BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?

Subject: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 11:41 AM

OK - haven't been on the mudcat in a couple of months or so it seems. What'd I miss?

Who got married?
Who had babies?
Who got puppies?
Who is fueding with who?
What good recipes did I miss?

Please tell me nobody has died.

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 11:45 AM

I upset the same old people, but hey, what's new there?!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 11:52 AM

Sorcha had puppies and her doctor fainted.

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 11:56 AM

I'm still alive, much to my doctors surprise and my wifes dismay.

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 11:56 AM

It's been a quiet quarter-century in Mudcatville, my home town, where all the instruments are in tune, and all the songs are above average...

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 01:05 PM

OK - so have i missed any loving descriptions of fabulous meals and recipes posted that everyone simply insists I must try?

What have I been doing you ask? Not much.

I've been preoccupied trying to help a down and out blues guitarist friend of mine in Ohio who is about to be evicted. She's disabled but waiting on an SDI apeal. I spend an hour on the phone with her each day trying to help her hook up with resources. i call her on the cell and then use my landline to search the net with her. So far so good. She's good foodstamps now and may get public housing but they just had flooding from biblical proportions of rain where she lives and the city seems to be at a standstill.

I've been test-marketing some products such as a new type of bottled water, a new kind of Folger's coffee, some new hershey's candybar, some cold cereal for diabetics and a new wrinkle cream. It gets a little time consuming writing reports and doing surveys but its fun to get free stuff and get paid for doing the tests. FYI - one of the test marketers I do things for is dying for Canadians so an Canada Mudcatters that want to test stuff you get to keep, let me know., I've gotten small appliances, books, food, clothing and more from these folks. they are also dying to find some parents of young children (under a year) in Boston and Atlanta to test baby bottles.

I've been entering some recipe contests with the usual luck - 2nd or 3rd prize.

Haven't been working too much. It's hot and I don't feel great so I'm slacking. been to the dentist a couple times though thanks to Sorcha & Jimmy's encouragement from chat. Going again this friday but this time its the oral sugereo. UGH.

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 01:09 PM

I got a new car for my wife, which I thought was an excellent trade.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 01:14 PM

Nobody died. That's tremendously sad since Nobody was such a vital force in the field of music. Just think of all the songs like "Nobody Loves You When You're Down and Out", "You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You", and "I Ain't Got Nobody" that would not have been written if Nobody hadn't been around. And what of Nobody's virtuoso talent? How many times have you heard someone say something like "Nobody plays guitar like Chet Atkins!"?

But don't go looking for an OBIT thread commemorating Nobody's demise. Nobody cared enough to start one.

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 01:16 PM

BWL, you crack me up, dude.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 01:19 PM

He was Nobody's Child

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 01:32 PM

so glad to have provided you all with an opportunity to be amusing.... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 01:34 PM

Welcome back, Dave's Wife.

I think the only really significant thing you have missed is the renaissance of the old Mudcat, which has taken place.

The Cat is once again the place that I remember from my lurking days, with nastiness and personal attack giving way to polite, rational discussion.

A fresh, sweet wind seems to have blown away almost all the crud, and coming here has again become one of life's pleasures.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: SINSULL
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 01:41 PM

Max announced a blessed event to be...or were you here for that?

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 01:49 PM

nope missed Max's blessed event. do tell.

Nice to hear that there's less nastiness. I could say something about that, but it would generate nastiness. So, I'll just go with the new flow. Long live civility.

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 02:01 PM

Oh - something else I'be been up to. Every year a pair of Mockingbirds make a nest in a pyrocanthus tree outside my study window. It's berry bearing thorn tree for those who don't know. Usually a good place to make baby birds since the cats can't get up there.

Now - as some of you may recall - I rather detest Mockingbirds. They're a noisy, pushy invasive species where I live and they really ought to move along back wherever they came from. The bachelor birds set up camp in trees along our street every 3 or 4 houses every summer and practice trying to drown one another out from sundown to sun-up. I throw rocks, I use the garden hose, I cajole, I threaten. Earlier this year, I laughed like a madwoman when a Red Shouldered Hawk flew over my yard ands grabbed one of those bachelors, eating him literally alive on my roof. I even snapped photos to preserve the memory.

Well, this year Mommy & Daddy mockingbird had a baby and it was cute. Very cute. I got attached. It's the fault of my housewren Louise and her husband Antoine because they chose to have their clutch in a out of service hollow lightpole nextdoor. Had they had their normal 5 babies on my porch again, I wouldn't have gone all maternal on the baby mockingbird I named "Hopalong" because he liked to hop around the tree and on the ground.

