Orange and Blue

The Gator Orange and Blue Spring Scrimmage Game is tomorrow. It's too hot to think about football but W4D, AKA The Jaywalker, will probably go to the game. I am not going to go and bake in the midday sun.

It's warmer than I prefer but there are plenty of signs of spring left in North Florida. We're still sleeping with a blanket on the bed since the evenings are pleasant and there are still plenty of flowers in bloom.



Having trouble getting rid of the last four hard-boiled colored eggs. I only made nine and haven't eaten any yet but I have a plan for the orange and the blue ones:



Egg Salad for lunch!

Still Poor

When W4D arrived home last night, he knew exactly where the salmon was stashed. I wish that man would stop re-arranging my freezer. We had a nice grilled salmon dinner with that somewhat creepy "newt of veggies," fresh white asparagus (at $1.77 a pound, who could resist?).


Easy dinner


I made a nice salad, too.

This morning, when W4D brought the dog back upstairs and deposited him in the bed with me, he leaned over to kiss me good-bye. No, I don't get up and see him off for work or make him breakfast or anything remotely wifely like that. I stay in the bed, cuddle with the wee beastie and try to go back to sleep. Anyway, W4D wished me a good day and I asked him if he was wearing his new shoes that we bought on our trip.

"I can't," he said. "My foot is swollen."

Wouldn't you know, we didn't win $82 Million in the Lottery, either.

Lucky Foot Soldiers

W4D decided an hour or so ago that he wanted salmon for supper. I tore the freezer apart looking for salmon filets. I suspected there wasn't any in the freezer but as I was digging through enough perma-frosted frozen food to feed a family of 5 for 3 months, all that hard as hell frozen schitt came tumbling out and landed on my foot. Ouch! That hurt. My dignity is hurt worse than my friggin' foot though so I guess that's a good thing. Then, since my house sitter hadn't cleaned the sink while we were gone I decided to scour it and as I cleaned the nasties out of the sink trap, leaned over to tap the drainer-strainer thingie into the kitchen trash, I lost my balance on my tender foot and toppled over into the tall oscillating fan which fell onto the hardwood floor with a crash, the front grill flying off and the blades striking the side of the kitchen computer desk chipping the corner. Clank, clank, clank, clank, clank, Thud! Ouch, again.

I didn't find the farkin' fish in the freezer. My foot is swelling up and it is about 900 degrees outside (only a slight exaggeration with the addition of one itty bitty zero) in mid-April and I can't take it any more. I detest summer and I want to be back where I was yesterday.We had left town few days to do some antiquing and shopping for business. We were headed for St. Augustine, the oldest city in the USA (established 1565). It's one of our fave places with plenty of nearby antiques shops and fresh seafood, narrow cobbled streets and a pretty view of the bay and the Atlantic.


Door on Charlotte St., St. Augustine, FL

The trip started out well enough. We traveled over to the St. John's River and stopped at a little town along the way that has a few antiques shops I needed to search. W4D dropped me off in front of the first shop and went to park the car across the street. I wasn't in the shop more than 2 minutes when a pregnant lady came rushing in hollering to know if there was a "Flaurella" in the store.

"Yes, I am Flaurella."

"Your husband is asking for you. He just got hit by a truck."

"You mean the car got hit by a truck?"

"No, He got hit by a truck. Hurry! He's asking for you."

Holy crap.

After I worked my way through the maze of people and cars stopped in the middle of the street in front of the shop, I saw The Lube sitting on the curb where he had been deposited by two strong men who had picked him up off the street after the passenger truck he WALKED INTO had flung him 8 or 9 feet. He was knocked cuckoo and even more dazed than usual. He kept telling me that his foot was swollen, about 20 times.

"Yes, you fool. Of course your foot is swollen, you were just run over by a truck!"

According to eye-witnesses and my semi-coherent husband, Mr. Man was walking foward while looking backwards as he clicked the automatic lock bipper on his keychain, checking to make sure the head lights came on as the car doors auto-locked (eejit!) when he absent-mindedly walked into the steet and tangled with the truck driven by a nice man who was very visably shaking and upset since he also kept telling me at least 20 times that he had "never even hit a squirrel before."

