Movie Tuesday

Today we saw Gangster Squad about a special, under the table, squad of LA police whose purpose was to rid 1949 Los Angeles of the plague of Chicago mobster, Mickey Cohen. Cohen was ruthless in his pursuit of owning L.A. and controlling crime in the west.

It was a lot better than expected, probably due to the quality of the actors...Sean Penn, Josh Brolin and Ryan Gosling. Lots of shooting and blood, but a good story, too, based on a novel of the same name.

Is it cold or am I just too old?

It was freezing, then it warmed up a little and we had rain (an inch) a couple days ago, then more rain, then hail, snow and more rain all in about 10 minutes. And now it's freezing again--no rain in sight. Was it this cold last year? Or does it just feel colder?

For Next Christmas

My Mom made this Christmas stocking for the newest member of the family, Monkey...I mean Morgan Brown, son of Danielle and Bryan. Mom has made a stocking for everyone in the family. They are all as elaborate and beautiful as this one.

Sunrise

We had a very pretty sunrise this morning.

Garage

The garage is coming along fairly quickly. All the doors and windows are in, the roof is on, and yesterday workers started to prep the building for stucco. There's a little more to be done today, then they'll put on the "primer," which I guess is called brown and scratch or something. Anyway, it's getting close. They're installing the bathtub today, too.

Movie Tuesday

Today we saw Zero Dark Thirty. I know people who walked out in the beginning during the torturing scenes and I fully understand. However, the movie got better and then a lot better and was pretty exciting at the end. So, although I didn't particularly want to see the movie, I'm not sorry I did now.

Meet our new kitty, Precious. That's right, we have another Precious, a black one. The vet's office called to see if we could give her a home. She's about a year old, is spade and has all her shots. I picked her up on Monday, but she still is hiding by Tuesday night. We're going to give her another couple of days, but if she's unhappy, I'm going to take her back.

Happy Birthday to Me

Another birthday. Yikes.

My aim was to minimalize any birthday celebrations, so we're having pasta at Mom's and I think Dennis got a chocolate mousse cake. Angie and Gary will be there, too.

We'll see what the day brings. Right now, 50-50 is by my side on the sofa supervising my keystrokes, every once in a while making keyboard corrections. Not an easy way to type.

Saturday

All I did Saturday was take a walk with Dennis and Flash, then sit on my butt for the rest of the day. Bill Maher was back on TV, so Dennis and I watched his program before Dennis and Flash went to town to meet Uncle Johnny and do some errands, a Saturday routine. After they left, I knitted, watched the 2-hr. finale of Fringe, and finished the 14th Reacher book, 61 Hours. After the fiasco on Friday, it was a nice, if lazy, day. I refrained from eating Bon-Bons.

Friday

The day started out pretty well. I drove to Alpine in the morning for a hair appointment. Dennis, meanwhile, went to the border for a meeting. While I was getting my hair done, he called and wanted me to meet him at Lowe's in Santee. He wanted me to look at stucco color samples, bathtubs, tile, etc. for the garage/craft room.

I don't understand people who love places like Home Depot or Lowe's. It's like walking back and forth across a football field cluttered with mysterious plastic and metal things.

Anyway, I got there around noon and wandered around Lowe's for about an hour, checking everything out on my list. Dennis said he would be done around 1, so I went back to the car and read my Kindle waiting for him. It was hot, believe it or not. After all the freezing weather, I was uncomfortably hot again way before summer.

I don't wait well, I admit. By the time Dennis finally got there, I was irritated and hungry. There's an In-'n-Out Burger right there, so we had lunch/dinner before going to Lowe's. Around 4, we went our separate ways, me back home and Dennis to pick up something at the store. When I got home an hour later, all the alarms and beepers were going off and there was no electricity. I ran around trying to herd cats in before dark. Got everybody except Bubba, who had gone on the roof again and was too chicken to come down. When Dennis got home, he had to put in a big red circuit breaker so we could have lights, etc. in the house, then he had to go upstairs in the garage and drag a ladder down so we could get the stupid cat off the roof.

Ay! I was exhausted and cranky.

Windy City

I've been working on my jewelry and glass database this week. Because Dennis was out of town skiing with the boys, I had a lot of time to devote to my task. Also, it was so windy and cold that there was no point in going outside. Yesterday the power was going in and out all day and night. Something wrong with our circuit breakers because no one else was having power problems.

Today is the windiest day of all. The temperature has come up to the 50s, but the wind is brutal. Even the outdoor cats are staying inside the breezeway.

There...the power went out again. I just went outside to see what happened in the circuit breaker box and I was nearly blown to Tecate!

I'm working in my Craft Room and watching the Godfather again. Hee, Hee, Hee

Spike

I am remembering my little yorky, Spike, today. He loved to swim and hated to wear clothes.

Spike 5/27/95 - 1/14/2012

Kittens Play in the Snow

It has been so cold at the ranch and Saturday was no exception. We awoke to 27 degrees and more snow this time, not hail. It stayed cold all day and I stayed in all day, alternately knitting and working on my laptop. I finally got Windows to run on my Mac so I could run the recipe program that has all our recipes on it--Living Cookbook. I baked cookies because we thought we might be having company. They didn't come so Mom, Dennis and I had the dinner we had planned to have for lunch with our company:  Tortilla soup and sandwiches on small buns. It was good. For dessert we had--guess what? Cookies!

