Beer For My Cats....

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She said: "I'm gonna' hire a wino

to decorate our home,

"So you'll feel more at ease here,

and you won't have to roam.... 

(David Frizzel, "I'm Gonna Hire a Wino")

You know, you'd think I could have had much more done by now in the way of redecorating the house.  Blaine finally finished painting the entire house in my favorite color, dark taupe (and don't let the yellowish color of these pics fool you---it's not yellow, it's taupe, dang it---but my stupid new camera can't seem to achieve the correct hue.)

(Blaine says it's-- as they say in Sprint lingo--"operator error".)  (To which I respond-- in Bo lingo-- "shut your pie hole".)

I mean, I have all the decorating things I need lying all over the place, the amount of which you'd think I'd be working six days till Sunday.  Plus I have access to Blaine's wallet to buy any other stuff I want.  And the only obstacles I really have is one or more stupid cats in my way.

(Note: all pics can be enlarged by clicking on them.  Look closely and you'll see an idiot cat.)

So what's my problem, you might ask?

The problem is that all I've been able to get decorated is my knitting nook...

...and the downstairs bathroom.

And now I have "redecorater's block".  I can't seem to proceed any further.

But do you see another....uh.... issue here?  It is the fact that I've only redecorated the bathroom and the knitting nook.  Add in the wide-screen TV, the near proximitiy of the kitchen, and the self-bean-grinding coffee pot we have--- and it would appear to be every knitter's dream of everything she or he would need to... er.... knit all day!!

I know, I know---it's tacky to put pics of a bathroom on my blog.  But I can't help it since, like I said, it's one of the few areas in here that I've completed and doesn't look as if a bomb went off in it.

Oh, I wanted to tell you.  See the framed doctor's prescription paper framed on the shelf above?  (You can see where it is in the whole scheme of things in the pic below.)  That is a doctor's prescription for "one pineapple pie".  Allow me to explain.

It was written by Dr. Sudip Bose, a wonderfully talented young doctor with whom I worked in an Emergency Room once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away.  It's written for a pineapple pie because I had bitched loudly for 2 solid hours on our shift that a patient had gotten a pineapple pie on their meal tray and I wanted one very badly for myself to no avail.  The hospital kitchen staff had tersely informed me that the damn pineapple pies were ONLY for the patients.

So, grinning widely, Dr. Bose had whipped out his prescription pad from his pocket and written me the script for a pineapple pie, heh!

I loved working with Dr. Bose.  He called me "Super Nurse" but I called him "Dr. Bose" even though he had asked me to call him Sudip.  (What can I say--I was trained for nursing in an old fashioned convent nursing school.)  Dr. Bose and I worked together extremely well.

Later on, Dr. Bose was called from Reserve status to Active Duty and went on to glory and heroism as a military combat physician in the war in Iraq, later writing two books about his experiences there.  (Link here.)  Dr. Bose was the doctor who treated Saddam Hussein when they pulled him out of the hidy hole where he was cowering.  Now Dr. Bose is a famous doctor.  Last I heard he was working as a trauma specialist in an Emergency Room in Chicago and doing the lecture circuit and book signings on the side.

(Click on the "Book" link in his website and it will momentarily fade to the pic of Dr. Bose' hands putting a tongue depressor in Saddam's mouth during the examination.)

Anyhoo, I framed the cute prescription he wrote me and there it sits......in the bathroom (see below).  And I have no idea why I put it there.

And I still want a pineapple pie.

Where was I?

Oh yes, my redecorating problems.

My mother asked for some updated pics of the garden so here are some of the ones I took.  Taking care of my garden feels as if I am constantly redecorating an entire "room."  (Notice how Mr. Inconsiderate Blaine leaves his damn painting tools on the umbrella table, ruining the garden's ambiance---so I took that stuff to the garage where it belongs.)

(Notice how I'm over-using parentheses, italics, and the word "damn"??.....)

Where was I?

