TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

I told you about liking NickJr. because they don’t have commercials.  This all changed with the approach of *The Holidays* (aka Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanza..whichever one you celebrate).  I’m hoping that it will go back to traditional ways as soon as the New Year is here.  If not sooner.

However, I wanted to tell you about Chewlee’s favorite shows.  Her favorite is Max and Ruby.  They are a brother and sister rabbit.  They live alone in a two story house with Ruby being the head of the house.  Max is mischievious but not bad.  His sister, Ruby, Chewlee thinks is bossy and mean to Max.  I try to tell her that it’s only because Max doesn’t listen to her but she thinks Ruby likes being mean to him.  She never yells at him (yeah, like that happens in real life…LOL) and she shows incredible patience.

They have a grandmother that comes to visit them often but doesn’t live with them.  Sometimes, Max and Ruby take the bus to visit her.  Sometimes they take the bus to shop for clothes or groceries and Ruby treats her little brother to lunch out or an ice cream treat.  All the shop owners know them.  No sign of parents anywhere…not even a single parent.

My problem with that is that, with a smart kid like Chewlee, she wants answers for why they don’t have a mommy or daddy.  Why aren’t they sad?  Why don’t they live with their Grandma?  All reasonable questions but all I can do is remind her that the programs are all pretend.

She also adores a program called Pocoyo.  It’s the cutest little kid with a duck, an elephant who loves her doll, a sleepy bird and the narrator that are the only characters Pocoyo interacts with.  Pocoyo is a very normal seeming little boy.  He’s sometimes thoughtless to his friends, sometimes mischievious, sometimes a stinker and sometimes tries to hide the truth when he’s done something wrong.  It all works out well with a moral to the story and a lesson learned.  I think it’s a cute program.

Another of her favorites is Peppa the Pig.  There’s a mommy, a daddy who is an architect, and a little brother who is always crying when he doesn’t get his way.  Mommy Pig is always the one finding ways to make them both happy.  I think it’s kind of a dumb program but it makes Chewlee laugh a lot because I think she sees things she can relate to even if she doesn’t have a little brother.  She, like Peppa, DOES have friends and schoolmates.

She likes Dora the Explorer.  She’s a little Spanish girl with a monkey named Boots that is her best friend.  She has a mother and father, a grandfather and grandmother and an aunt.  She also was recently made a big sister when her mother had twins.  They are a little boy and a little girl. 

She and her best friend, Boots (who always wears red boots), have a lot of other animal friends and they go on adventures together.  She speaks both English and Spanish and every program the kids are taught to count in Spanish as well as English.  They also learn key words in Spanish and Chewlee picks those up like a sponge.  I like that program best just because of that.  I will help Chewlee try to pronounce the words properly with what I remember from my time I took Spanish and then what I relearned while living in California. 

She learns about exotic animals from Dora’s cousin’s show, *Go, Diego, Go*.  He lives in South America somewhere with his sister, his mother and father, at a Wild Animal Refuge.  These are all animated shows.  The one show that makes me a bit crazy at times is Blue’s Clues.  That’s because I caught Chewlee trying to jump into a book like the live character on that show does occasionally.  She looked at me with a sad face and said, *I guess I’m not saying the right words*.  I tried to remind her that it’s all pretend but I know she doesn’t in her heart believe that because Steve is REAL.  Not a cartoon.

Today she didn’t do any of those things when she got back from Birdie’s house.  She was just happy to be here and had gotten some gumballs from one of Birdie’s kids.  She has reached the stage when she doesn’t just gobble them all down but took just one and saved the rest.  She even offered one to me but I just thanked her and said I wasn’t in the mood.  So she told me she would save one for me for later.  She sat down cross-legged on the floor with her milk and watched her cartoons with me until her mother got here.  Earlier than expected, I might add.  Chewlee gave me strict instructions to *save her milk for her* but, since she won’t be here tomorrow, I just finished it off.  She’ll forget it before she’s back here and I’ll give her fresh then anyway.

It was supposed to get warmer today than it did but all the snow is gone.  It’s down to 30 degrees right now but no sign of snow so far.  I don’t think we’re going to get any either.  They say maybe later in the upcoming week but I’m not going to hold my breath over that prediction.  I’m not all that anxious to have any on New Year’s Eve since that would contribute to more accidents since we so seldom get any real snow here.  But with the number of drunk people out on the road, it would be just awful.

Love you all.  Please, please, don’t drink and drive!  Have a designated (sober) driver and be safe. 

TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

Today Chewlee’s game of the day was becoming Chewlee the Robot.  In fact, she told me the house was full of Chewlee robots and she proceeded to let them come into my room, one-by-one.  The first one was the original Chewlee robot.  She was very nice and took some dishes from the room because she was *helpful*.  The second one only spoke Spanish.  Of course, most of the words she knows in Spanish are limited so she threw in some made up words that sounded close enough to what she would have said in English so that I knew what she was saying.  It was really kind of cute.

The third one was also helpful and she made up our bed once again.  She really IS getting good at it but that robot told us we had to stop messing it up.    She kept talking and moving like a robot for around two hours.  Sometimes she would forget she was a robot but then she would say to us, *I’m the real Chewlee* and she’d put her finger to her lips and say, *I’m trying not to let the other robots know!*

Right now, she’s being herself but she’s drawing a picture of what I think is a fairy wand she got for Christmas.  It’s really pretty and she has it next to her and keeps looking over at it and then her picture.  I knew what it was as soon as I saw it even though her wand was not obvious to me because of the perspective I had of her down on the floor.  That pleased her and I just loved the look on her face.  She’s doing it because I tape up her pictures on my wall in my computer room and she loves to put up each one.  How I am going to be able to remove some of them to make room for the new ones is going to be a chore.  She’s very sensitive.  I think I may make up a folder and let her *retire* them.

She’s making up a picture for Birdie.  She’s the kid whisperer.  Kids just adore her and will do anything she tells them to do.  Like sit quietly in church and not talk.  It’s really amazing since Chewlee usually talks almost nonstop.  After church tomorrow, Chewlee will go to her house for an hour or two to play with her kids.  Birdie usually talks with them about God and asks them questions about how they should act to make God happy.  Chewlee loves it.

Chewlee right now is drawing pictures for Birdie.  It’s pictures of flowers with each of their names (Birdie, her husband and the two kids) underneath them.  She then wrote her name and *I love you*.  Then she folded it and put the picture in an envelope and addressed it to Birdie.  She will take it with her to church tomorrow (when the Beast picks her up) and give it to her in person.

Me?  I was sick most of the day.  It has to be my IBS because my tummy ached really bad all day long.  Even the Beast (who usually doesn’t notice such things) got worried.  But I finally took two of my IBS pills and felt 100% better within an hour.  Chewlee took one look at me and said, *Grandma…you feel better!  I’m so glad because I love you.* and she gave me a hug.  Gotta love her!  She could tell as young as she is while the Beast, always so observative, went out and bought me some General Tsao chicken wings.  Oh yeah!  Just what I need, right?  How *sensitive* of him.  I swear, he’s trying to kill me.

We got our first snow today in this neck of the woods.  It was coming down hard for a while but the snow was the really fluffy kind.  Chewlee stuck her hand out the door to catch a snowflake and licked it off her palm.  She pronounced it *tasty*.    However, it stopped and a lot of the snow melted away.  The only trace left is a layer of snow on the grass.  Baron looks funny with the way he lifts each foot before he places them down.  It’s like he’s looking for an area without snow on it.  Too damn funny.  He’s such a wimp.  He had a kind of bad day for a wimp yesterday.  He REALLY had to go but it was raining most of the day.  Not a hard rain.  Just a gentle but constant rain.  It finally stopped and the Beast let Baron outside.  Baron ran down the stairs, which he only does when he MUST go.  However, he also had to poop and while he was looking around for a place, it started to rain.  This time it wasn’t all that gentle.  Poor Baron had found his *spot* and was braced to go.  You could almost read his face.  He looked up at the rain, kind of shrugged and just said, *Oh, the hell with it!* and he stayed to poop.

He was soaked when he came back in but the Beast was ready with a towel.  Baron didn’t balk but stayed in place and let the Beast towel him off.  Tonight, when I had let him out and watched his antics, he expected me to have a towel ready for his paws when he came in.  I told him, *Go to Daddy.  He is the one that towels you.*  And Baron headed right in to the bedroom where the Beast was all comfy.  He put his nose right in the Beast’s face and I heard the Beast yell at him.  I poked my head in the room and said, *He’s just spoiled.  He expected to have his paws dried off by YOU!*  All I heard was a snort.

