MY BUDDY BERT IS HANDSOME INDEED

Let me set the stage.
Late 1970’s…hometown news that includes a column called "Among the Neighbors"..gossip…who came to visit..where did they stay..what did they do…

• 
  Bobby and M live in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and come home for a visit.
• 
  Bobby has named his male "ahem" (really why do men do this?) Bert
• 
  He’s always talking about Big Bert, His Buddy Bert, Bert is so Big…(this is an adult blog btw)
• 
  They visit for a few days and go back home
• 
  I get a phone call from "Among the Neighbors…"…"can you tell me about your company over the weekend?"
• 
  DING! TWINKLE. IN. THE. EYE!!
• 
  I explain that Bobby and M and daughters come back for a visit…and also include that Bert was here as well

This is printed in the paper and he is getting calls from all sorts of people..including his new mother in law…

WHO IS BERT?

Well that’s what he gets for putting a dirty diaper in my sock drawer.

FIVE MORE DAYS UNTIL

The greatest paradigm shift is the use of the words paradigm shift.

A GIRL CAN NEVER HAVE

too many tubes of just the right color of lipstick

too many plain white Old Navy T-shirts

and it's totally impossible for a nature girl to have

too many red bud trees!

WHAT IF

What if you were engaged in an activity right this minute that would someday become a thing you would be remembered for 400 years from now.

Would you change your activity?

THE HOUSE THAT BUILT ME

They say your home is where your mother lives.

Not me.

I don’t really like my mother’s house that much because she has turned it into my great grandmother's house who lived in Bokchita Oklahoma in the house where my mother was born.

That could explain why her house is like that. She loved it and has re-created it.

This song spoke to my heart.

Maybe because like my children, my heart is searching for my home. I feel too young for my home..this home I live in, to be it. I need to have a home where I came from.

Divorce is hard. And being "homeless" is an effect of divorce.

Where my kids were raised is not where I live.
Where I was raised is not where my parents live.
But still…only blocks from where I now live, is the home where I lived until I didn’t live there anymore.

And when I think about the words in this song, and look at this front porch…I remember….

I remember standing on these very steps so long ago…

Kissing a boy goodnight, watching my brothers play catch in the yard, waiting for my sister to come home from school, and the seasons passed.

Beyond this door, my mother played Camelot on the piano and my dad sang with his foot propped up on her bench..Christmas presents flowed to the door, fires blazed in the fireplace, a huge weeping willow in the back yard rustled just outside my window…

And yes…my home I live in is my home…but not my only home…and I realize that maybe that’s because I’m a gypsy....

Or maybe..because...

I’m just not all the way built yet.

CALL ME SPOILED

SUBJECT: ARCHIVE BOX (5th opened support ticket since new upgrade installed)

From: Customer • Status: Open • Updated: 4/16/2010 8:01:48 AM

where is the archive box located now? Thanks

From: bulletlink • Status: Working • Updated: 4/16/2010 8:12:47 AM

Hi,We are working on your ticket and update you shortly.

From: bulletlink • Status: Pending • Updated: 4/17/2010 2:57:36 AM

Hi,You can create a search box to see archived articles. Here are the steps:

Option A: Put search link in submenu itself. Here is how to do it: Create a submenu with "Window Type = Link". Put http://highplainsobserver.com/clients/highplainsobserver/index0.htm?sname=target_search.asp in URL Link. Be sure to change "YourSiteName.com" with your actual site name. Make "Link URL Window = Top".If you like, you can upload your own search image in "Picture" field or choose search icon from our library by clicking on "view icons" link.

Option B: We have build-in search script that you can put anywhere in Site Manager. For example, you can put the following script in "Ad Link/Script" box of "Maintain: Customer Ads" screen.

Please try at your end. Let us know how it works.

From: Customer • Status: Open • Updated: 4/16/2010 8:01:48 AM

Hi...sorry to be a bother and a grouchy bother at that...these are not upgrades..they are unwanted changes...I have done Option B as detailed in the email you sent...but there is no archive box. I also deleted two political ads but they currently show on the page as boxes with red X...

