Why, why, why, why?

Posted on December 23, 2020 by suziecreamcheese

Okay. The baby quilt is all quilted. Last block was done on Monday – not heavily quilted, it’s just straight lines but it’s done and I think it’s okay.

But

Now I have to finish it

I have to bind it

The thought terrifies me

It ALWAYS terrifies me

Okay, I have a huge amount of fabric hanging over from the back because I just didn’t want to cut it off.

What to do? What to do? Shall I cut it off even and then make a binding? Shall I cut it like an inch wider and just whip it around to the top? Shall I go hide in a corner and cry?

I really kinda wanted it done tomorrow but then the terror hit. And I froze. So dear Jebus, it may never get finished.

Why did I get myself into this??????????????

Okay. Put your big girl panties on and cut the damned thing and just whip that binding on and screw those mitred corners that you struggle with every single time and make it straight and get it done.

I’m going to need booze.

Posted in my life, quilting | Tagged | 16 Comments

Dear Jebus, Maverick

Posted on December 19, 2020 by suziecreamcheese

*My friend’s little girl, all of 3 years old, prays to “Dear Jebus” and we think it’s adorable.

Dogs are creatures of routine. There is no dog more a creature of habit than mine. We get up, jump on Mommah, go outside for a bit, jump on Mommah some more because there are never enough pets (I just stopped for 10 seconds, Maverick! I know, worst 10 seconds of my life!)

Then we have a battle with the collar that we use for walking so Mommah’s arm stays in the socket.

https://smile.amazon.com/Canny-02-1000-Collar-Size-3/dp/B00F0J9RMS/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1W9PI13VDBC4X&dchild=1&keywords=canny%2Bcollar%2Bno%2Bpull%2Bdog%2Bcollar&qid=1601867430&sprefix=Canny%2BC%2Caps%2C524&sr=8-2&th=1

Best thing ever, honestly.

Then we go to the park. We walk at least one lap, which is 1.5 miles, and normally we do the little loop again, to get to 2 miles. Later on in the day, we do this again, because if we don’t, it’s pretty damned impossible to live with Maverick. He has a lot of energy and not much focus – I swear he has the dog version of ADHD.

It snowed on Wednesday. We had our morning walk and it started snowing soon after we got home. Mommah doesn’t do snow – y’all know that. He was okay Wednesday afternoon and evening, I think the novelty of the snow helped, plus he had had his lunch and his daily poop before it started. He will ONLY poop at the park. He doesn’t poop at home unless he absolutely has to and then it’s major drama.

Thursday wasn’t too bad either. We were home, but so was Bear, so he seemed to be okay with this.

Yesterday it all fell apart. We can’t go to the park because the paths aren’t cleared – township has more important things to do, but people will walk there and then the footprints freeze and it’s a real joy. There’s a broken ankle just waiting to happen. Maverick hadn’t pooped on Thursday because he doesn’t do that at home. (If he would poop here, I wouldn’t have to clean it up, there’s a huge freakin field just waiting for his deposits, but nooooooooooooo, gotta use those poop bags at the park!) Bear went to work at 2. At 3, the pacing and whining started. I don’t take Maverick to the field. He always manages to pull away from me and his recall is not reliable, especially when there’s a strong possibility of a deer sighting. Bear plowed the driveway so that there’s a snowbank to be climbed to even get to the field and I really like having my legs unbroken, so that’s another deterrent.

None of that meant diddly squat to Maverick. He wanted to go to that damned field and nothing was going to stop him. I took him out multiple times, would walk to the edge of the field, tell him to do his business, and he would refuse. Back to the house we’d go, only to do this again five minutes later. I would have happily let him just stay outside because he seemed to like it out there, but it was about 20 degrees out and I’m not about to leave him out in that, even though he is a Golden and yes, they like the cold, that’s a bit too cold.

Today was a repeat of yesterday.

