Good Autumn Monday Evening!

Autumn is here!!!

It doesn't look like that outside right now... but isn't it beautiful? Golden leaves on the ground and all. Couldn't be my place, because I don't know who would be out there raking those leaves... Not this Oldgirl.  Nope!

It will look like that soon. And I just had my gutters cleaned. Come December or January they will be cleaned again.

*tapping my fingers on the table and watching Angie's List closely for a good coupon*

Yes, I am happy for the fall season. Why? Because it's not arse HAWT outside!

Here in the ATL, it's in the 70s, but it's dreary, rainy and just downright NASTY outside. Ugh. This would've been a great day just to take off and sleep ALL day, because I didn't have much to do at work (well I did, but it's Monday, so I am still O_O from the weekend).

I spent the weekend watching the first season of Homeland.

My cubicle mate CowgirlCre likes this show. I noticed that it swept the Golden Globe and Emmys for best drama and best actor and actress. So it had to be good, right?

I downloaded the pilot episode last week to my kindle to watch while at work (man, I was working, just doing paperwork, and I need to be watching or listening to something or I will throw myself out the window).

My oh my, that is a GOOD show! I watched all 12 episodes this weekend. I found myself screaming out loud and at times gasping for breath!

I called up Directv and added showtime, since the first episode of season 2 was on Sunday night.

The Operator said "Oh, you're calling to get Dexter and Homeland, right?"

Riiiiiiight, dude.

LOL.

I don't watch Dexter. That is confusing, and it looks like I needed to watch the early episodes to understand what's going on, and that ain't gonna happen, sense that show is a few years old.

The premiere was GREAT. If you liked 24 and Scandal... stuff like that, you'd LOVE this show! I thought it took that genre to some other level indeed!

I am a little bit miffed about not posting on Friday. There was an "internet outage" in my area. Whatever the heck that means. I wanted to tell AT&T that they could at least give me a dollar off my bill. But I let it be. So  now I am backed up on posts. I have a TON of them to put up.

So you're just gonna have to deal with it, man!

LOL

That's all for now, though. I am going to try and shorten my posts. Yeah, yeah I have said that for years, with no real action, right? Oh well. It will all work out.

On Tuesday evening there will be a gargantuan food post. Green Eyed Bandit's Mama was in town and she cooked it UP! Whooooo-weeeeeeee!

That food was good!  And you know I took plenty of pictures. PLENTY!

So stay tuned for that!

Have a good week... on purpose!

Thursday Randomness: Of Cards and Oscar-Tyrone

Oh, look at the lovely card I made!

'Tis for Sasha. I FINALLY mailed her her 1st place House of LadyLee sweepstakes prize.

She sent a lovely email! Hope you enjoy that, honey!!

If we take a wider angle picture of that card... we see something interesting.

Look real close up at the top center of the picture:

It's that Original Oldcat Oscar-Tyrone. He's over by the fireplace. And he looks to be posing for the camera, next to the new scratching pole that I purchased just for him. I thought he might like that sense he shredded the old one.

And the new one stands next to the old one.

He refuses to use the new one.

"Oscar! You a punk, man! A punk!" I hollered. "I spent $20 on that pole. You punk!"

He blinks... and walks away.

I've sprayed that pole with catnip spray. I sprinkled it with catnip herb.

He blinks. And walks away.

Sigh.

Maybe I will just throw the old one out. It was a "guaranteed" pole. And he LOVED it.

He's gonna have to deal with this new one...

Fantasy Come True!

I just have to post this...

Especially after that RATCHET game last night. I think I could've done a better job hosting the Seahawks-Packers game. With my eyes closed.

Yes indeed.

Anyway, I am a part of blogger Tazzee's hubby's fantasy football league...

I don't do well over there.

My matchup was with Tazzee... I wasn't going to keep track of it, as Tazzee is the female Zen Master of Fantasy football.

However, last night, while watching that interesting football game, I pulled up our matchup, and I saw that!

