Cutest Preciousness

Watch this

Here is what he posted beneath the video on youtube.

This is a baby hummingbird I rescued after it was attacked.
The song is "Better Together" by Jack Johnson.
UPDATE!!! when she thought she was ready to leave (and she was) she flew off to her favorite patch of the back yard, and her instincts instantly kicked in, and now she's just like all the other hummingbirds. for those that are concerned that she has imprinted on humans and wouldn't survive in the wild, don't worry, she is thriving. she has even successfully migrated and returned back to my yard. and for those who think i didn't know what i was doing, i did NOT feed her plain sugar water. i went outside 3 times a day and caught flies from my compost bin in big bags, crushed them, and mixed them in as well. I also helped her learn to catch flies while flying (not in the video because you obviously wouldn't be able to see the flies). in the end, i don't think it could have worked out any better

Obsession

Oh Lord above, it might be a really L O O O O O N N N N N N G G G G G G  summer!

I am spending every free moment glued, and I mean glued to the screen watching the Casey Anthony Trial live.  And it is excruciatingly s l o w going.  Her lawyer seems to be a douchebag and I don't care for him one whit.  The judge is no Lance Ito, that's for sure.  He's not even anywhere near a good old-fashioned Judge Wapner.  He is slow.  s l o w.

Have I mentioned this trial is moving slowly?  It might still be going 20 years from now.  Someone will come in here and find my decrepit, stiff dried-up corpse with my claw-like hand stuck to the mouse STILL watching this oh-so-unquick-like moving trial.  I can sit here and watch cold molasses move faster than this trial moves.

This new obsession is in addition to my usual summertime Big Brother watching. Big Brother comes on 3 times a week, and (hopefully) they have late-night live feeds on showtime every night, AND if that isn't enough watching time you can also subscribe to the live feeds on your computer and watch those crazy houseguests/hamsters all day every day.  Please note that I did NOT say 24/7, because I loathe that little set of numbers.

Anyhoo, that is what I am doing.  When I am not working, I mean.  What are you doing?  Any new obsessions you care to share with the class?

Ranting. again.

I have decided I am on the path to becoming a curmudgeon.  And I like it that way.

Here are a few things that have irritated the beejeebers out of me lately:

1. Initials.  Wtf is up with companies wanting to go by initials and distancing themselves from their original names?  Case in point:  DQ

We know this stands for Dairy Queen.  Is it the Dairy or the Queen they want to avoid?

How about KFC?   It stands for Kentucky Fried Chicken.  Do they think if they don't call it that, we will all relax and go eat a bucket full and think it is NOT fried?

And while we are on Kentucky Fried Chicken, what is up with those idiots using Sweet Home ALABAMA as the theme song of their commercials?   Is Kentucky in Alabama?  Not the last I looked at a map, it wasn't.

P&G, same thing.  Procter and Gamble, is that so hard to say?  It's two more syllables to say the name correctly.

2. Remember recently when I was bitching about the moron contestants on Jeopardy! who say "hunnerd"? Well, it still bothers me.

3. Lately, I have noticed a huge increase in the spelling errors on the news.  When they put the headlines across the bottom of the t.v. screen, or in the crawl below that (both of which annoy the crap out of me) they have more and more errors all the time.  What is up with that?  Are there no standards at CNN?  Does no one really give a shit anymore?

4. I went to a TGI Fridays today for lunch and believe me when I tell you it is the last time I will make that mistake.  2 or 3 weeks ago I met some friends there for lunch and they had notices taped up at eye-level all over the front doors telling us that their credit card machines were down and they were only able to accept cash.  Ok, that's understandable.  Today, there were more notices on the doors saying that all their grills were broken and you could not order burgers, steaks or anything grilled.  Wtf?

So when I walked in the ditzy girl/hostess person says to me, "Hi, welcome to Fridays. Did you see the signs?"  To which I replied "Yes I did, and the last time I was here you had signs about the credit card machines."  She just looked at me with a vacant look in her eyes and asked if I wanted a table or booth. Dumb ass.  No acknowledgement of yes, this happened.  No friendly banter with the customer to smooth over the fact that this place is falling apart.  Nothing.

Yep, last time at Fridays.

Speaking of chain food places that have gone downhill, have any of you noticed how shitty things have gotten at Chili's?  Over the last couple of years the quality of the food and service have just plummeted. We decided the last time we were there many months ago, that it would be the very last time.

Listen, the long list of chain restaurants that I have given up just keeps growing and growing.  Applebee's, Mickey D's, Burger King, Whataburger, Chili's, P.F. Chang's, Melting Pot, Ruby Tuesday's, IHOP (more initials), those are the ones I can think of right off the top of my head.  It was 2002 when I last went to a Burger King.