Tomorrow I’m taking him to my friend’s development – we can walk the streets and he can get some exercise and maybe poop on someone’s lawn. And I can get to pick it up. Well, the bonus is that I’ll get to visit with my BFF a bit!

Meanwhile, thank the Goddess for booze.

Posted in dogs, Maverick, my life, snow, weather | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

It’s snowing and we’ve become a nation of woosies

Posted on December 16, 2020 by suziecreamcheese

I hate snow. Anyone who’s known me for more than 5 minutes knows that I hate snow with a burning hatred that I reserve for few things. There are many reasons for this hatred – one of them is the hours long coverage of these events as if OMG we’re all gonna die, we’ve never seen a snowflake before, the roads are currently wet but in five minutes, nope, they’re still wet!

When I was a kid (yes, I’m old, cue the “get off my lawn” comment) the weather was a five minute – if that long – segment of the news. (Of course, back then the news was actually news and not what the media wanted you to believe).

I’m not sure when exactly it changed, or why. I remember when I moved to PA thinking that people sure made a bigger deal out of snow than they did in Upstate NY, where I had lived all my life. I went to college in Oswego, on Lake Ontario, where blizzards were frequent, snow that wasn’t measured in feet wasn’t worth a mention, and we rarely missed classes. If we did, we still managed to make the trek into town to hit the liquor stores and the bars, which never closed. Granted, we were kids, we were young and stupid, but no one panicked – not the professors, not the administration, not the police, not the people who lived in the town.

If you didn’t have to go out – except for liquor – you stayed home. You didn’t need three or four days to “prepare for the storm!” because anyone with common sense has enough food to last a few days, and if you live in an area where you get snow, you should know to have water and an alternate source of heat. You know to have a vehicle that will go through snow, or you stay home. You also learned to drive in this shit – get off the brakes, get off the ass of the car in front of you and slow down. And turn your damned lights on.

We’re supposed to get 10 inches today and another 6, maybe, tomorrow. A week ago, my weather app – which I have so I know how to dress for the park in the morning – said that we were going to get 41 inches today. Umm, yeah, that’s a good bit of snow, might be cause for concern there except it’s a week out and no one gets it right that far out. No one. As the days rolled on, it went down to 24 inches, then up to 31, down to 6 (that was my favorite) and finally settled last night.

It was supposed to start at 10, so Maverick and I toddled off to the park, dressed in 5000 layers (another reason I hate winter, I hate feeling constricted) and walked one loop because when we got to the car it was starting and I’d rather not be on the road in snow. I feel that way mostly because of other drivers, but also because I have the driveway from hell and I try not to have to navigate it when it’s snow covered.

So Bear has the news on. It’s an hour program, and I think that 45 minutes has been devoted to the storm. We got the requisite Covid update (we’re all gonna die unless you never leave your house again) and the requisite “baseless accusations of fraud” minute (try watching one of the hearings and tell me there’s no basis for fraud allegations, but I digress) and then it was weather. We now know how the plow drivers plan, how they inspect the plows, how much salt and sand is available, how horrible a person you are if you pass a plow (no, you’re not horrible, but you ARE an idiot) and a whole lot more than I really care about. (I would have turned it off, Bear has a death grip on the remote, so I’m just trying to ignore it)

THEN, I hear the announcer say that we should all “shelter in place” this afternoon. Umm, are you serious? We are supposed to be THAT afraid of snow that we “shelter in place?” To me, that phrase means something really really serious is happening, like the country has been attacked, or there’s an axe murderer in the woods behind my house! (I seriously think there is one back there, but that’s another story)

I knew there was something wrong when we were told that we can’t go outside without a mask because of a virus that has a huge recovery rate. I wondered how people became so easily frightened. Now we’re to hide in our homes because of a snowstorm, one that our grandparents, or great grandparents, would have simply saddled up a horse, hooked up the sleigh and gone on about their days till it was over. What the hell has happened to us? Do I want those days back, of candles and fireplaces and frigid homes and lack of indoor plumbing? No, I don’t, but I sure wish we could recapture the courage and strength they had.

