes me smile. I'm so glad the landscaper was able to move that tree..... it just looks better in front of the house, rather than on the side of the garage.

I went to SteinMart right when they opened today at noon. Not only did they remove that silly metal security clip from the white capri's I bought yesterday, but they honored a 20%-off coupon that was in my mailbox when I got home from SteinMart yesterday afternoon. So that extra savings made the return-trip worth my time.

True to my word, I didn't do any more shopping in SteinMart today. But, also true to my word, I did drive to the shoe store, and I'm so glad I did. They were having a pre-Memorial Day sale, and nearly all of their summer shoes were on sale for less than $15.00.... and far be it from me to not take an opportunity to save money. I found the most comfy sandals, and some espadrilles, and even two pairs of slippers. One of those slippers is made of a soft leopard-print fabric, which AngelBoy just loves.

I believe that cats can see colors, because AngelBoy always cuddles up to anything blue or anything with a leopard print. I put those leopard slippers by my side of the bed, and as soon as AngelBoy walked into the bedroom, he made a bee-line for them and curled up right on top of them. Little Mickey walked over and tried to sniff around and see what was underneath him, and AngelBoy gave Mickey a swat with his paw. (Mine! I saw them first and they're mine!) AngelBoy did the same thing with a pair of leopard flats that I had bought a couple of years ago. I used to wear them around the house as slippers, even though they were really shoes. If I sat down at my desk, or at the table for a meal, AngelBoy would cuddle up to those leopard shoes for as long as I sat there. There's just no figuring out that blue-eyed cat of mine.

When I came home with my new shoes and slippers today, I went through my closet and pulled out old shoes and slippers. I'm following my rule-- for every one thing that comes in, one thing must go out. Some of my old shoes are packed in a box to bring up to the lake cottage, and other ones are now in a bag for the abused women's shelter up near the lake town.

I had dinner tonight with young Miss C and her mom, and L's friend BD who had given me 29 pajama sets and 48 children's books for the Pajama Program. Tonight after we all had dinner, she went out to her car and came back with one box and three bags, all filled with pajamas for the Houston Chapter. Another large donation-- 95 pajama sets, for all ages, boys and girls, from babies to teens. Needless to say, I was overwhelmed. She is just having the best time shopping for the pajamas, and whenever she's near a store, she runs in to see what's on sale.

Tonight's donation of BD's brings the collection number to 493 pajamas. The total of books is now up to 370. When I came home tonight, I separated everything she gave me into my three groups-- boys, girls, and infants. So much easier to keep track of them all that way, and it's easy to know what I'm running low on. With tonight's surprise from BD, my plastic storage bins are filled right to the top.

But not for long....... I will be bringing even more pajama sets to the shelter up near the lake when we go, now that I've got so many extra sets because of BD's generosity. I already have a large box and two bags filled with donations for that particular shelter, but I'm going to add more to it-- BD gave me a lot of sizes that I just didn't have for those kids, so now I can give them more sizes.

Pajamas in.... pajamas out. Such a simple thing to do. And I have to agree with what BD said tonight-- shopping for all these cute pajama sets is much more fun than shopping for groceries or shopping for anything else.

Speaking of cute..... C showed me the dress and shoes she bought for an up-coming school dance. While she went into her bedroom to get them, her mom told me that C is starting to shop like me. She said that with a smile on her face, so she wasn't worried about that. The dress that C picked out is red with black polka-dots, and it has a ruffled flounce along the hemline, and a crinoline underneath the skirt. The shoes are bright red, a low-heeled sandal, with three crystal "jewels" near the toe of the shoe. I was happy that C took my suggestion to get a lower heel... the first pair of heels that she bought were way too high for her, and she couldn't walk right in them. I suggested that she start with a low heel and work her way up to the higher ones when she got a little older. C is beginning to like to dress up. She's just a casual tee-shirt and jeans sort of kid, but is now having fun with dressy outfits.

C's mom is having a "Bunco" party next month. She belongs to a group of twelve women who get together for a monthly Bunco game, and they all take turns hosting the parties throughout the year. June is L's month for hosting, and she's making this a "Bunco Pajama Party." She will ask all the ladies to wear pajamas to the party, as well as bring pajamas for the Houston Chapter of the Pajama Program. And Miss C is going to have an End-of-School Movie-Night Party at her house-- and asking her friends to wear pajamas and bring pajamas for the Pajama Program.

Little by little, pajamas just continue to come in. Into the storage bins they come, and out they go soon thereafter.

I spoke to my Aunt Dolly today..... she can be so funny at times, I swear. She told me that she was looking in the mirror this morning and she found some new wrinkles. I reminded her that at her age, she should expect some wrinkles. (She's 95.) She said that "Mother Nature was cruel" because the wrinkles show up on one's face. "My feet aren't as wrinkled as my face... why can't the wrinkles go down there near my toes? They'd be much easier to cover up that way."

My aunt also told me that a repairman was recently at her house to fix her oven...... he thought was aunt was 65, and gave her a senior citizen discount on the repairs. Aunt Dolly told him that he should give her more than the usual discount, being that she was 95. She told me that he couldn't believe it... and that he kept telling her that she looked to be "only 65."

Of course, I told my aunt that her face wrinkles couldn't be that bad if the repairman thought she was thirty years younger than she really is. She told me that she kept her "good side" towards the repairman, and the more wrinkled side towards the wall the whole time he was in her kitchen. She told me that if he'd seen more of the other side of her face, he would have thought she was over a hundred years old.