If we get any more snow tonight is a toss of the coin.  It’s warmed up to 32 degrees so I think it’s kind of a borderline thing unless the temperature drops a bit more.  This is very late in the year for us to get our first snow event.  I sure hope we don’t end up with a drought year, although our Alberta pear would probably benefit by it given our dirt problems.  If someone ever suggests you use chert for landfill, shoot them.  I think that’s what led to our problems here with the fungus.  I had never even heard of it until we moved here.  Good for using for roadways but not for landfill.

Well, time to get this posted.  Love you all.  Hope you have a great Sunday.  Bratfink and I will be keeping the Internet going if you all plan on going out on New Year’s Eve.  I’ve considered it *amateur night* for years.  Bratfink and I will toast in the New Year with our vodka and think of you all.  Be careful and have a designated driver.  The life you save may be your own.  Remember that. 

TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

When Chewlee was dropped off, she headed right into my room after stopping at the love seat just long enough to drop off her two small shopping bags from Christmas.  She had a set of clothes to change into after her bath in one, crayons, markers and her little jewelry containers in the other. 

She was chatty.  She was funny and she was also GASSY!  OMG!  I asked her if her mother fed her gas bags for lunch and she got this really dumb look on her face, like, *What?*  That made ME laugh and then she started laughing and got hiccups.  Between her hiccups, she was yelling at me because *I* made her laugh.  I’ve explained before that she gets hiccups every time she laughs deeply…from the belly, as some people say. 

Some days she says so many things that make me laugh, I’ve often thought I should write them all down or, better yet, record them.  She also gets so excited at times that she runs up to me and wants to drag me here or there to show me something.  Tonight, when I was trying to get rid of a headache (wonder where I got that from?), she decided to make up our bed while Grandpa was looking something up online.  Then, when she was done and had inspected her work fully, she ran in to make me come and see what a great job she had done.  Guess what?  She really HAD done a great job.  It surprised even the Beast.  She must have beamed for a full half hour from the praise she got.  She sat down in my recliner (my headache had departed) and said, very seriously, *I did it good because I have LOTS of practice.* 

When I said, *Oh, you make up your bed?*, she said, *Yes, and mommy’s, too.  I even clean up all the rooms….sometimes.*  I acted surprised (I was) and said, *Is this pretend cleaning?*  She got indignant and said, *No!  Not all the time….but I help.  I really do.*  Since she even helps me at times, I was sure that was the case.  She then said, *I wanted to make everyone happy like a family.*  She then told me that everyone needs to work together to be a family.  She made me wonder if that was something she garnered from a talking to or one of her programs she watches.  There are times she astonishes me with what comes out of her mouth.  Even some of the phrases she uses make your mouth drop in surprise.  It’s not at all what you expect to hear out of the mouth of a five-year-old.  You would feel, if you overlooked the youthful voice, that you were talking to an adult.  Extremely surprising even to me and I see and talk to her almost five days out of seven.

She will say, *Grandma, I need to talk to you about something.  This is extremely important so please listen and then tell me what you think I should do.*  OR….*I was thinking about something today, Grandma.  I’m really not sure what I should do about this…problem.*    And they ARE usually problems she has with a classmate.  They do or say something that she’s not sure how she should handle.  I usually ask her a few questions, then ask her what she’s done when the problem first happened.  She’ll say it was the first time or she saw it happen to someone else…that kind of thing.  So I ask her what SHE thinks she should do and why.  I really DO try to get her to come up with a solution she can actually remember to do.  I’ve found that usually works best if it’s a GOOD solution. 

Today she just wanted to be helpful.  It was adorable.  But she exhausts me some days and today happened to be one of those days.  I’m going take some of the liquid meds that the Beast brought me home and get some really decent, hours in a row sleep tonight.

Love you all much.  Hope you had a great week and an even better weekend. 

TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

I hadn’t intended on talking about the death of my aunt in my blog today.  She was old by most standards, in her 90′s.  She fought to live for many years but had COPD bad enough to require oxygen supplemented 24 hours a day.  She had one of those breathing units that she could strap over her shoulder and take with her.  Much easier than carting around one of those big tanks.  But she became feeble and ended up in a nursing home close to her daughter’s home in Arizona.  She hated having to sell her home in Washington State but she was so sad about the deaths of her oldest son before he was 21, then her youngest son, Wayne, who was only in his late 40′s.  She also was my mother’s closest sister.  By closest, I mean that they had both real affection for each other and a kind of psychic connection that I witnessed many times while growing up.