Also...all I want is the way things used to be...
I want to be able to center my headlines or not
I want to be able to center or justify my story or not
I want my archive box where it was
I am not a computer whiz, so a lot of this stuff is complicated and I guess you have really spoiled me to when it just works and it's just there and it's just easy...We just have a few kinks to work out...but again..these don't seem like upgrades..just complicated changes.

Thanks for your help.
Sorry to be grouchy, but I wanted to golf today and not figure out how to upload an archive box.

AUNT DOLLY'S GARDEN

She said when she walked into my backyard, “this looks just like my Aunt Dolly’s backyard!” I knew exactly what she meant only I don’t want to be an Aunt Dolly, I prefer to be something more along the lines of …well, I’m not exactly sure yet, but Poppy could be it.

Over the years I have been able to live at Miss Collard’s house and Miss Berry’s house and collect from those basements and garages, old clay pots penciled in hand, “tea roses”, and/or old containers of root stimulator, and rose dust, or tools that could be from the early 1900’s. Somehow, I connected. Maybe I was born connected and that explains my rock collections and my nieces calling me the nature girl.

My garden today includes a plethora of flowers that I have transplanted at every venture and turn in my life. I am so proud to say that I have been able to grow Iris from T. D. Sansing’s meticulous long gone Iris beds. Echinacea from Carrie Marie Berry. My favorite dinner plate Peonies from Harriet Collard, probably as old as this town. Tiger Lily from Francis Williams and Five O'Clocks from Vera Beth Hicks. Society Garlic and JFK Roses left by Ruth and Major--well you just have to see it to understand…drop in, bring a trowel, and I’ll share. Someday someone might say about me…. “I have Poppy’s wisteria taking over that spot right over there! Isn't it spectacular?”

John Muir said it best; “most people are on the world, not in it.”

Life is a garden…dig it!

SPRING'S FIRST FLICKER

I have two yearly rituals. This is a funny statement...but as far as this story goes...two.

Fall's First Fire and the day I clean the ashes out and replace the grate with my candelabra, which I will name later when I think of a fitting name.

Fall's First Fire

You wait all late summer for the leaves to change, the wind to change, the feeling to change. The fireplace has been filled all spring and summer with candles, fresh flowers from my backyard, or seashells from a past vacation.

When the perfect day arrives...fog hangs in the early morning air...leaves are just beginning to blaze...your warm breath makes a cloud...somehow you just know it's time.

So long summer...get in this fireplace Mr. Grate. And make room for some wood!

Lay the fire. Invite friends to celebrate the very first fire you will light in your fireplace this season.

Fall's First Fire.

Sweet friends, delicious food, the perfect wine...and a fire that will not go out until next April.

But just the opposite like the equinox comes the day you know your fires are over. Spring is in the air, the clouds hold rain rather than snow, the tulips pop up through the cold ground and the wisteria begins to bloom.

Clean the ashes, sweep the soot, bring in the candelabra and adorn the mantle with spring and summer. I still have a fire in the fireplace, only it’s in the form of a candle flickering in glass. A completely different kind of feel that will certainly do until….

Until….fog hangs in the early morning air.

WHAT A PEACH!

There once was a girl named Jackie
Nicer than heck and kind of wacky

Ok…that’s all I can rhyme..but let me tell you about this precious peach…

When my Dumas HPO was suffering from an editor that had a real job that took her real places and not out reporting…I had to come to a decision…get someone to report or let it go….because there are too many miles between me and those headlines.

But I have gone way too far to give up--there isn’t that much money to be made…and while there are editors in other towns that golf instead of edit, write, report, or papparaz, ours is actually working her behunkas off. And besides, something in my soul just won't let me let it go.

So, I was recommended this little firecracker and truly if it were not for her…there would be no http://www.highplainosbserverdumas.com/.

My editor has now taken a promotion, which has left her less time than before…so all the duties have fallen on Jackie. I admit..they aren’t really all that hard and if you like snooping around and taking photos it’s really kind of fun. But it takes a commitment of being out and about even if you don’t feel like it.

