Coffee Rambles and Ant Mobs

Sunday morning, kiddies!  Porch time for my date with Yello Jacquet, coffee and laptop.  It wasn't until my hand touched the doorknob on the way outside that I realized I have no idea what I look like right now.  My hair is all feral, my sleeping pants have holes in them (and boy is the stone cold!) and I don't wear shoes out here in the mernin'.  

I left a box of stale cereal out here yesterday, thinking that I would put it out on the lawn once the rain stopped,  for the crows or whatever likes stale honey kissed cheerios.  I came out here this morning and there are a bazillion tiny ants who flash mobbed the scene.  I've since taken the box away, shook it out on the lawn and then shook out the box, taking the plastic out as well.  Some ants were still stuck in there and I get that buried alive feeling if I think even one ant will be stuck in the plastic or the box with no way out before it hits the garbage.  Both pieces of garbage are resting on the stoop to give these stragglers a chance to figure it out.  They must know who I am though.  They're taking their sweet time and there's no way I can rest unless every one of them is out.

  I'm still haunted by a spider episode from a couple of weeks ago.  I was driving and saw that overnight a fabulous looking iridescent green spider had woven a web on the outside of my car, linking onto the side mirror.  I thought I should pull over and remove this strong and courageous soul, but when there are cars behind me I feel pressured not to interrupt the traffic flow.  This happens when I want to pull over and take photos as well.  Although sometimes I will assert myself with a right turn signal and pull over.  I got onto a part of this small highway and the web was just furiously moving up and down, like super plucking a rubber band.  (I wanted that to be one word - rubberband, but spell check is being an irritating nit pick about it.)  I gave in and pulled over from doing 55 mph, looked to the side of my door and spider was gone.  Big Giant Sigh.  I was too late.  I'd thought about saving him for over two minutes at this point and dragged my feet too long.  I could only imagine the long road behind me, where he would have flown off and if he'd have a chance of not getting run over after all that.  Isn't that life though?  You think you're doing one thing and then suddenly it seems lijke the wheel in your hands is no longer supporting your turns?  I think too much about these things.  So much that I fear if I ever get over my fear of flying and go to France, I'll be laughed back out for not eating any and all beings with eyes.  They'll probably won't even send me out with a complimentary cheese wheel.  

I've been jonesing for a Sunday NY Times for awhile.  But they're $5.00.  Something that used to help the gas tank 20 years ago.  

I'm pretty happy about my daughter's choice in music lately.  I've got Jazz24.org playing on my laptop much of the time when WFUV.org is playing 60s and 70s type rock (I am so allergic to much of it, sleepy, gray colored boredom).  WFUV plays excellent music - but Sunday mornings I run the risk of crossing paths with kryptonite if I put that station on.  Last night since it was a weekend night, I let the Humanling sleep next to me.  I had the tv off for a good part of the night until SNL came on.  As she fell asleep she heard the Jazz24 dude say "Thank you for listening" and panicked.  "Is it over?!?" She was melted butter once again and the world was right when I said it's not over, it's just a thanks.  She commented again this morning how much she loves this station.  Man.  I wish my parents listened to this stuff when I was younger!  They didn't...they were the um....60s and 70s classic rock fans.  Or my dad was.  My mother loved disco and my heart beats to it.  

Before I was ten years old however, I found myself also enjoying classical music.  I had a radio by my bed and would frequently put on classical stations.  Probably the result of growing up in a violent household....anything soothing was welcomed.  However, I will say that I also equated classical music with Christmas music, which always brought about a soothing, cozy feeling.   It's all about the comfort levels.  And I hope with this Harvest Moon, I will pack up the rest of my things and leave Drama land, to go back to the comforts of my own life.  I have a lot of years to make up for that haven been shaven off from the last few years of stress.  So to my own excited and loud mind I say, Shhhh....we're healing.  

S...Z....the Ear Does Not Spell

We’ve been trying to get one of our co-workers off to the dentist for awhile now. he’s been reminded, another co-worker offered to call and make the appointment for him and yet he seemed to have this aversion to going, even though I heard him say Quote – My teeth are trippin’ Unquote.

I put up the above photo on my desk top today. Isn’t that a beaut?? That one of the Mr. Crows – the one most comfortable with my presence. When I stepped out of the driveway yesterday, two of them came swooping down the road toward me and landed nicely in the tree. The comfier of the Mr. Crows boinked down to a branch closer to me and allowed me that beautiful picture. So of course, I fed them. And even if he had stuck his tongue out or turned his tail toward the camera, I’d have fed them anyway.

One of my friends today noted (truthfully) that if I wasn’t feeding them, they’d have no interest in me. C’est vrai! I know this! But we don’t speak each other’s language so the only way to get to know Mr. Crows is to feed them. THAT, they understand. It’s a friendly gesture and how else will they learn to trust me? If I just shout at them without a baggie full o’ vittles, “Come on down! The water’s fine!” they might remember me as the person who lives with that other person who owns the barking orange thing that likes to kill animals and birds. So the common language of food it has become. And in turn, I get to learn more about how their thinking works and snap a few great photos.

