In the world of evil men he was the tops on my personal list. The horror this coward caused in so many lives deserved nothing less than the punishment that he ultimately received and yet somehow it still isn’t enough for him. He truly was one of the worst cowards ever to have lived, witness the tales that he tried to shield himself with his young wife when confronted by the men who came to exact revenge on him for his deeds, he lived as a coward and he died as one……pretty fitting if you ask me. He always had those less fortunate to perform his dirty work while he hid as the coward he truly was…….a leader leads his people whether it be into battle or into celebration, he doesn’t sit on the sidelines and have others do his bidding for him because he is too afraid of becoming a casualty of the chaos he starts. So to the biggest coward I have ever witnessed Goodbye and good riddence, may your soul burn in the fires of hell eternally, you got off too easy!

For those of us who were there in NYC on the day of the atttacks I think it will help somewhat to know he himself won’t be able to smirk at the destruction he caused anymore. We, however will be able to take some comfort in that it won’t be 40 virgins that will be at the hand to meet him for his ultimate reward……….I hope he remembered to pack his asbestos underwear for where he is headed.

Here in the deep south we have already had an 80 degree day! While the rest of the country seems to still be digging out of the winters snows we are in full bloom down here. This morning when I went out back this is what I saw, Jackies tree in full bloom. You may ask who Jackie was and you may find this silly but here goes……….

I have, what I guess you could say is an abnormal fear of rodents! There I said it, I AM A SUPREME COWARD when I see or hear a rodent!! I’ve been this way since I was a kid. Even tho I have told myself over and over again that they are such a small creature in the grand scheme of things it does not help, neither did the teasing and nastiness that others regularly heaped on me when they found out about my fear. Most women are afraid of the usual things, spiders, snakes and such but they don’t bother me at all………a tiny mouse can however set me into a panic mode where I stop breathing and can feel my heart about to jump out of my chest. Just the thought of one perhaps being able to come into sight can set off a severe panic attack.

Now the story of Jackie. Back in the 1990 era my oldest son and I had to go back east to work, hubby had gotten hurt badly and I needed to earn a better living than I could in the south in order to support the family. Chris and I got an apartment and moved in and set about what would become our life for the next 6 years. Chris made lots of friends in the neighborhood and went out regularly with them, mostly up to the Bronx where one of the guys had moved. One night when I came in from work literally dead on my feet I turned on the kitchen light and a MOUSE ran over my foot! I about passed out right on the spot. I ran into the livingroom and wouldn’t go into the kitchen until Chris came back home. I told him we were moving right away as I had seen a mouse in the apartment, he was astounded and argued with me as we did live in a great neighborhood where I had grown up and he liked it there. He said he would take care of the “problem” and went to bed.

The next night when I came in from work I didn’t see the mouse but I just knew in my heart that there just had to be millions of them just hiding in the apartment waiting for me. Chris wasn’t home when I got home but he came in about an hour later holding a brown box that was literally jumping out of his hands. He set the box down and it was still jumping violently all over the place. I asked him what was in the box and he replied it was something that would “take care” of the mouse. When he finally opened the box out flew two of the nastiest kittens I had ever seen, they were definitely feral and wild.

 One was barely, I would think about 8 weeks old and the other was even younger, his eyes were just opening. The older one grabbed the younger by the neck and took him to hide away. I ran down to the local deli and bought some kitten food and set it out for them, they didn’t come out while we were awake for the rest of the night but when we awoke the next morning the food was gone. It was the Christmas season and I had just finished decorating the tree when Chris had come home, it was big and beautiful. I had decided that even though we all couldn’t be together for the holiday I would try to give Chris the holiday he had always had when we were at home with his dad and brothers. The next day Chris went straight to his buddies home when he got off work and when I got home late that night I was met by a disaster. I thought the apartment had been robbed! Drapes and curtins were torn from all the windows, the big beautiful Christmas tree was lying down in the center of the living room with all the glass ornaments shattered, I was in shock!