Vanity, thy name is woman. Even at 95. What a hoot! I can honestly say this.... I hope I take after my Aunt Dolly, and when I'm 95, someone will tell me that I look to be about 65.

Snake Day +1

Well, today is going to be a better day than yesterday. How can it miss? Unless there's another snake in the house. And if there is, I haven't seen it..... and lord knows I've been walking around here with one eye on the floor and the other on the ceiling.

I'm still trying to think how that silly thing got in the house in the first place. If it came in from the back screen-porch, that means that it had to slither all the way through the living room and down half of the hallway to get to the powder room, then it had to slither up the wall (my pretty Victorian lady wallpaper!) to get into the beaded light shade on the ceiling fixture. (That's why I hate even the thought of snakes-- they slither. How can you like something that slithers?)

And of course, now I'm also wondering if a green garden snake can grow larger than 12 or 14 inches long. And what was that snake eating while he was in the house? At any given time here, there will be either cat food or dog food in the pet dishes. Would a snake eat either of those? And wouldn't that make it grow?

At least I can laugh this morning at everything that happened last night. As soon as I saw that snake up in the light fixture, I didn't know if it was curled up asleep or curled up and dead, but I knew I didn't want to wake it up if it was just sleeping. I was so quiet after I saw it... I didn't even scream, which now is hard for me to believe.

Even when I was flipping through my address book and trying to decide which neighbor to call, I remember talking out loud to myself, but I was whispering, so as not to disturb the snake. I even put Gracie in my bedroom on the other side of the house and closed the door. My theory being that if she barked, the snake might wake up.

I really could have called just about any of the husbands on our Charades list last night, but the men that I thought would be the best snake-catchers don't live in this sub-division, and I didn't want to wait twenty minutes or half an hour. I mean honestly, in that amount of time, the snake could have woken up from his nap and started slithering out of the light shade and down the wall.

When I went outside our house last night to see who had their lights on, I saw that C's house down at the end of our cul de sac was all lit up. I knew they were home and awake, and C would have been happy to come and get that snake for me. However, that would have led to three hours of conversation about how he used to shoot snakes when he was young, along with a history of every snake in the state of Texas.

The best snake-catching husbands on this street just weren't available last night..... their houses were all dark so they were either all asleep or out for the evening. I never would have thought that ML's youngest daughter would be the one to get the snake out of the light shade for me. Looking back, as everyone from ML's house paraded across the street last night, R was the first in line, followed by her sister S, then ML, and then the two sons-in-law, each of them with their little boys in their arms (one boy saying "Wow!" at every mention of the word snake, and the other one about to cry each time he heard the word).


As I said... today will be a better day. A snake-less day. I've got to drive back to SteinMart because they left one of those snapped-on plastic tags on the white capri's that I bought yesterday. I didn't notice the tag until I went to iron them last night. Try as I might, I couldn't get that tag off and they fit so well that I didn't want to damage the fabric.

Speaking of "fit," I looked through my closet last night and saw that all of my capri's and slacks and jeans are size 8. Now, if all of those, bought last year, are size 8s, then why on earth don't the size 8s in the store this year fit me? I'm telling you, it's not me, it's them. (Sounds like a Seinfeld episode.) They're not making the size 8s the same way. Either that, or it's another cosmic joke.... seamstresses in overseas countries are cutting the fabric short on the patterns, just because they think American women are too spoiled and they want to torture us with too-tight sizes.

So, back I will go to SteinMart. I'm determined to just walk in the store with those capri's and my receipt and let them remove that stupid tag-- I am not going to browse around the store again. Browsing there always means buying, and I spent enough there yesterday. I will, however, stop into the shoe store on the way home, and see what's new there. Maybe they'll have a pretty pair of snakeskin summer pumps.

Saturday Night Snake

This has surely been a day, I swear. First the mirrors at SteinMart this afternoon, and then a snake (a snake!) in the bathroom ceiling fixture this evening. And how did I notice the snake up in the fixture? That was easy--- I was sitting in the bathtub, taking a nice relaxing bubble-bath before I put on my new pajamas so I could enjoy the rest of the night with a book. I don't know what made me look up at the ceiling light....

Needless to say, I never got out of a tub so quickly in my life. The snake was curled up, and I could see him clearly, and he wasn't moving, so I figured he was either asleep or dead. (I was hoping for dead, but I knew I wouldn't be getting close enough to find out.) I'm not talking about a python-sized snake..... it was just a green garden snake, about twelve inches long. But in my book, a snake is a snake, and I don't care how little or how big it is-- I'm not going near it. (It doesn't matter how long we've lived here... I'm still a city-girl at heart.)

My husband wasn't home (he's at a business conference), so my Knight-in-Shining Armor solution wasn't going to work. I got dressed and went outside to see which one of my neighbors were home. Wouldn't you know it... most of the houses were dark. Was everyone asleep? It wasn't that late?! I called one neighbor whose lights were on, but their answering machine picked up so I left a message..... I didn't mention the little problem here, but just asked them to call me back.

I went through my address book.... looking to see whose husband I could call to come over here and get the snake out of the light fixture. And how did it get up there in the first damn place?! While I was paging through my friends' phone numbers, I heard my across-the-street neighbors come home. I knew she had company because I heard more than one car door slamming shut. I called ML up and asked if anyone was there who wasn't afraid of snakes. ML's daughter said she'd be here in two seconds-- and she came with her little boy (who kept saying "WOW!" whenever any of us said the word snake), and her older sister and her little boy (who cried at the snake word), and their snake-hunting men came with them, along with ML.

