today's confession....i'm a pig. you wouldn't know this by lookin at me out of my pen and with just a bit of notice, probably not if you came by to visit me cause after livin' with this deep dark secret for my whole life i have just about mastered the art of hidin' it when necessary. so much so that i am often called upon to help others figure out ways to organize their own pens. see...they think i am an expert at ORGANIZIN' when the fact is i have become an expert at DISGUISIN'. and the reason they are always impressed with my knowledge of containers and such for settin a pen up is because i have tried them all in my effort to get and keep my pen under control. see - my biggest problem is that i'm a pig who likes everything to be perfectly neat all the time. this is a difficult problem to solve cause i can start the day off in perfectly neat surroundins' and by nightfall there will not be enough floor left available to walk a straight line...the only way to get to the door is to hop from open spot to open spot (tinker has gotten used to her head jerkin back and forth during the ride). this makes it quite difficult to check and see if mini can make it out of her pen so we can spend some quality time together. see - she too is a pig.
i come from a long line of pigs. jo says she is not one of em but it's hard to tell. she can see us headin' across the yard her way and all she has to do is turn the fan on high and wave the dust buster over her head a few times while sitting on the banquette for her trailer to look neat. and when she is in my pen she sure has no problem lettin' things drop hither and yon so i think she did indeed get some of the pig blood. my brother and sister are neat freaks so the gene seemed to skip them altogether.
growin' up, sharin' a room with queenie, there was a wall with two closets with slidin' doors - one for each of us. queenie had everything perfectly hung up, all the hangers facing the same direction, shoes all in neat boxes and the shelf above stocked like a department store before the doors open. she could get dressed with no problem no matter where she was off to cause she had everything ready to pick from. my closets doors were never on the track so i could climb in on one side and use it sort of like my own private dressin' room. most everything was in a pile on the floor - so much easier than havin' to take it off a hanger if it was what i wanted to iron to wear. the shoes were mixed in to the pile so no need to open boxes but i must admit i could sometimes find only the left one or the right one. but i was always in a panic about runnin' late while queenie would already be on her way.
when i was in college i arrived home from dinner one night to find my suite mates had moved all my belongins' out into the hall. they had tried painting a yellow stripe around what was designated as my area but it just wasn't enough to keep me in my pen. i do believe the only reason the sorority i joined let me stay livin' with em was they needed an artist in residence - and i had the most boyfriends. they could always count on me for painting somethin' at the last minute for their appointed little sister or get 'em a date with some of my overflow.
i have lived in fear most of my life that someone would look in my purse. i'm sure there have been many a time i appeared to be luggin' around illegal substances of some kind my the way i cling to my handbag and when the need for openin' it occurs, i do so only enough to retrieve whatever is needed. it is what i would call a mini pig pen. for a time i had considered goin to one of those tapings of the ellen show but once she started haulin' people's bags along with her as she danced through the audience during the first part of the show and with my luck, she'd grab mine and my mini pen would be exposed on national t.v.
the thing is there's seldom anything i need in my bag. when it gets so bad i can't take it any more, i find i can remove my driver's license, my one credit card and lipstick tube and then shake the whole thing right over the trashcan and start over. sometimes if it's really bad - like if i stuff a half eaten bag of M&Ms in and forget to smush up the openin' and they spill and then it's really hot outside and they melt all over everything, i have to just pitch the whole thing and start over. mini's backpack is the same. i can go through it and know everything she has eaten while at school as there are little bits of it all stuck in some pocket....if i am really desperate for a snack late at night and am too fearful of the kitchen critters for a trip downstairs, i can dig in her backpack first for a small morsel to do the trick.
my piggish ways have made me very unhappy during my life. i just could never figure out how to change them and always deemed myself a failure because of them no matter how much i succeeded at everything else i decided to do. it's amazin' that i have achieved so much while failing my fight with this debilitating problem. and since people have no patience or understanding for piggish people, it was always somethin' i felt i had to hide because if it was discovered, i would be revealed as a big ol' fraud overall.
i wasn't diagnosed as havin ADD until about i was an adult. it wasn't that no one ever noticed that i was different - every doctor i had ever visited my entire life had tried to cram a prescription for some calmin' potion into my tightly closed handbag so i might relax a bit. but i have never been interested in relaxing. there was just too many things i needed to get done. and since i always figured out a way to do 'em, it seemed my only problem was finding them once i finished. but once i was diagnosed it seemed to make a bit more sense to me and i became a bit more forgiving of my piggish ways and tried not to be so hard on myself. but readin' up on bein' gifted with ADD didn't give me much in the way of answers for turning every place i went into my own personal pig pen.