Aside from W4D's glazed eyes, one arm and elbow looking a little like hamburger meat and a new, heavy leather Sperry Topsider boat shoe shredded to bits (now that's hard to do!), my husband looked pretty normal. If he had just shut up about the swollen foot, I wouldn't have been worried. But he sounded like a broken record. All he could say was:

"My foot is swollen."

"My foot is swollen."

"My foot is swollen."

"My foot is swollen."

I examined his head.
No bumps or contusions.
His pupils were reacting equally and properly.

I pulled off the shreds of his leather shoe and looked at his foot. Not hardly swollen but there was going to be a heckuva stone bruise on the sole of his foot within an hour or two. There didn't appear to be any crushed metatarsals or broken toes.

His jeans were not ripped and thank goodness they were heavy ones and he wasn't wearing shorts. His Hawaiian shirt didn't have a single tear but the leather was all scraped and ruined along the front of his belt. I still can't figure out how that happened since his belly proceeds his belt.

Apparently, Mr. Man walked into the forward right front side of the moving truck, the front tire ran over his foot and then the large side view mirror caught him (ah! maybe in the belt area?) and tossed him ahead and to the front side of the truck as the driver hit the brakes. Thankfully, this was right beside the County Courthouse and no one was driving fast.

We exchanged info. We talked to a Sherrif coming out of the courthouse who said we needed to talk to the City Police The accident was clearly W4D's fault but the driver was very kind and concerned. He called 911 to get an EMT and file a police report but no one ever came so after about an hour, we left and Ace Ambulance Driver Flaurella continued the trek to our hotel on the Coast where Private Nurse Flaurella checked W4D out nekked for other visible injuries. I had given him super Tylenol while he was still cuckoo on the curb and he didn't seem too sore except he wouldn't shut the hell up about his swollen foot. I decided he didn't need to go to the emergency room.

We took off for late luncheon at The Columbia Restaurant and then it occurred to me... I have a major Accidental Death and Dismemberment policy that I took out on my husband years and years ago. I pay for it quarterly and I am the sole beneficiary. I always figured Mr. Man would off himself accidentally in some stupid, manly, idiotic way and that AD&D insurance would be a very good idea. Now that I think of it, I could have been a very rich widow-lady today instead of back at work, hunting for frosty frozen fish with a now farkin' swollen foot of my own.


Past and Present: Feet Flying in the Air,
Statue above our table at
The Columbia Restaurant
in St. Augustine.

Back to the trip: for the next two days, W4D took "Naproxin" from his dock kit for the pain and stiffness. He complained it wasn't working as well as the Extra Strength Tylenol I had given him. I had offered several times to run over to the drugstore and get him some Alleve or something stronger. Eventually, W4D looked at the bottle of pills he had been taking and discovered he was taking sinus pills instead of Naproxin. No wonder his foot still hurt but at least his sinuses were clear.

So, I don't get to collect on the insurance policy but we both played the Florida lottery instead, once in St. Augustine and once in the town where W4D survived being hit by the truck. We think we were both really lucky this week. At least W4D is here to talk about his swollen foot and I am here to bitch about mine. Maybe we will win $82 Million tonight. That's much more than the AD&D insurance would have paid me and there are hopefully many more days, months and years ahead to do other stupid things

Celebrations all Around

Happy Easter!
May all the joy of this glad season be yours.



Happy Birthday to The Lubricator, W4D, DH, Mr. Manly Man, Farnk, etc. Cheap shot getting your birthday to fall on Easter Sunday.



A Tip o'the Hat to Uncle Sam, our taxes are completed and e-filed two whole days early and I won the pool by coming closer to the final figure than the Old Birthday Boy, AKA "What's 4 Dinner," who was the one who did the tax preparations. You know I am good when I can out estimate the tax preparer himself. To the victor go the spoils!