The parade coming across the street at 9:45 tonight was the highlight of the day, said ML's youngest daughter. (I could tell she hadn't been to the fun-house of mirrors at SteinMart this afternoon.)

I would've bet that one of ML's sons-in-law would have gotten up on the stool to get a closer look at the snake, but it was her daughter who ended up poking her fingers against the light fixture to see if the snake was sleeping or dead up there. Two pokes, three pokes... the snake didn't move. R took the shade down (we could all see the snake curled up right through the beaded shade) and pronounced the snake to be "good and crispy." She held the shade down so I could see it, but I turned my head away and told her to just flush it down the commode. When her little boy heard that, he quickly said "Wooooooooowwwwwww!" and then he watched as it swirled around in the flushing water. Then he showed me his new Astros shirt that he had recently got from his first time going to an Astros game. I said Wow! but because of the snake-thing, my heart wasn't in it.

Of course, after the snake was flushed, we all stood there wondering how the snake got up there in the first place. And there's one dog and three cats in this house-- you would think that one of them would've caught that snake as soon as it came into the house, for goodness sake. ML's daughter R thought the snake might have slithered in from the air-conditioning vent that's close to that light fixture. But how did it get up in the attic? And does this dead snake have live brothers and sisters still up in our attic? (R's little boy excitedly said "Woooooowwww!!!!!" to that possibility.)

Well, wow is not exactly what I'm thinking about this little adventure. At least my heart-beat has slowed down some in the past hour. My blood pressure is normally on the low side, but tonight's drama gave it a little boost, I'm sure. I had to wait till my hands stopped shaking so I could type. And I knew that if I didn't type this all out, I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight.

So here I sit, in my brand-new pajamas that passed the SteinMart mirror-test, and the first thing I did after I put them on was cover them up with a long bathrobe and go outside to see which of my neighbors could come over here and get a snake out of a light fixture for me.

My husband misses all this fun when he has to make a presentation at a conference.

A sigh is not just a sigh....

......to paraphrase that old song.

I went to SteinMart today... my first time there in I can't remember how long. I went shopping for, of all things, pajamas-- for myself. Summer ones, not heavy enough to be too warm, but not so light that I'm freezing in the air-conditioning. You can always tell when summer has begun in this house..... I tip-toe to the thermostat to make it warmer in here, and my husband strides up to the same thermostat to make it colder. (And never the twain shall meet.)

Of course, SteinMart was having all sorts of sales, so after I found two sets of summer pajamas for myself, I browsed through the capri's and summer slacks. Found two nice ones.... one white, and one black. Not a stitch of embroidery, not a fancy pocket on the back or beading along the hem. Just plain capri's. (My sister would approve.) Also found a nice sleeveless black and tan top, with a matching sweater... couldn't pass that up for the sale price, even though I have more than enough black clothes in my closet. My Aunt Dolly's love for black tops and skirts and dresses has been passed down to me. I just think black can be either the most casual or the most elegant color to wear.

Now we get to the sighs..... While I was in the dressing room at SteinMart, looking in the mirror at how some of the clothes were fitting, I let out a couple of deep sighs without even realizing I was doing that until I heard myself. By the third sigh, I was able to keep my sighing to myself so my little cubicle of the dressing room was quiet. I can't say the same for the other dozen cubicles. Every few minutes, for as long as I was in the dressing room, I heard an audible sigh coming from one of the women in the other cubicles.

I know what that sigh means. It doesn't mean that the clothes fit perfectly and we're all happy with what we're seeing in the mirror. That type of deep sigh in a dressing room means just one thing: a woman is looking in the mirror and seeing everything that she dislikes about her body, her shape, her posture, her skin, the clothes, everything. Mirrors in dressing rooms are like fun-house mirrors..... one week, you look just fine; the next week, you look like your mother.

As for the sizing of clothes..... I don't know what this cosmic joke is meant to prove, but a size 8 just isn't a size 8 anymore. And what happened to my size 6? It went away when I stopped exercising for two hours every day. Another cosmic joke.

While I was looking at myself in the mirror at SteinMart, I made myself feel better by thinking about two celebrities who were on television recently--- Marie Osmond and Valerie Bertinelli. Both were stick-thin when they were on prime-time TV every week. But that was years ago, in the 1970s and 1980s. They've both gotten older now, and they've both had children. And both of them, I'm sure, have given out their own fair-share of deep sighs when they look into the mirrors of dressing rooms.

So there I was today, looking at myself in size 8 capri's, and telling myself that Marie Osmond is probably a size 18, and Valerie is most likely wearing size 16 these days. So why should I feel badly because the size 8 that I fit into perfectly last year seems to be a little tighter this year? And why did I cringe when I tried on the size 10 and found that it was too big in the waist but fit just right on my thighs?

Why? Because I didn't want to start wearing double-digit sizes again. I was thrilled to wear a size 6 for so long, and I was reasonably happy with the size 8 when I realized that I just don't want to exercise for two hours every day to keep wearing a size 6.

However, my Aunt Dolly will be 95 years old next month. She's still a size 6. She doesn't exercise for two hours every day, but she has a three-story house and she walks up and down those steps countless times a day. She has her own built-in stairmaster and calorie-burner.

Maybe that's the problem with my clothes. There are no stairs in this blessed house.