I don't miss any of those places and I guess they don't miss me either.

5. MTV's show 16 and Pregnant hit an all-time low last night.  I was yelling at the t.v. the whole time it was on and towards the end I just got sad and depressed.  Good Lord, it was the worst one yet.  The mom of this girl was so unplugged from her daughter's life it just made me want to alternately cry in despair or grab that woman by the neck and throttle her.  Holy shit.  This poor girl is anorexic and just crying out (figuratively and literally) for her mama to get involved and help her.  Absolutely broke my heart.  The only saving grace of this situation is that the boyfriend/baby daddy was a really good guy with an optimistic outlook and more patience than should be legal.  My heart was just breaking for this girl, the boyfriend, and the little baby.  So so sad.

In addition to the "teen pregnancy is 100% preventable" disclaimer they also had to throw up some for eating disorders.  Oh!  And get this!  When the girl was asking for help to figure out how to manage her food intake and such, the doctor just gave her a lame-ass response about eating fruit instead of cookies.  Not exactly helpful.  Especially since they should have had a full work up and been aware of the eating disorder and been more proactive with her diet.

I think I am grumpy and giving over to my curmudgeonly urges due to the fact that I am STILL getting up at the crack of dawn most every day, and I still have at least 10 more days of doing this.  So I will do my best to be perky, chipper and full of pep with my next post.

Feel free to share a few rants and let me know what bugs you.

I am such a slacker, but my friend isn't.

I have been a really bad blogger.  I love reading all your blogs and staying current, but I have not been posting and returning the favor.  And for that I am sorry.

Life has been pretty busy over here.  I have picked up new clients and their schedules and mine weren't meshing well, so I am doing what any good doula would do and am adjusting myself and my schedule to theirs.  And for whatever reason they all want to meet at the crack of dawn.  Now, you probably know this about me already, but I am NOT a morning person.  I am whatever is the polar opposite of a morning person.  So, this is a HUGE undertaking getting me and my late-night self all synched up with the morning folks.  By 2 in the afternoon I am exhausted!  Good Lord!

Anyhoo, that is why I have not had the inspiration to post anything.

Today, I am here to tell you all about my friend Mary Helen and her NEW BOOK!  This is a sequel so you probably want to check out the original book as well.

Here is a link to her blog and her post about the book:

Let me tell you a little back story about Mary Helen and me.  We met when we were both living in the same neighborhood in Guadalajara.  We have kids that are the same ages.  We each have a boy followed by a girl and it was natural for our kids to have great play dates.  They were so cute together.  I will have to dig around and find some pictures of them to show you.  I think they had more fun at Mary Helen's house because she always painted their faces and they had great imagination play over there.

So Mary Helen is a journalist and was living in Chile during the Pinochet years and met her fabulously fun and charming British geologist husband down there.  That is where she started gathering the beginnings of her first book, Soldiers in a Narrow Land.

There were many times when Mary Helen needed to focus on her writing and research and I had the kids all over to my house so she could focus for just a few hours.  We had so many lovely times together having dinner parties, play times, and our husbands played tennis on Saturday mornings.

And who knew that many years later and many moves later, my family would end up in Chile?  We lived there just after her book came out.  The family who became our very best friends in Chile had this book on their shelves and when I commented on it, she told me that her company had made it required reading for all their employees who did business in Chile.

And just so you don't think this is just me being all biased and proud, click here to read an unbiased review of this book.

It has taken many years and lots of trips back to Chile to complete the sequel of this book.  Here is a look at the cover:

I have ordered the Kindle edition to carry with me AND I ordered the hardback to send to Mary Helen to sign for me and put on my shelf next to the other one.  

If you are interested in reading something that is not the usual light summer reading that you won't remember five minutes later, you should definitely check out these books.  If you are interested in the very recent history of one of our neighboring countries in this hemisphere, you should read these.  And if you ever want to travel in Chile, one of the most beautiful and diverse countries on the planet, I highly recommend you read these just to have some backstory about the culture and the people from the last 50 years.

And sign up to read her blog, she posts some really interesting articles not always carried by the mainstream news.

Seriously?

You know how I feel about stupid people being allowed to not only NAME their kids ridiculous names, but also RAISE them!  Arg, it just drives me nuts.  These cute little babies are not extensions of your idiot selves, but human beings who are going to grow up and hate your ass for saddling them with horrible names.

