I had a hard working weekend. On Saturday, we, and by we, I mean me, took down all the Halloween decorations and put up all (ha, ha all 3) Thanksgiving decorations. DH did help putting the boxes back in the attic.

Chunguita harvested some of our apples. We have an Arkansas Black apple tree out front. I made a baked apples recipe. It was pretty good. We thought it would be better with vanilla ice cream, but it was not. At least, not with the ice cream that I got. The ice cream was too sweet.

On Sunday, we, and by we, I mean mostly DH, cleaned out our storm drain lines. When we bought the house, 18 years ago, DH fixed all the gutters and downspouts, dug trenches and installed irrigation pipes as storm drains, to carry the water to the street. He’s very concerned about water getting under the house. Well, they filled up with roots and no longer drained. It was hard work, but we snaked out the drains.

Anyway, I met this guy who paid a lot of attention to me at a party. I’d known him for a while, several parties, but he was all over me at that specific party. So, there was this Halloween party, and I was anxious that I would freak out if I saw him again, and he ignored me. I really liked the attention. It made me all hot for my husband.

The Halloween party comes, I dress up, and he tells me how hot I look. He didn’t ignore me, and it seems like we are back to our regular relationship. This is a good thing.

The party goes on. I dance, have a drink or 2, dance, and so on. Sometimes I’m dancing with my husband, sometimes random people from the party. I’m having fun, so I smile at people. This guy in a harlequin costume comes over to dance with me. He gets pretty close to me; I’m not really comfortable with it, but I will not be intimidated. I want to dance and have fun. So I dance, mostly ignore him, and try to get my husband to dance closer to me.

Harlequin guy comes back. This time he dances closer to me. I’d had more to drink, so I didn’t mind. I let him get close enough to hold me (no epimethean comments). So I leave the dance floor after that dance and sit down by a friend. We talk a bit. Harlequin guy comes back and asks me to slow dance. I say no. My friend abandons me (BASTARD!), and I give in to the unending begging to dance with a “Fine, whatever”. He was undeterred. So we are dancing in a more polite manner, and I ask him his name. He’s Mike; I tell him mine. Then I manage to mention that I’m wondering where my husband and daughter were. (Pulguito was off running around with a bunch of boys, so I was pretty sure where he was.) Mike says, “You have a husband? I can’t do this.” Harlequin guy/Mike leaves me alone.

Whew.

Where the fuck is my husband!

It’s time for the costume contest. My husband wins for scariest costume, but he is not there to accept, so I accept for him. I don’t win any of the contests (sniff), and I don’t win any of the raffle prizes either. Harlequin guy won a raffle prize. I sit down and examine DH’s winnings. Harlequin guy comes over, sits by me, and shows me his prize. Then he grabs me and kisses me.

Where the fuck is my husband!

Hey, and all my friends seem to have abandoned me.

Oh, wait, there’s Tom, so I jump up and run over to Tom. Tom is dressed as a woman, and his dress is falling down exposing his chest. I try to help him fix that.

Finally, my husband comes back. It’s late, and we all leave.

We join the after party at Tom’s after taking showers. Our friends were teasing us that we will shower together. No, DH makes that very clear.

At the after party, we give Tom a hard time about drinking too much. I tell everyone that I felt abandoned when they all left me alone with harlequin guy, and he kissed me, and I’m really grateful that Tom was there for me to retreat to. We finally leave the party and go back to our boat.

Does my husband compliment at all during the evening, even when everyone else is saying “How goddamn sexy I look”? No. He says nothing. Does he touch me? My hand, my snakes/wig, my shoulder, my arm, anything? No.

Does this open the door for ED? Oh, yeah. So ever since then I have been battling ED who is saying what a loser I am, how ugly I am, that I’m physically repulsive, etc. etc. etc.

SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!

I’m feeling down. Am I ever going to be free of ED?

Am I going to have to leave my husband to be free of ED?

I’m pretty sure that ED whispered to me “That one, him. He’ll let you keep me.” when I met DH.

Maybe I should call him BH for a while.

It makes me very sad.

www.oaktrees.org/

Hm, my adsense is too wide. Fixed that. Why is there so much space after the “bar”? Ha! fixed!

So Dad & I went to dinner at Miss Saigon on Grand in Oakland. Dad really likes pho.

