thank you, Miss Robey

o

ooooooooooooo

Miss Robey was our homeroom and english teacher when skaterina was a sophomore in high school

that would be 1947-48

she had a wondrously huge nose
a commanding nose
a nose like nose other nose
and she was er um truly homely

but not ugly / there is a difference / dont ask / dont tell

a memorable nose and a memorable teacher / she loved her subject / she relished her subject / when she told about shilish marner (Silas Marner) she kinda slurped through the silas part in juicy kind of way / we all came to appreciate silas marner

she assigned book reports and made us do them / smile

this is what i really thank her for / the book reports / having to get up in front of the class and risk making a fool of yourself / sheesh / it just had to be done

else how wd we get out of ourselves ?

?

what mrs foley ate today

espresso with hot milk
rice edamame corn with maple syrup bacon bits and splashes of thick cream and butter
a grain and seed breakie, that

chocolateorange bread with whipped cream

this is the cream diet

roast beef hash with Fancy Ketchup

not done yet / the day is young

Rudolph and Frosty

these fatuous tunes have been planted in my brain pan

when i was a kid Christmas music was Silent Night / O Come All Ye Faithful / Hark the Herald Angels Sing

oh where are they now ?

not in the shifty markup

Passport Picture

we decided we were having a good hair day so we went to the post office to have our picture taken for our new passport

we were wrong about the hair

and then when La Senora della Vanita looked at our pictures she pointed to our rosy cheeks

hmmmm ? she murmured

have you been drinking wee drams of port in the afternoon ?

oh no we said

our cheeks are rosy from walking in the sunshine on the desert

that's our story and we are sticking to it

we are reeling . . . . .

. . . . . .

from all the turning points and tipping points we are experiencing lately

we dont know which end is up

we run around in circles so we dont careen off the walls

worst of all we cant find the exit

surely an escapade is in the offing

now ? yes, NOW

being lazy today

so lazy i cannot describe thanksgiving again so this is what i wrote to the NewsBlog

i was prepared to give thanks that i was not cooking anything at all for the dinner bc my grandson and his girlfriend and friends from back east were putting on the ritz / they had two turkeys one for her to roast and one for him to deep fry / the guests cranked out a phalanx of pies / but somehow the gf's turkey ended up in my oven and so i made the gravy too / for which i was thankful after all / that all of them pitched in was wonderful and heartwarming / but of course, as Jane Smiley wrote on huffington post there is always someone who cries over the food / in my case it was the sheer volume of food that i fear will go to waste / whilst cleaning up i heard my daughter saying Save the Bones, Save the Bones / why, whatever for / oh we make broth and so on

it was a nice day / ironically we have a spare turkey here at my daughter's house / she lives next door to me / as luck wd have it the NYT showed how to make a turkey confit with thighs, wings, legs, garlic, herbs, salt and two quarts of olive oil

i have never made a confit before so that is how i will spend the day

btw, as i wrote on the foodblog about mash taters with cream cheese the grandkid did 'em up to our highest standard of mash taters / yay
Katherine Hunter | 11.24.06 - 9:27 am | #

Miss Tickle is making us lose our killer belly fat

she says to keep our heart drumming along nicely it is essential to dump the killer belly fat

she makes Caterina, our Cugina della Cucina, promise to stop doubling the amount of butter in every recipe

Caterina has to make a lot of stuff with fiber like Humdingers, her tasty fiber cookies

and we have to eat hot cereal with hemp seed meal thrown in

and cut down on godblossom as it makes us indiscriminately munch

like, you know, the blind munchies

pasta only every ten days

mezzo porzione / that's half a portion of pasta

we feel better already

can you pee a pound ?

<<>>

we weigh ourselves in the morning when we get out of bed in our night clothes

night clothes are usually lightweight linen

later when we get dressed we become naked and then we weigh a pound less than with the night clothes on

one morning we got naked and weighed ourselves and then we peed and then we weighed ourselves again / just curious, you know

we weighed another pound less

did we really pee a pound ?

son.out.law sez just because a scale is digital doesnt mean it is accurate


note : we is the royal we / or maybe the royal weewee

iWeb urls

we are practicing using iWeb, the .mac webpage application

our first pages are here :

you will have to cut and paste as several attempts at the linkage code is failing / doan no why

http://web.mac.com/skaterina/iWeb/Site/Blog/Blog.html

http://web.mac.com/skaterina/iWeb/skaterina/patio.html

stuck stumped stupified stymied

?????????????????????????????????????

lather rinse repeat

?????????????????????????????????????

arriving at old ladyness

you know you have arrived when you have whiskers on your chinny chin chin

smile

just two or three

i stroke lovingly

(now i know why men have beards)

(whiskers are like having a beloved pet on your chin)

life by numbers

change the clock
turn it back
now it is no longer dark at seven in the morning
and it will be very very dark at seven in the evening

this number change rearranges all ones routines if one wants

Mrs Foley looks in the mirror . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

oh
i see i was right
i said when
i was younger

i am too vain to be vain

now i look like i have been dragged through a knothole backwards

hmmm / smile

yet somehow comforting to be all let gone and growing old as ungracefully as possible

(yet all those other parts of me / especially Miss Tickle with her heart-healthy ways / are calling in
la donna della vanita*



* put a little accent mark over the second a in vanita / thatta girl)

Feeding Mrs Foley

Caterina la cugina italiana anche dalla cucina

well she is learning how to cook for one

the one and only

Mrs Foley

tonite she wants potatoe chips with sourcream onionsoup dip

Mrs Foley Flirts . . .