Pajama Box #2

Our friend J, who owns the antique shop in League City, now has a Pajama Box on the front desk of the shop. He had asked me if he could collect pajamas and books for me, and he's already told most of his dealers and customers about the Houston Chapter of the Pajama Program. I gave him a little time to set up his own box, but then I just went to Target and bought some of those clear plastic bins that are so good for keeping the pajama donations nice and fresh.

I decorated the box for J's shop with the Pajama Program stickers and logo, along with photos of some of the children who have received pajamas and books through the program. Just like at the Clear Lake Library yesterday, I had the camera with me to photograph J and L at the shop--- J holding the box itself, and L holding the first pair of pajamas for the box. J will keep the box there for as long as I want it, and I told him that's going to be for a long, long time. I've already sent the photo to the NY office so it can be posted to the Houston web-page.

While I was in League City, I also stopped into the library there, to see if their Children's Department would want to display a box for collecting pajamas, as the library here in Clear Lake is doing. The children's librarian there thought it was a great idea, but she has to get permission from The Powers That Be. I understand how that goes in the library-world, so she will get back to me next week. The librarian was also good enough to give me a contact here in Clear Lake who might be interested in having one or more church groups sponsor a pajama-collection event.

Pajamas here, pajamas there.... they all add up. The UPS truck stopped at our house today and delivered the clearance-price pajamas that I had ordered from Disney. All these cute pajama sets, for under $3.00 each, with free shipping.... amazing. Into my own pajama boxes they went, soon to be distributed to the shelters and agencies here and up in Livingston.


Young Miss C was with me for all of this afternoon's errands. I picked her up from school at noon... she has half-days now, until school closes next week. We stopped at Half Price Books on the way home from League City, and they had more books for me to sort through, plus I bought some of their bookmarks and notepads to give to the staff at the library-- my own little thank-you to each of them for collecting the pajamas.

The Pajama Box..... I like the sound of that, but I can't take credit for it. One of the clerks in the children's department of the Clear Lake Library came up with that as soon as she saw me walking in with the plastic bin. So now we have two Pajama Boxes, both in different towns. Hopefully, there will be more. And, more importantly, the boxes will be filled to the top (or nearly!) when I check on them every week.... my plan is to take out all the pajamas except for the top two, so the boxes will never be empty.

Nearly midnight as I'm typing here....... I really need to get some sleep. Maybe I should try counting pajamas instead of sheep.

The Pajama Box

That's what the staff of the children's department of our local library is calling the large plastic bin that is now featured by their Information Desk of the Children's Section-- The Pajama Box.

I went to the library this afternoon to speak to the director. I showed her the Houston Chapter web-pages of the Pajama Program, and asked if the library would like to sponsor a Pajama Drive. She was very interested, and very enthusiastic... and suggested to the children's department that they collect pajamas from now till their summer story-times end in late August. That's more than I had hoped for, and this could mean a large number of pajamas coming in for the rest of the summer months. But, as I told the director... this isn't a contest--- whether they collect five, or fifteen, or fifty--- every single pajama set counts.

But... what do we put the pajamas in? Not a problem, said I. The library isn't that far from where we live so I just drove back home and got one of my large plastic bins and put the Pajama Program stickers on it, along with photos of some of the children that have received pajamas. My husband was at home, inbetween meetings at work, and he quickly printed up a batch of flyers for the library to hand out to the story-time moms who bring their kids to the summer reading programs.

I am hoping that some (or many) of those moms had seen the Oprah show which featured the founder of the Pajama Program.... and even if they didn't, well then I just hope that they will get into the pajama-spirit and want to add some pajamas to that Pajama Box in the library. I brought my husband's camera back to the library and took a photo of the children's staff, along with the Pajama Box and one pajama set that I put into the box so it wouldn't be empty. I will send the photo to the NY office of the Pajama Program so it can be added to our Houston web-page. I intend to keep that web-page updated so anyone clicking on the Houston Chapter will know what we're up to and where they can bring pajamas for our kids.

The best part-- for the last summer story-time reading in late August, the children's staff will have a Pajama Party-- they will ask all the kids to wear their pajamas to the story hour, and tell them they have one last chance to bring more pajamas to add to the Pajama Box. It goes without saying that I hope this will be successful and fun, and teach the story-time kids that giving is as much fun as getting. Needless to say, the rest of the library staff will no doubt get into the pajama-spirit as well, and they will also be adding pajamas to the Pajama Box during the summer. I'm hoping that this summer-time pajama collection will be a yearly event at our library.

While I was at the post office this morning (mailing a box of children's books to one of the Houston shelters), I spoke to one of the clerks there and told her what I'm doing for the Pajama Program. She took one of my flyers and she plans to ask the staff of the post office to bring in some pajama sets for Houston kids, and she will ask her own church Sunday-school group to start collecting pajamas as well. When she calls me to come to the post office to pick up the pajamas that they've collected, I will bring the camera to take a picture of all of them and post their photo on the web-page as well.

The numbers keep growing... as of today, the Houston Chapter is up to 338 pajamas, 354 books. From the beginning, I've had more books than pajamas. With the help from the library this summer, maybe that will change. I've said this isn't a contest, but I do have to keep track of the numbers... I have to send those numbers to the NY office every month so they can keep a record of how many pajamas and books are collected and distributed.

The library director asked me how long I would be collecting pajamas and books for the kids in the Houston shelters. For as long as there's a need, was my answer.

Summer weather, winter cold.

Gorgeous days..... warm and sunny, wide blue sky..... picture-postcard perfect. And here I sit, with a bad head cold, the same one my husband had last week. I told him that I feel like an instant-replay of all his symptoms. Oh well... this too shall pass. At least it's not the flu/walking pneumonia/bronchitis that I had last year. Let's hope I don't ever have an instant-replay of that little adventure.