So I have two new stories about dumb asses naming babies.  The other day we were at the big graduation and we are following along in the printed program and reading all the names (and secretly guesstimating how much longer we are going to be sitting and not eating since we were all starving!).  And word got passed around in our group to look on page 55.  Left column.

I don't recall the middle or surname, but the first name was a doozy.

Are you ready?




Aquanetta.

Just like that.  Aquanetta.   All one word.  Of course by then she had long since crossed the stage so we didn't get to see Aquanetta and decide whether or not her name fit her.  Heeeee!  My guess is that if I have gone 50 years and never before seen an Aquanetta before, I may never see another one.  So it was my loss.

And now you need to check out this link.  These people should be beaten about their heads and shoulders for doing this to a small child.

Go ahead, click over and read.  It's short and I will wait.

chirp, chirp, chirp.  Just waiting and whistling over here.

Are you back?  Can you believe people are that strange?

Me neither.

Over here at Chez Lisa Pie I name only the pets with interesting names.  I figure they don't really give a shit.  But my human children?  They got what I consider to be beautiful timeless Biblical names.  I didn't want my kids to grow up and hate me, thank you very much.

T.V. Finales

So, I have been traveling to my nephew's graduation with his MBA and not here to post anything, but I am home for a while till the next nephew's graduation from high school in a few weeks!

And last night there were two great t.v. series' season finales.  First up was Survivor.

This whole season belonged to Boston Rob.  I can not think of a single thing he did that was wrong in hind sight, not even a teeny bit stupid.  He played impeccably.  He was driven, focused and never once got swayed into doing something stupid.  Unlike every other player on his team and the other.  Every single person (aside from BR) made a bone-headed move.  I am sooooooo happy that he won.  He deserved it and I can not imagine another outcome to this season.

Congratulations Boston Rob!

That Amber is a lucky girl, isn't she?  First, she proves herself to be the winner of her season.  She gets proposed to on national t.v.  Then they go on Amazing Race.  And now they each have won their own million bucks.  Plus he got the extra fan favorite $100,000.  So that's pretty cool, too.

My guess is that they will never let him play again.  Hee!

And then we had the season finale of Desperate Housewives.  Let me just say this:  If it weren't for Gabby & Carlos I would have shut the door on this show 2 or 3 seasons ago.  Gabby is just the perfect blend of hilarious self-centeredness and fierce love and loyalty to her husband, daughters and friends when needed.

Susan is ridiculous.  Just plain ridiculous.

Bree.  I don't even know what to say about her.

Lynette.  It is flat-out painful to watch her emasculate her husband week in and week out and then be shocked that he reacts to that treatment.

Thank God they have Karen McCluskey on that street to just tell those nasty bitches how things really are!

I am not sure if I will be able to stand another season of this show or not.  Any thoughts?

p.s. Less than 2 months to the new season of Big Brother!  Any one up for all-nighters watching the Showtime after dark and watching the feeds 24 hours?  Gawd, I hope there will be some fun and interesting characters this year.

Hilarity

This is one of my new favorite commercials.

It's from the Super Bowl so it is not a new commercial, just one of my new favorites.  Does that make sense?

Have you been watching Modern Family?  I swear that has to be the funniest most side-splitting show ever made.  There is so much funny stuff happening you can watch them over again and find things you missed the first time when you were busy slapping your knees!

And I know you all must have seen this one already, since I posted it to my fb page last week.  But this is just hysterically funny!

Laughter, it's what makes the world go round.  Have a good laugh today and whatever your worries are will not seem quite so overwhelming.  : )

Family Tree and the nuts who inhabit

Remember way back in February when I was sick and wheezing and coughing my fool head off?  Well, since I couldn't lay down due to the coughing fits that would happen I spent a lot of time sitting up.  So I did what one would do and signed up for a year's worth of service on Ancestry.com and started inputting everything I knew about the ancestors.

Here is what I have found out:

1. I now have 841 people on the extended branches of my tree

2. If you were a German, Scot, English or Irish farmer, blacksmith or cooper I am descended from you.

3. 7 generations back in my tree is my 5th great grandmother who is first cousin to Francis Scott Key.

4. One branch of the family has my ancestor arriving in Boston, Mass. in 1630 on a ship called the Planter.  (This is just ten years after the Mayflower)  He was one of the founders of New Haven, Connecticut.  And this family had several documented cases of nutters.  Something you never want to have happen when there are witch trials going on around you.

5. An Irish many-great grandfathers arrived in South Carolina around 1750.  His son married a girl who was a fifth-generation Virginian on her mother's side.  On her father's side they were English and the records go back to 1390.

