Well, not exactly, or I should say, not yet, but they are having their way with my desk now! Last week I opened a bag of cough drops and it, too, was alive with ants. I've put a double ant trap on my desk which will hopefully eradicate them. The ants are teeny tiny and fast as all get out, but not quite fast enough to outrun my thumb or pointer as I squish them. The Douglas family would have a fit with me squishing and trying to kill these ants. It's either me or the ants, me or the ants!!!! I hear the theme from "Pink Panther" as I chase them around my desk: dead ant, dead ant, dead ant, dead ant, dead ant, etc.
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The housekeepers were here yesterday when Justin was hooking up the Internet for me, and after he was gone, Angela just went on and on about how handsome and tall he's gotten since she first knew him. I've used this company since the lake house so they've known him in high school. She remembers how I'd say not to worry about his room because it wasn't clean enough for the cleaners to walk through! Every now and again I'd have to work my way into the room and work with him, much to his delight. Oh, yes, those were fun times!
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I'm listening to a "Seinfeld" episoda which includes more chanting:
"Mandelbaum, Mandelbaum!" Jerry gets into an unwilling competition with an extremely aged trio of grandfather, father and son who want to show Jerry they are stronger than he is. Jerry's dad loves his T-shirt Jerry brought with him, which Kramer bought from a street vendor that says "#1 Dad", about six sizes too small, saying it's the best gift Jerry ever gave him. Jerry says, "You do remember I bought you a Cadillac, don't you? Twice!"
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Kramer asked Jerry to bring him back some Cubans from Del Boca Vista (Miami), and he agrees, only to discover they are not cigars, but human beings! When Jerry calls to tell Kramer they are people and not cigars, Kramer says, "Jerry, Cuban cigars are illegal in this country" in a real righteous tone, saying he's bring in Cuban cigar rollers to make his own! The Mandelbaum's are in the crepe business and to make a long story short, the cigar rollers, who are really Dominicans, end up in the crepe business, but blow the whole thing up by rolling the crepes too tightly, like you would a cigar. "Try to take a vacation, you come back and the whole operation is in a shambles!" I feel that way, too, when I get back from a trip.
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My neighbor and I are not able to coordinate our Saturdays to allow for going to the movies and my Sunday is full to the brim. I gave them permission to go ahead without me because with Jeff's flying schedule, they aren't as flexible with their time. I went to see Ellen, my neighbor, yesterday, taking her framed piece and touched up photos. She was in bed, sleeping, but Billy took me in to see her anyway. We had a nice visit although I had to carry much of it, no problem. She is still groggy from her medications and has no appetite or ambition. I left her to her nap but Billy was evidently tickled at having someone to talk to so I was treated to a lovely private concert on his rehearsal keyboard, which sounds exactly like a grand piano. He played original compositions in his favorite genre, classical. Billy's training was in classical music and its his passion, he told me all about his teachers and such when he was growing up on the Westside.
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He showed me, again, his special guitars and other pieces of memorabalia, some with autographs of the original band members, those killed in the crash. Billy told me the reason he needs to wear the dark glasses is because his tear ducts were damaged in the plane crash, but fortunately, his vision is not affected. He is a walking story, let me tell you!
This is a photo taken with Ellen's cell phone of Billy wearing my red coat from Turkey last year. Some of the gold records are visible behind him but they pale next to my beautiful coat!!!! In his hand is a walking stick so he sort of looks like Kramer did in the "Wig Master" episode!!!!*
I, of course, launched into the framing and preserving abilities of Great Hang Ups and offered to have him come down some time to see what they've done for me and to see my glass pieces from there. He said, "I can come right now" so off we went. I am so glad the housekeepers had just been here! He loved the place, and went crazy, figuratively speaking, about my house. I might not have gold records on the walls, but I do have other treasures.
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One thing that caught Billy's eye was the arrangement of plaques on my dining room wall about faith, hope, love, integrity, trust, etc., which Justin had gotten me for Christmas a few years back. As I opened them, he said, "I got these because this what you are all about." Talk about a gift! Obviously, the fact he thought that about me was gift enough, but then he, in his inimitable Justinisms said, "They had your eye prints all over them!", since they were from Kirkland's, one of my favorite stores at the Mall. That kid! Anyway, Billy loved the plaques and he loved the story behind this gift. He kept saying he had to bring Ellen down here to see my glass and all that, but she's been here a number of times. He said it was like being in a museum.
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Well, after he left, I got busy in my office making good use of my new Internet connection. All of a sudden, I heard this bang, bang, bang at my door. I dashed to see if perhaps I had a delivery or something, and there stood Billy with a tin of cookies and some caramel apples for me. Wow! He said the cookies had to be frozen or eaten immediately so I told him that I'd sit down and eat them right away! It was a huge tin of David's cookies, and I popped it into my freezer. One of the apples had caramel, nuts and tiny chocolate chips on it, but the apple was very difficult to cut apart. What a sour apple it was under all that good stuff! Don't tell him but I only ate part of it, and it was mess---chocolate chips and nuts all over the place. Hey, that might account for the ants!!!
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