Xfinity and Beyond

Monday evening hubby and I settled in to my warm bed to watch the weekly episode of House. Half way through the program up popped an ad for an Iphone Xfinity App. Curious as to how I could remotely control my TV without an official Comcast remote, I promptly reached for the Iphone and downloaded the app. With a patient tweak here and there I discovered I could indeed control my TV DVR plus the one in the living room.

Little J was curled up on the sofa in the living room watching cartoon network. Hmmm, I thought, I could play a trick on him now. I could change the channel and he wouldn't have a clue as to what was going on. So I did. And it worked. Shrieks came out of the living room, "Grandma something happened to the TV." Hubby and I laughed as he came stomping into the room and we quickly confessed that Grandma discovered a new Iphone app and was just playing around to see if it worked. We assured him his show would be back on the living room TV before he could return to it.  It worked.

Getting back from  the distractions, House was  moving right along and getting close to the final commercial break when the TV went haywire. It seemed to be searching for channels, flipping back and forth from cartoons to DVR to House. I tried to break the cycle and wondered if it had been a mistake to download an Iphone app and if perhaps the internet had taken over every TV in the house. I reached for the Comcast remote and turned the TV off. It flipped back on. I turned off the DVR. It flipped back on. I reached for the Iphone and turned it off. I missed the end of House and only hoped that the back up recording was in order. After a good ten minutes and with increasing frustration, I picked up the Iphone again thinking I would delete the app and all would be well. All of a sudden Little J appeared in our doorway, all giggles and grins, "It's all a joke Grandma." There he was with his remote control which just happened to work on my TV too. I'll never figure out how that little trickster managed to keep so quiet for so long.

This morning I reminded him that he had played the last trick so now it was my turn to get even. He looked at me with those sweet innocent brown eyes,  "It's OK Grandma. I'm ready and I already have my next plan."

Possum Pie

For years we have had deer roaming our hillside. Each spring we look forward to seeing the procession of does with new little Bambies and an occasional buck. We chuckle when they pass through the fenced in boundary of our neighbor’s yard to nibble on her latest delicate flowers.

There is the morning ritual that begins with the doling out of dry cat food to the cats, as we watch the sleepy eyed raccoon pop up from his little nest halfway up the hillside. I’m prepared as I huff back up the driveway to chase him away with the daily newspaper.

By noon the turkeys have polished off the latest dusting under the bird feeder and are strutting their way around our yard, evil glaring eyes daring us to try to get from the back door to our cars.

Owls keep us awake at night, blue jays torment the cats and someone in the neighborhood taught the mocking birds early morning wake up calls.

Skunks leave behind odiferous reminders as they pass through the yard, perhaps having been disturbed by one of the six cats that reside at our address.

I cringe when I think of the huge tarantula that I removed from middle of the kitchen last week. It managed to sneak in under the back door. I'm plagued with spiders but at least the termites are gone.

The cats earn their keep with weekly deposits of rat heads and tails on our doorstep. I've learned to look before I step these days.

But here's the latest. I'm searching the internet for a recipe for possum pie...

 

No Evil

Makes a lot of sense to me…

 

Karate Beach Training

It started out to be a chilly day under a thick layer of fog for the annual karate beach training day at Stinson. The kids (and sensei) worked hard to earn their beach BBQ hotdogs and a gourmet feast of accompaniments. As we finished up lunch, the fog burned off and we spent the afternoon basking on the sun warm beach.

 

Lavender

It was a lavender plant. In my front yard. Not a good environment for a lavender plant. Sometimes I feel like this too.

 

I Ate It All

Well, I ate almost all of it. I did save one little cookie for Little J. This was High Tea at Jacqueline’s in Petaluma. Next time I’ll go for something a bit more reasonable. Oops, there was a scone too, with all the trimmings, which is a must have at this tea place. That disappeared before we brought out the camera.