We are willing to believe that we’re going to die from a virus that for some is indeed deadly, and for others no worse than a bad cold. We’re willing to believe that the government knows better than we do what’s best for us. (They don’t, and if you think they care about you, think again, they care that you’ll keep them in power). We’re willing to believe that we can’t survive a simple snowstorm without someone telling us exactly what to do because hey, why think for yourself?

I’m tired. I’m tired of people not using the brains they were born with. I’m going to quilt and clean today and maybe bake something. Yeah, I am. I figured that out all by myself without anyone telling me what to do.

Stay home, stay safe, die slowly in fear. Or go live. You choose.

Posted in Corona virus, fear, home, my life, snow, weather | Tagged , , , , | 24 Comments

How can you mend a broken hand?

Posted on December 14, 2020 by suziecreamcheese

So yesterday, while meandering along on our second walk, I stopped paying attention to my feet and managed to step off the sidewalk, turn my foot weird and fall on my ass.

Or my hand.

And my hip.

A very nice gentleman turned and came back, asking if I was okay. He waited till I got myself together, got up and was moving again. We walked another mile, came home, got some ice on the hand, then a good long soak in the tub. All was good.

There are still good people in the world

My hand is swollen and sore but I’ll survive. Probably an hour of quilting and writing letters for the GA campaign didn’t help. Hey, that quilt isn’t gonna quilt itself. They’re talking about a stupid amount of snow on Wednesday into Thursday so I have an excuse not to shovel (I don’t shovel, Bear plows the driveway and uses the snow blower on the sidewalk. I am a Princess, I do not do shoveling.)

And if we get a crap ton of snow, our neighbors with the huge-ass tractors will come up and get us cleared out.

Because……..there are still good people in the world.

Also? Pay attention to where your feet are when you walk so you don’t fall on your ass in public. You might break it – you know it’s already got a crack.

(that’s one of my sister’s favorite jokes. She comes off as uppity but when you really know her….well, she has her moments. (Think Grace and Frankie, she’s totally Grace and I’m totally Frankie))

Posted in Christmas, family, Maverick, my life, pain, snow, weather | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

Well, I really don’t, unless it’s stuffed

Posted on December 13, 2020 by suziecreamcheese

My favorite Christmas song, for your pleasure:

Posted in Christmas | Tagged | 6 Comments

Maverick insists

Posted on December 13, 2020 by suziecreamcheese

that I share this

It’s his Daddeee’s favorite

Posted in Christmas, Maverick, Uncategorized | Tagged , | 5 Comments

We have a tree in the house!

Posted on December 12, 2020 by suziecreamcheese

For the past two years, because of the Tiny Terror, we’ve had a small artificial Christmas tree. I bought that little tree the year my mom died, only because my great nephew, who was two years old at the time, wanted to know why I didn’t have a tree in my house. I was living in my parents’ house still, going to grad school, trying to settle my mom’s estate with my sister (you can probably guess which one) fighting me tooth and nail because she wasn’t in charge. In tears, I called the Bear and said, “I don’t have a tree, I don’t have money for a tree, and Alex wants me to have a tree!”

At this point I should explain that out of all my nephews and nieces and great nephews and great nieces, there is one child who can do no wrong and for whom I would do absolutely anything, including hiding the body if it were ever necessary – and that child is Alex. (His brother runs a close second in my affections)

Bear said, because he’s always been my heart, “go buy a tree.” (From that day, he sent me money every week so I never had to worry again about draining my savings account paying estate bills that would later be reimbursed.)

That little tree moved to PA with me. We used it when Max was a puppy. We used it the year that no one wanted Christmas – I put it up Christmas Eve and took it down Christmas night. (I don’t want to remember that year, but it happened)

I love Christmas trees. I walk onto the lot where they’re for sale and I start to smile. Bear says I always end up with the first one I walk to, and he’s right, but I still have to go talk to all of them. They’re all different, some are happy but want a house with kids, some are happy and want to be with a single person, some are annoyed at being stuck with those other trees as if – AS IF! – they belong there. One will always shine and I know that’s the one. There will be light in my house because of it.