And because of the Great Cheeto Debacle the other night, I did find online something that notes the term Cheese doodles (yes I see the spelling is off but I was speaking the words not spelling them and it sounds the same. No one says Cheessssse doodles. Who emphasizes an S? Phonetically it turns out to be a Z.)
Peruse below:

Cheez Doodles®
Wise Cheez Doodles® are the honest-to-goodness originals…the genuine puffed or crunchy snacks that are a hit wherever they’re served. Kids love Doodles, but you’ll never outgrow that great cheesy taste.

Ok so I can clearly recognize that the term covers both puffy AND crunchy, yes? Yes. So the nitpicky fight over the technical jargon for this messy orange snack does not really matter, n’est ce pas?

Of course I can’t just email this home because Monsieur Honey will take it to believe that I hate him and that I’m trying to cause a fight. I would merely consider this a Ha ha.

And I was wrong…I wasn’t drinking ants. But I was drinking ant brains. I’m not even sure if they have brains but clearly I accidentally decapitated the dead ant the other day when I removed the body with a fork from the honey jar. Why I didn’t see this at the time is beyond me but I highly doubt that someone would throw just the head in there for spite. ……or WOULD they? So this morning in my rush out the door I had to first remove the ant head with two antennae before I could pour it in my coffee. With all of my neurotic issues you’d think this would top it but I must admit that my heart doesn’t even speed up the slightest of nanoseconds when I think about it.

Every Delicacy Has a Right To the Gross Factor

I am probably drinking ants. I am also the person who will shoo the ants off the table or counter before Honey sees them as he is not quite as forgiving as I am. Plus, ants skeeve him out way more than they do me. I love local honey in my coffee. I gave replaced sugar with local honey a while back. Honey is a powerhouse!! The Egyptians used honey! Honey doesn’t go bad (despite that fake out expiration date that you see on the bottle). Or rather, untouched honey doesn’t go bad. I’m not as sure about the processed honey.

Since the weensy ants came to town, I have to wrap up my honey container in a tightly sealed bag. Yet somehow the little McGuvyers (and even one McGruber!) get into the bag, sometimes under the cap but usually not into the honey itself. Except for the aforementioned MacGruber Ant. He ended up almost preserved forever in the great fountain of youth that is honey, in my bottle. Yee and Ipes. So rather than pass him off as an amber fossil, I took him out with a fork (don’t be fooled…it is a tedious process, such as the process of the honey bee…) and sweetened up my coffee. Unfortunately, I couldn’t save that one and honey is antibacterial…you can use it in wounds, so continue to use it. I’m a freak about some hygienically related things but for some reason, ants don’t bother the old women in my brain that bust a girdle about many other things filed under Germophobe.

I sat training one our budding interns at work, a nice girl…heads down usually. So she really gets a lot done. Across the pod from her was another girl, cleaning out her two bedroom purse. She placed a couple of purple Tazo teabag sleeves on her desk amongst the dresser and Hummel figurines, while rummaging through for an appointment card. I suddenly felt guilty. Tea. I should be drinking more tea!! But I love coffee. I even love the idea of drinking bad coffee. I feel….incomplete without coffee! This gets in the way of my ideas about being in a nice smelling, colorfully decorated peaceful home where I offer tea to my guests. Coffee can get a foot into that fantasy as well but usually that’s reserved for a Tea cameo. I swear that someday I will have that earthy, mystical, quiet, herbal lady type of vibe going on! Well, if I have to drop an adjective, I vote Quiet.

I took my usual two mile walk, peanut and cheerios in hand, the hand also gripping A Year in Provence. The chapter I was on (June) was so far the funniest one. There’s nothing wrong with cackling down the road alone. I saw Mr. Crow and kept up with our usual bargain…I will talk to him, make him sit through a minor photo shoot, set down some food and walk off. On the next road, I found a nice shiny blob of entrails, nice and clean, as if someone planted plastic ones there right on top of a ratty possum carcass. As it was in my path, I subscribed to the train wreck theory and couldn’t really look away as I stepped past it. I thought for sure Mr. Crow & Co. would be all over it. There had been a black turkey vulture there moments before that had flown away with its impressive wingspan. So I figured that the crows probably wouldn’t be much interested in my Fisher Price food when they could have FAO Schwartz. Ah, it’s fun to be wrong (don’t let Honey hear me say that). I went to take photos of this nice stone wall with this tree like bush full of pink flowers. Behind it were a few trees. As I was messing around with my views, I heard the quiet swoop and out of the corner of my eye, saw that I wasn’t alone. And this time there was no mistaking anything random. He sat patiently, inquisitively, quietly. And so, he had his peanuts.

The journey is the fun. How can you even know what the end is until after it’s ended?