I probably knew more than my other siblings about my aunt.  I knew she had a different father than my mother and her other siblings had.  She was the result of an intense love affair (the kind only the young seem to have) my grandmother had when she was young but the family never discussed it.  Having a child out of wedlock in those days wasn’t something *nice* people talked about.  Besides, my grandmother met and married my grandfather not long afterward.  He died of pneumonia before I was born.  My grandmother met and remarried the man she spent the rest of her life with that I called Grandpa.  He was a remarkable man whom I loved very much.  I was close to both of them and spent much time with them while a child.

Bratfink and I had been talking about my aunt just a day or two before we got the news about her death.  I had been close to my cousin, Wally.  We were only about two years or so apart in age.  I was just 18 when he died and he was several months short of his 21st birthday.  He had always said that he wouldn’t live to be 21.  He spent the last night of his life with me and my group of friends on a *Grendel Hunt*, our equivalent of a kind of *snipe hunt* that was fun.  The reason we were close was because my mother and his were close, spending a lot of time together with their kids (and without them, along with her other two sisters). 

My aunt was a vibrant woman who was also the first divorced woman I ever remember knowing back then.  When she divorced my Uncle Ed, my mother was her staunch supporter.  My mother also introduced her to the man who became her second husband, Tom.  I always referred to them as Mutt and Jeff because my aunt was a rather tall woman (for that time) at 5’9″.  My uncle was a rather short Italian (5’6″) who loved when she dressed up in her high heels.  He was so proud and my aunt knew he loved the ground she walked on.  He also brought to the marriage two stepson’s and a stepdaughter from his first marriage.  Aunt Ruth finally had the big family she had wanted.  We were all saddened when he died in his early 50′s.  I spent a lot of time with them during my early teenage years, especially after I learned to drive.  I used to love to drive out and spend the day with them when I could after they moved out to the suburbs (we had too but our move was out west and theirs was south). 

Bratfink said she was sorry she was so young when so much of this was going on.  Bratfink and I are 10 years apart in age and I often forget that she was really too young when much of this was going on.  I always had radar going when the adults were sitting around talking and I could be a fly on the wall in order to hear all they had to say.  Later on, when my mother and I would be alone, I would ask questions about some of the things I heard and she would explain them to me so that I would understand.  My mother loved family and she passed that love of family down to all her children.  We had great uncles and aunts that we might not have known well but we loved them all, too.  Mom tried hard to stay in contact with all of the family and we would visit whenever we could.  We kids all behaved and mom was never ashamed to take us anywhere because she knew we would behave so all seven of us kids would end up going with mom to see them and we were always welcomed.  Or we at least were made to feel that way because our whole family was very loving.

After our mother died at the young age of 56, and then grandma, who was in her 70′s, it seems like our family kind of grew apart both with distance and lifestyles.  Aunt Ruth moved from Chicago out to Washington State to be close to her only birth daughter and her youngest son.  She loved it there and was happy.  I would write to her (snail mail) and hear about her grandchildren from her and how proud she was of them.  Wayne, her son there, had a son he loved and he sent me a picture of him and his son on occasion via email (I cried when that hard drive crashed shortly after Wayne died because I totally lost all the pictures I had on it).  Her daughter, Kari, had two daughters.  Aunt Ruth loved little girls after having three sons before she had Kari, who was her child with my Uncle Tom. 

I can still see my aunt in my minds eye, wearing one of the many dresses my mother sewed for her.  She always smelled so wonderful with her favorite perfume, White Shoulders and with her blonde hair done up in one of the elaborate hairdos of the day.  Her makeup (I thought) was always perfect and she had this flawless complexion.  She was a very striking woman for many, many years.  I think all of us kids always considered her beautiful. 

She had a beautiful heart.  Her daughter’s first child was a Down Syndrome baby and my aunt loved her with all her heart.  It was wonderful to see.  That grandchild graduated from a regular high school with straight A’s and my aunt told me she was so proud at all that girl had achieved.  She struggled through many adversities but came out on top.  I think part of that was how she was loved, not just by her parents and younger sister, but also because of how her grandmother always saw her as the perfect child with no disability.  Like I said, my aunt had a huge and loving heart.

I will miss her. 

Love you all.  Remember to always tell those you love that you DO love them.  No amount of time with them is ever enough.  Life is short.  The older you get, the shorter it becomes. 

TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

The Beast has been slowly but surely taking over the *housewife* position here since it’s gotten too cold for him to do any outdoorsy stuff.  He’s been baking, cooking (although he started doing that a while ago) and washing (but not folding or hanging up.  He DOES, however, IRON…since I have refused to do that stuff for many years now.  Except when sewing, of course.)  I should have known when he started shifting all my baking stuff around.  I always knew where everything was and could find it in my sleep.  Him?  I would tell him where it was and it was never found there again.

When I was getting better and started helping cook and then cooking whole meals off and on, I started finding that LOTS of my serving and cooking stuff was GONE.  Just GONE.  And the Beast lied to me about much of it.  *Oh, it’s got to be around here somewhere.* -or- *Have you checked with the Princess?  Maybe she borrowed it and you just forgot.*  Then, when he would forget what he had told me, he would admit that *maybe* he broke it or threw something away because it was so old and…whatever…!  It pissed me off then and still pisses me off because he threw out or broke my large casserole dish.  The casseroles were on a top shelf of a cabinet I can’t reach without a ladder but….the top for the small one was down with the tops for my pots and pans.

He threw out my only big soup pot because it was *too big*.  I made him buy me another one of the same size and showed him just WHY I kept that pan.  Just because there are only two of us now does NOT mean we only need tiny pots and pans.  The first time he tried to make his bean soup with a ham bone, he discovered how important a big pot can be. 

He also threw out my Dutch oven pan.  It was always *rusting* he said.  I told him it was because HE was always WASHING it and I would have to reseason it.  He thought that was bogus but I emailed him the info on it and not another word was said.  He STILL hasn’t replaced that one.  He went out, instead, and bought a slow-cooker that’s a small roaster size.  And it’s not the same.  But you can’t argue with him.  If he can’t spend money, he’s just not happy.

He threw out baking pans that he could see no reason for.  Yesterday, guess what he did?  He bought some of the same sized pans he threw out because, now that he’s baking, he NEEDED them.  I was ready to bang his head against the wall but just said to him, *Gee, I USED to have some those very sizes.  I wonder just what DID happen to them?  Hmm?*  He said nothing but couldn’t look me in the eye either.

Now he’s into the linens in the house.  He went and ordered new linens just because there is this one set of sheets he doesn’t like.  He said nothing to me beforehand.  I told him….*Beast, I have a whole bin of sheets I put up in the attic because we had so many sets down here in the house.  They are all good and most are not more than two years old but hardly used.  Why didn’t you say anything?*  His reply?  *OH!  I forgot about THOSE!*  Yeah, right.  He also told me he ordered us a goose down comforter.  I was like, *WTF!* 

I bought one for us six years ago.  I clean it and put it away after winter.  It’s perfectly fine and most of the time the Beast complains it’s too warm under it.  I love it.  Now I find out that the one he ordered is horribly expensive (to MY way of thinking) and more than twice the weight of feathers so it’s going to be even warmer.

I wanted to get a nice summer weight blanket and a new comforter and bedspread for the guest room so I told him that I could agree it was a good idea for that room.  He dragged out our bedspread and showed me it was starting to get dull.  I reamed him out because he lets the dog sleep on that area of our bed when he takes his naps (I mean the Beast).  If I am not there, Baron feels free to get up next to HIS MAN.  Pisses me off every time he allows that, too.  At least the Beast had the good sense to look sheepish.  I told him I was really upset because the bedspread is only a year old.  It should have been good for a hell of a lot more time than that.

Oh, I am so sorry to be bitching about this stuff but it was like he ruined my day and it was so nice yesterday.  Today was so nasty looking outside after about 11am that I tried not to even look outside.  But I DID get all the tweets from my weather bug letting me know how the damn weather was changing.  It was 32 degrees by 3pm, 30 degrees by 4 and 28 degrees by 5.  It’s dropping like crazy. 

After all the rain we’ve had and was still expected, that *rain* will end up being snow.  Baron was let out front for a bit and ran off, which just prevented him from going out with the Beast.  Baron acted like he was nuts about the cold and he lost out on going with the Beast to the bank just because the Beast hates to chase him down.

It’s definitely going to be cold tonight.  Before I let the Beast throw anything out, I told him that Tara wants first choice of anything and there are some good things in here that she can use.  She emailed me that she would be here on Friday for them so I am making a pile for her in my computer room. 

Love you all.  Keep warm and stay off the roads if you can.  Otherwise, please, please be careful. 

TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

Last night I admit I was up.  I think it was around 1:30 or 2am before Bratfink and I called it a night.  We said our good nights to each other and signed off.  Before that, Baron had come to my computer room twice to go out.  He never wakes up the Beast but he usually knows I am awake…most of the time.  However, last night, when I was sound asleep, he woke me up.  Not once but TWICE.  That’s unusual but…as we were walking to the back door….I knew he was having a real problem.  He was incredibly gassy and I almost gagged.

When I let him out, he RAN down the stairs.  He wasn’t gone for very long (but long enough, I hoped).  When he came in, he walked slowly back to his bed and plopped down.  I went back to bed and, surprisingly, fell asleep fairly fast.  But, a while later (I have no idea how long it was), he was back to waking me up and was farting up a storm.  This time he was outside longer and I wanted nothing more than to get back to bed.  He finally came to the door and I let him in.  He went back to his bad and so did I.  I couldn’t go back to sleep right away this time.  I lay there for long enough to finally turn on the TV for a while.  I fell asleep about two hours later (I know it was at least that by the programs that were on).  I slept until after almost 4pm.  When I got up, the Beast, ever the humorist, said, *Oh!  You’re alive.*  I just snarled, *Sorry to disappoint you!* as I got myself some coffee.

It took me about a half hour to fully wake up but I think I might just have made up all the sleep I’ve lost over the last four or five days.  I spent the rest of the daylight hours trying to find something decent to watch on TV.  I ate some of the Beast’s bean soup he’d made (too salty), cornbread (fantastic), and two glasses of milk.  It was really, really cold and tasted wonderful. 

Mustachio called me and we talked for about a half hour about this and that.  He’s got that topical rash again but not as bad as the last time.  He went and got some different soap and washed his work clothes and bed sheets again even though they were all clean.  He tried a soap for sensitive skin and will look for some hypoallergenic soap later.  He’s gotten a gentle but different soap for bathing.  He’s trying to wait it out until his medical insurance from work kicks in on the first of January.  Even though he has VA, he still has to pay for treatment.  That kind of surprised me.  I thought VA was free or almost free for vets.  Silly me.

It looked crappy outside all day and this evening, the storms moved in. Lots of boomers and now you can hear the hard rain coming down.  It’s also incredibly windy out so the rain is hitting the windows.  The boomers are making the floors in here vibrate.  I only know that because I am barefoot.  If I pick my feet up, after a minute or so to allow my feet to stop vibrating, you can’t feel anything.  As soon as I put my feet down on the floor, I can feel them again.  What’s funny is the vibrations through the floor seem to relate to how the wind is pushing the rain against the house.  If it’s just hitting the roof hard, it doesn’t travel down to the floors.

It makes me think about how the house is made.  It’s just frame and aluminum siding as far as the basic structure goes.  Everything else is just insulation and cosmetics (walls, windows, flooring).  I’m pretty sure that’s why it’s the rain hitting the sides that affects the flooring since it’s tied in with the framing.  It’s different with the roofing.  That’s when it starts to bother me that we get so many tornadoes in this area.  With a crawl space under the house, we could end up just a strange shaped Frisbee in a tornado.  We finally figured out the only safe area of our house is the master bedroom closet.  It has five 4×4 beams that are in concrete underneath us and in the walls around it.  We can drag in our mattress to put over us and do a lot of praying.  We’ve been through some very close tornadoes (1 blk. away) and stayed safe but we haven’t had any damage to our house either.  **Crossing fingers**

I worry but I don’t let it *get* to me.  Que sera, sera.  Love you all.  Stay safe, stay warm and I hope you all had a great Christmas Day. 

TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

I just discovered that my mother’s oldest sister died on the 17th.  I loved her but she suffered from many ailments and I know that her kind and loving heart sped her way to Heaven.  She was in a nursing home in Arizona.  She was in her 90′s.  Her two remaining adult children and her three grandchildren are grieving her loss.  I feel their pain but know that my aunt is no longer suffering.  That is a true blessing. 

I spent the afternoon and early evening at the Princess’s house with Tara, Chance, Chewlee and Johnnycakes.  We enjoyed a wonderful dinner together and exchanged gifts.  The little ones got to open one of their presents after we cleaned up and got everything put away.  We packed up some of the leftovers to take home.  I brought them home for the Beast to enjoy and me, too, of course.  We had ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, a corn casserole and I made some nut cups for everyone, too.  It all was delicious.  Oh, and we had rolls and cranberry sauce, of course.  