The Terror has so far ignored it. At first he was totally unsure – “what the HECK?” but he’s gotten used to it quickly. Tomorrow I may put some lights on. Lights make me happy. We’ll use the Dollar Store ornaments. If they break, it’s not a big deal. I haven’t used the ornaments my mother loved so since we got Max – first because, duh, puppy, and then because that dog had the fluffiest tale ever and he would sweep those things right off that tree. Breaking my mom’s ornaments would break my heart.

And so we bought a tree. And there was a ten dollar off coupon, so we bought a bell and a Christmas cactus for Momma Joan just because.

It’s starting to feel like Christmas in my house. And in my heart.

Posted in Christmas, family, Maverick, my life | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Do you remember?

Posted on December 4, 2020 by suziecreamcheese

Do you remember walking into a store and seeing smiles? Do you remember seeing shelves full of goods, more than you could ever want? Do you remember turning on the news and seeing actual stories, real reporting? Do you remember when people were respectful of the people in office, even if they disagreed with them? Do you remember when you thought your vote counted, even if the person for whom you voted didn’t win?

Do you remember when Twitter was full of silly pictures of animals, and Facebook was where you caught up with old friends?

Do you remember not being afraid? I lost some of that innocence when planes flew into buildings and some people did something. I lost more of it when I was told that I was to blame for every racial injustice ever done since my skin is white. I lost even more when Orange Man Bad became the mantra – when no one could answer my question as to how his policies had changed their lives for the worse.

I think it’s pretty much all gone now. I watched suitcases of ballots pulled from beneath a table in GA, vote counts suddenly switch in PA, and “news” media call an election before it was anywhere close to over.

I remember when people didn’t shame each other for disagreeing – when you could walk outside with the wind in your face and not be told you were selfish. I remember when Thanksgiving was a day to be grateful for all the bounty of this land, for the love of family and friends and for all the food we were going to eat together, even if Janet did try to delay the pie. I remember when statues were teaching tools – we taught the history of our country by touring battlefields and talking about monuments and viewing the wonders we had wrought. We were taught that our ancestors had treated the native Americans poorly, as they had treated the Japanese, so that we would learn to never act that way again, not so we would feel endless crushing joy sucking guilt over things we hadn’t done and couldn’t possibly undo.

I remember when we trusted our elected officials to do our will, and not try to impose their will on us. I remember when the idea that our rights would slowly be stripped from us and people would beg for more restrictions was something out of science fiction – that could never happen! And yet…………it has.

And while I remember, I wonder. How can we ever get back our joy, our freedom, our innocence? I wonder if I’m strong enough to face that test.

Posted in Corona virus, fear, my life, politics | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

No, *Janet, you will not ruin Christmas

Posted on November 23, 2020 by suziecreamcheese

*with apologies to anyone named Janet

My oldest sister would have loved what’s going on in the world today. Janet, yes that was her name, loved rules. She had rules for everything, from how to vacuum a floor – you had to unplug the vacuum from the living room plug and plug it in in the kitchen, even though the cord was plenty long enough to reach. You couldn’t put ice cream in your grocery cart until you had everything else on the list – never mind that the grocery stores are normally kept at meat locker temperature and the chances of melting were slim and none, or that she kept a cooler bag in the car because you never know – it might melt during the 10 minute ride home.

She also hated most holidays. Easter was okay because you went to church and most likely heard about how sinful you were. (I could be wrong about that, it’s been a few years since I went to an Easter service, this witch tends to break into giggles in churches so I try to attend weddings only, where people don’t look at me like I’m going to Hell tomorrow, if not sooner. Well. Giggles during a funeral are considered unacceptable in polite society.)

