Strega Singing and Four Paws Acupuncture

A crazy friend of my husband sang at this hip bar/restaurant in Salem, MA, last night. This guy is NOT a singer by trade and does not have a band. He works in the computer chip industry. What he did is he PAID this band to play as his back-up band, so that he could be a singer for the night. Hmmm. An odd thing to do, no? Yes. It is very odd. But then, again, we live in Salem, and it really takes all kinds here in this city. We really have an interesting thing going in this town. Let's see...I'll give you a little taste.

Up the street is the crazy cat lady who never, ever, EVER opens up her curtains. She has approximately 7,852 bowls of cat food food in her yard at all times. There may be a few cats who eat out of them, but mostly it's the skunks, rats, mice, opossums, raccoons and any other critter you can possibly imagine!

Next door to us is a very strange couple. She was a mail-order bride from the Middle-East and they now have twin boys. They are very possibly vampires, as it is very rare to ever see them leave the house during the day, and the lights are on at all hours of the night. Their yard is just weed weed weeds. They do not have one little place for the kids to play outside, even though they could have a nice, little fenced-in area in the back of their house. Odd.

Across the street is a couple who have lived together on and off for 300 years. He is a vet and retired biker-dude. He is fond of a certain medicinal herb and his Budweiser. If you ask him how he's doing, as he's sitting on the top step of their stoop, he will respond "It looks like it's gonna get drunk out tonight!" We adore him! He is our neighborhood watch-person and scares off people that fiddle with my flower boxes or that park illegally!

Down the street is the quintessential spinster. Never married, lived with her sister up until her sister's passing last year. She knows every single political thing going on in the state of MA and will corner you given any opening about why you did not attend this meeting or that one. She is an avid gardener with the hugest, sprawling garden that she still maintains by herself to this day. She is 81 going on 30!

Next to that is the sweetest, kindest woman and her husband. She is our doggie-acupuncturist, the owner of Four Paws Acupuncture. She is wonderful. A dog-whisperer of a different kind. I truly believe she gave us at least another 5 months with our beloved dog Lady, and now she is treating our boy, Koty, with laser and acupuncture:

I love this neighborhood!

Pictures are here now!

These are the flowers I put in the kitchen:


Here is the dining room. My friend, June, over there at Bye, Bye Pie took pictures of her table last weekend when she was having friends over, and I really liked seeing the way she set the table. So, I decided I'd do the same! Hi, June!


Here's a close-up of the fleurs on the dining room table:


And lastly, the ones in our living room next to our pellet stove. Somehow tulips and pellet stoves should not be near one another!

Dinner and tulips

You know what I love at this time of year? Tulips. They are in the grocery store, even! MAN, do I love me some tulips! They and hydrangeas compete for my most favorite flower of all. Tulips are wonderful because they represent spring, they come in wonderful colors and they last pretty nicely as cut flowers.

We are having dinner with my husband's mom and her friend who is here visiting from Washington, D.C. Now, many of you would cringe at the prospect of having your Mother-in-Law come over for dinner, but not me! She is a wonderful person. And, she is very supportive of me and all that I do. I know she will say that the dinner was excellent and that the house looks perfect. She is not one of those picky, critical MILs. I lucked out in the In-Law department. I even adore my husband's Dad, Stepmom and his brother and sisters! Really lucked out, which is nice since I am an only child. Growing up an only was just fine, but I find now that I'm older I'm really wishing I had a sister or brother.

ANNNNNNYway, back to fleurs...I decided to get a few bunches of tulips today, and I'm usually a purist. I usually get the same color for the living room, kitchen and dining room. Today, I mixed them up and the result was so very pretty!

Unfortunately I'm experiencing technical difficulties with blogger.com...It won't let me upload any images right now. I have no idea why!

In any case, I have loads of tulips around the house in white mixed with shades of pink. Very springy and happy! My amaryllis is also in bloom after growing a crazy long stalk about four feet tall! So, I'm happy today. I have flowers in the house and the sun is shining! Lastly? Good news - it's now less than a month until we change our clocks back! WOOO HOOOOO!

Snow in the City

Man, do I have the post-vacation blahs. Last week I was utterly useless, and things don't seem to be getting too much better this week, to tell the truth! It snowed here yesterday, which really added to the blah-ness, since our city is completely ridiculous with calling a snow ban as of 7am yesterday. When there is a snow ban, there are no people out and about except the plow drivers who are drooling at the prospect of making money! We only got about 4 or so inches of snow - slushy snow. In Michigan where I grew up 4 inches of snow is called a beautiful summertime day!

It's really a funny phenomenon here in Massachusetts. ANY snow storm whatsoever, and the meteorologists are on TV 24 hours a day calling it the "Storm of the Century" or "Giant Blizzard" or some other panic-inducing name. That cues everyone to immediately run to the grocery store and buy milk, toilet paper and bread. I'm not KIDDING!! It's quite the scene! I want to run around screaming "This is NEW ENGLAND! We are supposed to have snow in the winter!" It's really quite bizarro.