I slept terrible. I never sleep well the first night in a strange place, and I brought the wrong pillow with me, so I wasn’t all pillow comfy. I got up at 5:45 so that I could get Dad to Kaiser at 7:30 am. We made it exactly on time.

Dad’s procedure didn’t require them to knock him out, but they gave him the sedation and he was out. I had to wake him up to bring him home. I think he was nervous about it, but it doesn’t seem to have been that big a deal. He felt pretty good when it was all over; he was alert and ready to leave and get lunch.

While he was in the OR, I visited my mom. Poor thing, they are keeping her in isolation in the ER because they are concerned that she might have TB. This is the second time that we have gone thru the TB business. She just had a clear screening. So she is mad because they are telling her that she has to stay in the hospital for a week because of the TB. I think; that was the story that I got.

So she had been in the ER for 14 hours, and they hadn’t fed her. I gave her my apple. We talked a bit. I called Dave and he talked to her, too. So, we shall see what happens there.

Dad and I went to lunch at a Dim Sum place on Webster in Alameda. It was good, and they took good care of us … well, him. He ate an enormous amount of food.

Now, we are home. He is napping. Layla is chasing me around with the meowing cat in her mouth, and I think I will lay down for a nap.

So many things get in the way. Mom’s in the hospital with pneumonia. We built Chunguita’s heron fountain this morning. It’s her science fair project, and it was my suggestion. There’s laundry to fold, bathrooms to clean, yard work, dishes. The kids are playing and fighting. DH is watching a movie.

I am working on a bra. It’s almost finished. I want to alter the pattern after this one. I’m a plunging V neckline kinda girl, and this bra is NOT for the low cut shirts.

I just discovered the GPP Street Team‘s crusades. I decided to go back to the First Crusade. It’s from 3 years ago, but the latest crusades tend to draw on stuff from earlier crusades, so what the heck, I decided to go back to the beginning. I’m hoping to be able to do this crusade today, but it’s not looking good. I’ve got to cut up the week’s salad veggies and get a boiled dinner going etc etc whine whine.

Oh, and I can’t find my cupcake book, and I didn’t get to the test, so next week I’m going to wing making a pull apart cake from cupcakes. Chunguita wants a frenchie, and Pulguito wants a raccoon.

from from shorpy
Shorpy

I was thinking how awful it would have been for me to have that happening after Diego died. I think of his mother, and how she is feeling. It doesn’t matter that MJ was 50 and Diego was 3. My grandmother lost my aunt when my aunt was in her 50s. It’s just as awful.

So, please, please, leave them alone and let them grieve in private.

So I don’t think I’ll start using mawkish to describe myself.

mawkish

PRONUNCIATION: (MAW-kish)¹ /ˈmɔkɪʃ/² (mô’kĭsh)³

MEANING:
adjective:

1. Excessively sentimental, especially in a false or childish manner. ¹
   
2. Having a nauseating taste or smell. ¹
   
3. Characterized by sickly sentimentality; weakly emotional; maudlin ²
   
4. Having a mildly sickening flavor; slightly nauseating.
   
5. Excessively and objectionably sentimental.³
   
6. Sickening or insipid in taste.
   

ETYMOLOGY:

• From Middle English mawke (maggot). Are maggots sentimental? We don’t know, but the secondary sense of the word mawkish derives from the disgust we feel at the sight of the insect. By extension the word began to refer to something sickeningly sentimental. ¹
  
• 1660–70; obs. mawk maggot (late ME < ON mathkr maggot) + -ish²
  
• 1668, sickly, nauseated, from M.E. mawke “maggot”; sense of “sickly sentimental” is first recorded 1702.³
  

SYNONYNS:
sentimental, teary, bathetic, drippy, hokey, maudlin, mushy

REFERENCES:

1. Wordsmith
   
2. Random House Dictionary
   
3. American Heritage^® Dictionary
   

We went camping in Yosemite a while ago, on the same weekend as the Oakdale rodeo. On the way up, we got stopped at a stop sign for potentially 2 hours. DH got impatient, made a u-turn, and drove thru the little side streets of Oakdale to get around the parade.

This is what happens when you don’t want to drive thru the Oakdale rodeo and don’t have a map. It was an interesting drive.

I’d never been to Hornitos. The drive was interesting and sometimes beautiful.