She thought Thanksgiving was ridiculous. It had nothing to do with any guilt about something our ancestors may or may not have done 200 years ago that has nothing to do with any of us and I can’t understand why I should refuse a good meal over, or why it should keep me from being thankful for the good things in my life now, but I digress. That kind of self flagellation was not a thing in Janet’s life. She hated Thanksgiving because, in her words, “who eats dinner at 3:30? It’s a stupid time for a meal.”

Thanksgiving when I was growing up was a full day of eating. We were down with the snacks, the celery stalks filled with cream cheese and olives, the crackers and cheese, the olives – especially the big black olives that you could stick on your fingers and use as puppets. We started eating at noonish, and all those snacks never seemed to ruin appetites for the big meal that started at, yes, 3:30ish, and ended usually around 9, when everyone was pretty much in a coma. I kid you not, there would be someone at the table from the time the turkey landed until there was little left of anything but bones. (In the meantime, dishes were washed, coffee was brewed, dessert was brought out and devoured, turkey sandwiches happened, cookies and snacks were munched – it was a marathon)

The last time we had dinner at Janet’s, the food was whisked off the table when the first helpings were barely gone. No snacks reappeared. A second glass of wine was frowned upon. (And it wasn’t even expensive wine!) Finally, my mother asked when the pie would be forthcoming. Janet replied that her food needed to settle and it would be some time. 15 minutes later, my mother announced that HER food had settled nicely, and with that she got up and brought the pie to the table and started handing out helpings. Janet was not pleased.

She saved her most vehement dislike for Christmas. She was subtle about it and it took me a long time to realize that she actively hated the holiday. She had a limit on gifts – what she bought me cost no more than $10 and my parents got something that cost less than $25. She had 4 grandchildren, one of whom lived with her. That child got no more than $100 in gifts, and the one that lived far away had the shipping costs deducted from the total spent on her. The other two were the children of the daughter she had disowned so they got nothing.

One year she put the tree in a back bedroom so she could close the door when no one was around and forget about it.

Not content with merely disliking Christmas, she was on a mission to make sure that no one else enjoyed it either. Every year, she would almost convince us that she wasn’t going to be a grinch, and at the last minute, out would come the fangs and she would suck every bit of joy out of the day. It never failed.

She hated me my entire life. I spent half my life wondering why and then decided it didn’t matter, but I’ve never really convinced myself of that. When she died, I sobbed. Bear asked why I was crying over someone who had hated me all my life and I said, “I’m crying for what should have been and never was.”

Why was she like this? I have no idea. Maybe it was the brain tumor that eventually killed her that made her so very hateful. I’ll never know.

All of this leads me to current events. The Janets are in charge, it seems. You WILL NOT HAVE THANKSGIVING! YOU WILL NOT HAVE CHRISTMAS!

Yes, Janet, we will. I will have Christmas, as I have every year – it’s been a long time since I let anyone ruin Christmas for me and this year will be no different. I will have a tree, and I will have presents under the tree, and I will invite my friends to come in for hot chocolate, a cookie, a glass of wine – refills are allowed – or a cup of tea or coffee. There will be no masks, and there WILL be hugs.

The Janets who think they’re in charge are welcome to come into my home, but if they think they’re going to enforce arbitrary rules – we have pie when the mood strikes and not when some rule says it’s time. So sit down, grab a fork, and smile.

The Janets need to be told to sit down and shut up.

Posted in Christmas, Corona virus, family, home, my life | Tagged , , , | 17 Comments

Fear and loathing

Posted on November 16, 2020 by suziecreamcheese

Trigger warning – I use the f word a lot in this post. (sorry)

I’ve been trying to write something for over a week and I just can’t seem to get past a few paragraphs. Most days I walk around going “What the ACTUAL fuck is going on?” I mutter to myself a lot more than I used to, and I’ve pretty much had an ongoing conversation with myself since before I learned to talk.