Good Friday

My mother-in-law passed away over 18 years ago at Easter time. Her funeral mass was on a Good Friday. Later the year she died, I planted some Amaryllis bulbs. In all these years, the lilies never fail to bloom for Good Friday. Good Friday can vary from March 20th to April 23rd. The amaryllis blooms last about 5 days. How do they always know when to bloom? Hard freezes, early hot weather, droughts, torrential rain, whatever the seasonal conditions, nothing fazes them. They are always in bloom for Good Friday through Easter Sunday.



I like to think that there is a special reason that they bloom to remind me of her and the re-birth that Easter promises each spring.

The Peeps Factory

Back in December when I was nuking snowman Peeps, gentle and generous reader Kathleen in Arkansas sent me a gift of an adorable Peeps mouse pad and an oh so fashionable purple Peeps hat with a yellow, embroidered chick and the official logo. Wonder of wonders, I have been Peep Gifted yet again! This time, FBA (Flaurella Blog Addict, her words, not mine) Karen from Daytona, has sent me a genuine Peeps Factory. Whoo Hoo!

I can now put on a hair net and my Official Peeps Hat and pump genuine Peeps our of my very own Peep Assembly Line in my very own kitchen. This is just too cool for words! I'm making Peeps today just as fast I can. The Easter Bunny needs all the help I can provide.


Official Peep Factory


Happy Peep Kids


The Official Peep Mix


Making Purple Peeps


Making Yellow Peeps


Finished Peeps


Official Peep Hat


Official Peeps Logo

And, no, we didn't finish the taxes yet. The Right Honorable Lubricator has a council meeting tonight and if he escapes unscathed, we will finish the taxes on Friday. There's a full moon and I hope no one is gunning for him. Small town politics are brutal even when things are calm but throw a full moon into the fray and it's time to get out the bullet proof vest.

Etiolation

Someone asked me what is the difference between white asparagus and green asparagus? Since I happened to have some of each on hand, I'll answer that question today.

White asparagus is simply green asparagus that has been deprived of light. When plants receive insufficient light, they turn a pale yellowish color due to a lack of chlorophyll, which as you will remember from Junior High biology, is the chemical reaction plants have to sunlight. Usually white asparagus is kept pale by heaping mounds of dirt around the crowns or groups of stalks. Since asparagus grows quickly in the spring, this must be done daily so white asparagus always costs more than green asparagus. It is also more tender, not as woody and has a slightly different, more delicate, nutty flavor. You can buy it canned in the gourmet section of your market all year long. Canned isn't as tasty as fresh and it's harder to find fresh but some upscale markets carry the white asparagus in the spring



Europeans and society types seem to prefer white asparagus but I prefer the green even though there is far less asparagus odor on the breath or emanating from a morning whizz after eating white asparagus than green the night before.



That's probably more than you wanted to know, isn't it?

Midnight at the Oasis

Tax Update: Yay! Tonight we got a whole years' receipts, both business and personal posted and categorized. While many insults were tossed back and forth, no actual physical blows were thrown. Now all we have to do is post the annual entries from several checkbooks into categories, calculate all the mileage and travel expenses for each of us by month and then we can start plugging the figures into the computer. We do the drudge work and the computer does the grunt work. I can't tell you how much better this is than years ago when we used to have to do taxes without computer software. It is even easier than dealing with the accountants, and cheaper too.

This calls for an ultra-dry vodka martini since we were so good all afternoon and eve and never had anything but a little red wine over the course of the evening. Who says one shouldn't enjoy a martini on a Tuesday at midnight? Besides, we are both taking the day off tomorrow to complete our friggin' tax return. We've each already written our personal estimate, plus or minus to the dollar, of what we each guess the outcome will be. Wish me luck!

Nothing But Blue Skies

It's Easter Week and I can see four beautiful, very old churches from my house. These pictures were taken a couple of days ago in the late afternoon on a beautiful day when the color of the sky was so rich and deep that it was amazing. The sky color has not been altered nor enhanced digitally. I captured these shots from my yard at a time when the light was wonderful and it was about 65 degrees.


View to the North

The photo below was taken from my veranda, looking to the East across the street from my house. The shadows on the church are from the trees in my yard.