Chewlee was funny because she wanted a Santa cookie but she never finished her meal.  She and Chance both said they were full.  They actually ate more than usual and were having a lot of fun together.  She and Chance ate at the kitchen counter and the grownups ate at the table.  Chewlee announced to Chance (and all of us could hear her) that they * were at the kids table and the adults were at the grownup table.*

Tara gave me a cute pj set and some of the most comfortable socks that I have ever had.  They are soft, stop at the ankle and have non-slip soles.  They are also very warm.  The Princess and Johnnycakes bought me a flexible massager.  You can shape it depending on where you use it.  I used it on my stiff neck muscles and then down around my lower back while I was sitting in my computer chair.  The Princess said it was the last one so she couldn’t even buy herself one.    Chewlee felt the surface, which looks like it’s leopard skin, and pronounced it *very soft*. 

Chewlee was so much in the mood of sharing, she gave me a lip moisturizer.  It’s in a tube and she told me *no one has used it, Grandma.  It’s my present to you.*  She and Chance started giving me things that I thanked them for being so generous but they were gifts given to Chewlee and I left them on the coffee table.  The little bracelts were never meant for an adult and are adorable.  She started to use some hair clips and other little things from one of her gifts in MY hair and she laughed as she did it.  She knew I would leave them in and I am grateful that Tara didn’t take a picture.  She did, however, take a nice picture of me with both kids.  If she finds out how to download them off the camera (the camera was a gift to her from a friend and she hasn’t finished reading the booklet), I’m hoping she sends me the picture…plus a picture of the Princess with the kids.  I’m so sorry that we didn’t think to take a picture of her with the kids.  Shame on us for not thinking about THAT.

We really did enjoy our early Christmas dinner because Johnnycakes could join use.  He works tomorrow afternoon.  He was busy putting together a redwood playhouse for Chewlee that is supposed to be Chewlee’s gift from Santa.  She hadn’t seen it yet even though he was working in the garage.  I gather his cousin, who lives next door, is going to help him move it once it’s finished being put together.  I’m going to see if the Princess will take a picture of Chewlee on it and send it to me.  I’ll share it with you if she does.

I brought home the ham bone so I can use it when I make a big pot of split pea soup.  I have to make it and make sure I let the Princess and Tara know so they can come and take some home.  That’s never a problem because I still make stuff like that as if I had all my kids and their friends to feed.

Love you all and I wish you all good things and lots of loving friends and relatives.  Enjoy 

Bratsis had a HELL of a day. She’s having problems sleeping for some reason and then she had some cooking she had to do in preparation for the Christmas feast at the Princess’s house.

She was feeling so freaken tired that I told her to just try and get some sleep and I would post something here for her so it wouldn’t keep her awake.

You know how that it when you feel an obligation and can’t meet it?

Well, I’m fulfilling her obligation for now.

And aren’t you just thrilled to death?

So…. are you guys also reading my blog? It’s here: http://planetbratfink.blogspot.com/

Heh, could not resist.

Anyway, pray for Bratsis, would you? She’s just a bit run down with this cold and everything else.

Thanks! And Happy Holidays to you… from me and Sheldon and the cats and dog.

And from Bratsis too, I’m sure.

Love and hugs!

*

TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

My day was really kind of dull.  The high spot was we ate pizza for dinner since neither of us felt ambitious.  And we had no TV dinners.  The Beast was watching the movie *Roots*.  We had seen it, together, when it originally came out.  I watched it a few months back so wasn’t in the mood to watch it again.  I watched *Too Cute* and some other cute animal programs on Animal Planet.  

I took a late nap mainly because Bratfink took one and we were both waiting for the same thing….our game bonuses to show up.    Bratfink got me hooked on this one game that ISN’T on Pogo.  It’s a slots game that shall remain unnamed since I’m not going to make anyone into a junkie.  It’s the game that was so screwed up on me yesterday.   I think it was the server for the game in my area of the country that was having all the problems because Bratfink’s wasn’t doing the same thing.  It actually got worked on after they got a huge amount of comments from those of us affected and was back working earlier today. 

It surprised me that they got to it so fast.  Even Pogo (which you pay for to be in the Club and have full access to all the games and features), doesn’t respond that quickly.  No, instead they shut the whole site down once a week and work on things then.  It seems I am almost always suffering from insomnia on the night they choose to do that.

