be my valentine

I realize I'm a few days late for Valentine's Day. But I stumbled upon these afterward and they were just too wonderful too pass up.

There's nothing quite like vintage cards.  In decades past, people really knew how to express their innermost feelings.  How to make a greeting  . . . memorable.


Source

wet paws and melting snow

There are at least three black cats that call my street home.  And despite the fact that one loves to climb onto the hood of my car with his sharp little claws and another likes to come up to our windows and annoy my faithful cat, Lucky, it's hard not to love them.  Black cats are Halloween personified. Or perhaps that should be "cat-ified".

I was picking up my mail today when this little guy came trotting down the street toward me.  Stepping carefully around puddles left by the quickly melting snow on this suddenly spring-like February day.

I thought he was coming to visit me, but no.  Just passing by.  No time even to stop and pose for a proper photograph.  Likely had some Halloween planning to do.  And with today's reminder that spring is not far off, that is what my thoughts are turning to.

a tree's crowd

I pass this tree every day on my way home from work. Sometimes it's deserted. Many times there's a lone bird perched at the tip of the highest branch. But yesterday, the tree seemed positively crowded. Although the bird perched at the tip of the highest branch didn't seem to care. Perhaps because he had snagged the prime spot.  There is a coffee shop within sight of the tree and I stopped for a coffee and watched them through the window as I drank it.  All of the birds sat there quietly for a considerable time.  Just sat there as if waiting . . . waiting . . .

I prefer my feathered friends at a safe distance. Like up in this tree. And on the opposite side of a closed window.  I have an aversion to the touch of feathers and the nearby sound of flapping wings. Issues which I blame on a chicken-related trauma in childhood. The Birds is one of the few Hitchcock movies I have never seen.  And I'm happy to keep it that way.

questions, questions, questions . . .

So apparently, while I wasn't paying attention, fellow blogger pensive pumpkin tagged me with a litany of demands. They are as follows:


1. Post these rules
2. You must post 11 random things about yourself
3. Answer the questions set for you in their post
4. Create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer
5. Go to their blog and tell them you’ve tagged them
6. No stuff in the tagging section about you are tagged if you are reading this. You legitimately have to tag 11 people!


Those are a lot of rules. I'm not making any promises. Let's just start at the beginning.


11 random things about me:


1. I was afraid of the dark until well into my teens and always slept with a light on.


2. As a child, I was a huge fan of The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman and was a proud member of the "Bionic Action Club". Complete with laminated card.


3. I generally don't watch any horror films made after 1960. I prefer my horror campy and unrealistic.


4. I still haven't figured out if it's the taste of pumpkin that I truly love, or the flavours of nutmeg and cinnamon that so often accompany it.


5. I love old radio programs from the 1940's but can't listen to the horror shows at night. In the dark.


6. I disliked dolls as a child and never played with them. With the exception of a mercifully brief Barbie phase.


7. I can't sleep with the closet doors open in my room. I "see" all manner of creepy things in there.


8. I dislike gore. In films and in props. For me, it is not synonymous with Halloween.


9. As a child, I dreamed of turning an old barn on our property into a "haunted house". It never got past the planning stages.


10. I don't believe in ghosts. But I love hearing "true" ghost stories.


11. My favourite flavour of milkshake is vanilla.

Pensive’s questions for her tag-ees:


1. Who is your favorite superhero?


As a fan of superhero comics, this may be the most difficult question of the lot. I'll have to go with Golden Age Flash. Gaining superpowers from hard water just seems so . . . achievable.


2. What is your favorite of all your awesome body parts?


My teeth. They came in straight and orderly and required little maintenance over the years. I developed an appreciation of them after countless hours spent in dentists' offices with my children and their less-than-perfect chompers.

3. How many careers have you gone through so far?


Three.


4. What was your latest Halloween costume?


For the past few years, it has been the same. What can best be described as a hippie-ish witch. It was born from my usual last-minute scramble to assemble a costume out of whatever bits and pieces are left over from prop-building. In this case, a long red and black curly wig. Round-lens holographic glasses and my witch hat from Salem.