6. I had ancestors fight in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and on both sides of the Civil War.

7. It is much easier to find the really old stuff rather than the newer stuff. The government had set a law when they started taking the census that the information wouldn't be released for 72 years after the fact. This was the average life span at the time and they didn't feel they would be jeopardizing anyone still living  by waiting that length of time.  What that means is the latest census you can work from is 1930. My mother-in-law, for example, was born in 1934 so I hit a dead end when working on her side of the family.

8. It would be a whole lot easier to get the records matched up to the right person if there weren't 4 or 5 generations of men with the SAME DAMN NAME!  Why do men want to name their sons after themselves?  Change the middle name or something!

9. I have 2 ancestors of the same generation, both from Iowa, but different sides of the family whose mothers both died in childbirth and they were raised by family members.

10. I think this ties in nicely with my weekly obsession with reading the obituaries and finding a little history of the families.

11. I love the old names.  Sarah, Malinda, Mahala, Levi, Solomon, Jeremiah, Joab, Xavier, Duncan, Rachel, Hannah, Jesse (male) and Jessie (female).

12. It is a very common southern thing for women to use their maiden name as the first name for one of their sons.  And I knew this so to find it occurring in my own family tree was not surprising.  But what was surprising was to find a Mr. Thomas Wicker who married a Miss Sally Talley.  And do you know what they named one of their sons?

Talley Wicker.

Yep.  Unless there are fake records up on ancestry.com and someone thought it would be hilarious to play an eternal April Fool's Day joke on me.  There is a Talley Wicker in the branches.  Can you say that three times fast?

I think I will stop there with Talley Wicker because it's an even dozen on the list and really?  what can I say after that?

Day after holiday let-down. Oh, and some obit reading too!

Anyone get that Day after a Holiday Let-Down Feeling?  You know what I mean?  I think all the anticipation and build-up to a holiday and then the day of with all the excitment and emotion hits a peak and then . . . .

WHAM!

Nothing.

Just time to start building back up for the next holiday.

Can you guess who woke up a little sad, nostalgic and such today, the day after Mothers Day?  And this is a real shame because Mothers Day was a really nice day over here at Chez Lisa Pie.  Other than my very small and precious Rachel Pie not being here, it could not have gone any better.

And, I was able to get some obituary reading in as well!  So talk about a good day!  Woot!

Now that I have used up all the excitement points for the day I will get on with the obit reading, readers digest condensed version style.

This week we had more versions of "passed away", "died" than I think I have ever seen.  Oh!  And by the by, I was reading some antique obits while on ancestry.com and doing geneology stuff.  Boy oh boy, did they have way better ways of sending people off than we do now.  I will try and remember to post something from way back in the day for y'all.

Anyhoo, here are some of the euphemisms for dead that were used this week:

Entered peacefully into God's rest.


Our Heavenly Father opened his arms to our loving mother, grandmother.


Billie Louise received her wings.


Entered eternity on April 18.


Josephine embraced God on May 5.


Died suddenly.


Entered into peaceful rest at the age of 89.


passed away peacefully after a short illness on Tuesday at her daughter Ellen's home.


was called home to be with Jesus.


passed away suddenly.


was freed from his earthly bonds on May 3 and is now with his parents in the heavenly kingdom.


"Mother, mother ocean. I have heard you call".  On May 1, Steve heard Mother Ocean's call and passed away in his sleep.


a devoted family man joined our heavenly Father on April 30, with his loving wife of 26 years by his side.


Jon had music in his heart and soul. His music and his son made his life complete.


Hannah was 99 years old when she passed away during he early morning hours of April 28.


Retired teacher, Eva entered the eternal embrace of her loving Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer.


See what I mean?  That is a whole lot of ways of saying passed away or died.

Other things that were interestingly worded were in one particular obit.  Whomever wrote this felt the need to "put everything in quotes" like that.  Such as husband's nickname, "apple of her eye" to describe the grandson, the phrase "fierce force" to describe her work in the banking field, and calling her "one of the elites".  There were a whole lot of quotation marks is what I am saying.

My favorite family today had 3 generations of Clydes.  First Clyde was known as Clyde, Sr. Then came the second one known as Buster.  His son Clyde was known as Chico.  Personally, I think Clyde is an awesome name and I would rather be known as Clyde than either Buster or Chico.

I hope you had a great Sunday whether you are a mom or not.

Red Lentils

I don't know where I read this, but I *did* read about red lentils.  And somehow the little teeny red French lentils are supposed to be better tasting and better for you.  So I got some local organic red French lentils from Greenling, my local online green grocer that delivers.  I love these people.  They are so customer-satisfaction-driven and that is exactly what I appreciate in a company.