Oh, hail!

 Seven miles away in Boulevard they got quite a bit of snow. But here we only got a bunch of hail. Oh, hail!

50-50 at work

50-50 found a warm spot between my laptop screen and the telephone on my desk. She was "helping" the Mac tech work on my Mac devices yesterday.

Rain Again

We could be in for some weird weather: rain, snow, and most definitely wind. Right now we're having a light rain and slight breeze.

He's Back!

Yesterday was a busy, busy day. First, of course, was the cat chores, inside and out. Then some computer work until 9:20 a.m. when I went to the barn to get Doc ready for our lesson. Betsy arrived around nine, bringing Flash with her. He'd been at the office or somewhere and followed her to the barn. We warmed Doc up with some walking around the arena while Flash did his Border Collie rush at us and around us. What a pain! Finally we all walked up to the office and Joanne enticed Flash into the office and shut the door so we could continue our lesson.

After the riding lesson, the Mac tech arrived and we got to work on making all my Mac devices sync so I could have the same contact and calendar information on each of them:  the iMac, MacBook Pro, iPhone and iPad. Egads. It took some time to get everything straightened out. It was the iCloud that was confusing me mostly. Plus I have too many email addresses. In any case, we are good to go.

As I was walking the tech guy out to his car, Sammy came running up all covered in dust. I was overjoyed to see him when I had thought he was dead. Oh, boy. I am a happy camper now that Sammy is back. I really care for that cat. We have some kind of bond and I missed him very much when he failed to come home the other day.

Yea! A very good day.

Sammy

To be honest, I can't remember anything outstanding about Sunday or Monday. But today, I took Mom to a doctor appointment in Santee and then we did some grocery shopping.

Everything was quite ordinary until I went to put the cats away at 4 p.m. Three of them popped in the window--and I shut it after them. I assumed Sammy would come around the other way as he usually does. But when I went to find him, he wasn't in his usual spot in the cat tunnel nor was he on the roof as he sometimes is. I called him and he didn't, for once, come running. I've been checking all evening but he hasn't shown up. I am very sad.

Movie Friday

Dennis won't be here Tuesday, so he and Mom and I went to the movies on Friday. We saw Jack Reacher. We all have read the entire Reacher series and I've been rereading them from the beginning. The best thing about getting old and losing your memory is that you can reread books and they seem brand new. I have yet to remember anything.

I spent the first part of the movie being mad that they chose Tom Cruise to play Jack Reacher. Reacher is 6' 5" tall, a giant compared to dinky Cruise. Yet, as the movie progressed, I began to enjoy Cruise's performance. We liked the movie, but all of us agree that Liam Neeson (6'5") or Jim Caviezel (6"2") (Person of Interest) would have been a more likely choice.

This morning (Saturday) we met Angie, Gary, Danielle, Bryan and baby Morgan for breakfast at Cafe 67 in Lakeside. We had a nice visit and were happy to see that Dani, Bryan and Morgan looked healthy and happy (well, Morgan cried a little).

In the afternoon, I took Flash for a mile walk around the ranch while Dennis stayed in town getting my car serviced and doing some errands.

Tonight we are watching the premier of Merlin, Season 5. I started knitting a scarf so I would have something to do while watching TV besides work on my computer. Yet, here I am doing this.

Lunch in La Jolla

We had lunch today at Henry and Margaret's home in La Jolla. We enjoyed our visit with them and with Karl and Hilkka who were visiting there. We met these friends through Ernie and Al many years ago. We miss Ernie and Al, both deceased, but are happy we have retained our friendship with many people we met in their friendship circle.

January 2

Took Mom to her doctor appt. in La Jolla this morning. The trip to La Jolla and back takes just about half a day or so. In the afternoon, Angie brought Amanda by for a short visit. Amanda got to chase the kittens all over and help Dennis put them away while I visited with Angie and helped her with her new iPhone. It was very windy in the morning, but the wind died down in the p.m.

50-50 on the last night of the year

50-50 and I cuddled on the sofa on a chilly New Year's Eve night.

Canoli

New Year's Day dessert: Canoli

Happy New Year 2013

We started the new year right this year. Left-over pizza for breakfast (Dennis had eggs) and a walk on the Sandy Creek Riding and Hiking Trail. It's pretty cold outside and the wind is starting to pick up. We watched the Rose Parade, me noticing all the beautiful horses.

Mom will come over around noon and we'll continue the Lord of the Rings marathon with the third movie, Return of the King. I've already put together the candied yams, so there won't be much to do to get dinner on the table. Dennis cut a fresh pineapple this morning and will be in charge of cooking the small ham we bought.

I'm also starting the new year right by writing in my Sandy Creek Ranch and Flash the Border Collie blogs. My new year's resolution is to write every day. We'll see how that goes. My other resolutions are:

1.  Take a walk every day, weather permitting.
2.  Continue physical therapy.
3.  Ride my horse at least twice a week. I'm hoping to get back to trail riding, but I have to work up to    at least 2.5 hours. Right now I can only ride for an hour.
4.  Train Flash every day.
5.  Get my jewelry website updated and keep it updated.

I can't think of anything else right now, so I have only one more thing to say:

Happy New Year!