i finally got more answers when my mini was diagnosed as having received more of my genetic make-up than i had planned to pass on to her. in fact, when all our diagnostic tests are put next to each other, it appears that the very same person took 'em all. my doctor never bothered explaining what each one meant and how it would effect me as is often the case when someone is assigned the dreaded diagnosis of ADD. some poor parent new to all this mumbo jumbo and already horrified at bein' told their child is not perfect can't be blamed for not delving into the matter to the degree i have ended up doing so. by the time my mini was diagnosed i had a long list of questions ready to go. the fact is there are so many things that fall under the name of ADD and it is amazing how many answers lie within each of them. one of the answers i found helped me understand my need to create pig pens everywhere i am.
if i had only known all that time sittin' and starin' at that wall with those two closets and wonderin' why my side looked so different from queenie's and why it was such a struggle for me to pull it all together and so easy for her, that the answer was all in my genetic make-up! i just didn't have what it took to come up with and then follow a plan for keepin' my area organized. i could've spent all that time digging through queenie's locked up little bank shaped like a house or lookin for her diary instead of beating myself up so.
i think there are lots of people who have piggyness in their inherited genes and don't even know it. i often read blogs of other moms who are beating themselves up for not doin all the things they think they need to be doin' or want to do and i think that maybe they just need to find some extra tools to help 'em succeed. and maybe if they knew it wasn't their fault, they'd be so much nicer to themselves. and i shudder to think about all the poor children who are judged as lazy when they are tryin' their best but they just need to be taught some tricks to help 'em get the job done. my mini's IQ is so high she is rated up there with the smartest of humans....but if you just got a glimpse of her locker, you'd think there was no hope for her. before i understood how to help her, she could never find the papers she needed for class and was feelin' bad about herself. she'll never have a clean locker but now that she has a big ol' pocket attached to the inside of the locker door to throw the important things in, she gets her assignments in on time.
i'll always have to hop around my messy piles at the end of the day but now that i know and accept it i have figured out ways to disguise the mess from myself so i can keep functioning until i stop and get everything back in order so i can mess it up again. my biggest tool is in todays blog view. see, once i got my most favorite problem solver in the world, my drill, i was able to set the doo dad den up just like i needed it to be. and i have done so in a way that when something doesn't work for my piggyness anymore, i just put the drill in reverse and figure out something that will work. in these shots you'll see i have these counters (actually hollow doors) all around the doo dad den that underneath can be crammed full of a little of everything....but no one has to know but me and jo cause i dressed everything up in cute skirts! since most people with ADD are moving so fast from one thing to the other stopping to open a drawer is impossible, i use open baskets and mason jars for everything so i can just carry the whole thing to where i'm working and it's easier to put things back where they belong. and when i'm picking up the big ol' mess, i can just pitch things back into their containers without having to remove a lid or pull open a drawer. i screw the ring thing on the jars just so it looks like there's a lid but i leave the flat metal part off.
i keep all my art supplies divided in batches by color and paint their containers to match the batches. i took these shots in the middle of a cleanathon so i don't think everything is labeled but normally everything is - that way it's easier for jo to help me clean without her having to ask me where each little doo dad goes. in the doo dad den bathroom, i use painted terracotta flower pots for everything. and that stuff you see on the floor are floor cloths - the only way for a piggish artist to keep from ruining nice hundred year old wood floors. they work so well i have even painted 'em for fancier rooms and they are often mistaken as being original to the house.
so...just thought i'd share my deep dark secret with you and hope maybe there was some piggish person readin who might know they are not alone. maybe there's something i've learned the hard way that i can pass along to make their life a little easier. my cousin jo is always sayin' if people were more honest with each other about their shortcomings we'd all feel better about ourselves. i do so hope my confession here will do you just a bit o' good.
thanks for stoppin by and i hope to see you back here soon!
tracy squirrel
i have been without internet access for about 24 hours...just wanted to stop by the blog in case anyone who is waitin for me to respond to them or do somethin i said i would or such came over here to leave a comment about me bein rude and ignorin 'em....i'm sorry and it looks like i won't be up and running for a bit longer. i was able to rig up some ol phone wire i found in the attic to the oldest computer i could find to get dial-up to leave you this lil message but it has bout takin all mornin...between the crawlin around, diggin for the right stuff and then no space bar or return keys added to the slugs pace of the dial -up connection, i'm sayin no more until i get the other connection back! my time is better spent workin on all those late doo dads...just will go on and leave you the latest shot i got of tracy squirrel and you can use your imagination at what has been going on with her until i get everything workin here so i can come back and tell you (altho i'm sure you can tell that she now tired of the american girl boxes stored in the attic cause i don't recall there bein a street walkin' version altho i could be wrong....).
