Some Things Friday for April 9, 2010

I can't believe how fast the week flew by and that it is Friday already. My heart isn't into this right now, but I'm going to give it a shot anyway. If you find it boring and uninteresting, please just move along...

Some Things I Love:

1. The back door is open and I can hear a bird singing his/her heart out in the back yard. Spring is here.

2. Making the quilt for Zoey and selecting the fabric for Lily's quilt. I have ideas for Hagan's quilt, but fabrics with images of Taylor Swift don't exist, so I will have to find fabrics with patterns and images that will stand the test of time. I'd like to make quilts for my grandsons as well, but for them I think I will give t-shirt quilts a whirl.

3. Coming home even after the shortest vacation. It just feels so comforting.

4. The travel trailer that Tom bought, kept a secret from me and is now refurbishing side to side and front to back. I love to camp, but I realized during our trip to Yellowstone that I'm no longer a tent kinda gal.

5. I planted the tomato seeds I purchased a couple of weeks ago and bought some small starter plants earlier in the week: Dill, basil, red and orange bell peppers and two poblano peppers. I was so jealous of Chris' garden last year I thought I'd attempt to grow some peppers this year. If the peppers fail to perform I'm going to be pissed...and embarrassed.

Some Things I Hate:

1. Crying while driving. It's hard to see when tears are splashing all over your sun glasses and you're wiping your eyes and nose with kleenex. When I left Mike and Kathy's last weekend for the airport, I cried all the way to the freeway. Luckily there was little traffic and I didn't hit anyone.

2. Being at the mercy of the airlines. When I purchase an airline ticket with a specific schedule, I'd like to keep that schedule, thank you.

3. The excessive pollen in the air. It's really, really bad this year.

4. April 15th - tax time. I don't hate paying taxes. I hate preparing the stuff for input (which Tom does) into the tax program. Usually we are done by now, but we've procrastinated this year.

5. Nasty, mean, hateful, bitter, spiteful people who just can't keep their mouths shut and insist on spewing their venom at anyone, about anyone (including children), at every opportunity, as if we were interested in what they have to say. Guess what. We're not.

Some Things I Just Don't Get:

1. The obsession with all things Tiger Wood. I've already posted it on Facebook and Myspace, but did anyone notice that our President signed a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia? Does anyone care? In the vernacular of our beloved Vice President, the treaty was the Big Fucking Deal...Tiger Wood isn't.

2. I want to know why that "diplomat" who was smoking on the airplane headed for Denver and, when caught, made a joke about setting his shoes on fire (ha, ha, ha) is not in jail. Yeah, I know about diplomatic immunity, but if you or I did that, we'd be hauled in shackles to a court arraignment and have to explain to the judge that it was all just a silly joke. But the judge would not be laughing.

3. There's the Real Housewives of Orange County, of New York City, of Atlanta...how many other cities did I forget? I don't know because I don't watch them...any of them. The commercials are bad enough. Rich or wannabe rich women, completely narcissistic, snarky and selfish, having lunch, shopping, spa-ing and what have you. And now producers are adding "of Washington, D.C." because that's where the Salawi's (of the Presidential party crasher fame) have moved and the female Salawi will be part of the cast. These people are soooo not interesting.

4. Adoptive parents who give their children back or merely abandon them, like the woman I read about this morning on Huffington Post who sent her adopted son back to Russia with a one way airline ticket, unescorted and without notifying anyone to meet him, with a letter of explanation tucked in his baggage. Did these parents not understand being a parent was hard work? That kids have problems? Didn't they understand that you have to act like an adult and deal with whatever comes up? Didn't they understand that unconditional love is just that: unconditional?

5. Why Red Velvet Cake is so popular in the south. The red color isn't created by some mysterious chemical reaction with the ingredients. The red color is from red food coloring...lots of it. The cake does not taste like a white cake or a yellow cake. It has a couple of tablespoons of cocoa in it, but not enough to taste like a chocolate cake. Without the red food coloring it would be sort of a dark beige cake of nondescript flavor. Maybe the cake is just meant to be a flamboyant instrument of delivery for the mounds of cream cheese icing, which southerners say is the best part.