Belated 2010 Wrap-up

Ok, Heather (and all my other fans!), I'm sorry that I've been silent the past few months.

When we last left our heroine, Rose and Mom had just moved into a condo in Evansville and were praying for a buyer for the house in Wadesville. In fact, the house went on the market the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. The sign was put in the yard on Wednesday. So fast forward to the Friday after Thanksgiving. I had to work and mom went out to the house to paint a door or something. Along about 11:00 that morning, my phone rings and it's mom. She said that she was there painting and about 10, there was a knock on the door... and guess who was there!? I was thinking possibly Gerard Butler had finally come to his senses and decided to track me down, but.. she said there was a young man and his fiancee there to look at the house! OMG!

Long story short, as none of us want to live through the entire month of December at this point, that young man bought the house! The closing was on December 31st and afterwards Mom and I went to the bank to deposit the check and then we went to the Olive Garden to celebrate!

We were happy to start 2011 with one less concern on our shoulders.

Let's see, what else happened in December? Well, mom turned 70 and I felt it was time for another surprise birthday party. See, the last surprise b-day party I planned was for Dad (birthday in October) and Mom (birthday in December) in November of the year they both turned 50. Since it was several weeks either before or after their respective birthdays, that was on truly a surprise. This birthday surprise had more possibility of me blowing it since I live with mom and since she is truly my best friend, I tell her most everything. So I had to think before I just popped out with "ordered the cake today.." or "Holly emailed, Natalie won't be able to come down.." or "we ought to get our Christmas presents bought, wrapped and together, so Holly and Haley can take them back up with them in case the weather is bad and we can't go up for Christmas..." But I managed to succeed. Of course, it helped that Mom slipped and fell on the ice twice the day before her birthday and broke her fibula, so she was legitimately elsewhere mentally and not paying attention to my slips.

The party was a success with family and friends from church in attendance. All of the grandkids except Natalie (she had a final exam that day) were able to come down and Mom, either because of or in spite of the broken leg, was surprised and had a good time.

For Christmas, Mom and I trekked up north and had a lovely time with Ho and Ha's families. They had had snow that week, so we were able to have a White Christmas despite the weather here not playing along. The only thing I didn't understand was Santa putting a bag of coal, even if it was made of chocolate and rice krispies, in my stocking... :( As per my usual, the gifts I gave were received with lots of excitement, whether it was cash, gift card, or TARDIS cookie jars.

Now the holidays are over and Mom and I are snuggled up in the condo, with hot cocoa and 4 cats, watching the lake freeze. I'm only left with one question... why haven't we used the fireplace more often??

Later, peeps. I'll try to do better in the new year, Heather. I realize that you are stuck there in Mexico and your only access to Rose is via this blog, so keeping that in mind, I'll do better. Just as a preview, there are exciting things in Rose's future: trips to London, surgery(s?), and being involved in 2011's biggest viral You Tube video!! Stay tuned...

Review - Despicable Me

(Disclaimer: If you haven’t seen this movie, there may be information in this review that might be considered a “spoiler” - although I consciously try not to put major spoiler info in my reviews. Proceed with caution.)

Note: I wrote this in July of 2010 and for some reason did not "Publish" it. Don't know why, but the sentiments contained within are still valid - and the DVD did come out last month, so...

Mom and I went to go see Despicable Me over the weekend. I wanted to see it for a variety of reasons – 1) in the preview, I adored the part where the little girl tries to win the stuffed unicorn and fails and then when Dr. Gru basically blows the carnival game up in order to win her the unicorn, she is so excited and screams “It’s so FLUFFY!”; 2) I enjoy Steve Carrell – especially last week when he was a guest on The Colbert Report and the interview session degenerated into an “Even Steph(v)en” segment like from in the good ol’days of the Daily Show… where was I?; 3) but let’s face it, the main reason I wanted to go see this movie was the minions.