salt'n the slugs
have you ever had a boyfriend that seemed to be doin the job just fine and then suddenly realized he was not what you thought he was and you decided it was time to move on? you allow him to save face by makin everyone think it had been his idea to break up cause what do you care - you're so busy tryin to fit in all the ones that had been waitin in the wings for you to come to your senses that you never even give him another thought? okay, maybe you take a bit of pleasure when you and one of your new suitors pull up in a bright red ferrari at some eatin establishment and you look over at the volksagon parked next to the passenger side and find the ex-beau sittin there watchin you bein helped out of the i-talian sports car by your handsome date known for playin a super hero on the big screen. you gotta admit some delight was experienced for maybe just a nano second. but other than that, you are so over him and are plan to keep on movin.
but then this ex-fella keeps showing up wherever you are. appears he thinks you aren't aware of his need to know what you're up to so whever you are, he makes sure to go too - even places he isn't welcome - goin to such lengths as tryin to disguise himself thinkin no one will know. you just wanna say 'don't you have anything better to do?' and 'do you really want me to know that you can't get me outta your mind?'.
don't know what made me think of that since i am much too busy tryin to protect the private part of my mo home from interlopers and bandits. it shouldn't be that hard to do. see, in the world of people that hang out at the sites where designers do up doo dads to deliver via download, most pick out a username for signin in and it's that username they hang onto wherever they go. this isn't a hobby where there's much of a need to travel around secretly and slither thru the shops and galleries under the cover of faux identities and anonymous postings. there's no shame involved in looking at cute doo dads designed for delivery via download after all.
okay - so maybe there have been many a child that has had a slow response to some need or other while their mom finished uploadin some pretty little page they did up about their love of motherhood or a husband that was aimin for some lovin when his partner finally joined him for the night and ended up havin to only dream about such things instead cause the other half of the lovin team was lovin their delivered doo dads a bit more than the doin-without dreamer. but until oprah does a show about doo dad addiction and it's need for interventions by our loved ones or unless some designer decides there's a need for neeked doo dads of the pornographic sort, i don't know of there bein much of a need for tryin to come up alias email addresses and faux usernames for shop hoppin and gallery gazin.
in the bizness of doin doo dads to deliver via download, it is my experience that most of the participants look forward to the internet audience comin to know who they are. sort of a virtual neighborhood, where the inhabitants travel around from place to place and enjoy bein recognized by the other digital art citizens and getting to know those they bump into along the way. you might not ever know the actual name that appears on a fellow traveler's driver's license but seldom does a well-intentioned member of this strange but wonderful little community get involved if they intend on doin so anonymously. i mean, after all, the way of participatin is to slap pictures of your family and life along with your own written descriptions of what you think of em on the world wide web! i can't recall many legit, authentic scrappers/artists who scrap and post art done up with people they don't know. what would be the purpose (this wouldn't include those who do up scrapped pages for non-family member for pay).
we get to know our digital art inclined neighbors pretty well via what they post and how they travel hither and yon. oh sure, you misjudge from time to time and get your heart broken when one of your pixel pals disappoints you, but that's part of life. seems most regular members of this growin universe deal with these stumbles honorably and make every attempt to treat such breakups respectfully, whether they are the heartbreaker or heartbreakee.
many designers who venture out into the internet hopin to deliver downloads of their doo dads by lining imaginary shelves with lovingly created pixels (in my case sometimes a few too many in the wrong places) in the shapes of ribbons n bow n buttons n such and then provide a place for their devotees to come around and show off what they did with em, just throw the doors to the place open wide for all to come and sign up with their internet handles and email addresses and maybe don't know or care when slug slitherin or stalkin is takin place.
i haven't yet opened the gallery and shop portion of my domain to the public. see, as those girls over at the pea throwin place made quite clear after visitin the public part of my spot , i am not a web site designer - oh no - not in the least. i did obtain me some help to put the thing together but the poor dear just about swore off the internet altogether after workin with me for a while. she hung in there but it was touch and go as she saw that i wasn't all that acceptin of the limits in typefaces and accepted modes of this and that and that i could care less about followin some rule just so the search engines would deem me worthy.
i won't open the back end of my little spot on the internet to the public until i have worked all the little kinks out and am pretty sure i can give each and every person who logs on the best customer service they ever experienced as well as makin sure i have enough goin on to make the trip worthy for em. setting up shop is different than makin pixel pals. and this designs available via download community is small enough and by golly vocal enough that if you open the doors and hollar for everyone to come runnin, you better be ready to take care of all visitors the way they deserve to be taken care of. if not you'll find yourself sitting starin at a screen with buckets o' hurled peas aimed at your username. it'd be like invitin people to a party and havin em show up to find you hadn't yet popped open the lid on the bean dip or ripped open the bag of fritos.
