Small Packages - St Anthony - Gifts

This fella decided to perch on a string of lights today

 just outside

the window above my kitchen sink...

he perched there for a long time....

left .....

returned and stayed a while longer

off and on

for hours

I decided that he liked his reflection in the glass.

He was less than 5 inches from the window and I watched his beak open and close, open and close as I stood directly in front of him

at the sink.

...and because I know some of you enjoy my

misadventures I will relate my latest.

The front yard was in dire need of a cleanup 

so yesterday I did just that, blowing an enormous pile of debris up and toward the garage door to be bagged.

Not wanting to blow it into the garage,

I hit the coded box and lowered the door.

Now that seems reasonable enough, 

but what you should know is that I have been having trouble with the code box for some time, and lately it has been working 

about 5% of the time.

the other 95% of the time was the hundreds of times

 I kept pounding

 those buttons to no avail.

Yep 104 degree heat and I am locked out.

 I failed to unlock any of the other doors 

into the house.

Do I have an extra emergency key?

yep, hidden INSIDE the garage..

phone, yep, took one INTO the garage..

Go to a neighbor and call a friend, the one

who has another spare key?

She has an unlisted number and I don't know it.

it is programmed into the phone..

INSIDE the garage.

90 minutes pass

90 MINUTES!!!!

hit the four digit code

repeat

code

repeat

code

repeat

Meanwhile I kept working

in between retreating to the shade of the backyard,

and smacking my forehead..

hard 

Now here is where my kids would do an eye roll

Said a very fervent prayer to St Anthony....

tried twice more 

and she rolled up easy peasy.

The best gifts come in small packages.

a hummingbird

an open door

not yet sixty

356 more days to go

but I am getting myself into more

misadventures than I'd like.

ah hell,

gives me somethin' to write about.

Z

LA Lost and Found

My dear friend Chania's most heartfelt gift to me,

allowed me to visit my son Ben in LA for a few days

last weekend.

 Ben grilled our evening meals out on his patio and you can see why. The view is spectacular each evening. You gals who are photo geniuses would do so much better than these, but it gives you the general idea.

Ben has visiting skunks and a coyote who comes quite near

 and red tailed hawks that swoop down 

hunting prey and it is just lovely. 

I despise the CA freeway system, I hate driving anywhere in CA actually, especially alone, I had to put on my big girl pants to do this trip. I managed to get lost only once the morning I left, scared myself a bit but I eventually found a freeway

 that got me back on track...

What good is a map navigator on your phone if it cannot locate your current location!!!!

We didn't do much running around, we mostly visited and 

grilled and had a nice mom/son time. I could not ask for more.

On the home front I have plans to rearrange some rooms 

soon and purge some more and well, there is the turning

"not sixty yet" later this week, so some fun get together

meals with gal pals are scheduled.

No, I have not yet photographed what totes are left,

sorry you girls who have inquired..I will soon I promise.

Some business woman I am..not

We are hot here and the rain that finally fell in

torrents, fell while I was gone..argh!

As much as some of you enjoy this time of year

because of the lovely places you live,

I am summer bah humbugging and praying for early fall

and winter to hurry..

sorry 

It's Sunday and

I just finished watching True Blood,

now I'm watching The Newsroom.

Two hours of happy tv viewing.

I don't watch a lot of television and most of it

is from AMC and TCM.

I love the old movies.

I love new movies.

I love movies.

I despise reality shows, most talk shows,

and most of the content of the few I do

 catch occasionally.

and 95 % of sitcoms.

I think reality tv should be the news.

OMG they just said something similar on Newsroom.

I knew they were genius. :D

True Blood is akin to a chocolate fix.

Not nourishing but fun and tasty. 

and oh excuse the blood pun.

Today I also made some linen totes,

cleaned out four dog ears,

played fetch with a disgusting dirty nearly regurgitated

dog toy that used to resemble a lamb.

I also received the most lovely generous gift

 from a dear blogger friend who made me all weepy for about

30 minutes and my heart is healed.

Mint chocolate chip ice cream with mint m&m's

tossed in for good measure is a reason

to face Monday

and to exercise.

Love you guys somethin' fierce

Z