Suddenly out of the corner of my eye I saw something flit by………immediately I thought the MOUSE! But it wasn’t the mouse, it was the older of those two cats, apparently they had gone wild trying to escape while we had been gone and had wrecked the whole apartment. For the next three weeks it was more of the same, every night I would come home to a mess and they never came out from their hiding places when I was home. After three weeks of not seeing any mice and letting myself relax I was sitting in the livingroom one night after work when the older cat came out and jumped up on the arm of the chair by me, he sniffed me all over while I sat still and then he laid on my lap and started purring, I gave him a little pet and it startled him, he ran and hid again. The smaller all black cat never came out for more than a month.

We named them BooBoo (he was all gray) and Black Jack (he was all black).  As time went by they started to come out when I was home and one morning I woke up to find them both cuddled up next to me on my bed, from that point on they were my boys. They grew into such wonderful companions and gave me many laughs and a few heart stopping moments too over the course of the next 6 years. Boo Boo one day came and presented me with a gift in my bed of a half dead mouse, when I screamed he ran and tried to present it to Jack, Jack it turned out was as afraid of mice as I was, he tried to claw his way up the plaster wall that day, he didn’t manage to do that but that was mainly because by that time Jack was huge and weighed about 21 pounds, he had grown into a really big boy and was more a lover than the fighter.

 Boo Boo on the other hand had remained small, slim and sleek and could move about so silently you never heard him coming and neither I assume did the mice he had rid us of. In 1994 on one of his summer stays hubby took Boo Boo home here to the house, he became the king of the home here. The following year I came back home here for good and Jackie came home with me, it was rough at first as I guess Boo Boo thought his space was being encroached on but after a few days they were once again best buds. Then, I guess in some way they tried to assert themselves to each other and started spraying the house. Everyone told us to get them neutered and it would stop that, so hubby did.

For the next 3 years all went well and then Boo Boo started crying constantly so hubby ran him to the vet who informed him that BooBoo had a blockage that often happened to male cats who were neutered, he performed surgery that day and Boo Boo came home two days later. He was very unhappy as he had to be isolated from the other pets and was put on a special diet, the bill for everything was huge but that was not really so important as these pets of ours are like our family.

 A few days later our youngest son came in from school to find Boo Boo in his bed, he had passed away that day. Jackie was lost without Boo Boo to play with, tho they often has little spats they also watched out for each other for years. Jackie became my shadow after Boo Boo was gone, he followed me all over the house and slept cuddled up next to me everynight, and so it went for the next few years until 3 years ago when one night he came up on my lap and let out a cry and I knew immediately that something was wrong.

Jackie would give you  kisses much like a dog does when they are happy to see you, he was the sweetest boy ever and everyone who met him said they had never seen a cat as big as him and never one as sweet, even people who disliked cats loved him,everyone always laughed that only I would have a cat as afraid of mice as I was, but afraid he was and I loved him even tho as a mouser he was as useless as me.

I called the vet right away and she said to bring him right over, we rode the two miles to her office and by the time we got there he was having trouble breathing, he started to gasp for air as soon as we got there and after a quick exam she gave us the bad news, he was filled with cancer and his lungs were rapidly filling with fluid, she gave us a choice of medicating him so we could take him home for another day or two to say goodbye or to let her end his suffering.

There was no question in my mind, to medicate him might have given me more time to come to grips with his leaving but at what expense, I could not bear to see him suffer at all and we chose to let him go. She prepared him for the injection while I cuddled him and as she went to inject him he gave me a final kiss and closed his eyes and passed, his time was now and he wasn’t waiting for the shot. Hubby and I and the vet and her assistant all had tears that night, she let us bring him home to bury and so we did.

 The boys came over, cried along with us, and helped dig his final resting place,  I wrapped him in his favorite blanket and put him in a small trunk that he loved to sleep in, he looked so peaceful and I thought any minute he would open his eyes and I would wake up and it would all be a dream, but it wasn’t and I had to say goodbye to one of the best buddies I have ever had.