my feelin all along has been that if you build a good doo dad, they will come. and so far, the sort of person who likes my sort of doo dad is findin me. i try to make sure once they say they wanna come by for a visit, they know that my little place on the web is still considered more of a construction site than a WEB site and that they might run into some bumps along their way and that i am open to all suggestions. there are those who don a hard hat and visit and don't stay long...those who poke around and never return....a couple who thought it was the bees knees and then somethin made em change their thinkin and they snuffed out all signs of their previous devotion to doo dads.
but then there are the hundreds that have been welcomed in and have made themselves comfy and stop by a few times a day to see what's happenin. they say my failed attempt at web design has a cozy feel, even with all the noise from the hammerin and such goin on. i have truly enjoyed gettin to know the regulars and those that have started their own doo dad collections seem to appreciate all the extras i throw their way to show my gratitude for the pleasure they have provided me.
BUT...my oh so detailed reports show that there are some visitors that have gotten access to the private area of my domain by foolin me into thinkin they were someone else and this has left me feelin sort of violated. a few of these faux friends have even attempted to strike up emails relationships with me under their fake names, emails and personalities. i'm not sure if i'm more upset about them thinkin i was that dumb or that i proved them right. even more shockin to me is that one of these slitherin sneakers just so happened to be in my not yet open to the public home on the web at the exact time and on the exact pages where the bandit alarm was sounded last week. and then almost as creepy is the well known designer who spent approximately eight hours in this private area, going thru each and every item and perusin each and every member who had participated - all after sendin in faux information to get all registered up.
i find the whole thing unsettlin altho what is really puzzlin is you'd think these slugs and bandits would be savvy enough to realize they are leaving behind slimey trails that make it possible for their true identities to be discovered...i have been wrong before and maybe i'm wrong again cause otherwise i'm sure they wouldn't be doin this slitherin and sneakin. as of just last night i had one of em have one of their family members email me for access - i guess they forgot that i remembered the name from the christmas greetin they sent out last year. now it makes me wonder - was it a true greetin or a faux one? when people act in sneaky, sluggy ways it sort of makes you have doubts about them overall.
my desire to sell my doo dads was so i had a reason to keep makin em. i must admit i'm addicted to doin so. my reason for havin a gallery was to create a warm and friendly community where artists who enjoyed my doo dads could show off the art they created usin em and a place where good friendships could be made and a good time could be had by all. these things are alot more important to me than winnin over the most visitors or havin to do things a certain way so that i appeal to everyone. and i like to consider each and every person who honors me with posting their art on my site or takes the time to make comments and such, a member of the doo dad 'design team'. i find the thing i enjoy most is when someone new to this whole new form of entertainment feels comfortable enough to upload their first effort for all to see and everyone takes time to send them bits of encouragement. there's nothin like getting those little announcements that tell you a fellow traveler has stopped to admire your work - no matter how long you been doin this digital artin, it's a real good feelin and especially for a newcomer.
so...after all that blah blah blah...just wanna add...if you are lookin for some nice doo dads and wanna come to a nice .warm lil place on the world wide web and be surrounded by some really nice folks, then maybe you'll come knockin on my door. but nobody likes to feel someone is tryin to pull somethin over on em and the energy used tryin to do so sure could be better spent on something more important - so if you are more the trail leavin slug type or a bandit who takes pleasure in messin up someone else's hard work or feel the need to be sneaky in your travels, please- just pass my place by cause no matter how you are goin about it, you're not foolin me anymore and you end up just lookin foolish.
well - enough words given over to those who don't deserve em....for all of you who have written to offer your condolences on havin to deal with these sad sluggos and bandits, thank you very much and i apologize for not gettin back to everyone yet. it seems that after a year of not bein able to sleep for more than a few hours a night, i can't stay awake for more than a few hours at a time this week. i am sure i am close to bein rested now and once i get all the doo dads - delayed due to my dozin yet dying to debut for delivery via download - done up dutifully and divided digitally into their downloads, i will get right on all the emails i should have been writing instead of dozin daily.
and by the way....almost a hunderd of you have tried to guess what was on mini's daddy's video and no one has come close. maybe i'll just have to tell you on your next visit when you might just arrive to me ponderin why girls reach the age of 13 and overnight decide they know everything and you know nothin and what is it with all of em ruinin a perfectly good hair-do by decidin it must be parted way over on one side and then havin the flopped over portion hang in their eye? if you know the answer to that please do send it along as the only thing standin between me and a bald child is that i have taken to sittin on my hands when talkin to her.