Long time readers (Shout out to the fans!) know of my lifelong (or at least for the past few years) desire to have minions. So obviously, this movie was perfect research for later in life when I finally realize my dream and have me some minions. I could sit here and rant about why I want minions… short minions, tall minions, filet minions… hahahahaha!! Er… back to the movie…

The hero of Despicable Me is the spindly-legged, pointy-nosed Dr. Gru. He also had a lifelong dream… to go to the moon. His mother did her best to squish the young boy’s dreams, but they stayed with him. So as a grown man, Dr. Gru becomes a villain – his successes include stealing the Times Square Jumbo-tron, the Statue of Liberty, and the Eiffel Tower (the Las Vegas versions of the last two). But now a young evil villain upstart is trying to outshine him, so Dr. Gru comes up with his plan to go to the moon, shrink the moon, and then steal the moon, making him the world’s greatest villain.

But first, he has to get a loan from the Bank of Evil (formerly Lehman Brothers) to build the rocket; but in order to get that loan, he must first steal the shrink ray from another band of evil doers.

Meanwhile, three young orphan sisters are out trying to sell cookies for the woman running the orphanage and their path crosses that of Dr. Gru. He gets the idea of using them to help him steal the shrink ray from his arch enemy. So he adopts them.

Yes, it’s sort of predictable that the “evil” Dr. Gru is going to fall in love with these kids (and vice versa) but the way it plays out is very heart-warming and fun. Especially the aforementioned scene with the carnival game and the little girl and the FLUFFY! stuffed unicorn.

I think it is sort of telling (both about me and the movies) that I enjoy going to so-called “kids” movies. Of the 6 or 7 movie previews shown before Despicable Me, I want to go see at least 4 of them – a much higher percentage than for your average “adult” previews. The best kids movies have the inside jokes/gags that make them fun for adults too, and well, I’ve always been a child at heart. As it was, Despicable Me was thoroughly enjoyed by both my inner child and my outer adult – which is a good thing because the adult doesn’t like paying for crappy movies… and the inner child suckers her into going to quite a few! (Did anyone else go see Hoodwinked? If so, you get my point.) Four thumbs up for Despicable Me!

Happy Thanksgiving 2010

As I woke up this Thanksgiving morning, with one cat on my bladder and one cat pawing my face because she was hungry, I started contemplating what all I had to be thankful for.

In no particular order of importance,...

I'm thankful that my precious fluffy baby girl has recovered from near death, potential liver failure, and a life of diabetes. She is one healthy fluffy baby and I praise God for the joy these four-footed critters have brought into my life in the past several years.

I'm thankful for my job. I do not enjoy having to work for a living, but then who does? :) But in this economy, not only do I have a well paying job, but a job working with people I like and respect -- for the most part, that is!

I'm thankful that I have a warm happy home to come home to every evening. Each morning on the way to work, I pass homeless-looking men wandering around downtown Evansville, and I am reminded how fortunate we are.

Speaking of our warm happy home, I'm so very thankful for the wonderful family and friends who have helped mom and me both move into our new condo and get the house in Wadesville prepared for sale. My sisters and parts of their familys have been down several weekends in the past couple of months to help pack, paint, clean, transport stuff, put stuff away (Holly, we're still looking for stuff!) and my aunt Chris and her family came up and painted, cleaned, and worked on the plumbing, and a whole crew of people from our church came out to the house at 4pm on a Friday, packed all the furniture, including a piano, 3 filing cabinets, 6 dressers, three beds and trekked it all out to the condo, caravan-style and then carted it all up to our second floor condo. I'm pretty sure the piano almost made a few of them lose their religion! :)

I'm thankful for mom. I come home from work each evening to her smiling face and, usually, a home-cooked meal. Having lived by myself for 14 years, I truly appreciate what she does for me. I probably take her for granted, but hopefully not too often. I know that someday I will live alone again, and I will miss her twice as much.