So there was an “election.” I put that in quotes because, seriously, what the actual fuck WAS that hot mess? The term “shit show” frequently comes to mind. We’ve got states that can’t count, people not being allowed to observe counts, ballots being tossed, people voting for only one person on the whole ballot, vote counts suddenly being changed in the middle of the night, boxes of ballots appearing as if by magic, and a whole crap ton of dead people walking from the cemetery to vote for someone who often looks like he’s about to join them.

We have the media declaring a winner. Umm, who gave them that power? I thought the people elected a president, I wasn’t aware that the media selected a president. BUT, Goddess forfend you say that out loud! We’re being told to shut up, accept the “results,” and oh, by the way, you racist, stupid, uneducated, deplorable, chumps – wanna be friends?

What.

The.

Actual.

Fuck?

I was unfriended by someone I’ve known for a long time, someone who used to call me and threaten suicide on a regular basis while deep in drug addiction, someone I talked off the ledge countless times over the years. Why? Because I asked her to answer a question without mentioning Trump. (The question, which I have asked of many, was “what would you do if some strange man came up behind your daughter and sniffed her shoulders and hair?” My answer is that he would picking himself up off the floor.) Her response was to tell me that I was stupid and she couldn’t respect me because I don’t hate President Trump. Yeah, so much for that. (She did mention that I was educated but apparently that has not effected my stupidity cuz you gotta be stoopid to git that masters digree in accountin. I is edamakaded!

If I won a contest, and half the people involved in choosing the winner accused me of cheating, I would want to prove to them that no, I did NOT cheat, I won fair and square. Nope, not gonna have that this time – shut up, you racist bigot and hey, wanna be friends? Cuz I really want to be your friend, right after I put you on the list of people who should never be allowed to hold a job again. K? C’mon, man!

What.

The.

Actual.

Fuck?

Meanwhile, in the spirit of “nothing to see here, watch my other hand!” Covid cases are conveniently increasing and hysteria is mounting. Because we’ve proved that shut downs work SO well (heavy sarcasm), hey, let’s try that again! And by the way, you need to start doing what you’re told. Because GOD DAMN IT, you’re trying to kill GRANDMA again!

Sometimes I think I’m living in an alternate universe. In my world, we’re going about our lives and taking the normal precautions we would during flu season – other than the hated masks. I read a lot, and I think that even though I’m a stupid deplorable racist, I can figure out what I should believe, what I should toss, and what I should consider further. I was asked why the “anti-maskers” think those who religiously wear them love them. Gee, I dunno, maybe cuz you preach to us all the time?

One of my friends went to DC the other day for the rally to support the president. She said it was a happy, peaceful day, she made new friends, felt a great sense of how good this country really is. She got out of DC before dark, before Antifa (which is only an idea, remember) and BLM started randomly beating people up. If you follow only main stream media, you probably wouldn’t know about that. You also wouldn’t know about Dominion and that there are multiple affidavits affirming voting issues.

It’s okay. I think that breathing sand might be fun. I guess if you stick your head far enough down that tunnel, it all seems okay.

And because I cannot figure out what the actual fuck is going on, I’m going to go on living my life. If our governor tries to lock us down again, I will simply ignore him in the same way he ignores me. I will pray for a resolution to the election debacle – and if CreepySnifferMan is finally declared the winner, well, he’ll never be my president unless he agrees to an investigation into this mess and proves that he actually did win fairly, but he’ll still be CreepySnifferMan in my eyes. (I put up with four years of Orange Man Bad, deal with it). And I’ll go work on a quilt for the new baby born to the young couple down the road, and planning all kinds of fun things for the new baby to be born in our “family” this Spring, when my BFF becomes a grandma for the first time.

This child to come is already surrounded by so much love that all the rest of the fuckery is forgotten in the joy of an ultrasound picture of a tiny baby foot.

Posted in Corona virus, family, fear, my life, old friends, politics | Tagged , , , , | 14 Comments