The following week I planted this little tree for him and put the statue next to it to hold it upright. I should say that for the most part I have what is called a back thumb, if I plant it it will die, but Jackies tree lives on and thrives each passing year. I still think of him just about everyday but especially when I see the buds begginning on the tree each year and I remember how he especially loved the spring when I would open all the windows in the house and he would pick one to sit in and watch the world go by.

 Jackie Boy, we miss you and still think of you each day!

We had a very quick and simple dinner tonight, it was our version of junk food again. Everyone is making their New Years resolutions for the new year and we are no exception around here. Except my resolution is a bit different than most peoples……………for my resolution I vowed to NOT let what I look like interfere with the way I live my life. I will enjoy every day I am blessed to be on this earth with the ability to enjoy the things I treasure, I will not let being somewhat overweight rule the way I live or treat others. This world has become soooooo obsessed with the way people look that we have forgotten that there are actual living beings inside those bodies that might have something wonderful to offer to the world, the world for the most part only sees someone that does not conform to their opinion of perfection, they don’t see the heart inside the person or anything much else for that matter. Young boys and girls now a days are constantly bombarded with images of what perfection they should strive for and are made to feel bad about themselves when they can’t seem to measure up to that perfection no matter how many diets and such they try. While I will admit that being grossly overweight isn’t probably good for your overall well being and health, who the hell are we as a society to shun people who are overweight and make them feel bad about themselves. I have been on both sides of the weight issue myself, I’ve been more than 100 pounds overweight at times in my life and been underweight for times too. At both sides of that coin I was the same person except for the outside packaging, right now I could probably lose a few pounds to fit into the mold we try to shove people into but I will not deny myself the pleasure of a junk food meal to please someone elses idea of perfection. I am happy as I am and will continue along my merry way as my own health circumstances allow and if you have a problem with the way I look please keep it to yourself! Am I on a rant? Absolutely I am, we went food shopping last night and in the store there was a young lady of about 16 who was a little overweight according to a magazines pictures, she was a very nice helpful girl with a smile on her face, the kind of young girl I remember being many years ago. Suddenly two other young ladies (and I use the term lady in their description loosely) came into the picture and started making snide remarks about the young girl, they weren’t very nice at all and the young girl could hear what they were saying and her demeanor changed right away, suddenly she was trying to hide herself and be less conspicuous to those around her and I felt those old pains I used to feel when I was her age and always had people commenting on my weight……….it was horrible to relive it all again and I felt so bad for this young girl. But I feel a lot worse for the snotty young brats who would only see the weight of the girl and not the person she is, I feel for the parents who have to lay claim to such self centered creatures as these two obviously are, what shallow little lives they must live and what a rude awakening they will get when they realize they are not the center of this universe. I hope the young lady has a strong sense of self worth as she will need it to deal with idiots such as these two, there are so many more out there, ready and willing to make others feel rotten about themselves………I, myself think it is because they know in their own hearts that they have nothing to offer the world other than their looks and those will fade as time goes on, they always do. At the end of our shopping I saw the young girl in the front of the store and went and told her I knew exactly how she felt, then I gave her a little pep talk that told her things would even out in the end, I was after all living proof of that. I told her to enjoy her youth and not put too much stock in what the shallow, self centered pretty people of the world thought of her and to learn to love herself and one day it would not matter what those people thought or said to her, she would build her life on her heart and mind and when her looks and theirs faded over time she would still have something that would make her a worthwhile person in this world! So enjoy a cheeseburger when you feel like it and treat others as you yourself want to be treated, enjoy your new year!

Pan of Stuffed Shells

I hope everyone had a fun and safe New Years eve last night. For the most part we stayed home until hubby got called to go to work for a little while. I spent the night just flipping channels on the TV, watching Criminal Minds and HGTV House Hunters, so it was a nice relaxing quiet night around the old home here. The local kids did manage to shoot off a lot of fireworks and I would watch the ones that sailed over the house, mainly to make sure they didn’t ignite the roof!