I'm thankful for my general good health. Yes, I'm too heavy and yes, I have high blood pressure and cholesterol, and I have this weird wooshing in my right ear, but generally, I'm pretty good. Or at least things could be worse. I'm also thankful that mom is in pretty good health. I worry about her, with her rhuematoid arthritis and she's almost 70, and she's exhausted herself throughout this whole move. But now that we've moved, she can just spend the winter in our lovely new home resting and taking care of herself.

I'm also very thankful for elevators. The elevator worked through the evening of the actual move, but pooped out the next day. Since then, we've had to cart boxes up the stairs, along with groceries and other stuff. Meanwhile, we've been collecting trash like no one's business, and we've been having to trek to all down. But praise God, the elevator man came and got the elevator working yesterday. This morning, we rode the trash downstairs in the elevator and mom was singing "Praise the Lord!" the entire trip!

I'm also thankful for hot chocolate with tiny marshmellows. This afternoon, mom and I went to the house in Wadeville to clean out the garage. Of course it was 40 degrees and pouring rain, but we did it. I forced mom to stay in the garage and just bring me things while I, wearing my bright yellow rain poncho from when we went to Disney World with Mickey Mouse on the back, drug all the trash over into the trash dumpster. We worked about an hour until we filled the dumpster - my clothes were soaked down to my undies, and my fingers and toes were frozen. When we got back home, I changed into my warm fuzzies, mom made hot cocoa, and I sat here on the couch with my big fluffy girl and drank my cocoa and we watched Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on HBO (for some reason we have it for free at the moment - but I figure the cable company will figure it out and turn it off soon, so...) We discussed turning on the fireplace, but we'd have had to move the stuff sitting on the hearth in front of it, so we ixnayed that idea.

Long story short, Rose has a lot to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day.

Road Trip!

About a six weeks ago, shortly after Glen Beck's rally in Washington DC, there was an uprising on the internets that Steven Colbert should have a rally.  I thought that sounded fabulous and decided that if it were to truly come about, I should see about going.   When Colbert and Jon Stewart returned from their Labor Day vacations, they eluded to an announcement that would be coming shortly.  My hopes jumped.   After two weeks of hints, they finally announced Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity and Colbert's March to Keep Fear Alive.  I immediately emailed my sister, Haley, the only person I thought I might be able to convince to join me in attending a crazy event such as these, and she was game!   So we are off!  The rally is this coming Saturday, Oct. 30th, on the National Mall in Washington DC.  We have a hotel room in Arlington, VA, just a couple of blocks from the Metro station.  I am going up to Indianapolis this afternoon.  Haley and I will jump in her buggy on Friday morning and be D.C. Bound!   I've never done anything as crazy as this, and I'm sure I'll never have the opportunity, let alone the nerve, to do it again.  Frankly, I'm sort of nervous – I'm not good with crowds, you know, and they're expecting a whopper!   Today, I found the preliminary schedule for the event online:   10:00 a.m.: The pre-pre-show begins with videos and music on the jumbotron to keep the gathering crowd friendly and entertained. Noon: The pre-show starts with a performance from The Roots. 12:40: A comedian (to be determined) warms up the audience. 12:57: A video countdown with a show introduction. 1:00: The show kicks off with the national anthem by a musical guest (to be announced). 1:05: Mr. Stewart welcomes the crowd – whose projected size is ballooning daily. Currently, there are 200,000 sign-ups on the official Facebook page alone. 1:20: Mr. Colbert enters, and two actors – Don Novello [Fr Guido Sarducci] and Sam Waterston – perform readings. 1:40: Jeff Tweedy and Mavis Staple perform for 10 minutes, followed by Stewart and Colbert until 2 p.m. 2:15: Sheryl Crow performs for five minutes, followed by speakers and guests (to be determined). 2:30: Musical guests (also still being lined up) come on. 2:40: The show turns to a pre-taped sequence – The Sanity and Fear Awards.   So after I get off work, all I have to do is hit a gas station for fuel and munchies, and I'll be off!  I have the iPhone available for pics and status updates on Facebook.  I can also blog from the road, although typing on that thing isn't convenient, so any blog entries will be short and to the point.  I've got my camera and almost no hopes whatsoever of getting very close to my heroes, but maybe I'll have pics.  Wish me luck!