Anyhoo, back to the lentils.  Here's what I did:

Up there is the ingredients I used.  The tub of lentils, fresh celery, carrots (and let me just say here that the organic carrots are the juiciest, sweetest, and best-tasting ones we have available to us.  Spend the extra few cents.), garlic, ginger, veggie broth and garam masala.

Then I tried to dump out the lentils on a plate so you could see how pretty they were.

Below is the carrots, celery and garlic all sauteeing in some olive oil that I didn't show you.

The finished product would have looked much better had I poured it into a pretty bowl rather than try to photograph it in the pot.

In spite of the bad pics, this lentil soup was delicious.  You might notice that the extra-nice red lentils lost their color in the cooking process.  That said, maybe all the propaganda about the red lentils wasn't about the redness but rather the great texture and flavor?

I am thinking I may do this again soon.

Who's been a bad blogger?

Heeeee!  When I typed "bad blogger" the first time up there in the title, it came out "baG blogger".

Bag blogger?  wtf?

I am always curious when I do things like that if they are Freudian slips or if they are just clumsy fingers.

So here's the deal, I was in a training the week before last learning to be an Infant Massage Educator. And this past week at a Doula Training.  In the middle of the classes was Easter weekend and my car's breakdown.  Been a busy time at Chez Lisa Pie, is what it has been.

Can you even flipping believe that it is May?

MAY????

Already?

You know what this means, don't you?  I am already behind making my Christmas plans.  If I am going to call myself a person who makes and handcrafts all my gifts they I need to be more on the ball with the planning and creating, don't I?

So I am asking for all ideas on things I can make for gifts.  Any ideas are welcome.  My criteria is that the gifts should be things that are welcome, consumable if possible, environmentally friendly, and it would be even better if they were meaningful for the recipient.  Oh, and it should have no parts that are stamped Made in China.  I am boycotting Made in China what with their shitty faux drugs, tainted pet food and melamine (plastic) in infant formula.  Shame on them and their no-standards-selves.

Any ideas?

Now, on to something completely different.

~~~~  The Reading of the Obits!  ~~~~


Oh, how I wish I could share some of these photos with you!  I just adore the old pics from the '40s and '50s.  Cute hair-dos and earbobs, abound!

There was an absolutely precious photo of Helen Ruth who "passed from this life into the loving arms of the Lord".

Next we come to this one: "Our Lord called Adelina to his heavenly home."

This one was really clever: "Celeste was escorted by angels to her eternal home."

I loved this one.  This man was a professional baseball player and "was known to many as the man who struck out Mickey Mantle and he was proud to let people know it with the newspaper clipping he carried in his wallet."

**How cool is that?


Ok, you will love the story told in the next obituary.  It would make a great novel or a movie.

"At the age of 14, after traveling along 19 days, on a ship from China to California, he arrived in San Antonio in 1938. He attended an American school and slo attended the Chinese school working alongside his father and brothers at Sunny Side Grocery Store. It was there that he learned his great work ethic. He eventually moved to Laredo, Texas where he managed the Shanghai Cafe and that was where he met his future wife."

**See?  Isn't that a great story?  It goes on to say that after retirement, he and his wife traveled to China, Mexico and took cruises.


Then we came to one of a man that I actually knew.  Many years ago we were in the same area and I knew of him back then.  After listing all him many civic and charitable accomplishments his family had this to say "He lived his life based on Christian principles, especially to help others in need. He exemplified honesty, integrity and a work ethic that he passed on to his children. His glass was always half full."

Best and most wonderful names belongs to the obituary of Miss Lilly Pearl who was born in Crabapple Creek.  She was married to Chester Louis and sister to Herbert.  She was an avid rose grower and a "consulting rosarian" with the San Antonio Rose Society.

**If my name were Lilly, I might have raised lillies rather than roses.


And I am sorry to do this but it has to be done.  The family that gets the You People Should Not Be Allowed to Bestow Stupid Names on Innocent Babes award includes these:

Julio Cesar

Misty

Krystal (like the burgers??)

Channce

Codie

Cash Bailey

and bringing up the rear . . .

Canyen.

This is closely followed by the Family with the Worst Nicknames:

Debbie = Booboo

John = Big Boy

Last but not least, since he was alphabetically last we come to Mr. Kenneth Wayne W. who will be dearly missed by his friends and loyal rat terrier, Clyde.

**Awwww.  No family?  Just friends and a loyal rat terrier?  How sad.  There were no services listed either.  R.I.P. Mr. Kenneth Wayne.  


I sure hope one of his friends takes Clyde and gives him a good home.