      We usually have a pork roast or a ham for New Years day but this year hubby requested some stuffed shells and meatballs so that’s what we had a little while ago. I have already done a posting on the stuffed shells I make and you can find that by typing “stuffed shells” into the search box on the upper right hand side of the page, you can also find my meatball recipe the same way.

     I mainly came on tonight to post and wish all of you a very healthy and happy New Year, may you all be blessed in this new year! Thank you all so much for your nice emails and letters over the past year, I am hoping there will be many more to come………………

Mattie

Back in the 1990′s our oldest son Chris and I worked in NYC and I became a long distance commuter of sorts between our home down south and the apartment in NYC.

One evening Chris came home to the apartment and woke me up to tell me that he had been pulled over while driving in upstate NY and would have to appear in court later that week, he asked me to accompany him to the court and I agreed. We told our boss at work so he could cover my shift as I ran the place at night and we would have to go appear at night court upstate, the boss also said to me “Mattie, you have to dress the part of a concerned parent and not like your usual casual self”

I should say that for most of my life I had been extremely overweight but in that particular time in my life I was in relatively great shape and could for the most part for the first time in my life walk into any store and pick something up off the racks and have it fit me perfectly. My sister used to encourage me in all things shopping back then and she would come into the city for our “sister shopping days” back then. On one particular trip of ours I purchased a very fitted imported Italian knit dress in a pale grey, it had a deep cowl neck and long sleeves and it fit me perfectly, it was below the knee in legnth and it made me feel wonderful when I tried it on, so I bought it at my sisters urging. Why I bought it I couldn’t figure out when I got back to the apartment as I really had no need for something so elegant but understated (I have always had very conservative tastes in clothing) but like I said I felt wonderful when I put it on. I proceeded to hang it in a garment bag in my closet and there it sat for more than a year with me never trying it on again until the evening we were headed to court.

As I got ready and was thinking about my bosses advice about dressing conservatively, I thought of ”the knit dress”, it would be absolutely perfect for a court appearance so I took it from the closet, I also took out my nice winter white wool coat that I had also bought in those years, everyone loved that coat on me and I always got many compliments when I wore it. I now had the perfect outfit for a court appearance.

We drove upstate and let the court clerk know we were there and joined all the other people waiting for their names to be called to appear up at the bench. As we sat my wrist started to itch and I thought to myself OhOh I hope I am not going to have a problem with the new wool itching me, but then forgot about it when they called Chris up to the bench, they made me stay back with the others waiting in the room on the bench seats.

The seats were typical wooden benches and after a while they were hard to be sitting on and I started to fidgit in my seat trying to get a little more comfortable. Suddenly my neck started to itch and I scratched it, then my wrist started itching again and I scratched that too. Pretty soon I was itching all over and then I noticed the people around me were begginning to stare at me a little oddly, I ignored them and was trying to hear what the judge was saying to Chris about his fine and such and if he would get points on his licsense. And then I crossed my one leg over the other and when I looked down I noticed that my knee had gone right thru the dress! Then I looked at where my wrist had been so itchy and saw that the cuff of the dress had also disintegrated, and where I had scratched my neck the cowl on the dress had come completely away from the neck and was just hanging around my neck! No wonder people were nudging each other to look in my direction…….little by little my dress was disintergrating off of me. I decided the best course of action would be to put my coat back on over my dress and when I put my arm thru it, the coat came apart at the shoulder seam and then I noticed all these tiny minute holes in both the dress and my coat. Apparently during the time my outfit had been hanging in my closet it had been a feast for moths, and all the time we lived in that apartment we never saw one of them but they did have a field day with all my wools when I checked them when we got home. Meanwhile in the courtroom Chris was told his fine and he paid it and found he wouldn’t recieve any points on his licsense, but you had to see the look on his face as he saw the shape of my clothes when he came back to where I was sitting, it was priceless, and we literally ran out of the court room before the judge took notice that there was now a half naked lady in his court. The next day at work Chris told everyone how lucky he was that the judge didn’t throw him under the jail for having his mother doing a strip tease in the court room, for years the staff loved to tell everyone about the episode and I took a lot of teasing for it.