Word from my son is that his father, my Ex, is mad as Hell.
Someone has removed a .38 cal. Smith & Wesson from his chest of drawers. And it wasn't him or his wife.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm..............

That just leaves his two youngest kids, or a thief. Now, if it was a thief, why would he go through a chest of drawers, and just take that one gun? After breaking into a house, you would think an intruder would grab any of the other dozen or so firearms that are all over the house, in plain sight, and haul ass. Or grab the jewelry or electronics.
No, this one went straight to his bedroom, and just went through the one chest. And only took one pistol.

If you don't buy into that scenario, how's this(?): One of the kids has lifted a pistol from Dear Old Dad, for God-only-knows-what-reason. Whatever the reason, it is not good.
I would bet my next paycheck, all $200.00, that the gun was fully loaded. Among gun owners, an un-loaded long gun is a stick, and an un-loaded pistol is a rock. Ex always kept the guns fully loaded.

Here's where I come in. And I'm somewhat concerned. Just before my Ex and I separated, I owned a .38 cal. Smith & Wesson. Nice gun. Money being virtually non-existant at my house at the time, I allowed him to pawn the thing for $$, to get us through to the next paycheck.
I lost the gun to the pawn broker, I thought. Now I'm wonderin'....................... It's not too crazy to think that maybe he paid the pistol out, and gave it to his girlfriend, or hid it from me. It was a sweet pistol, and it would be unlike him to turn loose of a gun. Things were bad between us then, and I cannot say what he might've been thinkin'. What I have found out since the divorce is enough to turn my stomach, so who knows?
This .38 was registered to ME! If the thing does not turn up at his house, and if it's used in a crime, am I in some sort of trouble here? T-Bird doesn't seem to think so, and thinks that tellin' the truth would do, but have you ever tried to tell the truth to people who are Hell-bent on NOT believing you?
I hope that it was NOT one of the kids who filched it, for obvious reasons that are just too scary to think on. I hope that he has just misplaced it, which still makes him an idiot for forgetting where he put it. I hope he reported it stolen. I hope I don't have an orange jumpsuit in my future. I look dreadful in orange.

I was gonna go visitin' today, float around the Stream for a bit. I haven't been able to do much of that for too long now. But this was too cute to pass on.

If you know me and T-Bird you know that Saturday Night is Scanner And Snuggle Night. We had been under assault for two days hand-runnin' (kids and grands, all with colds), and we had run out of gas. More scanner than snuggle.
The following is courtesy of the Sheriff's Department and our 911:

Deputy: "911, do we know anyone out this way who might be missing a donkey?"

911: "Stand by; let me make a couple of calls for ya."

About three minutes later 911 radios the deputy:

911: "About how far away from the donkey are you?"

Deputy: "About a hundred yards."

911: "Okay, call 'Applejack' and see what happens."

Slight pause.

Deputy: "You wouldn't be funnin' with me, would you?"

911: "Nope. Call 'Applejack' and see if he responds. I mean, I hope he doesn't 'respond', ( at this point, 911 is snickering) but see if he makes any move or pricks his ears toward you."

Silence again.

Deputy: "I don't know who looks more confused here. The donkey who is standing in the yard, or the Deputy standing out here in the dark yelling 'Applejack'."

Silence again, I guess Dispatch is rolling on the floor.

Deputy: "Hey! This might be Applejack, he's coming towards the car! I hope he comes peaceful, my cuffs won't fit."

Dispatch comes back with instructions from the owner of the escapee:

911: "Next time, just go to the gate down the road, and open it. Blow the horn a couple of times, and everybody will go back home." Maybe he owns a few potential escapees?

I love this place!

There are some things that you don't want your kids to ever know about. I have several, actually, but T-Bird opened his fat mouth and now one of "those things" is out.
It's not somethin' that would cause them to deny that I am their mother. But I'm gonna hear the giggles and snickers until the day I draw my last breath.
Youngest almost wet her pants, and I will seek retribution. Revenge is a dish best served cold, and I like mine with just a touch of frost. So I'm just waitin'! After all, he DID tell all the girls at the beauty parlor that I am a cheapskate. He is past due.

T-Bird has a good friend that I will call Willie. I have called him many things in the 17 years that I have known him, and none of them are good.
Willie had a big, shaggy dog by the name of Lucky. Willie has NO imagination. But the name held true enough considering Lucky's life. He was darned lucky that Willie took him in and cared for him, and he had been run over by various and sundry vehicles, so he was lucky that he hadn't been killed. Lucky's favorite place to snooze was under cars and trucks, so he had been rolled down the driveway a time or two by Willie's departing guests. Most dogs and cats will get out from under a car the minute you open a door, but Lucky was trying to beat the odds. Or he was just plain stupid.
Willie also had a Volkswagon that had sat in one spot for a couple of years, because it didn't run. It had taken root to the ground.
We were out at Willie's house one evening, and T-Bird and Jacka...........I mean Willie........ decided to move the car. Being the sweet, loving, helpful soul that I am, I volunteered to help push the thing. Anything to help My Beloved and Jacka.........I mean Willie. Sorry, calling him names is not really a habit, it's more like a hobby. But don't worry, he don't like me much, either!
Willie was on one side of the Volkswagon, and T-Bird was on the other side. As usual, I got the rear-end. Like I said, the car had sat there for years, and was quite happy in it's spot. So it took some pushing to get the thing to roll with a couple of flat tires, and good grief, it had to go uphill. So we were pushing HARD.
Finally, it started to move.
I took one step, and then another, and the guys had it moving pretty good.....................and I fell flat on my face. In a hole. Lucky's hole.
Lucky had wallowed out a deep "bed" under the Volks. And he liked a lot of room, being a rather large dog. I'm five foot six, and the hole was just my size. And it was deeeep.
T-Bird told Youngest that I had been runnin' my mouth (probably the truth), and when he stopped hearing me he looked back and I was gone! Totally out of sight!