todays art is once again by the oh so talented tracy, recently crowned re-colorin wizard over at the moland mall. and i need to thank zee for her excellent detective work after the bandit set the alarm off and for compilin all the info from the reports on the trails the slugs leave behind.....and to dear millie....while you were goin thru such a difficult time and away from the screens, i thank you for bein so smart on a daily basis that your absence was felt greatly....amyk for makin sure all the doo dads for donations get to where they need to go.....and of course to all you doo dad devotees who make the world a brighter place for an addicted doo dad artist.
too many mos and not enough zzzzzzs
i am too tired to finish the blog i started....so tired i ran an errand in the pourin rain and didn't even notice i had a flat tire....and then forgot my little dog, who has never been left alone, in the car cause i was too tired to notice she had jumped out of my purse into the backseat....
...so tired that when i took a bath hoping to drown my exhaustion and wake myself up some, i washed my hair with tink's hair brightenin shampoo. i haven't looked in the mirror yet to see the effect but both members of my family asked, "what happened to your hair" so i'm not hopeful that it enhanced my natural beauty.
before i fall over into a deep sleep, i thought i better apologize for not getting all the new art uploaded to the doo dad shop today as i had promised and intended. it will indeed appear once i finally get more than two or three hours of sleep.
also wanted to say...when things got all wacky last week because of the bandit alarm goin off, some new and old registrations for the private part of the site went wacky too. if you had been visitin earlier and can't get back in, please email me and i'll take care of it after i get those needed zzzzzzzs. and if you are wantin to come in for the first time, please be sure to send your requested user name and password along with your mailin address to: password_please@mac.com. in light of all the brouhaha last week, i need to verify your mailin address and IP just to make sure i don't welcome the slitherin slug and the bandit back in. once registered, your mailin address will be destroyed, never to be seen again - you won't have to worry about me droppin the body snatcher off for you to finish raisin altho it is a temptin solution. if you have already done this and not heard from me yet, it is because i am waitin until i can keep my eyes open before enterin your info.
since i hate a blog without a view, i have included some art made from 'the haunted house'...altho when added with all those mos above may just be waaaay too many mos for anyone to handle! also is more of 'the haunted house' but this time featuring my girls appearin as petra pan and tinkerbell.
thanks for stoppin by and i will get the blog i planned to log about bandits and slitherin slugs up next. xoxoxoxoxzzzzzzzzzzz
happy birthday tinkerbell!
i have never really been much interested in animals of any kind. growin up we always had pets but down south pets live outside so i don't even remember much about the ones we had except maybe their names. we always had some dogs and had a horse too. when my adored brother didn't ride his unicycle to school, he rode dixie, our horse. this wasn't long enough ago that this was the typical way to travel to get your daily dose of readin and writin - the horse or the unicycle - but my dear brother, like me, has never been afraid of bein different from everybody else.
i tried my best to take a likin to the horse but queenie, my sister, got to decide how the beast would be split up among the three of us (she always got to decide everything because she was goin to marry prince charles and be a real queen one day). she assigned my brother the head so he had to get the thing fed, assigned me the back end so i had to pick up the manure and in her queenly fashion, assigned herself the middle so she got to decide who got to ride it when and for how long. the combination of shovelin the manure and breakin my good arm fallin off ol dixie made me resign my end of the horse to the other two early on. my father had insisted i give the trick ridin a whirl. he had once been a rodeo cowboy himself and maybe hoped one of us would follow in his boot prints. but i fell after just a few tries and never got back on that thing again.
dogs were always on the top of my list of useless animals but i seemed to be the only one around with these feelins. where i grew up EVERY family had at least two and they were all allowed to roam free and make friends with all the other dogs. one of the things coach litton included when teachin us driver's ed after school was how to drive down a residential street without hittin one of the packs of dogs that would chase your car and that to avoid gettin your elbow nipped, not to rest your arm where it poked out the driver's window.
i do believe every boyfriend i ever had came with a canine attached to em and while i tolerated the furry creatures i never felt the overwhelming need to pet em and such. they were just somethin i had to put up with while i was bidin my time datin and waitin for prince charming and his safety fetish to come along and sweep me off my feet (bringin along with him his two vicious weiner dog - willie and wall e.). and while i could tolerate having to date a dog to date the owner, i would of dumped both if the dog ever showed up in any sort of clothing.