Merle - A True Man

I have come to the conclusion that Merle, although some parts may be missing or nonfunctional, is a true man.    His appointment for his calendar photograph was Saturday, the 16th.  The last time I saw him was Monday, the 11th. I went outside each morning, lovingly carrying his bowl of Meow Mix and called in my not-quite-so-dulcet-it's-7-AM-voice for him to come to breakfast.  I would place it on the porch and call him until my voice cracked or the cold concrete made my feet run inside on their own volition due to frostbite.  Nothing.   But that was ok.  I knew that he would show up on Saturday morning, like a normal man, all "what!?"  Looking innocent and handsome and making me want to punt him to Poseyville and give him loving scritches at the same time.    Each morning, the tone of my voice grew more frantic and my feet were able to withstand higher levels of hypothermia because I knew that this was an important mission.   Saturday morning.  His appointment is at 8:15.  I've timed the trip and I know it will take 30 minutes to get there.  I wake up at 6:00 - I SET THE ALARM FOR A SATURDAY!  I don't do this often and generally it's for important things like meeting the Pope!  Not that I've met the Pope, or am even Catholic, that is not the point.  Not only did I set the alarm for 6, but I actually got up at 6.  I got ready and did a little farming, because a girl has her priorities, and at 6:45 I went outside just knowing that the handsome devil would be there.    He was not.  I called.  And called.  Nothing.   I went back inside and played solitare on my iPhone.  (Have I blogged that I went ahead and got my iPhone? - more on that later, I'm sure.)    7:00 - I went outside and called.  Nothing.   Have I mentioned that I woke up with a sore throat and aching head?  I would have given anything to say screw it and go back to bed.  But I KNEW this was important, damn it!   Back inside.  The indoor bunch think I've gone mad... and I'm not sure they are wrong.   7:15 -- outside - nothing.   7:30 -- ditto.   7:45 -- I call the photographers and reschedule the diva's (is there a male diva?) appointment.  Now he has an appointment for tomorrow morning.  But I'm not overly concerned because I've talked to the paper and if he doesn't get his picture taken, they will print the picture we submitted.  And frankly, I don't care how good Bob Straub is, I've met Merle.  I've taken Merle's picture.  I don't see Bob Straub getting a better picture than the one Haley took.  So we'll see what happens.  Now that we have a contingency plan, I'm guessing he'll be sitting on the front porch looking at me all handsome like tonight when I get home.  Sigh.

We're Movin' on Up!