The snow storm we got before this one never even materialized; we literally didn't get more than a few pitiful flakes. However, instead of maybe waiting for any sign of the white stuff, the city prematurely called a snow ban, which means you are not allowed to park on any of the streets. Now, this may not seem like a problem if you live in other parts of the country where they have these weird things called driveways or garages. We New England people do not have these luxurious driveways or garages! We are tough and park on the street! So, that means during the snow bans, people have to park in the few areas the city lets them, and then they have to shuffle all the way back to their homes and this causes much distress. New Englanders LOVE to complain, so there is even now a Facebook page dedicated to complaining about this very subject! Oh, how people crack me up!

There are two critters here not only VERY happy that their mom and dad have returned from their vacation, but also VERY happy about the snow! Their love of the white, fluffy crap makes winter almost bearable!

White arrangement

As you may have read in my post from a few weeks ago, my beloved grandfather passed away. Two very good friends of mine sent me the prettiest white flowers along with their condolences. The florist up the street from me knows me very well and suggested that my friends send cut flowers and not an arrangement, as she knows how much I enjoy making my own arrangements! How nice that the florist knows me so well!!

Here are the cut flowers they sent: Pretty hydrangeas, alstromeria, phlox, lisianthus, some other flowers I don't know, and then lemon leaf for greens.

I had a cute vase and some oasis that I soaked. Here is the base for the arrangement:


Here is the center of the arrangement. I ended up removing more of the hydrangea leaves, too, since they were so large and plentiful.

The final product from a couple different angles:



Many thanks to Karen and Jackie for your sending these beautiful flowers!

Happy Valentine's Day!

My husband and I have now officially been together for ten years today. TEN. That's a long time! We did not intentionally have our first date on Valentine's Day, it just sort of happened!

When we first met, walking our respective doggies, I was dating this idiot guy, so I didn't pursue my now-husband in any other way than looking for him EVERY SINGLE TIME I took my dog for a walk. I was enamoured of the Mr. literally from the very first time I met him. It was late October in 1999. Each time I saw him we had very good conversations - always very enjoyable, always funny.

So, the way it all went down was I went to Florida to visit the idiot-guy that I was dating for New Year's Eve. Had a miserable time. Seriously. This guy made me just miserable! Came home and immediately found out that he had not only been cheating on me with like 2 other women, but also found out that he had a FIANCEE in Maine. Creepola! Whatever with him. I didn't even shed a tear. I called him, told him what I thought of him and that was the end of it. We had dated a grand total of 5 months. Ugh!

The very next day, I decided I would never ever date another guy that treated me badly. I had done that for a long, long time and I seriously decided I FINALLY deserved better. I was 34, for pete's sake! Enough of the bad guys, already!

Over the course of the next month, I would run into the Mr. while I was out walking my dog, and again, I'd have the nicest time chatting with him. I never really wanted to say goodbye! Luckily, he was not dating anyone, and I FINALLY worked up the courage to ask him if he'd like to go with my housemate and me to a local restaurant. That was in February of 2000. Turned out he was leaving the next day for a dive trip to Mexico! Get this - he was going there to dive with giant manta rays, hammerhead sharks and WHALES! How cool is he? Anyway, he was going for like 10 days and said he'd call me when he returned. We exchanged phone numbers.

Tick, tick, tick, the days went by. The day arrived when he was coming home and I was just beside myself awaiting his call! It was KILLING me waiting to hear from him! That was a Friday. Then Saturday came and went. Hmmmm. Then Sunday arrived, and I told myself that he'd surely be calling on Sunday...

Well, Sunday morning went by, then Sunday afternoon came, and I couldn't stand it one more minute! At about 4pm, I picked up the phone and called him! When he answered it was more than obvious why he had not called...He was SICK! He had caught a terrible cold on the way home on his trip! I was SOOO relieved that there was a good reason! We talked for a couple minutes about his trip and then he told me he'd give me a call when he was feeling better.

The next day, late in the afternoon, I was out walking my dog and just happened to be walking by his house as he was coming out with his sister! We all said hi and then he told me that he had JUST LEFT ME A MESSAGE at my house! He had asked me out to dinner! Oh, MY! I was leaping and jumping for joy inside, but on the outside I tried to be very cool and collected! I, of course, accepted his invitation and we had our first date that evening! It just happened to be February 14th!

The funniest part of the date was when he arrived at my door to pick me up. We both simultaneously cheered that the other one had hair!! Up until this point we had only seen each other outside during the late fall and winter! We were both always wearing hats!

Here we are ten years later!

We have traded our winter hats for mask and snorkel hats, as you can see! And, yes, we both still have hair!