I went to the League City shelter this afternoon, with my third delivery of pajamas and books. In this batch, there was a Superman pajama-set (complete with cape) for a little boy, and a blue Disney princess nightgown (complete with slippers and a magic wand).... I would love to be there when a little girl picks that one out of the box. Or when a little boy selects the Superman pajamas and sees the red cape that's attached to the back of the shirt. The shelter director has told me that the children are so thrilled to "have their pick" of the pajamas... it's a luxury for them to be able to have a choice. Imagine that... something as simple as being able to pick out a pajama set can bring such happiness to a child. I am so glad I started this... I've said it a hundred times this past month, but it's worth repeating.

While I was in League City, I stopped in at the Palais Royal store there on Main St.-- to look at their clearance racks of children's pajamas. They seem to have a lot of marked-down merchandise at the start of the week. I found pajama sets for as little as $2.50...... some were $4.00, others were $5.00...... I bought a bunch of them. Each one cuter than the next. They even had $6.00 nightgowns for teenaged girls. No more Supermans for the boys, but there were some SpongeBoy pajama shorts. I found a few pink Disney princess nightgowns, and Dora The Explorer for the girls. I couldn't very well leave them there for those prices, especially since the original prices were $14.99 and up. Honestly, it doesn't make sense to pay full price for anything.

In the long run, I'm saving a bunch of money.... since my Pajama Program-shopping began, I haven't bought myself any clothes, shoes, handbags... not a blessed thing, except for one pajama set for myself, which was on sale for ten dollars. Everything else I've spent has been for the kids in the local shelters, and that's been so much fun, I can't even describe it. Sort of like I have all of these unknown, faceless children waiting at shelters around the area, anxious to see what kinds of pajamas I can find for them. Maybe I'm releasing all of the mommy-shopping genes that haven't been unleashed before this. And I'm not the only one feeling this way. One of my downtown Houston volunteers, who collected 83 pajama sets, told me that she felt as if she were having her own baby shower a couple of weeks ago, as friends came to her Pajama Party with all these cute little children's pajamas. As far as I can tell, that particular volunteer doesn't have children of her own either.


"Dancing With the Stars" is winding down to the last couple of shows. If I can keep my eyes open tonight to see which couple gets eliminated, it will be a miracle. I barely got three hours of sleep last night. I was so congested that I had to sit up in bed, up against three pillows. Couldn't sleep, couldn't get comfortable, and I didn't even have the energy to get up from the bed and walk across the house to the sitting room so I could type. I just sat there in the dark and watched the shadows on the wall. Did you know that more light comes from the digital clock at 3:30 in the morning than at 1:11 in the morning? I think it's because the number 1 doesn't give off very much light, even when there's three of them. Hopefully, I won't fall asleep before "Dancing." I'm afraid that if I do, then I won't be tired enough to sleep later on tonight.

Art Car Parade

We went downtown yesterday, to watch the annual Art Car Parade.... nearly 300 cars in the parade this year, and the parade was just over an hour and a half long. Amazing. We took Miss C with us..... her first time to see the parade, and she enjoyed everything about it, especially the people-watching. Now she's thinking about asking all of her friends to get together and decorate a car for next year's parade.

Miss C doesn't go downtown very often. Come to think of it, except for some school trips to the museums, I think she's been downtown more with us than with anyone else. She seemed to really understand the concept of anything goes while she was watching all the costumed downtown residents strolling around the Art Car parade route. You name it, it was there--- multi-colored spiked hair, rhinestone tiaras, feather boas, heavy combat boots, faux pearl knee-length necklaces, green bunny footsie pajamas (adult sized), Gothic ghosts, bikini-clad roller-skaters, a tiger-striped painted girl driving a matching car. I think the only regret that C had about the day was that she wore a "conservative" outfit (shorts and a monkey tee-shirt). Just wait till next year---- I think she'll put a costume together similar to the one she was wearing when she drove here in the little green battery-powered plastic car last week.

After the parade, we had a late lunch/early dinner at Niko Niko's, our favorite Greek restaurant downtown. Yesterday was also our 12th wedding anniversary, so the Greek meal was perfect, being that we had Greek food at the party after our wedding ceremony. A dozen years ago already. How can that be?

We were so close to K and B's house yesterday that after our Greek lunch, we drove to their house, even though we knew they were out in Galveston and not at home. C wanted to see "the famous house." C knows that K designed the upstairs addition to their downtown house, and now that the exterior is all done, C was curious to see what it looked like. So we drove down their street and stopped in front of their house so C could get a good look-see. She plans to tell K that the upstairs part of the house looks like it's been there forever. I told C that that is exactly how it should look, and K will be very pleased to hear her opinion.

Speaking of K and B....... while we were at the Art Car Parade, K and B were up in a helicopter out in Galveston, piloted by C's dad. He has always told our friends that if they're ever out near the airfield when he's flying, to give him a call and let him take them for a ride. So K and B did just that, and not only did they get a ride from S in his helicopter, but K got to actually fly it for a few miles. She called me this morning and her voice was so excited that I would swear she's still not back on the ground yet.

K told me that if she wasn't such an "old lady," she'd be taking flying lessons. Pardon me? She's only 61. Since when does that qualify as an old lady. And besides that, a remark such as that has no place in K's brainwaves, so I quickly told her that, and then told her to call S and set up some flying lessons.