Do Not Enter

A couple of days ago when I wandered down the driveway for the morning newspaper our little raccoon friend decided it would be a good opportunity to raid the kitty bowls. The only problem was, he was not going to let me go back in the back door. Even a gentle prodding with a industrial sized broomstick didn’t encourage him to budge. I tried the bear trick, making myself appear bigger by wildly waving arms in an erratic frenzy. I threw in a few shrieks for good measure. No luck.  Finally I headed to the front door and peaked in the window to see if the ruckus had aroused the rest of the family. It seems Little J thought we might be under attack… he met me at the front door with his bright green laser beam machine. This morning the feisty little critter greeted me with this fierce pose. I’m fixin to get me a raccoon skin hat.

School’s Out

Little J brought home a treasure chest full of artwork in celebration of his successful completion of 1st grade. Elimination of clutter is a high priority for some of us so digital scrapbooking is the way to go. Now if only someone could show me how to organize my hard drive... it’s almost as out of control as a kid on the first day of summer vacation. 

 

  But wait… Now that I have studied this picture for a bit I’m wondering… at first I thought it was a flower but could there be a lady hidden in there?  And if this is a rather svelte young lady , who might it be?  Maybe I should save this one.

Uninvited Guests

I returned home after a weekend escape to find uninvited guests of the less than desirable sort. It's not as if I didn't know they might show up. There had been some signs that they might be on the way. Just before I left on my weekend adventure, I saw evidence of their eminent arrival but I chose to set those thoughts aside in hopes of enjoying what may be one of my last getaways for quite some time. I knew the visit was going to cost me... plenty. These are the kind of guests that show up bent on creating a massive nuisance with their determination suck every morsel of your existence into little piles of dung...

It all started a couple of weeks ago when I discovered a few tiny little black specks on the ceramic tile in my bathroom. I simply cleaned them up and doused the cats with a toxic flea killing substance thinking the problem was resolved.

A week later I discovered a little mound of mud in the corner of my bathroom. My first thought was, what a talented cat I have. Further sniffling research however indicated there was no odiferous scent and the root cause of it was coming from the walls.

You probably guessed by now that I found a pile of wings in the corner by the time I got home from the weekend. That and plenty of little wingless ants encircling my toilet. UGH.

OK, so now we deal with it and here is where it helps to keep a sense of humor. Little J heard my screams of intolerance at these guests and rushed in to see the cause of the disturbance. "What are those things Grandma?" he asked as he closely observed the squirmy little pests.

Trying to keep it light I suggested that we maybe have some new little pets to take care of. As a typical seven year old who wants to save every living thing that comes his way, he asks, "what do they eat?"

I told him they have a big appetite for wood and judging from the number of them, my bathroom was likely to fall off the side of the house (ok so that's not keeping it light but I was starting to feel desperation). Little J told me to wait right there because he knew just how to help. A few moments later he returned with a piece of his wooden train tracks... "it's ok grandma, I don't need these tracks anymore, they can eat them instead of the house."

If only life could be so simple. Yes, I have called the hit men.

Minnie Begs For a Bath

 

The Return of Wanda

Followers of my blog might remember a couple of years ago when we were adopted by Wanda. Her antics frequently embellished this blog along with a tally as to how many of her nine lives remained. Maybe you thought she used them all up and we quietly eliminated the problem. We wouldn’t do that, really, I promise. Instead we live with her continuous assaults on the home front. We encourage her to spend more time on the hillside behind the house but once in a while she sneaks in through the broken screen door. She might have succeeded in hiding out in Little J’s top drawer with her stuffed companions if it weren’t for the mews, news, muse.

 

Groundhog... It's a Bummer

Bummer... see Groundhog for details

I Want To Say The Cruise Was Perfect

BUT... we had crabs in our room...

We sailed past Catalina even if this picture does suggest that we were there..

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We sailed past Ensenada but had a beautiful sunny day in Cabo San Lucas...

And in the end we felt like a worn out...

No, it isn't the fault of the cruise line that things didn't go according to plan. The Captain did try to make the best of a bad situation during the torrential Southern California storms. We did the best we could with what we got.