i developed a serious dislike of any animal lookin like they were tryin to be human early in life. besides mighty mouse who i loved but only got to watch occasionally when queenie allowed since flicka was on at the same time, i have never been able to watch cartoons because most of em consisted of animals dressed like humans and doin human things. they all gave me the creeps. especially that big yellow bird and any of the ones ruled by that mouse with the creepy voice that lived out in california in his own land. who would have ever guessed that one day i would actually find myself smack dab in the middle of both of em, being forced to hold their furry hands and that the rodent would end up breakin my foot by steppin on it with his big ol human shoes. as much as i dislike him for his greed and desire to dress in fancy human clothes i have to say it wasn't his fault - they make midgets climb in those hot as hell humans-playing-animals-dressed-like humans costumes and those big ol heads are just to hard to see through to know where their fake feet are goin.
anyway, i was pretty sure when the time came for me to be layin on my death bed, i'd be able to claim i had never had a pet and never seen a 'star wars' or 'star trek' movie - never cared much for aliens either though i think i've written here someplace that gigi's daddy was in one or another of the star treks so hopefully he won't be standin by my death bed when the time comes as he might take this announcement personally.
havin now confessed to all this, you can understand how every day i look at my little tinkerbell and wonder how on earth it came to be that she belongs to me, mo - disliker of dogs. and to top that, i can't imagine what happened to me that not only am i a dog owner but i have one that is better dressed than i ever am or have ever been.
it's hard to believe that this beloved little 3 pounds of hair (tink's breed doesn't have fur - they have actual hair - not sure the difference but thought i'd share that bit of dog info with you) is turnin two. i was tryin to remember what happened to make me do such a complete turnaround in the pet department. afterall, once prince charmins vicious weiner dogs were safely tucked in their little cremation canisters on the shelf of honor in the library, god rest their mean little souls, they were quickly replaced with lady bird, lucy bird, fred w., wilma and betty so there was really no need to add any more pesky pets. i'm thinkin it was around time my mom got so sick and when i realized mini's feet were draggin across the floor when i hefted her up to carry her to bed. i shared my pendin desire with mini who was delighted i might want a dog and she asked me to describe for her the dog of my dreams. i told her i wanted one that would fit in my purse, would always look like a baby and would love one that was completely round like a ball so it could just roll around . she quickly drew up a sample of my description and even made me a life sized one out of paper mache. that seemed to do the trick and meet all my new dog desires and then i sort of forgot about it.
but when christmas rolled around what did i find in my stockin but the cutest lil round dog i'd ever seen. and since then i don't go anywhere i can't take her, ridin along in my purse. some places say they don't allow dogs but most times jo or i can convince them she is a seein eye dog or is in charge of the money. the only place that turned us away so far is wal-mart and i am secretly delighted that i now have a good excuse for not attendin jo's hour long treks to the only one available in our area.
it's hard to believe how much happiness this tiny creature has brought to me. she arrived just in the nick of time to help fill the void left by my dear mom's departure and the invasion of mini's body snatcher. i can't even imagine how different i would feel if i didn't have her. so...i guess i have to admit i am now among the many people who fall into the category of dog lovers. if i had even the slightest bit of doubt, it quickly faded when watchin all the sadness on the t.v. after the first hurricane, and feelin just horrible but not yet givin in to my emotions, i caught sight of the little white dog that assumed it could follow it's owner on the bus takin the evacuees to their unknown destination. but as it's little paws reached the steps to hop into the bus, the door slammed shut and drove off leaving the poor little thing all alone. my heart broke into a million little pieces right then and there and i still cry every time i think about that image. i'm sure my tears are not just for the little dog. this image was and is just a perfect illustration of how it is possible for our biggest fear to actually come to life - our world as we know it up and disappearrin without any notice. and that's what was happening to the little dog and the little boy who had to leave it behind and all the other people on that bus along with all the thousands who had their lives as they knew em washed away overnight.
mini's daddy ended up telling me some wild story about how the little dog was rescued and taken to it's owner but i fear it was another one of his attempts to keep me from agonizin over the sufferin that goes on in the world. sort of like when i wanted to see 'shindler's list' and he made a copy of it for me to watch that ended up bein a story about some families takin a trip on a train and it not being the best vacation they ever had but was no where near the devastatin movie i had anticiapted or when he and mini tried to block oprah from the doo dad den's t.v. so that i wouldn't be in total despair every afternoon when they arrived home from work and school.
anyway....i thought tinkerbell deserved to have her big day honored with a bit of bloggin. the lovely art posted above was created by my dear friend tracy usin a shot of tink, in my lap and nestled in her little nest of pink lace. thank you missy tracy - from both me and tink.
just a bit of news for anyone who has signed up for my site or is waitin for somethin or wonders why the mo entry site, shop and gallery are all screwed up... i had a sort of bandit do some serious damage to everything last night and am workin hard to get everything back to where it was. i hope you will be patient with me with me while i try to get everything sorted out. a big thanks to all of you who have written today. it has really made me feel better about the whole ordeal.