> > > > > >

. . . . . . . . . .


with dementia
? dimentia ?

in other words (IOW)

further adventures in the art of Controlled Schizophrenia

Mrs Foley promises to herself that she will refrain from
walking around the neighborhood without clothes on

she will always go as someone else

doing something different

constant change is here to stay

all i needs is one reader / smile

~~~~~~~~~~~~~@@@@@@@@@@@@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

thanks, kate

inventory . . tomatoes . . 2006

7 quarts red ripe tomatoes of all varieties grown this summer / with a layer of golden strawberry topping three of the quarts / gorgeous / no garlic

4 pints golden toms and one additional 4 oz jar

3 pints tomatoes with tomatillos and garlic

7 halfpint jars Fancy Ketchup / Catsup

9 halfpint jars tomato garlic jam

7 pints tomato garlic jam

2 pints plum toms with cherry toms and garlic and 1 halfpint

5 pints spicey and a little hot

5 halfpints cherry toms with garlic and one small sample jar

4 pints whole roasted genovese with garlic

1 pint whole roasted marvella (so beautifullymelony)

5 half pints pickled onion relish in chutney syrup

2 halfpints (the flat jars with platinum lids) special relish (onion.peppers)

3 flatpints of green zebra

3 flatpints of golden strawberry

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

one quart spiceyhot tomato juice in the reefer

hmmmm . for virgin merries ?

godmother

a young man ambles up the driveway
have i a surprise for you, he says

i am B.... M.... and you are my godmother, he announces

ooops / my last known memory of this young man he is 16 and i am 40something living the get away from it all life on a mesa in se Utah / no water, no electricity, no clocks, mirrors, tv

what do you DO there ? he asked

i see a spectacular sunset every evening

he says he'd rather watch Starsky and Hutch

that was then and this is now

^^^^^

indeed he is the son of best friends during the young married phase of my life when, yes, skaterina participated in such events as bridal showers, baby showers, christenings, and general allround comaraderie with former highschool and college pals, hanging out at home and abroad, sharing beach cottages, ski trips, and supporting each other through mental breakdowns and what not

we were all growing up together

this godson's parents died youngish (under 50) and that was a while ago / we would all be 70somethings now / and so close contact went down the drain

now said godson lives in the same state but up north and has brought his two sons down to our mtn bike, jeep loving town to partake of the local recreation and he acquired my address from another old pal

well......

at this point i wish to revise history and tell what i would have liked to happen next for example we planned a get together for later that day / say 5:30 and a picnic supper on my new tumble rock patio where the dining table now resides

how charming and bucolic with the two boys, 8 and 10, having a merry time on our property with the dogs and so on while we got reacquainted and all of this out of doors

for, you see, my house is a jumble with my bedroom now in the living room so the bedroom can be replastered / all is awry and i am not as flexible as i used to be with my routines / i like to go to bed early, yeah, like 8 o'clock

so when he calls and sez we got lost on the trail we cant be there until 7 / i go along / daughter
now sez it is too cold to eat outside and she willy nilly hauls the table back inside necessitating further rearrangements of furniture

i drink some gin and mineral water and then i drink some more while waiting for them to arrive to we can eat the rather divine chicken wings and assorted salads

drink some more gin n min

whew well at last they arrive, the boys too tired to participate with the adults, boring as we must be, and shucks there are no toys and they are too picky to eat the wings and salad and a pizza must be ordered in a town with no delivery

sonoutlaw volunteers to go get the pizza which upon inspection hardly seems the kind of rubbish one would eat if one were truly "picky"

nevermind

canning by colour

red tomatoes / genovese / big beef / early girl / julliettes

green tomatoes / green zebras

golden strawberry tomatoes

yellow pears

sugar snack

to layer in a quart jar

or

to can separate small jars / each a different colour and colour combination / for instance yellow pears and golden strawberry and little sugar snacks / and another that is just golden / just marvella / just green zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

to make colourful wintertime pizze

yow

Palm grease

(((((((**********)))))))

palm grease is the oil that comes off your hand onto
the buttons of your remote control

skaterina noticed that many of the buttons on the remote were dingy grungy despite them not being punched often or not at all

she wd expect the most punched buttons to be dimmed with grey but not all the buttons for the vcr which she does not use with this television

allora cosi :

as she handles the remote and positions it in the palm for rapid execution and response (quick hit the mute) the hand just naturally emits some of its essence

we now address the issue of how to clean the remote