I Ain't Afraid of No Daleks

I couldn't find Charlie...until I looked in my bedroom wardrobe. I have the wee cat carrier in there, that I transported flamey here in, and for reasons only his little cat mind knows, Charlie has crawled in there, and is fast asleep.

Last time I looked, he was snoring away on the bed...actually, that's how I found him, I followed the snoring. If Bonnie Prince Charlie was a husband instead of a cat, he'd probably be divorce material, just based on his snoring alone. Seriously, I've heard people that snore quieter than my ginger and white ten-pin bowling ball with fur.

He was sitting on my vacuum cleaner this morning. Maybe he wants me to hoover him, again. He actually kind of gets off on being hoovered. He's definately in need of some councilling, ha-ha.

Can't get rid of this blankity-blank cough! I don't know which is more bothersome; the cough or that uncomfortable feeling of fluid in my chest. Still, I think I'll be rid of this by the end of the month, unless I have a relapse. My sister keeps harping on me that I need antibiotics. I also need a higher income, not getting that, either.

I've stopped following the health care debate and legislation in Washington, D.C. It just makes me sicker than any illness, all this stupidity and wrangling and greed-mongering over the very literal lives of millions of women, children and men. America isn't the land of sunshine and dreams a lot of people like to pretend that it is. There's a whole nightmare of ugliness and meanness that lurking in the darkness of this country...and much of it comes from perfectly ordinary, "normal" people.

Well, I just had my blog post interrupted by a knock at the door. UPS guy. Gosh, can't resist a man in a brown uniform...if I were rich, I'd be sending stuff by UPS all the time, ha-ha. Hey, I'm an old maid, I'm not dead!

It's really sweet and thoughtful, that my friend has sent my cats a treat...and helpful to my budget, as well. I told my cats it was a prezzie from their auntie overseas...I swear, Flamey knew the box was for her, cos' she was climbing all over it, the minute I set it down. It was four boxes of gourmet tinned cat food. Flamey loves her gourmet cat food. The only thing she likes better, is cheese and popcorn.

Would you believe she and Charlie licked the plate completely clean already? They're sitting around washing their paws. Boots wouldn't wake up, so he lost out, I'm afraid. He was so zoned out, he slept through the man knocking at the door--normally, a knock at my door sends Boots running for cover. Well, he'll get some tonight, at their regular feeding time.

I'm out of fries (chips) and a couple of other necessities, so I'm going out shopping up the street. I thought about trying out the buses today, but I still have some housework that needs doing in here, and some phone calls to make, so I think I'll wait to tomorrow to take a day off.

I was tired after all the bustle of yesterday. I watched Antiques Roadshow on PBS at 8pm, then turned off the television, and hung around the computer and read an Agatha Christie book I got at the library, before turning in early. Unfortunately, about half an hour after I went to bed, I started my coughing festival again, so wound up being up until 2am, before I nodded off again. Meh, at least the cough isn't a 24 hour thing, like before, and I can sleep. Sleep's a wonderful healer.

I'll have to figure out how to get to a supermarket this weekend. Not having a car really is a pain. A 45 minute to one-hour shopping trip by car, can easily take two hours to half a day, by bus. Not fun.

I have a lead on a work at home job. It would be working for a former co-worker who started his own business, doing much the same work as I did at my last employer. A lot of my former co-workers have gone to work for him. All you need is a landline phone and high-speed internet...which I have. I'm going to check it out this week. The extra funds would be great, and, I wouldn't have to worry about commuting by bus. And, you don't have to live in the area, as I've been told that one of my co-workers also moved away and works for him.

I heard from my farm-lady friend. They're strugging with the farm. It was a bad summer for haying and other crops, as June and July were unusually cool and wet. They lost some calves at birth. Had to sell several heifers--including my lovely Paige, to help pay the feed bill. She's not working, so all they have is the farm income, and the income from her guy's job as a NY state lock tender. I hope she finds a good job, soon.

New York is doing their best to assist family farmers--agriculture is one of this state's top industries...still, from what I'd heard back in October, it's not really going to be enough, and some farmers are going to go under. For people who don't care about that, think about the extra you'll have to pay for your food, when it's got to be shipped from a longer distance...and about the higher taxes you'll pay when local businesses go under and can't pay their taxes--true, farmers get tax breaks, but they still have taxes nevertheless, not just business-related taxes, but all the same taxes as their non-farming neighbours...and, there's land taxes, as well. Farmers have hundreds of acres they have to pay taxes on.

Well, no snowfall today. It's overcast, but not cold, not by my standards, anyway. It was colder in October, than it is in November. Of course, where I was living was a good 10 degrees or more colder, than where I'm living now.

I have to be very careful with spending. I had to get some things I needed for my new place. I'm a bit nervous about spending the $50 to go to my sisters. I only get one cheque on the 3rd of each month, and there simply isn't anything else. Just like the food stamps, once it's gone, it's gone forever, there's nothing more until the next check comes on the 3rd of the next month, and the 7th (when I get food stamps). Hand-to-mouth existance, they call it, and people who don't live on a fixed income, are really clueless how hard that sort of life really is.

Save your supermarket recipts for a month, see if you could live on $200 from the 7th to the 7th! I looked it up, $200.00 equals 119.511 GBP.