i better get back to cleanin up the big ol mess - thank you for stoppin by the blog and i hope you will come often!
i needed to take a little break from the bloggin but i certainly didn't mean to be gone so long. there were a number of little things that i was ponderin and in no time there were some bigger things that needed more dedicated ponderin and before i knew it i hadn't blogged in so long people i didn't know were fretting that maybe i had been visitin my homeland when the big storms blew up and i was possibly washed out to sea.
i'm here to say that didn't occur although i did spend a good period of time, as i'm sure you did, paralyzed by the images i saw on the television by those who had the misfortune of livin exactly where those two lady storms ended of goin ashore. mini and her dad kept tryin to turn off the t.v. to get me movin again but realized they were wastin their time. if all those people were sufferin the least i could do was suffer along with 'em some. the whole thing was (and is) just so horrible i felt as if i was watchin the scariest yet way too far fetched to ever really happen movie.
all this sure has made me see some things differently. growin up on the gulf of mexico in a town where to escape you had to cross over a bridge no matter which direction you were escapin to, i remember learnin the word evacuation early on. in fact, up until this recent mess, i had quite fond memories of bein an evacuee. it meant to me we got to miss school and go to my auntie paula's in shreveport for a few days and visitin her a couple a' times every fall was worth any jammed up roads full of other evacuees. afterall, that's where my adored cousins rick and larry resided and they had air conditionin, coke in glass bottles and bordens chocolate milk in a carton - all kept at real nice freezey temperatures. we had NO air conditionin (even in the car that evacuated us), never had soda of any kind and our chocolate milk was the kind that came powdered in a tin and never really mixed quite right with the milk. i never understood what we were possibly runnin from. we always came back home to eveything lookin exactly the way it looked when we left and i never gave it another thought until the next time i needed to be an evacuee.
when i married mini's dad i quickly discovered 'those things' about him that men sort of hide from you until you are in a position where you HAVE to accept them. nothin as serious as the LBJ addiction but odd just the same. one of em i discovered completely by accident while trying to find a empty video tape. yep - picked one up, plopped it in the VCR (this was long before TIVO) and what i saw on the screen was a real shocker. so much so that i couldn't watch more than a few minutes of it. i ejected it and hid it so well it has never been seen again. i thought from time to time how traumatic it would be if mini ever saw it.
another thing i quickly discovered was that it appeared i had married some kinda safety nut. when we finally moved into his fancy just built bachelor dream house in the hollywood hills (which he never got to live in as a bachelor cause between the time he started and finished it he met the girl of his dreams - me, mo), there had to be workin flashlights in every room within reach and all the electrical outlets had those little emergency lights plugged into em - you know - the kind that come on and stay on for a long time if nothin else works? not too bad since i never had a night light as a kid and now had so many if they all came on at once i could be blinded for life.
the ugly red fire extinguishers in every room took more effort to get used to. as keen as this back-then-still-a-prince-charmin was into design and everything bein perfect, he felt that the big could-be-used-as-a-weapon flashlights and bright red fire extinguishers should be right out in the open. now this coulda worked if the color scheme for this brand spankin new, state of the art all-too-slickly-designed-for-me house was shiny black and red metal. then i might've been able to make the ugly things meld into their surroundings. but instead i was constantly kickin em under or behind somethin and then he'd come along and carefully place them back out where they could easily be grabbed for any emergency that might rush in. this probably happened about 10 or 20 times a day, with neither of us ever sayin a word about it.
the back of the house was made up of just about all glass so the biggest eyesores of all for me were the two big ol things i could see out of the corner of my eye from almost every place i went on the lower floor. there they sat - too big for me to haul away or hide with a carefully placed plant....a big ol water pump and a huge generator. i had to tell myself i was lucky he didn't keep em in the FRONT of the house. the water pump was there so when the house caught on fire, he would be ready to pump the water from the pool onto the fancy no longer bachelor pad and let the firemen help the other less prepared neighbors. then when the big earthquake hit, we would have the generator right there, out in the open, ready to go. he made sure the one he got was big enough to keep the whole street going if need be. it was beginnin to look as though he had a secret fantasy to become a super hero or somethin.
even with all this equipment sitting around makin him appear to be like that man the mom married on 'six feet under' - the one she sent to the looney bin - he never seemed to get too annoyed that i didn't share the same way of thinkin about his need to be prepared. not even when he went on one of his disaster check-list reviews and discovered that his big ol pile of one dollar bills, kept in the earthquake kit, had plum disappeared. that was my doin. i didn't mean to take it ALL. i never have any cash - ever since that man held a gun to my head at the ATM, i am usually cash poor. so whenever i found myself needin some and he wasn't around to take it from (i'm from the school of thought that what's his is mine and what was mine when i married him stays mine and in the bank), i'd just go take a few dollars out of the earthquake kit, havin every intention of putting it back but never quite doin so. i must admit i did get a little careless about how much i took after the first few times. after a while i would just grab a big wad cause they were just ONE dollar bills and they don't go very far. after i got caught he no longer kept the earthquake money with the other earthquake supplies. to this day i still look for it from time to time but have never found it. he lets mini know where it is but won't tell me.