Today is a perfectly gorgeous day...... blue sky, lots of sun, very warm but not broiling hot. The front yard looks perfectly happy, as if the new arrangement has always been there. Even my huge tropical plant with the drooping leaves has felt more at home these past couple of days because the leaves aren't so droopy anymore. I wish I knew the name of that plant.... I swear, the leaves are nearly three feet long, two feet wide, with the most interesting open-weave pattern.... looks like one of the huge plants we had seen in Hawaii last year.

Coughing and sneezing... my husband has a bad cold this weekend. Worse today than yesterday, and if the Art Car Parade hadn't been downtown yesterday, I don't think he would've left the house yesterday morning. Fine time to get a cold, says he, with such glorious weather. But that's what he's got, and I'm hoping that I don't get the germs.

Pouring down rain....

We've had more rainstorms since the beginning of the year... I swear I've lost count. It positively poured last night, complete with thunder and lightning and wind-- the works, as my dad would say. Today seems to be shaping up to a blue-sky day, but the lawn is so soaked through that it's like walking on a huge wet green sponge.

AngelBoy went out into the backyard this morning and it took him forever to get from one side of the yard to the other. He doesn't like to get his dainty little paws wet, so with each step, he would lift up his foot and shake the water off... take a step, shake off the water, take another step, shake off more water. Not the most efficient way to get from the back deck to the neighbor's fence.

And why was he heading towards the fence? There's a little mouse-hole shaped opening at the bottom of the fence between our yard and V's. Every morning, AngelBoy gets up right close to it and sticks his head through it to see what V's cats are doing in their yard. On a sunny day, AngelBoy will stretch out in the grass with half of his face pushed through that little hole, and he eavesdrops on the neighbors. The first time V saw his little face pushed into the hole, she called me up to tell me that AngelBoy was stuck in the fence. "Not so," I told her... "He's just peeking through there to see what your cats are doing."

But V didn't believe me.... she went out into her driveway, calling out as she crossed over her patio: "What are you dooooooooing, AngelBooooooooy?" At the first syllable from V, AngelBoy backed away from that fence, ran back across the yard, and hid under one of the chairs on our deck. I've never had the heart to tell V that AngelBoy is afraid of her..... he doesn't like loud noises or loud voices, and V tends to not only be on the loud side when she's in her yard, but her voice is very high-pitched Louisiana-ish. AngelBoy just can't cope with all of that, so he keeps a good distance away from V whenever she's within speaking or singing range. (She sings a lot as well, out in her yard. But that could be a whole other blog.)

Can't sleep...

It's one-thirty in the morning and I've been tossing and turning since midnight. The Snoring Symphony is playing in the bedroom..... hubby-snores from one side of the room, doggie-snores from the other. I wish I had a tape recorder. Not so I can hear it all again in the light of day, but so I can let my husband listen to it. I've tried to describe this stereo-snoring to him on mornings when he wakes up from a good sleep and asks me how I slept. Those are the mornings when I look at him in disbelief...... with snoring so loud, why doesn't he wake up from the noise?

Oh well. By the time I finish typing, I'm hoping to be so exhausted that I will fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow when I get back in bed.

Young Miss C was here after school today..... waiting for our answer on our summer vacation plans. She and her parents are going on a cruise to Jamaica, Cozumel, and someplace else that I can't remember just now. The cruise ship leaves from Galveston, and will be gone for seven days. They've asked us to go along with them. C is thoroughly excited at the prospect of all of us going on a vacation together.

But.... on a ship? For seven days? In the middle of the ocean? When C first told us about these plans the other night, she was just about jumping out of her cute little shoes. My first reaction was to look at my husband-- we were both thinking the same thing... remembering my experience on the whale-watching boat in Maine last summer. (Not something either one of us would like to repeat.)

I reminded C and her parents about my fear of being on a boat in the middle of the water. They told me this was a ship, not a boat. I told them that most of the Titanic, a ship, is still sitting at the bottom of an ocean. C's dad told me that last he'd heard, there weren't any icebergs south of the Gulf of Mexico. (Everyone's a comedian.)

We told them that we'd think about it, which we did. We told them we'd discuss it, which we also did. Miss C said that I could come over to their house and sit on a raft in the middle of their pool, so I would get used to the idea of being in the middle of the water. Nice try, I told her, but that's not exactly the same thing. Then C said she heard that Barry Manilow would be on the same cruise ship. Had it not been for the twinkle in her eye, I would've had my suitcase packed already.

We will most likely tell C and her parents that we won't be joining them on the cruise. My husband isn't at all disappointed, since he's never wanted to go on a cruise anyway. Although, he did want to go to Alaska last year, with a cruise being an option, and I told him to ask one of the guys to go with him. (No one can tell me there aren't any icebergs on the way to Alaska.)


The front and back flowerbeds now look so much better than before, since the landscaper re-designed them on Tuesday. Our two older cats have walked around the backyard and seem to approve of the new arrangement. AngelBoy sniffed all over the yard, inspecting the new location of the garden decorations... this cat notices when anything is moved, and I do mean anything. When the workers were here all day on Tuesday, AngelBoy was watching their progress in the backyard from underneath the wicker coffee table on the screen-porch. He never came out from his hiding place till everyone left the yard at the end of the day.

ShadowBaby watched all the workers as they clipped and pruned and trimmed... he sat right by the screens and meowed at the guys as they walked around the yard. Mickey Kitty was highly insulted and frightened at all the commotion around the screen-porch, so I brought him inside and he hid under our bed for the entire day. These cats are all so very different.