In spent several weeks rescuing my cat Inky from the dive-bombing parents and rescuing Hopalong from ill-advised trips to the ground below the tree. I even left food for his doting parents. I must have put their baby back in the tree 40 or 50 times. He was just getting big enough to fly well when....

The whoosh of very large wings was heard and hopalong screamed bloody murder. The red shouldered Hawk had swoped down from above and made off with him. His parents tried to kill the cats for a day or so and then just flew away.

Next year, remind me not to get all silly over the baby mockingbirds. Hopalong get et by the hawk last week and I'm still sad. Yesterday I found his cousin barely clinging to life in the front yard, the result of a cat attack. I put him back in Hopalongs old nest and he seems to have recovered. I don't know if he's gonna make it though.

I should just hang out here right - and stop caring about silly baby mockingbirds?

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 02:09 PM

If everyone stopped caring about silly baby mockingbirds, there'd be none left at all.

You can soften the blow a little by telling yourself that the hawk has also got chicks somewhere that need feeding and it's all part of the great circle of life. Just be grateful they didn't sh!t all over your washing.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 02:17 PM

You never stop caring, and if you do something's wrong!
Keep on keeping on.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 02:32 PM

FYI - Here's the link to that Product test compnay that wants Canadians:

http://bzzagent.com/entrypages/canada/index.jsp

>>>Canadian Agents can look forward to programs for lots of neat stuff, including:

    * Coffee from a very trusted brand in the industry
    * An oral care product that whitens teeth
    * A frozen entrée that definitely doesn't taste like it came from the frozen aisle
    * An addictive chick lit book from a well-known author<<<<<

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: tarheel
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 02:38 PM

nuttin' honey!....damn good cereal too!
tar...

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 03:47 PM

>>>From: Liz the Squeak - PM
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 02:09 PM

If everyone stopped caring about silly baby mockingbirds, there'd be none left at all.<<<

Six months ago I would have considered that an optimnal outcome but Hopalong was very sweet and quite spunky. He was all chubby been being well fed by His parents on a diet of bugs, bumblebees and the fresh apples I left out for them. He had even grown tail feathers and was making small solo flights. His fatal error seemed to be in getting equally attached to me. he used to like to perch in a clear spot on the top of the Pyrocanthus right by my window where he would say "Weep Weep" to me and I'd talk back. His parents never thought our relationship was a good things and turns out they were right.

I suppose its some solace that Hopalongs injured cousin appears to have flown back to the front tree where his parents live. I never would have thought he'd recover. He has a nasty cat bite on his shoulder and had spent half the night lying in the front grass. He was sooo cold. maybe all he neded was a safe place to catch his breath. I refuse to name him lest the hawk get him too.

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 08:25 AM

Sweet Fanny Adams.

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 01:40 PM

(being a woodworker and tree nut, I wondered why I had not heard of Pyrocanthus tree...a bit of searching reveals "Pyracantha" or "Firethorn". It is not even listed as a tree, but only as a bush/shrub. You must have a pretty large specimen! From images, I can see why some birds would appreciate the safety it provides.

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 02:01 PM

Geraniums are listed a a perennial plant of the family pelargonium, and they are often used as bedding plants in the UK. However I've seen them climb all the way up the gable end of a cottage in Greece.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 02:28 PM

Pyracantha is often used as a security barrier, inside perimeter fences, and will grow to heights in excess of twenty feet, which may look more like a tree than a shrub, though it is a shrub.

After about seven years the fence can fall down, and the site will still be safe, as they spread sideways too, into a formidable tangle which is almost impenetrable right down to ground level.

If your kid's ball goes in there, buy him a new one. It's cheaper than the Elastoplast you'll need if you try to retrieve it.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: Tannywheeler
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 07:42 PM

Mockin'bird is the State Bird of Texas. Y'all quit badmouthin' 'em. I'm surprised someone at this cafe objects to birds singing!! We used to have a holly bush outside our kitchen window in our old house. After the berries ripened every year I could sit by that window to read or write and watch the bush fill with Mockers coming in after the ripe berries. They would proceed to stuff themselves with berries, get stoned, and sing their heads off for a time--then start eating again. And singing again, then eat again.....sometimes they'd get wobbly on a branch and fall off. Drunk mockingbirds can be a laugh a minute.
Y'all heed the warning about Pyracantha.
Dave's Wife, where do y'all live? Mockingbirds and pyracanthas sound like home here. (Central Texas)          Tw

Subject: RE: BS: Been gone awhile - what'd I miss?
From: JennyO
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 12:33 AM

They would proceed to stuff themselves with berries, get stoned, and sing their heads off for a time--then start eating again. And singing again, then eat again.....sometimes they'd get wobbly on a branch and fall off.

Sounds like some folkies I have met :-)