anyway, all this equipment and hidden money and such seemed like just some weird hobby i had married into. if there was some sort of disaster, i might be forced to experience a day or so of discomfort - you know - until 'they' came to set everything back to working again. i lived in the united states of america after all and i would be taken care of. i realize i never really even gave this this much thought - it was just somethin i assumed. not that i don't worry about the big earthquake that's comin - when i had to pick mini's first pre-school, i never told anyone but i picked the one that i knew i could get to on my bike to resuce her by throwin her in the basket and bringin her home. and as much as the big foldin ladders bug me sitting on the wrought iron balconies, hinderin my pretty dangling-from-em plants, i have yet given in to my desire to pitch em off into the yard.
but as far as what would happen after i made sure my family was safe from immediate danger, well, 'they' would then show up and take care of whatever i needed. cause i was livin in america, land of the free, home of the brave and country of the prepared...and FEMA - whatever that was. so i would put up with mini's daddy's odd design un-friendly need for such a slightly expensive hobby. if the disaster came i thought he'd get to use all his toys just long enough for his vision of super heroism to be satisfied and then 'they' would show up and he could get the stuff all ready for the next time.
then came katrina and rita. after a few weeks of watchin the t.v. screen full of people goin days without eatin, bodies layin in the ditches, stadiums full of families sittin on cots and starin off into space, i have a new respect for mini's daddy's feelin that we need to be prepared for the comin disasters. and after realizin george's choice for the one to be in charge of the 'they' (who i had assumed would arrive lickety split to take care of me and my family and neighbors when the earthquake comes) was a baffoon, i have stopped kickin those fire extinguishers under the furniture and even listen a little more closely when he (george) says we need to trust him when he says so-n-so is the best person for some big ol job - like a supreme court judge or such. and i will never again tease mini's daddy when he goes and sits in on every city council meetin so he can make sure the city we live in is prepared for whatever might arise.
if the big disasters do come, i might not be able be to find the dollar bills right away but thanks to mini's daddy's efforts to always be prepared, at least i can put out the fire if it's blockin my way to the flashlights so i can grab one to use to go out and turn on the generator and light up what's left of the house so lookin for the cash will be easier.
most of those people down south seem like they weren't lookin for the big disaster to happen and i fear they will be sufferin for a long time to come....and even though ol george finally said he would take responsibility for what happened, he doesn't seem to have gotten much better in his way of thinkin about how to get things goin better and faster (and i don't have much faith that he will as long as his family is safe and has a roof over their heads and all their doo dads surroundin em). i really worry that with each passin day the horrible images that were on t.v. constantly will fade away...altho lately they seem only to be replaced by more images of the same sort of things, just in another part of the word. if you are even slightly religious you have to wonder if god is tryin to tell us somethin.
if you are like me and still feelin the need to help the victims of the hurricanes - or even those from the earthquake on the other side of the world, i hope you are also feelin the need for some delightful halloween doo dads delivered via download! if you are, please make a donation of $7.00 dollars or more to the american red cross between october 8th and november 1st and send a copy of your receipt to:
doodads_for_donating@mac.com
within 24 hours of receivin your proof of donation, you will receive a link for my halloween doo dad collection pictured at the top of this blog. i am only able to do this with the help of my very organized friend amy, from inspirecompany.com. as many of you know, i have the best intentions but fall short at trying to do too many things at once....so amy has taken on the job of getting all the links out. i promise you'll not only feel good about helpin out, you'll be delighted with the doo dads you download due to your donation. a huge thank you to everyone who donated last month!
i was thinkin before i sign off from this much too long entry back into blogdom, i should tell you what mini's daddy was doin on the tape i accidently found right after i had promised to love and honor him all the days of my life...but i think it would be more fun to make you guess...the first person to guess correctly can pick out a couple a sets of doo dads to download. just to keep you from goin in the wrong direction, it is somethin commonly done in public and just one more example of his efforts to be 'prepared' for the future payin off. be sure to leave me your email address if you think you know so you can reap your doo dad reward...or send me your guess via my email tab at mojackson.com.
thank you for stoppin by after my long absence. i do so hope you'll put me back on your list of daily visits and i will do my best not to disappoint you with somethin you have already read.
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