So…Miss Gingerhead…here’s to you!

You are the best!

Thank you..thank you..thank you…

One of these days…your paycheck will jump like a frog
But for now…you just get to be praised in my blog!

ABOUT THE WOODLANDS I WILL GO

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

A. E. Housman (1859–1936).

ALL TIME FAVORITE GAME

All Time Favorite Game
　
Rules:
Create a circle with the ones you have invited
Choose a beginner

The beginner chooses the category…i.e….my all time favorite….

Use of Party Hats

Everyone in the circle tells about his or her all time favorite use of party hats.

Let me interrupt peeps..this can be an intimate game and goes very well with Sapphire Bombay…. something I refer to often as "Getting Deep Into the Bombay"

The next person chooses their all time favorite "vacation out of the country" (show off) and so everyone in the circle tells about their all time favorite vacation out of the country...and on the game goes.

So you get the idea…the more people the more interesting the category and answers…

Again..this game goes very well with a bottle of wine or scotch….or Sapphire Bombay...and snackypoos...

Or coffee and cheesecake if you’re a teetotaler….

After every one in the circle has selected a category, you have…

Lyao…maybe shed a tear or two…and most important of all….gotten to know the peeps you are with…who they love, what they love, why they love….

A very cool game indeed!

I WISH I HAD

If I could wish for one thing today and get that wish...I would wish I had a clothes line. There isn't a better smell or feel than washing your sheets, hanging them to dry in the sun, and taking them off and putting them on your bed. Ahhhh....warm days of sunshine captured in white cotton!

LIFE IS LIKE

Life is like advertising.

Can’t you really say this about everything concerning life having to do with life?
i.e.….life is like 8th grade…or life is like that…or life is like…fill in the blank.

But since I am an online news editor…I have begun to contemplate how life is like advertisement.

Small town…no small town media needs? Not so…media needs are what make this place tick and tick it does. We have precious little retail, and very much farming and oil and gas related businesses… not many people really need to sell anything…yet..they advertise.

I have put them into four categories.

Non Advertisers…they never will. They are against it. We call them in our neck of the woods…aginners. Mostly they don’t like pig farms or wind turbines and they sure don’t like online news.

Short Termers. They advertise when they need it. Short, to the point, no commitment. They need something. I deliver. They are very predictable.

Better Than Short Termers. They want to give it a try. Maybe they are beginning a new business, trying new things, so I might have their attention for a few months, maybe six…they don’t get anything out of it..so they are gone. Easy come easy go. These people used to hurt my feelings. I would put the blame on myself that I had done something wrong, not delivered. But I realize this is about them and not my product.

And then there are my favorites. The Diehard Fans. These are the people that will be with you until you’re the one not doing it anymore. They don’t have to have a thing to sell…the only thing they care about is that they are backing what you do because either they like you or they like what you’re doing..and they are a fan.

In case you think I might not like any of these types..it’s just not true..I have friends that fit all the categories.

But I guess my entire point is how very much I appreciate those that appreciate me and the effort I expend to do this service I take oh so seriously. But more to the point..I hope that I’m that kind of person. A get on the band wagon dyed in the wool kind of gal that is loyal until the end!

Which are you?

JUST BUY A NEW ONE

Peeps, I don't advise to shampoo your swiffer duster. They are reasonable and so just get a new one.

I will report back if this one can actually be saved. But I have my doubts.

I can't decide if those particles are old spiders or pesto (since a very helpful soul put the supper pot in the sink).

DO YOU LIKE MY HAT?

I am about to yellow highlight Life List # 80--Go to the Kentucky Derby. I have been on quite a few good and fun and far trips, but never have I ever planned so much in advance as I have for this one.

I’ve been practicing drinking Mint Juleps, shopping for hubby’s ties and shoes and sunglasses, thinking about what to wear or not, having dinner parties with friends going with us, golf dates with friends going with us, planning, planning, planning.

But as you all know…the biggest responsibility of all is….THE HAT.