Well, I'm off for a jaunt up the road to the shop. Hope you all are having a good day. Cheers.

Got three meme's in my in-box when I got back online, this is the third..and hopefully, the last, for a while.

YOUR MOMENTS MEME---GIVE DETAILS!

YOUR MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT:

Sitting on top of an Icelandic horse, on a hill, but inside an ancient volcanic crater, almost literally on top of the world, with the cleanest, purest air in all the world, blowing in my face. Wonderful!

YOUR WEIRDEST:

Actually seeing the ghost in mum's old library building (the former village school)...I thought she was taking the mickey out of me, but no, the ghost of Ada Lee was quite real, I assure you.

YOUR SCARIEST:

It's a tie between being told I had to sing the paper to turn off my mum's life support, and the day I got the pending foreclosure letter in the post, notifying me that I was about to lose my home.

YOUR CRAZIEST:

Being elected by my study group, to be a female Jerry Sringer in a presentation skit, in front of a couple of hundred students and teachers, in a foreign country I'd only been in for two weeks...and never having watched the Jerry Springer show until the night before. I pulled it off, too. Crazy, man.

YOUR MOST EMBARASSING:

One time, when my mum and sister and I were visiting my dad's cousin's wife, during the winter months, I was walking down her front steps, when I hit a patch of ice and did a complete somersault in the air, landing on my head in a pile of snow with my fat arse sticking up in the air...and my sister blurted out, "Free Willie!" And everyone laughed.

HAPPIEST MOMENT:

Graduating from college with my AA degree in 2003.

SADDEST MOMENT:

Holding mum's hand as she died and having to tell my sister over the phone, "She's gone."

MOST SERENE:

Standing in my snowshoes, in a field of fresh snow at midnight on a frigid sub-zero (F) cold Christmas eve, under a full moon, with the landscape bright with the blue light of the moon, and ice crystals floating in the air, the stars so sharp and clear you felt like you could reach up and touch them...and it so quiet, I could hear the bells of a Catholic church tolling, over half a mile away...and I cold see the christmas lights of some of the houses on the hills across the river...and it was so peaceful and magical, that words never really could describe it.

MOST ANGRY:

Something I'm not proud of and won't discuss publicly.

MOST EXCITING:

The afternoon I was told it was OK for me to sit in Dr Who's car, Bessie. Seriously, I was just...awed.

MOST BIZZARE:

The night in Egypt, when I sipped a fruity drink with an umbrella in it, danced in a conga line lead by a belly dancer, and had my picture taken with a very handsome whirling dervish.

MOST UPSETTING:

Also in Egypt, While trapped on a cruise ship on the Nile, I got a severe dressing down in public by someone I respected, due to a complaint I was not question about, or allowed to defend myself about. I was also severely ill with travler's sickness. I got off the cruise ship, only to find that neither of my parents were answering their phone, and ended up calling the local hospital back home from Luxor, only to find that both my mum and dad were in hospital, our 7 cats were stick in our caravan, without water, because it was minus 40 C/minus 40 F, and the water pipes were broken...when I requested assistance from our group leader to fly home--I was strongly discouraged against doing so...and, I never saw my dad alive again.

MOST NERVOUS:

Learning how to drive. I was a nervous wreck...ironically, I learned to love driving, later on.

MOST RELAXED;

Sailing in the Netherlands on a wooden Friesian sailboat on a lake. I was excited too, but also it was probably the most relaxing two days I'd ever had.

MOST INTENSE:

My first (and only) horse show, in winter of 1980. I was a substitute rider for the college western riding club, for the western pleasure riding class. I am very competittive, and it was one of the only times in my life, I had butterflies in my stomach. When I got on that horse, I was just so intense and focused, cos' i wanted to do really well...and I did, I placed second, and my friend placed first.

MOST APPALLING:

Isn't that like embarrassing? Or is that beyond embarrassing?

Well, it was my first proper full-length play, in front of a real audience, opening night. It was theater in the round--the stage was a raised platform on the main stage, with intimate seating in the round..we were almost literally acting right in the audience's laps. Mum wasn't well enough to go, but my dad came up to see me on opening night. I asked that he not be seated in my direct line of sight. So...what do they do? Yup, I'm acting and my mark is right square facing my dad--who was in the front row. Damn!

So, it was a scene with me and one other actor. I was a maid, he was a member of the family. He said his line, I said mine, he said his line---and I made the mistake of looking at my dad....and my mind went utterly blank. I mean, the lines were utterly gone from my head, like they'd never existed! After stammering badly for what seemed an eternity, I immediately dropped to the first line in my head...which was practically the next to last line! OMG, I was definately appalled...after the scene was over, the teenage boy gave me a severe dressing down and stormed off....while I sat in the green room, bawling my eyes out...I couldn't stop! Of course, which only made me more appalled...that and the knowledge that my elderly dad drove 50 miles to see me totally screw up.

Then the play's director came in and had a tantrum at me...the theater director (my professor) took me to her office and calmed me down. If I died that night, I think I would have thought it a blessing. You can bet that for the next couple of weeks, I didn't forget a single line again, tho'.

I haven't acted in another play, since. No. Way. I opted to run sound effects, for the other production I had to do. At least backstage, if you mess up, no one can see you!