Things have been busy for Rose the past couple of weeks.  I can't recall if I've mentioned this before, but I made a comment to mom at one point over the summer, while we were working out in the yard, that at some point she was going to have to accept that she's almost 70 and isn't/ won't be able to maintain the place and I'm lazy and I have no desire to.  I pointed out that if she wasn't ready yet, it was fine, but surely it would be better to make the decision to move/sell the place on her own terms rather than out of necessity.  She nodded and said "yep," and I went on trimming the forsythia bush.   Like a week or so later, she brings home a "for sale by owner" magazine from the grocery store just to see what is out there.  Says she thinks we can aim to put the house on the market come springtime.   A Sunday about a week later, we see that the condo association across the road from our church has an open house that afternoon, so we go.  I LOVED it.  Hard wood floors, three nice bedrooms, a 2-car garage.  But mom said, probably correctly, that it was too much – money and room – for us.  Besides, we need to wait until the spring.  So we drove home.   A couple of weeks later, she comes home from a Tuesday morning bible study telling me that there's another, smaller condo, in the same place having an open house Sunday.  So we go.  This condo is in a building containing eight units, and is on the second floor with a "bonus" room (i.e. 3rd bedroom) on the third floor.  It has a balcony overlooking the woods and the lake.  It is marvelous!  I LOVED it on sight.  I figure the cats will fully enjoy chasing each other up and down the stairs to the 3rd floor.  The price is better, but…   Also, in that Sunday's paper, there's a condo for sale by owner listed... we go.  It had its niceties, but I preferred the first one of the day.  By the end of the evening, mom is having a "heavy feeling" in her chest and thinks we should wait until spring.  Ok.    The next weekend, Haley comes down ready to look at condos.  But we're waiting, so all she gets to see is the outside of both of them.    Mom has me print off all the info from the county assessor and treasurer websites about the condo, but she still has questions about buying real estate that I can't answer, so I hook her up with Jennifer, my mentor in all things legal, and she has a nice phone conversation while I watch Glee on Tuesday.  After she's done talking to Jennifer, she tells me to contact the bank about getting pre-approval on a loan and Mom'll make an appointment for the weekend to see the condo.  We be back on!  So I called Holly, (Haley having just been down I didn't figure she'd want to come back the next weekend), to see if she (Holly) might be interested in coming down to see the condo on Saturday.   Saturday, Mom, Holly and I pack up the party van and go to town to see the condo.  Holly LOVES it and tells us to go for it.  By the time we leave it, we have an appointment to come back in the next afternoon to fill out the papers for an official offer.    Sunday, after church and lunch, we go and make the "official" offer and my headache starts.  (And the headache didn't go away until much drugs, both Rx and OTC, and a good night's sleep later.)  But just a few hours later, we receive the news that the offer was accepted as written!   Monday, my instructions were to find a home inspector and arrange for an inspection AND to call the woman at the bank…. Not OUR bank, mind you, because that woman NEVER (and still has not as of this writing) returned my initial phone call.  I talked to Steve about his recommending an inspector and he tells me to call the guy on the other side of the big arbitration case we had a couple summers ago.  We ended up with an appointment for Friday morning for the inspection and Friday afternoon for the bank to fill out the loan papers.   Saturday, mom and I met with the realtor about asking the sellers to fix the few minor issues the inspector came up with.   So, here it is, Tuesday.  Mom is out of town, gone to San Diego with Aunt Chris to visit their other sister Bonnie for 10 days.  I'm left here herding cats, preparing for our office's bosses day luncheon/celebration, and waiting for word from the bank (re: the pre-approval of the loan) and the realtor (re: sellers' response to inspection).    Home/property ownership seems to be the final hurdle for me to jump before I land squarely in "adulthood."  And I'm not keen on that jump.  I've been happy being a (relatively) obligation free, child-like soul all these years… I figure it's what kept me young at heart.  But now I'm going to have a MORTGAGE!  Yikes!  I can foresee future blogs regarding the property tax issues and zoning questions and filing the LONG form for taxes!  I shudder at the whole idea!  I need a nap and am really missing kindergarten right now. Sigh..

Merle - The Rest of the Story

As promised, I'm letting my "out of town" followers know the outcome of the "election"/calendar contest.  Merle got 968 votes and placed #12 (top 14 go in the calendar), so he's in!  We are all very excited for Merle.  Merle, however, remains stoic on the subject.  So the beautiful picture that Haley took that shows off his beautiful eyes will be in the calendar, right?  Wrong.  Friday, as Mom and I are driving to the bank (more on that later) I get a call from a woman at the Courier congratulating me and Merle on his getting in the calendar and telling me that I need to call Bob Straub Photography to make an appointment for Merle to get his picture taken for the calendar!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?  I haven't had the heart yet to tell Haley as I know it'll break her heart that the picture she worked so hard to get and is so, rightfully, proud of will not be in the calendar.  But take heart!  My thoughts are there is still hope.  Frankly, Merle is an outdoor cat.  Merle isn't fond of strangers.  Merle is not the easiest subject to work with.  Merle likes to go on walkabouts, so it isn't even guaranteed that he'll be around on Saturday (the day of his appointment) for me to even attempt to nab him (by myself, as mom is in San Diego this week) to get him there.  So in my mind, there is still a possibility that they'll (have to) use Haley's picture… so I haven't told her yet.  Sigh.