I became the recipient of my hubby’s great grandmother Babboo’s hats. I had decided that I would wear one as my hat on Kentucky Derby Day. A lovely little straw couture Cloche bell hat with orange piping and netting and a few little green leaves. PERFECT.

In my planning for the Oaks and the Derby…I took a day to go buy a dress to match my hat. I’m sure most people thought I was a kook, (which btw I am quite used to) as I took this old fashioned hat along with me into the stores. Sadly, I did not find a dress to match the hat. But I did find a neat birdfeeder.

My daughter came to spend the night and I had laid out my entire wardrobe (another first), jewelry included and we all decided…perfect clothes but no perfect hat…yet.

My bopeep and I got deep into the Bombay solving the world’s problems and here’s the cute part…I noticed hubby missing…when I located him…he was searching Ebay and found several cloche hats that I might be interested in.

He said…do you like this hat?

I said…Go Dog Go!

CRACKIN' ME UP FOR OVER A YEAR

I'm not sure where I first learned of this youtube...someone passed it on to me. Maybe because this precious little girl looks exactly like my niece Claire (now in her late 20s) I have watched it over and over again. And sometimes, which is truly not that often...when I get in a bad mood and need a laugh...well...I watch it again. And again. I watched it 3 times in a row while I was posting this and I laughed out loud all three times. FUNNY!

MESSAGES FROM THE MESSENGER

Sometimes you can be sitting in your comfy chair, on your heating pad, arms tucked into your blanket and totally at the mercy of your man holding the remote. Just when you begin to get annoyed with the flipping and the changing and the sports and the cooking and the movie and the news....along comes a message in the most perfect unexpected little soundbite....

Evan Almighty

Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?

These little messages from unexpected messengers are just the best...just the best...like God was reading your mind or something cool like that!

SOUL HOLE

Ok Men. Don't try to save her in YOUR world...save her in HER world.

WHAT'S IN YOUR WALLET?

They say you can really tell a lot about a person by the contents of their pockets.

Really…put your hand in your pocket right this second and lay it all out on your desk.

What’s there?

For a woman…this would pertain to her purse.

Here’s what’s in mine.

One walnut, I don’t really remember where it came from
One white patent leather baby shoe that came off the foot of my oldest daughter who is now 29. I put it in there one Sunday morning during church and could never bear to remove it
One hippo finger puppet
One large rock…after driving for 5 hours to get to our summer cabin, my son who was three at the time, hopped out of the car, picked up this rock, and in his delight to finally be there, said, "THIS, is my favorite rock"…and so began my rock collection.
My mother’s gold cigarette case which has contents of its own. (A lock of one of my children’s hair, I’m not sure which as they were all blonde at some point) A small piece of wallpaper from the home I thought I would live in forever…I tore it from the wall when I walked out for the last time.
An old bandaid
One orange golf tee
And my little black bible with a cross on the zipper

There is no money in my purse. I do carry a wallet that has my driver’s license that stays in my car, but as you can tell, my purse is not for practical measures. It carries what’s important in my life, and you can tell I am a very sentimental person. Some might even consider me a bit of a kook, based on the contents.
　
This is my purse. It is a genuine Louis Vitton leather purse. One time a friend of mine told me that I was the only person she’d ever known who carried a $800 dollar purse, yet had holes in my socks…but that’s a whole nuther issue! And how do you like that safety pin holding the strap on?

SPEAKING OF GOLF

Level 1, 74-95 mph
Level 2, 96-110 mph
Level 3, 111-130 mph
Level 4, 131-155 mph
Level 5, 156 mph

It wasn't quite this bad at Hansford County Golf Course yesterday...but it was pretty bad...

• The roof was about to blow off the bathroom on #7.
• A couple of my balls actually went out of bounds which rarely happens since I don't drive them that far
• You could see the ball sway in the wind during a slow deliberate putt
• And my hair got really messed up and I had sand in my ears

But like we always say here in the Texas Panhandle..if you wait on a perfect day to golf...you may never get to...so we got a good laugh that while some might board up windows in a wind like that...we chose to play 9 and nearly got into a playoff hole until Earl chipped in for an Eagle on #9.

Dang him!