There was no way to recover and climb out of the hole before T. and Willie saw me. I was so stunned that it took me a minute to figure out why I was in a hole in the first place. And why did I have a faceful of dog hair????
T-Bird was laughing and shaking his head, and Willie just looked across the car at him, and said:

"You got them brains!" Meaning that if I ever DID have any brains, T-Bird had taken them from me by way of some serious lovin'.
I've been embarrassed before so that wasn't new. And Jacka................sorry, can't help myself............and I had agreed to quietly dislike one another months before, so a remark like that was no surprise.
But watching Youngest roll on the floor laughing was just salt in an old wound!

Lucky met his demise by being run over AGAIN, this time fatally, and no, it wasn't me driving.
Willie is still kickin', dang it all.
But one day I'll tell the kids about why their step-dad was driving naked through Waycross at a high rate of speed in the middle of the night.

Like I said,..........revenge..............with just a "touch" of frost..................................

"Slick-------Please take the poinsettia by the backdoor if you think you can save it. Thanks, Bosslady"

Bosslady left me this note yesterday at the house. See, every year, without fail, someone will send poinsettias to the office for Christmas. They ARE pretty, but the question always arises after Christmas: What do we do with it now?
Bosslady is an expert at off-loading stuff. She could off-load me, but I think she keeps me around for laughs. The actual message in the note was: Get the shedding thing out of my house.
I dropped off the mail at the office and caught her at her desk, and just had to ask. "What did the poor plant do to you that you want ME to take it home and torture it to death?" She just smiled, which for her is the equivalent of a belly-laugh. She said that if she kept it, it would be tortured to death anyway. Gotcha.
I was given the plant because of this picture that I found, and filched, when I went through some family photos.



This is my grandmother with some poinsettias that someone gave her one year for Christmas. She stuck 'em in the dirt, and they took off! I had never seen poinsettias grow like those in this picture. That green-thumb mojo thing.
My grandmother was the daughter of share-croppers, who then married a share-cropper. A share-cropper's wife likes pretty things just like any other woman, but that kind of money doesn't allow for frills, not when you're raising a crop of kids.
However, dirt, sun, and water were free. The old practice was that if you went to visit someone, and they had a pretty plant that you admired, you could get a cutting, a bulb, seeds, or whatever and plant your own. And if you had some sort of plant that THEY liked, you gave them a cutting/bulb/seed.
I remember her porches covered with coffee cans, flower pots, anything that was large enough to hold dirt and plants. FULL of blooming plants and ferns. And if she stuck it in the yard it grew. She didn't need Miracle Grow or rooting hormones. She had a tractor tire in the front yard that was full of moss rose that ran down the sides of the tire. It was actually pretty even if it was a tractor tire.
We could get away with a lot of stuff with Grandma, except when it came to her plants. Break one or stomp in her flower beds, and you had better have a close relationship with The Lord. Better be on a first-name basis with Your Creator.
When someone in the family came through Georgia they picked up one of those touristy-type packs that held a cotton boll. Grandma grew up picking cotton in Georgia, before they moved to Florida, and they thought she would like the souvenir. And she did because she LIKED picking cotton. Go figger.
She took a couple of the seeds and planted them by her front porch steps. I swear to you that I didn't know that cotton grew to be over five foot tall. Until a reporter took a picture of it and Momma got a news clipping in the mail.
I don't know if I got anything from Grandma other than a sense of humor and her wedding ring. I dang sure didn't get her plant mojo. Or her buttermilk biscuit mojo. Or the fried cornbread mojo. I could have used those, but I guess they skip a couple of generations.

I took the poinsettia home, and broke part of it off getting it out of the car. I could hear Grandma's laughter. She's probably tending to whatever grows by the Pearly Gates. When you get to Heaven, if you get there before me, look for a woman walking around with a grubbin' hoe and a waterin' can. Ask her to check on Slick from time to time. And ask her what the heck I'm supposed to do with this plant!

Did your New Year get off to a good start? I hope you made a memory or two!
I mean good memories, not the kind of memories that you wish EVERYONE ELSE would just forget (they don't forget, by the way, and some even have pics!). I have a couple of those, myself. Complete with pictures. That need to be burned.

You can't have a New Year without thinking of the Old Year. You can either toast a new year, or grab a bottle and try to forget the old one!
We saw Youngest go to the Prom, and watched her graduate from high school.
Later that night her best friend was fatally shot, and another friend fought for his life, and still struggles to walk again. I held her mother while she cried by the coffin..................
But the sun did shine again, and we welcomed a new baby into our hearts. My granddaughter. I saw her come into the world. If it's all the same to everyone, Grandma Slick will sit in the waiting room next time.
Six weeks later my daughter had surgery for ovarian cancer. More tears, but thankful hearts that all seems well with her now. We kept the four-yr old and the newborn for a whole week, making me wonder how I survived three little ones years ago.
My parents celebrated Fifty Years of Wedded Something-Or-Other. Don't know if I'd call it bliss! I made peace with a sister that I hadn't spoken to in 16 years, so that she would come for the party. And I'm glad I did.
I turned 48.
T-Bird and I celebrated 17 years of marriage. They gave us two weeks. Ya'll, "they" don't always know what they are talking about. We laughed that night until we cried, and I can't remember what we laughed about. But I did have the thought that our marriage had always been that way. Laughing together. When we are not wondering WHY we stay together!

So 2007 had it's good times and it's bad. 2008 will be the same way. Most of it will be what we make of it ourselves.
May you have The Best Year of your lives in 2008, and may it be full of Peace and Love.