In Bed

On the eleventh day of Christmas
my True Love gave to me
A good reason to stay in bed.

A Cold

No, worse, the Romantic_Influenza take II.

If God doesn't give colds then he at least gives good health and that is the reason I am staying in bed. Not because I have good health but because I want mine back.

Yesterday, my Nettie Pot and I became reacquainted on a regular basis, I think I used it four times and I still hold the record for consecutive sneezes. And if you have heard me sneeze, that is a frightening thought, some people would rather go to a punk rock concert.

I told Kathy that I have been holding off what I thought was the making of a cold for nearly a month now with large doses of vitamin c, good amounts of d, e, and beta carotene but that I had let it slip this last week. I should have not let it slip and I should have been using my nettie pot as preventative.

So no pictures to day for sure. Unless you want to see how the nettie pot works? No big outside projects, just me and the pile of seed catalogs and a case of tissues.

Fasting, Moderation and Balance

Dirt served me breakfast in bed and I'm ready to just fast now. No, his breakfast wasn't bad even though the potatoes were touching the syrup, ick, but it mattered little because I quite honestly could taste nothing. So what really is the point of eating? To stay alive you say?

But what?, I have been eating all along, quite a bit actually, and I'm not so well off now am I? Oh don't pull that "everything in moderation" baloney on me. Some of us were never intended for moderation, self control perhaps but never moderation! And it is not the same thing! Nor is self control balance. There is nothing "balanced" about a life lived completely for one thing. Not that I am there yet but I am aiming and that aim does not include balance or moderation. Two things have done untold damage, the words, "balance" and "focus on the family".

Okay, I'm done. Either you get it or you don't, more of my words will not convince you otherwise. Besides it is difficult to uphold a rant when I can barely uphold my head. But to put it down, (my head) means certain pounding and flooding feelings so upright it is. Upright with a slant.


Typos and Punctuation

Wow, I just corrected about fifteen typos. And I think my left side is paralysed. All of my typos were reversed letter orders and the letter orders reversed were the difference between letters under the control of my left hand and my right hand. Right hand won every time. Left is a little slow today. Funny, it is always the other way around.

I think that there should be a punctuation mark for puzzlement. It is not a matter of a question mark, I am not asking you a question. If I'm excited and I want you to know it, I use an exclamation mark but nothing available to the puzzled. Words? If words were all I needed, then why an exclamation mark, couldn't I just use my words to convey my excitement? (That was a real question, I'm not puzzled.)

And personally I think that you should be able to use an exclamation or question mark mid-sentence, (you may have noticed I do, even though it is not accepted by the Society for Correct Writing).

And why not an exclamation mark and a question mark at the same time?! Am I not allowed to ask a question excitedly!?

And commas should be everywhere, I breath a lot, you should too, but I never really rest, so why should you, if when I was so busy writing, I just kept going, why can't you just keep up. But if we are always stopping, I may loose you. See you could have left me there but you wouldn't have if I had just used a comma.

Periods make you sit down and rest. Commas keep you going, urge you on. If you were running a marathon which would you rather have in your pit crew, a bunch of periods or some fine commas, giving you an energetic pause?


Birding and Criminals

My little unidentified brown sparrow has found my bedroom window. He is usually seen only at the feeders, (he is looking quite plump) and not on this side of the house. I usually only see my little kinglet friend here at this window. How nice of him to come and visit.

Ahhh the mystery is solved, upon the arrival of a Rufous Sided Towee at my window I wondered if they were all coming looking for the Mistress of Seeds (uh, that's me) so I called out and Bet came to answer my inquiry about the fullness of the feeders. "Nope, they're all full, they just like to come visit you, mom. Well, that and there is a Steller's Jay back there."

Hah, they are not coming just to visit me, they are coming to escape the criminal element. There are two kinds of criminals, Stellar Jays and Starlings.

There is nothing redeeming about starlings. They were raised poorly, have no scruples or sense of community, they even look bad, easy to pick from a line-up because they look like they just killed someone and therefore are intolerable. Marla's vandals were of the starling type. Bad seed. No, not the kind they eat, the egg they come from, bad, bad to the egg white!

But movies are made of the Stellar Jays. The Ocean's Eleven gang, they are Stellar Jays, blurring the lines between good and bad. When I was a kid it sure seemed like there were a lot of movies about criminals, all of the western outlaws had a movie made about them, then there was The Longest Yard, and some movie with Sydney Poitier and somebody else running away from a chain gang. Paul Newman was a criminal once, I mean portrayed one or two. They were all Stellar Jays.

A Stellar Jay could either go wrong or go right, many law men were just Stellar Jays that were barely kept from wrong. Like the Erp brothers and a few others dimly in my mind as I watch the antics of the birds on this side of the house avoiding the rough and tumble but good hearted Steller Jays.

Yap At You Later

There really must be something productive I can do today although if you needed to be entertained for a little bit Dear Reader, then I guess I have been productive, although the entertainment value is only worth what you paid for it!

But I suppose I should be wrapping up my first seed order and getting that off so that it can hurry up and get back here. One of the web sites for a seed house said they wouldn't be getting to the orders for six weeks!

Guess who isn't going to be trying that seed house!? The seeds wouldn't get here for P. Day, that could stand for Presidents Day but when I have my garden hat on it stands for Pea Planting Day! Not to mention I am starting some new artichoke plants this year, and I want some more onions and a jump on the nightshade fam.

You know, some people think that the nightshade family, tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, and peppers are poisonous and cause arthritis. Well that may be true, especially for us European types, as the nightshade fam are all native to this here land mass. Call it a slow revenge for that whole chicken pox on the blankets move we tried on the natives.

"Here have some potatoes and tomatoes. If getting hooked on them to the point of having a famine because you didn't grow anything else and they got blight doesn't get back at you, then maybe a couple of centuries of eating way to much spaghetti sauce or potatoes in various forms will get you some whopping food allergies."

Just saying that there might be some justice a foot here. I must not have had any culpable relatives (or at least it seems so so far) because taters and tamaters don't seem to bother me much. I find no point in eating eggplant. Only one food is more devoid of any nutritional merit and that is Iceberg lettuce, please, lets not call it a vegetable.

However, around here that doesn't keep others from wanting to grow eggplants, they're so cute. Why some might say their smoochie. So I better quite messing around and get my order off. Wow check it out, over five paragraphs ago I said I was leaving you! "Say good night Gracie." Good night.

Oh wait, one more thing. Eleven stands for the eleven faithful disciples.

Dear Reader I sure hope we are counted in the bunch that is faithful and not pretendy schmendy sellouts! I am Glad that God has given us their example of faithfulness among others! Celebrate, even if you have Vicks on your chest. I know I do!