My eyes went superwide.

Me?

I?

Me? I beat Tazz!? By close to 40 points???

The Original Oldboys beat the Tazmanians???

*knocks over all the furniture in the living room... and that cat Oscar too.*

She has an interesting avatar... It smiles prettily, then hits you with the hauty menacing sneer.

It scares me something awful! But not today!

Tazz! I beat you, honey!!!

Heck, I ain't gotta beat nobody else... EVER!!

I bet Tazz so upset that she took off from work today.

It's okay Tazz. Woo, woo, woo. It's alright, honey.

We all gotta lose sometime. *snicker, snicker*

'Tis a fantasy! A fantasy come true!

OH HAPPY DAY!!!

Friday Afternoon Freestyles

I am sitting here...

Sitting here at home on a Friday.

I should be happy. I should be doing wide swooping cartwheels allll around my living room.

But I have an appointment to have my gutters cleaned and my roof inspected. I don't have to be here for them to do it, but I have questions. I need a vent replaced because there is a slight roof leak upstairs. I need a deal on that.

Sigh.

I would take the day off, but I'm not. I REALLY want to go to work.

That sounds STRANGE coming out of my mouth, man. It's just that I have a ton of things to do. We have an biannual audit next week and I am trying to get prepared and get my regular work done at the same time. Which means I can't really afford to take much time off right now.

But I have quickly gotten over that. I will just go to work when they finish up.

I have had this coupon since July (through Angie's list)... but I am just slow when it comes to doing certain stuff, like making appointments, etc.  There's been a bunch of stuff my doctor wants me to do, and even she told me "You are so slow!"

I know that, honey. That is something I will be working on FOREVER.

I'm slow, but I will get things done... eventually.

This has been an interesting week.... Just a few random thoughts for you.

1. Uh, what's up with Candidate Mitt Romney?

Look at him. He looks quite presidential, doesn't he? I can't say I know much of what his plan for the country is or what he stands for, though. I raise an eyebrow when people of his own party don't really care much for him. And he is a bit tight lipped about his record as governor of Massachusetts (which says A LOT if you ask me). Tight lipped indeed...

But he has diarrhea of the mouth behind closed doors, don't he? Did you see that little clip of him running his mouth about Obama supporters? Goodness.  You just slapped veterans and the elderly in the face, sir. Not to mention other folks. Wow.

We say what we say and do what we do when we don't think anyone's watching, don't we? Hmm... that's some food for thought for you.

I just want the campaign to be over. Let November get here already. Dang.

2.  I've picked up on something during this campaign season... The Middle class are people who make around $200,000-250,000 per year.

I don't even know anyone who makes that much money.

I don't even make that much per year. I wonder if that puts me in the poverty category.

I don't receive that. Nerp!

3.  My cell phone doesn't ring anymore. It only vibrates. This is my fault, as I have dropped it one too many times. Sigh. Part of me doesn't care. Especially if it means that if I'm not as plugged in electronically.  And that is fine by me.

4. I better cut grass this weekend. If not, my house will be fine forest setting for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, or even Hansel and Gretel.  And we don't want that.

5. What I'm reading right now.... A vampire series...

A Hidden Fire, by Elizabeth Hunter. My cubicle mate CowgirlCre had been raving about this series of books about vampires. Her eyes got so big while talking about it. I thought she would start turning cartwheels and break dancing in the cubicle area, lol.

She loved the character development and story structure, and since I read for style (she reads a whole book in a couple of hours), I thought I would read it. I have to admit, it is the best character development, story structure, and plot development I've ever come across. Very good.

They are very good books and very well written. And this author is taking the route that I want to take with my own books, so that in itself makes me feel good to know that it can be done, with a lot of work, of  course. But it has given me confidence to move forward. That's a good thing.

I am reading other books, more spiritual in nature, but those warrant their own posts... and this post is getting too long.

Song of the Week.  Old school:  Some Stephanie Mills!



