Molly Bee's Attic

It's been a rough few weeks without my buddy. His toys are still around so it's easy to pretend he's just snoozing in the other room until I drop food on the floor in the kitchen and yell, 'Clean Up!' and no one comes running. Or when I need a big old hug and sloppy kiss....let's just say Cooper is a poor substitute. I have discovered a way to relieve a little of my Doggy-Less Life Blues recently though.  You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I've been walking three miles a night and 5 on the weekend days forever now. I've always stopped to greet the dogs I've met along the way; a head scritch here, a kiss there. I don't care if you're running, or in a bad mood and don't care to stop and talk, thank you. If you have your canine companion with you, I'm going to wreck your timed run and possibly enhance your bad mood, because your pup and I?  We got bid'ness to attend to! After all, all dogs on the planet belong to me....I j...

OK, so sometimes fraternizing with your fellow humans will bite you in the butt; not often, but sometimes.  Case in point, at the gas station today, I saw a young man wearing a green 'I (heart) VT' t-shirt ( exactly like the one above ), so I say to him, "I love Vermont...it's so green...well all of New England is really....so pretty." He looks at me like I have a hole in the head and then looks behind him to see if I am maybe talking to someone else. Nope. It's just you and me. Bucko! I try again.  "I was born and raised up in Northern Maine but live out here now. I sure miss the Atlantic." Again, he gave me an ' OK, who's in charge of the the crazy lady' look and finally said, in a clearly irritated, haughty, voice, "I've never been out East .". I say, " Oh, I just saw your 'I (heart) Vermont' shirt and assumed. Sorry!'. He looks down at his shirt and said (and I quote), "VT doesn'...

 I walk three miles or so  every night. I have a designated route around the 'hood. Three laps around-flat and paved.  It is so beautiful tonight that I decided to go a different way around a big field. I stumbled onto a segment of the Ice Age Trail that I didn't know was there. I do so loves me a path in the woods! The woods was chock-a-block full and covered with wonderful purple flowers.   I think it's called 'Mallow', but feel free to correct me in the comments if I'm wrong.  I heard something crashing around in the woods and thought for sure that after 25+ years of searching the prairie lands, I was finally going to find a moose here. Since I spent the first 25 in Maine, it is an unkillable instinct to search every swamp, field and woods for them. I KNOW we don't have them here, but I STILL have to talk myself out of looking once my brain kicks in! Turns out, here as in Maine, nothing sounds like more a full grown bull moose on ...

I love when three totally different planets end up in the same airspace and are forced to deal with each other. I was in Target today. All of the lines had a gazillion people except for one, so I made a beeline for it since I was on my lunch hour and time was limited. The only people in line were what folks around these parts refer to as 'gangsta'; a Latino couple, completely covered with tattoos, piercings, heavy gold jewelry, sun glasses and 'tough' clothes. He had the obligatory hat on backwards...over a bandanna. She was a little, bitty thing so pregnant that she looked like she had taken out the 14 month plan, chewing a huge wad of gum and looking bored. As I walked up behind them, it was clear he was having problems with the credit card machine and was getting  frustrated by it. The young woman cashier looked antsy as he inserted his Target card over and over only to have it beep and decline. Finally she said, 'Let me try something different', and took t...

This week's Diva Challenge is to use a bit of black in your tangle. This is probably more than the bit she was talking about.... but I never was one to follow instructions.I also run with scissors, don't play well with others and cry heartily over spilled milk-that's just how I roll.  It was good to do a challenge again. Haven't felt much like joining anything in any sense of the word as of late, but I'm sure it will pass. My success rate for surviving sucky things is 100% so far. I'm sure I'll survive the hole in my heart and house that Ben left too.  I did take a Zentangle class with friend-Janice last week. It was one of Katie Butler's that I had taken before on the use of 'Whimsical' patterns. Left to my own devices I tend to veer towards geometrical, symmetric patterns, but whimsical is right up Janice's alley! She hasn't been tangling long but has a distinct, flow-y, flowery flair and she totally rocked the class. She ...

 Big Ben ran joyfully over the Rainbow Bridge in the early morning hours of May 4th. It's only been a little over a week, but the hole he left in my heart and in this house hasn't filled in one bit. I know it was time. I promised that I would never let him suffer and I didn't. I made the most difficult decision    one has to make regarding a best fur buddy. I still think I see him out of the corner of my eye. I long to hug him again and feel his big, goofy, head on my shoulder; his soft, sloppy kisses. I would give anything for one more chance to scratch his soft, floppy, ears. My Sweet Boy, I hope you are in a place now where you don't hurt anymore; no knee pain, no tumors, no fatigue. I wish you endless fields to run and chase in, all the yummiest treats and all the toys you can destroy. I hope that the next time I see you, you are waiting at the doorway for me with that dopey grin and waggy tail, just like you did every time I came home the last 11 years. Un...

I joined a Sunday afternoon Dream Bird Shawl knit-along a couple of weeks back. There are 4 of us in the group and we all sat down the first afternoon and tried to decipher the multi-page pattern.  This involved counting (and counting and counting) stitches, a funky cast on, and placing a ridiculous amount of stitch markers. I got really frustrated, and when it got to the step where you 'don't place markers here because there are already  imaginary markers', I gave up all together. I got home and ripped the entire thing up and considered not starting again.  I have an amazing inability to not  anticipate spacial relationship in knitting. I can't 'see' how it should go or adapt to 'make it work'. I have to have definitive instructions and follow them to the letter. I had the same problem with Eliz. Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket where you essentially knit an amoeba-shaped blob and they when you fold it up-TA DA-it's a little jacket. Or i...

I went to Pet Smart on Saturday to get Cooper new dishes.  I got there right when they opened so there wasn't really anyone around. I was headed to the cat department when I passed a cart with a big bin of live crickets in it. Depending on their size, they were .12-.15 cents each. 'What an economical pet', I thought. [On  my planet, crickets are friends not food. We take them home, hand feed them yummy, cricket treats, paint their little toe nails and walk them in fields of clover.] I noticed that one of the lids on the bin was open and crickets were escaping; all over the cart and the floor. Afraid they'd get stepped on, I started picking them up to put back in the cricket bucket. The were easy to catch, they weren't really jumping-just crawling, but the more I caught, the more there were. Then I realized I hadn't shut the lid yet and the little buggers were still escaping. (Sigh.) I tried to put the crickets I had in my hand back in the bin and then shut it,...