Oh yes, working in the garden.

Okay, so I got a couple of indoor areas redecorated at the same time that I've also been working hard in my garden.  Of course, the little red radio to the left in the above picture is important because I enjoy listening to music while gardening.  But I have been forced to listen to country western music even though I'd rather listen to my oldies station.  That is because the country western station is the only station I can pick up on that damn radio.  Sigh...

I don't know if people from countries other than the USA know this, but a lot of us "southern" people call country western music "cryin' songs".  That is because most country western songs include descriptions of tragic relationships, bitter divorces, loss of belongings in said divorces, loss of good pick-up trucks, loss of good dogs, too much alcohol, and other things in life to get weepy about in San Antonio, Dallas, Santa Fe, Ft. Worth, and other places where divorces, pick-up trucks, and good dogs, etc. occur....

For example, when watering my petunias I frequently hear country western classics such as:

"Whiskey for my men and beer for my horses";

"I've got friends in low places";

"She got the palace and I got the Jeep";

"It must be five somewhere" ("five" meaning the pm hour when it's finally and respectively okay to begin drinking cocktails that day);

and the ever popular:

"You don't look so good since I stopped drinking".

One thing about "cryin' songs" is that you can always find yourself in one or more of them.  For example, for years my anthem was the heavy drinker's rationalization about how "it must be five somewhere"----but I had gotten that saying from my mother.  She used to sing it when she poured herself a beer at lunch.  And then I began to sing it when I was in the deep throes of my alcoholism while pouring myself a drink around the dang clock.  And we always lived in foreign countries while I was growing up so I figured my mom was just acknowledging the fact that we were in a different time zone than Louisiana.

I didn't realize it was actually a bonafide stupid country western song till last Wednesday while planting cuttings of a coleus plant.

And on another note (no pun intended), the thing about the "beer for my horses" song is this:

I would not be so stingy with my liquor.

If I had written that song and it was my choice about the booze, I would have sung: "Whiskey for my horses and Mouton Rothschild Cadet 1982 for me".

Fortunately for me, when I sobered up and began my recovery from alcoholism, Blaine was still gorgeous.  So I don't have to secretly hum the "you don't look so good since I stopped drinking" song.  I can actually sing that song like so:

"You look handsome whether I'm slobbering drunk or sober as a preacher, Blaine...."

(That IS a compliment, isn't it???)

Oh--- to change the subject---I just realized that I didn't write down the complete stanza of that song "I've got friends in low places".  It is:

"'Cause I've got friends in low places,
where the whiskey drowns
and the beer chases my blues away."

 I feel that these lyrics are self-explanatory.

Now, about the palace and the Jeep song.  In Blaine and my's case (is "my's" proper grammar?) when we divorced in 1997 I got the Jeep.  And I was damn glad to get it because it became the famous nurse-mobile I used for years while employed as a Road Nurse in Texas cattle country.  It gave me many blessings, especially that time it saved my life that time I was STUPID enough to drive it through a flash flood.  (Link here http://bohemianknitter.blogspot.com/search?q=McFly .) There's many of my stories listed there but the flash flood one is either a link in that list or else you can jump down to "So Are You Chicken, McFly?"

(That is all stuff from a portion of my old blog, upon which I blathered for years during the times I worked in the wild, wild west....)

Oh God......I just re-read all the stories on the above link and it triggered some awful flashbacks to past years, which is a symptom of my bipolar condition and also my PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).  The thing about my flashbacks is that they not only rocket me back to the good times but the bad times as well.  So let's forget about it and come back to my re-decorating of the house here in 2012...

I think I shall do the hall wall rounding the corner from the kitchen today.  I have an entire collection of chicken pictures I want to hang.  But not to worry---I shan't make the arrangement of chicken pictures look tacky.

(Yes, it's really true---I really do have a collection of chicken pictures.  I even have one picture of a leopard spotted chicken, heh.)

I shall do the wall in good taste.  Pics later...

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