Alright, now! If that get your weekend started right, I don't know what will, honey!

That's a good song to clean the house up to! lol

It's got me up and going. Sho nuff.

With that, have a great weekend!

On purpose. 

Weekend Food and Fun!

So as I mentioned on Monday, the highlight of my weekend was attending a birthday party at Nikki's parents house for her mother's sister.

That was a lot of fun.

It was preceded by a promise to bring cookies... which I do anyways. I NEVER show up anywhere empty handed.

More on that later.

I had a nice time.

And I tell you, when those folks cook? They cook it up for real. The charcoal grill was going full blast when I walked up.

I didn't get pictures of everything. We were too busy all in the kitchen... throwing elbows, jocking for position.

I myself was very much interested in the fruit and the salad.

If the lights would've gone out, I would've picked up that tray of fruit and ran out of the house. It was good and sweet.

They had some serious food. I didn't get the pictures I wanted because there were so many people. But check this out...

Ribs... dirty rice... macaroni and cheese (which was insanely good)... and some type of ramen noodle dish (I think it was yakamein. Where is BayouCreole chick at? Explain that to me. I didn't have any while I lived in New Orleans). I didn't get any of that, but man it looked good.

Those ribs are off the grill... so I know they had to be good. They sure smelled good.

There was baked chicken...

And lasagna.

There was no eggplant parmesean. But Mama Nikki hooked up some spinach lasagna. I didn't get any of that. I thought I would go back for that, but I was laid out on the sofa after I finished my first plate, lol.

Rumor had it that there was some good gumbo around. I didn't see it. But people were taring it up. I think that went fast.

There was some GREAT caramel cake.

Caramel cake is my cubicle mate CowgirlCre's favorite cake. This was good because it wasn't caramel icing out of the can. This was the real deal... somebody messed around and melted some caramel candy cubes or something like that, and made that icing from scratch!

Oh my! It was good. I wanted another piece to take home. But I am to shy to grab a plate of anything to take home. (Even though others were lined up and with plates and foil... gotta love our people, lol!)

Like I said, I had a good time. They know they can cook up some good food!

And you know what? I brought some cookies... I think I made 4 dozen: 2 dozen triple chocolate chip pecan, and 2 dozen oatmeal raisin cranberry walnut cookies.

But no one saw them after I brought them in. I remember sitting them on the dining room table.

I started getting pointed questions.

"Where the cookies at?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I don't know. But I brought them in. You better ask Mama Nikki and her sister. They were in the room when I sat them down."

I got a hard side-eye from some folks. LOL

Not my problem. I wanted one cookie. And my cookie was at home sitting on my kitchen counter.

When I was leaving, Mama Nikki and her sister were outside smoking cigarettes.

I stopped to talk to them. "Uh, people looking for the cookies. Where did ya'll put them?"

"We're not leaving those cookies out. Are you crazy?"

LOL. That happens a lot with my cookies. That happened at CowgirlCre's family gathering back around Labor day.  The ish gets put up. And I get the hard stares, as if I forgot to bring them. I know I took 6 dozen cookies to one of CowgirlCre's family dinners and they all disappeared in less than a minute. So I do understand that you cannot just leave them just sitting out. Nerp.

"You can put them out," I said to the sister. "I can just run you a tin of them out here before you go back to New York. I live downtown, only 20 minutes away. Not a problem to run out here real quick."

"I want to save some for my trip home," she said.

I blinked. "You gonna be here for three weeks, though. I wouldn't save cookies for that long."

Both took a toke on their cigarettes and pondered my statement. The sister had a determined look on her face. I convinced her to just let me bring her a fresh batch the day before she goes home. 3 week old cookies gotta be stale and nasty.

They were still looking at me crazy.  LOL

Too funny.

I had a great time with Nikki's folks...

Yes, I missed Nikki's presence... I still expect to hear her holler "Lee!" when I walk through the door. But there was some of who she was still there with everyone in attendance. And that's a good thing.