I'm hoping that our neighbors' cats will stay out of our front flowerbeds. Our own cats never leave our backyard, but I can't say that for other cats on our street. Sometimes Mickey Kitty will sit on the windowsill in my husband's office here, and he'll wait for our next-door neighbor's cat to walk around in our flowerbeds by the front walkway. That cat isn't walking around just to smell the flowers, mind you, so I don't much appreciate him being in the flowerbeds. But cats are cats... and I can't chase away a neighbor's cat. But I have been known to knock on the window when I see him in our yard, and that noise prompts him to go back into his own yard.


I'm still waiting to hear from the local stores here.... I've sent eMails and made phone calls to their corporate offices, asking them for donations of children's pajamas. Jeez.... you would think I've asked them all for their first-borns. I've had no problem getting book donations, from Half Price Books, and now from SouthWest Books...... so wouldn't you think that the pajama-people would buckle down and let our Houston Chapter have some of their pajamas? I've even suggested that they give me their clearance items... the pajama sets that haven't sold... the ones they mark down. So far, all I've gotten are eMails telling me that they've taken my request "into consideration."

Into consideration. That means the matter is before a committee. Give me a blessed break.

I take that back. Give me some blessed pajamas!

Now I've seen everything...

Our phone rang after dinner tonight and it was our young Miss C... she had called me earlier in the day and asked if she and her friend L could stop by, so I thought she was now calling to tell me that they couldn't come over after all.

Instead of saying that, however, I heard C on the phone line: "Your front garden looks just beautiful!" I thanked her, and asked her where she was.

"I'm at the corner of your street, and I suggest you come outside because L and I have a surprise for you." Out the front door I went, and down from the corner came this small green plastic battery-operated jeep. In the front seat were C and L, and in the back trundle-seat was L's little three-year-old sister.

Had C not called me and told me to come outside to see their surprise, I wouldn't have guessed who was in that little green car. Both C and L were wearing Groucho-type black eyeglasses, complete with over-sized noses and mustaches. They had zombie-like plastic teeth in their mouths, wigs and crazy hats on their heads, layers of colorful clothing from head to fuzzy-stockinged feet, and their faces were covered with white powder, red rouge, black moles near their chins, and the brightest red lipstick. Not only were they hysterical to look at, but the over-sized noses and plastic zombie-teeth made their normally-sweet voices sound Bronx-like and menacing.

To top all of that, L's doll-sized little sister was also wearing zombie-teeth, rouge and lipstick, a colorful knitted sweater-- and a bicycle safety-helmet, being that she was in the trundle-seat of the vehicle. The girls started out in that little car at L's house, which is on our side of the subdivision, but still about seven streets away from our street.

To my horror, the girls had driven that plastic vehicle in the street, for goodness sake! I made them promise to drive back to L's house on the sidewalk, which they did. Neither C nor L realized that they weren't allowed (by law) to ride in that type of vehicle on a public road.

My husband wasn't home when the girls came down here to surprise us, but I called him at his office to see if he was finished and close to coming home. He wasn't, so I did the next best thing... I got the camera out and took some photos of the girls and he saw the pictures when he got home.

C and L were just too funny for words.... I laughed so hard that I had tears in my eyes, and I went to V's next door and asked her to come out and see the girls. V is a ninth-grade teacher at the high school, and after she was rendered speechless by the girls' costumes, she told them she was going back into her house to "contemplate the way we're teaching these young adults." And without missing a beat, C told her: "And may I say that you're doing an exemplary job!" -- Which was funnier than it sounds just being typed out, given the raspy voice from the combination of the plastic nose and teeth that C was talking through.

I had asked C if she passed anyone she knew between L's house and ours, and she said that two cars passed them with teenagers from the high school. Their high school friends didn't even know it was C and L in the little green car, and C added "...but they sure looked at us weird." (Why did that not surprise me?)

Too, too funny. Those girls may have just celebrated their 16th birthdays, but they're still young girls at heart, having the time of their lives, and not rushing into adulthood with both feet. (Or both noses and plastic teeth.)

New Landscaping

Wonder of wonders.... the landscaper told us he'd be here this morning before nine o'clock, and he was here with his crew at 8:30. Forgive my doubts, but I had good reason, being that we were still waiting for other landscapers to return our calls.

The flowerbeds in the front and back yards are now totally different, which is amazing to me because they used all the plants we already had, and just added three new ones to the new design and layout. Large plants from the back were moved to the front, the zillions of spider plants in the back were thinned out.... the back yard looks bigger, the front yard looks more tropical.

The landscaper and his crew were done before 3:00, and I had time to rearrange my yard decorations in the flowerbeds before Oprah came on at 4:00. My little white porcelain ducks (The Quackernackle Choir) seem to be quite happy with the new arrangement. Our across-the-street neighbor has already been over here to ask for the name of the landscapers, along with our next-door neighbor and the lady who lives on the corner.

Now I have to decide whether to keep the yard guys who are cutting our lawn, or switch to a different company who will upkeep the flowerbeds as they are now. The current lawn guys are very nice, but most of them don't speak English so if the owner isn't with them, I can't ask them to do anything unless I look through my Spanish/English dictionary. I hate to hurt that old man's feelings, but we've just spent a lot of money on these flowerbeds and I want them to be taken care of properly.