View to the East

Procrastination

As is our tradition, we have waited until the last minute to start our taxes. This weekend, I loaded the TurboTax that we bought in January. I did my quarterly returns and W4D spent hours sorting receipts and getting everything organized. As usual, he chastised me for not posting my monthly business expenses instead of just dumping everything into file boxes, which I might add, I dump in a sort of reverse ordered chaos.

His stuff isn't organized any better than my records but he still always snaps at me about not posting expenses in the ledger on a monthly basis. We always get a little testy with each other when we do the taxes. It's better now that we have used TurboTax for years but we still procrastinate and hurl bookkeeping accusations and financial insults at each other. DH snaps. I curse and use my full vocabulary of vile words. It doesn't mean anything, it's just tradition, part of doing the taxes.

Yesterday early evening, I was actually humming while sorting receipts and posting ledgers. W4D asked, "Did you take a Valium?"

"Bite my ass."

"I guess that answers my question."

Cocktail Napkins

Cocktail Napkins
Originally uploaded by flaurella.

Trying to work my way through this stack of cocktail napkins before W4D gets home from his trip.

We Are the CHOMP-ions!

Oh, My!! We are just a little bit excited down here in Gainesville, Florida today. Even with hangovers and very little sleep, I have never seen so many happy GATORS. Who knew that a Basketball National Championship would be just as thrilling as a Football NC?

Thanks for all the congratulatory emails. I have really enjoyed reading all the different newspaper articles from the links sent by friends around the country who put up with my constant Gator banter.
I think this is my fave, sent by Steena in Chicago...

INDIANAPOLIS -- Down south in the swampy areas, the innocent are warned about becoming gator bait. There is no other way to describe what happened to UCLA on Monday night. The Florida Gators opened those fearsome jaws wide and chomped the Bruins into little pieces, 73-57, to claim the school's first NCAA men's basketball championship at the RCA Dome.

This is pretty funny:
Amazon Offers 'UCLA Wins' Stuff, Then Team Loses

Below are pictures from our local paper and message boards, compliments of the Gainesville Sun.















Congratulations, Coaches and GATORS!
What an awesome season!

Tonight's The Night!

Mondays in my home office are out of control. I don't usually even get a cuppa coffee that isn't stone cold by the time I get to it and I rarely have time to break for lunch. I am always eager for 6:00PM so that I can have a toonie or some delish, mind-numbing libation and relax for a few minutes before dinner. W4D was late getting home this eve and that isn't nice on a Monday, especially on an important Monday.

There were a lot of chores to do since Mr. Man is out of town the rest of this week and tonight is a very special night.

In addition to cleaning the pool and some yard chores, we had to bait the dog with lemon chicken breast meat to cut his whiskers and trim his ears so we could give him his monthly dose of Advantage. That was not fun but I managed to cut off about a half bushel of fur without cutting his throat and we eventually got the flea meds on him.

Then, W4D, who is on his way out of town for the next four days to a nice resort hotel where he will conduct training sessions while I stay home and nurse said furry beastie boy tells me that he forgot his luggage at work.

"At work? Why the hayell is your luggage at work?"

"I loaned it to Kaitlin (our daughter) last month when she went to Louisville."

"Why the hayell did you leave your luggage at work when you are leaving to go out of town? Why didn't you bring it home?"

"Because. Kait just brought it back today after I called her and asked her for it and then I forgot it."

"She went to Kentucky over a month ago. Why are you just getting your luggage back the night you have to leave?" (rhetorical question, fer sure!)

"At least she dropped it by when I asked her but I forgot to bring it home. So, can I use your luggage?"

'NO!"

"Please?"

"Enn Ohhh!"

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want your vermin infested clothes in my pristine luggage."

"Okay, then I'll just put all my clothes in black garbage bags and tote them that way."

"Good."

End of discussion.

Now I am going to prepare Porterhouse steaks, sautéed mushrooms, garlic bread and a nice salad and then we are going to watch the GATORS whomp ass on UCLA. We could win this, we really could, and it would be our first ever NCAA Basketball National Championship. I am very excited about the prospect!

In the meantime, I am going to take a couple of black lawn and trash bags upstairs for my husband so he can pack his clothes in style.

Go GATORS!