Earthquakes and local disasters

I woke up this morning wearing a blanket of cats. JJ and Hound were wrapped around my head and Pyewackit and Caroline were clinging to my feet.  BatGirl had long since gone outside but I could hear her mourning her lack of thumbs to get the back door open to get in, so I got up.   I turned on the coffee pot (if you can legitimately call the Keurig machine a coffee pot) grabbed my cup and shooed the furrbies away all the while letting the yowling swearing BatGirl in.  I plopped some cat chow in their bowl and demanded they leave me alone.  Turning on the tv to catch the early news, I sat down with my coffee and had to swat the crazy cats off me yet again.  Mac was getting up, and I heard him telling JJ to get off his feet and leave him alone.  "What in the world is wrong with this kitten?" he was asking as he put his cup under the deliverer of wonderful brew.  "Couldn't say, they have been very clingy even before I got up.  I thought I had an electric blanket on my head, " I told  him.  The news came up and we sipped and watched.

Charlotte had their normal 2 or three shootings, the usual fire or three, the normal amount of burglaries and even mentioned an earthquake in Chesterfield County.  WHAT?!  Seems an earthquake of 2.9 hit our county this morning, causing a bit of a shake up, but nothing thank God of the sort that has hit Japan.  But still, we don't get earthquakes very often.  It's why we don't live in California, after all.  We don't want to live where the house shakes and walls tilt and books fly off shelves.  So now I know why the cats were so spooked.  They were not trying to protect us, I am sure...they wanted to know why we were not up and fleeing the scene.  I'm surprised I didn't find packed luggage by the door.  Of course there would only be Temptations Cat Snacks and Cat Chow inside...but still.  They're pretty smart these furrbies of ours. 

Understandably,  I wasn't surprised to hear my home county mentioned on national news.  Unfortunately it's beginning to be a pretty common occurance.  Chesterfield County has been undergoing a barrage of bad press because of some horrendous happenings at our Animal Shelter (tongue in cheek on calling it a shelter) and I will be writing more on the horrible things we have uncovered when SLED is finished with it's investigation of the Sheriff's Office and the officers involved in what can only be called a crime in anyone's book. I want to be able to write without crying.  Well, that's all for now, I'm headed out to plant flowers and enjoy this early summer weather.  I'm beginning  to think there may be something to this 2012 thing since it's only March and we've already had several days of 80+ weather and expect it to hit 84 today.  All in all, it's been a pretty exhausting month one way or the other.  Hope your day is a good one.

My Love Hate relationship with Facebook

Everyone was doing it. I heard so many stories about the fantastic features of Facebook, I began to believe the hype. Bloggers were abandoning their blogs for the convenience of it. They were throwing away their marvelous stories to keep up with people they once knew, barely knew, thought they knew or regretted they knew. Heck, some of them they never knew. What's worse some of these new old friends knew things best left forgotten. Quite a few of them were losing their jobs, finding out that free speech isn't quite as free if you are out there talking trash about your employers worker bees. So why, I wanted to know, was everyone so lady gaga over this site. Okay, admitting my folly, I fell into the pool along with the rest, hoping I wouldn't drown, dog paddling like hell just trying to keep my head above water.




After signing up on Facebook, at the urging of blogging friends and family, I had over 90 friends the first day. Mac came along and looked at my screen and asked when I had signed up. "Today, " I admitted "And I haven't even done a lot with it yet." He shook his head and asking of no one in particular, " and how do you get 90 friends in one day of doing not a lot?" I had to admit I didn't know. I mean, yes, I knew a goodly number of these people that I had friended. Most of course were people who read my blog. Some were family. Others were friends of friends who because I knew their friend thought they might like to be my friend. Yes, I was confused too.



Of friends on Facebook, the most unforgiving are family. They will "unfriend" you the moment you disagree with anything they say about anyone also in your family. They are allowed to call your sister (their mother) any number of foul things, and if you try in the least to raise a hand of discipline, (via Facebook wall postings) Bob's your Uncle, you're unfriended! Many of my younger family members apparently missed out on the "airing your dirty laundry" lesson given by my Grandmother, Nancy Douglas. She always preached to us that if we made mistakes in life, they were a family matter and not to be aired in public like so much dirty laundry. Well, I have noticed a lot of dirty laundry wafting in the Facebook breezes. And I wish they would stop it. I have signed off the site twice now, and feeling the urge to sign off once more. I just have one bone to pick with a certain someone about they way they are talking about someone I happen to love dearly. If they don't like it, they can unfriend me. Please.

Where is that lying little rodent hiding now?

Well I'm over my first flu illness in more years than I care to count.  Something went wrong  after I retired. My body started working against me.  Where before I was like super woman, never getting sick, injuries healing  in record time , working  twelve hour shifts then coming home to work four more inside and out without batting an eye,  to this.   (I can hear Peggy Lee singing "I am woman, W O M A N" in the background.)  I refuse to let the weather changes make an invalid or a hostage of my spirit, whatever it may do to my body.  While my body may cringe at the thought of rain, my spirit knows we need to break the drought that has taken hold of our state.  We've started the planting and come wind (OMG the wind!) hell or high water, we're going to get some veggies out of this ground!  The peas have popped up, the garlic is doing well and the tomato plants are showing off their little green leaves .   I have a feeling that lying little rodent Pauxatauny Phil may be a liar, but we have a heater in the green house, so raspberry to you dear Phil. 

This has been the coldest and roughest winter in many of our memories, I'm sure.  We had more snow than usual, so much in fact that the only state left snowless was Hawaii.  I normally love snow.  But I love the magical snow, you know, here today gone tomorrow.  Not this here today gone next month stuff with which we've been damned   blessed.   Our peach trees, plum trees and pear trees are all blooming, the apple tree is holding tight buds, and we've had 32 degree temps three days this week.  Luckily the low temps don't last long, so I think we may be alright.  I can only hope and pray that we stay above 32 til Spring finally arrives for real.  It's a scary thought, but that Mayan Calendar thing might be on to something!