Pajama Program news.... as of this date, we've collected 307 pajamas and 285 books. I've got a new volunteer in Houston, near downtown, who is ready to deliver her collection of pajamas from her Wine-Warming Party last week. I'm very lucky to have downtown volunteers who not only want to collect pajamas and books, but are more than happy to personally deliver them to the shelters. This new volunteer is already planning her next event... she's calling it "Books, Burgers, and Bingo." Instead of collecting pajamas, she will ask her friends to bring children's books..... her menu will be barbequed burgers, and they'll play Bingo for prizes. Not only is she a great volunteer, but she has a wonderful imagination, which is always a plus.

Computer Spread Sheets and other stuff that goes bump in the night...

We've been up at the lake cottage..... for a few busy days. My husband had to repair some boards on the dock which got unattached from the posts during the recent storms up there. We didn't know that had happened, and it was a surprise when we saw it, to say the least. But my husband figured it out, got what he needed, and now it looks as good as new. Still needs an adjustment or two, but that can't be done till the water level goes down just a little bit.

Sounds funny to say that.... after the dry months of last year, everyone was wishing for the water levels to rise. Now that the docks need a little work, we're all wishing for the water level to decrease. Be careful what you wish for.

While we were up there, I went to one of the local shelters to deliver children's pajamas for The Pajama Program. The shelter that I had approved was right near the center of town, so we both drove there one day when we had other errands to do. I brought nearly 50 pajama sets for them, and the woman who accepted the boxes at the shelter said they'd all be gone before next week. That's how many families come through there in a two-week period. They will be on my permanent list of "receiving organizations," and if I can't keep up with their need for pajamas, then I'll ask the NY office to send them a box every month.

I swear, this lake-area shelter was one of the barest, saddest, oldest buildings.... they have a "store" that's stocked with donated clothing and household items. Their residents and clients can go to the store and pick out what they need, free of charge. They were thrilled to get my delivery of pajamas, if only because they're never "treated" to new items... just used things that are donated to the shelter. And some of the used items that were there should have been tossed away, but they keep everything that is even remotely usable.

Speaking of remotely usable.... I learned how to use a computer spread-sheet this afternoon. A crash course from my husband, because I have to use that on-line form to send in my ingoing and outgoing numbers for the pajamas and books I collect for the Pajama Program. I had been keeping everything written down in a notebook (the old-fashioned kind, not the computer kind). Well, that works just fine, but my scribbles can't be sent up to NY that way.

So now I can say that I know how to use a spread-sheet on this blessed laptop. Oh goodie. Another computer skill. I know how useful this machine is, but in my mind, just give me a pen and paper and I'm on Cloud 9. (Give me a computer and I often end up in the Twilight Zone.)

Got pajamas?

As with Miss C and her "got biggio?" tee-shirt, I think it would be great to get tee-shirts made for C and all her friends who have volunteered to help out with my Houston Chapter of the Pajama Program. These kids are so enthusiastic about helping with whatever event comes up... they don't care if it's big or small, they just want to help. I thought the "got pajamas?" shirts would be a nice surprise for all of them. I will have to look at the shops in the Mall... surely there must be a store that makes custom tee-shirts. I hate going to the Mall, but sometimes there's just no way out of it. (Unless, of course, I can buy shirts on-line. Maybe I will try that first.)

I spoke to my cousin R yesterday.... her 55th birthday is tomorrow, but I knew she'd be home last night watching "Dancing With the Stars," so I called her when the show was over. We've both been watching that since it started-- she can appreciate the dances more than I, being that she's a contest-winning dancer herself. We both had dance lessons when we were kids but she never stopped..... which makes sense to everyone in the family because she just hated to sit still. Tap-dancing led to a little bit of ballet, but then she went back to tap, and then when we hit the 1960s, she was into dancing big-time. When the 1970s dance craze began, she was already into advanced-dance classes, and she never looked back. I believe she even taught some dance classes in the 1980s.

So here we are, both at 55...... jeez...... what is wrong with that number?! It just can't be, but it surely is. My cousin and I both think that Laila Ali will win the dance competition this year... we were rooting for Cheryl and Ian, but I don't think he can beat Laila. But we'll see... you never know how the fans are going to vote. It amazes me still that more people around the country will phone-in votes for their favorite stars, but they don't vote for politicians on such a large scale. Maybe that's what the country needs--- phone-in votes.

My cousin is already buying pajamas for kids....... she plans to bring them down here to me the next time she comes to visit. I told her that NY has a Pajama Program also, but she wants our kids here to get her pink pajamas. I just know that every pajama set that she buys is going to be pink, which is (and always has been) her favorite color. Her little puppy has a growing wardrobe of sweaters and raincoats--- all in pink. I can take credit for one of those little sweaters... I found it on eBay when she first got the puppy, whose name is Pinkie. (Of course.)

I've been on the phone a lot with Pajama Program events this week.... before anything can be set into stone, I'm learning that a lot of eMails and phone calls have to be taken care of first. I've just gotten used to the procedure. Me being me, I'm all for just doing it. But each corporation has their own protocol, and that's just the way it is.

I've also learned to keep a supply of Pajama Program material with me wherever I go. I've been telling everyone I meet, and just about everyone says that they can easily host a Pajama Party, so I leave them a flyer, with all the information they need about collecting new pajamas and books for Houston area kids.


Summer is here..... the landscaper isn't. We're still waiting for the landscaper to re-do our front and back flowerbeds. And to think that I originally wanted this work done before our own Pajama Party on the 21st of April. Silly me....... I forgot the rule here-- If it doesn't get done today, then it will get done tomorrow, unless it rains, then it may be next week... unless the truck breaks down, then it may be next month.

Am I the only one here who just does it?!