Jay and I used to collect fractured translations. One was a paragraph on how to prepare a cup of cocoa on an imported Swiss chocolate package. It ended, “You have now a cup of this fine cocoa ready.” Wish I had the whole thing.

Recently I came across an old scrap of paper. It was a verbatim transcript of an Asian fellow at the airport looking for his lost luggage. Here is what he yelled at the baggage claim office:

“Pretty damn seldom where my bag go. She no fly. You no more fit run station than Godsake. That’s all I hope!”

I think maybe that guy is writing speeches for the tea party.


A recent news item is that Prince William might marry a commoner, Kate Middleton, whom he met at St. Andrews Academy and has been dating on and off for eight years. If I wuz Kate, I’d read up on the miseries of Princess Diana before I joined this family. Of course if Prince Charles had actually loved Diana and paid her any mind, instead of using her as a royal broodmare for heirs to the throne because she was acceptable and his mistress was not, that ending might have been different.

When Queen Elizabeth was growing up, she was appealing and seemed easy to like. But she’s turned into a waspish control freak whose need to protect the royal image and legacy is obsessively important to her trumping most human feeling. She's a royal robot. She ought to have allowed Charles to marry his Rottweiler and Diana would have married someone else and been much happier and also alive. As for Charles and the Rott, whom he did indeed marry after Diana’s death, the tabs say they are having marital problems. Gee. Ya think? You’ve got two incredibly self-involved, entitled egos here, each wanting to be the star. The conflict of need doesn’t come up when you are just sex talking on the phone late at night and flouncing around forbidden bedrooms, but living together is a different ballgame. It can be a reality check no one wants.

The addition of a third cat to our household about 18 months ago has more than tripled the clean-up and the maid service (me). Max in specific needs to be everywhere at once. I try to accommodate him when I can but he is schizzy and sometimes doesn’t even know what he wants. So I follow him thinking he will lead me to an empty food bowl, to the garage door, to the front door where he can see geckos through the screen. Then he’ll turn and hit me with his paw because whatever he wants, I don't get it. Bad kitty. Before I go to bed at night, I find Max and pet him and he loves it. He stretches out and purrs and I hope that makes up for him not sleeping with us like the other two. Honestly, though, a third cat in the bed would represent some problems. Does anyone make a pope-sized bed?

Chewy, my large black cat with just a wisp of white has discovered the joys of sitting in a shallow box. I use this box when I separate laundry because I have only the one laundry basket. He loves to get in it and hang out. I will accommodate him a little while but eventually the box has to go back into the garage.

Although we are going to a friend’s for Thanksgiving, I am already anticipating the major house cleaning for our boat parade party in December. Maybe I will hire a cleaner to help out. Ed keeps inviting people. If everyone comes, we’ll have 50. That is more than I have ever had and I’ll have to pick a brain or two to help with the quantity of food I will need.

My friend, Curt, who walks his purebred cocker spaniel, Buster, stopped to talk while I biked yesterday. I said he should try just one less beer a night so that his biking and walking could "take". He said he wasn't drinking when he lived in Illinois. You must have been beautiful I said, trying to picture the face without the padding. But no encouragement from me penetrates. Buster pees like a girl dog and I check up on his progress now and then and Curt says, "no, not yet."

I skipped Art Class no. 2 Saturday as I felt so tired that listening to Stan's hour lecture at the start of a 3-hour period would have had me slipping off the chair onto the floor. I heard that Stan was quite irate that out of 15 or so students, only a couple had done the homework he'd asked for and he chewed everyone out. Well, I am not taking a class that catapults me back into a dysfunctional childhood. We'll see. I find most lecturing sleep inducing. Is it my biology (admittedly iffy if I am not moving around) or is it that Stan, no matter the subject, is stultifyingly boring?

I forgot about two T bone steaks in the meat drawer in the fridge and they spoiled. Oh, bummer.

xx, Teal