5. If you have the time and energy to cook anything you want, what do you cook?


Fried risotto balls. In one of my aforementioned careers, I was a line cook in an Italian restaurant and made these regularly. Extremely labour-intensive. And duplicating the ingredients at home would require a second mortgage on my house.


6. If you could wake up in someone else’s body for the day, who would you be?


Superman.


7. What would you do as that person?


Fly into space and spin the earth backwards on its axis to turn back time. Just a few years. It seems to pass much too quickly.


8. What is your favorite book?


Enid Blyton's The Adventures of the Wishing Chair. So many warm and fuzzy childhood memories tied up in that one.


9. You win one of those around the world plane tickets- where do you go first?


The airport.


10. What is your biggest struggle?


Overcoming my natural tendency toward procrastination.


11. What is your biggest goal in life?

To finally conquer my natural tendency toward procrastination. Maybe it'll happen. Someday.




And since rules were made to be broken, I'm going to quietly ignore the remaining three requirements on the above list. As for passing it on to other bloggers, I have far too many favourites to list, and I've never been comfortable with choosing a select few. So as with most things that cause me discomfort, I will avoid it. If, however, anyone who reads this would like to post eleven random facts of their own and answer the questions in this post, I would be delighted to read them.


And now, it's time for my medication.

seven

Nothing cheers my cold and dreary mid-winter heart and helps chase away the January Blahs like an unexpected notification that I have been the recipient of a blog award.  So thank you once again, Guillaume.  I know this award couldn't be based upon recent posts since they have been all but non-existent.  So I'm grateful that you have a good memory.

And now for the required seven random facts about me:

1.  Vampires frighten me and I avoid all films that involve them.  Even the sparkly ones.

2.  I didn't carve a pumpkin until I was an adult.  Despite my family having a large vegetable garden when I was a child, pumpkins were not planted.  Our jack-o-lanterns were of the plastic variety.

3.  I dislike licorice.  Especially black licorice.

4.  I also dislike lobster and find it difficult to sit next to someone eating a whole one.  The cracking open of the shell.  The removal of the innards.  It's like a bad horror movie.

5.  The Wolfman is my favourite classic movie monster.  Likely because he's the one that elicits the most sympathy from me.

6. Nancy Drew's The Haunted Bridge still reminds me of sick days spent in bed under the covers as a child.  It was my "feel better" book.

7.  I despise pumpkin seeds.  Mine end up in the compost bin every year.


As for the next stage of this award, passing it on to other bloggers, I have far too many favourites to list, and I've never been comfortable with choosing a select few.  So as with most things that cause me discomfort, I will avoid it.  If, however, anyone who reads this would like to post seven random facts of their own and grab the award from this post, I would be delighted to see it.

And now, onward to my next random list . . .

in the bleak mid-winter

I've been woefully absent from this blog for the past several weeks.  My postings to this point in 2012 have amounted to a grand total of two.  Pathetic.  And my reading of other blogs has been sporadic at best.

I blame January.

Much of January was a bleak and dreary blur to me.  Part of it was due to my annual period of January Blahs which always seem to follow the Christmas season.  And part of it was due to my two week struggle with a horrible cold which then developed into an even more horrible sinus infection. After dragging myself to and from work every day, I wasn't left with much energy or interest in doing anything else.

But it's a new month. The calendar page has turned.  The local groundhog did not see his shadow, heralding an early spring.  I finally went to the doctor and left with a prescription for antibiotics. And two fellow bloggers have, through their actions, lured me back to my blog.

I discovered, in one of my periodic visits to my Blogger dashboard, that fellow blogger Guillaume has bestowed upon me a blog award.  Thank you Guillaume.  The award, however, comes with strings attached. Seven of them in fact.  So I must now set to work on my seven random facts.  But there's more.  It appears that another fellow blogger, pensive pumpkin, has also tagged me with a request for random facts. Eleven of them this time. As well as a number of questions to be answered.

So it seems that this first weekend of February will be a busy one.  I hope the antibiotics kick in soon.