I got a letter for Chewlee today.  She’s going to love it since it’s from Auntie Bratfink and Chewlee loves the stuff she sends.  It’s just stuff like little note paper, stickers of all kinds, things little kids just LOVE.  I propped it up on my desk and she will see her name printed on it when she’s here probably tomorrow afternoon.  I think her other grandfather will have to drop her off early enough to get back home so he makes work on Monday.  Unless he’s taken off.  I don’t know.  I’m hoping I can get the Princess to take me to the store on Monday if I can’t get out tomorrow when the Beast goes to church.  I plan on it but you never know what might come up.  I NEED to go to the store.  **Sigh**  I’m sure as hell going to get out…on my own.  Baron can watch the house by himself. 

I’ve been talking to my son, Mustachio, off and on today.  Found out his contact dermatitis is in full bloom and I made him promise me to get to emergency tomorrow.  I told him what he had to tell the doctors including the fact that the steroids helped (that seems to stop the progress and gives him pain relief) but he doesn’t want pain pills.  They had wanted to do some tests that he decided not to do but this time, he wants to find out what is causing this.  *I* think he’s allergic to the perfume in his bar soap and laundry soap just because it affects his whole body…and even his eyelids this time.  He’s not flaking like a fish yet and I told him that if he lets it get that far, this time his company will have reason to deny him sick time with pay.  I trust he will go.

Speaking of going, me, too.  Love you all.  Have a great Sunday and get all the rest of the gifts you need….NOW!  It’s going to be brutal. 

TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

I DID climb into bed with Chewlee last night but, OMG, that kid is a nightmare at times to sleep with.  She twists around and I had her feet on my neck at one point.  I kept turning her into the right position and covering her up.  She seemed chilled at times and then hot so she would kick the covers off herself.  That meant she also kicked MY covers off.  Not fun when you are really tired, and I was.  I finally gave up.  I got out of bed, kissed Chewlee on her forehead and headed back to my recliner and my TV.  One of my favorites was on (Orangutan Island). 

I slept fitfully because my one leg kept cramping on me.  I finally got up, checked my email and decided to do a scan of my hard drive because I wasn’t certain what was causing a problem on one of my favorite sites.  It was really messed up.  Showed me at a much higher rank but with no tokens to play the game.  It kept changing the amount of tokens when I would check it.  I finally wrote the site and complained and found out I wasn’t the only one having the problem.  I gave up on it then and figured it would take them days.  **NOTE:  they actually fixed it today and I could play on it again.**

Chewlee got up, full of piss and vinegar.  She took a ride with the Beast and they went and bought another fishbowl (the normal goldfish kind) and a new fish.  The Beast decorated it nicely and it has the pretty rocks in it that Chewlee liked.  I gather from complaints from both of them that it wasn’t a nice ride together.  I think part of it is because Chewlee wants to tell her side but the Beast doesn’t want to listen to her.  He just reacts and it’s usually not nicely.  Chewlee had found one of her pencils in the driveway (she obviously dropped it when she went home the night before) and she had it in her hand in the car.  The Beast saw it, assumed she was going to write on the upholstery or some such thing and he grabbed it, put his window down and threw it out.  Chewlee was upset, of course, and the Beast just yelled at her to shut up, he didn’t want to hear it.  That meant he wasn’t open to discussing it.  Chewlee beckoned to me to come into my computer room because she * had to talk to me.*

The Beast just whispered to me that she was a real *bitch and gave him a hard time.*  He never told me what happened.  I had to construe it from what Chewlee complained about.  She said that the pencil was broken now because he threw it out on the road.  I really don’t know which one of them is the real child.  **Sigh**

Love you all.  I’m tired and need some rest.  Hope you have a great weekend. 

The Princess was sick but she came to pick up Chewlee to drop her off at her paternal grandfather’s hotel, I believe.  She really didn’t tell me.  I just knew to get Chewlee dressed for her and then send her outside where her mother was waiting (and harboring her germs, thank you Princess!)  I’ve been sick once this week that lasted much longer than I cared for.   I’m grateful she spared us any more germs. 

After Chewlee left, I pretty much died.  I was so sleep deprived that I fell asleep for about five hours.  I got up, ate something, drank something and went back to sleep.  I was up for a few hours, played a couple of games on Pogo and then went back to sleep until about 10am this morning.  That’s why I didn’t post the above.  Sorry ’bout that.  I wasn’t thinking.

I’ll post something later….if anything more interesting than what has gone on so far happens.  It’s been a kind of dead, dull day so far.  It’s even icky outside.  It’s also cold.   Love you all.