Friday Freestyles... The Wildlife Edition

Friday!

PayDay!

Which means I will be sitting here paying out some bills today. That won't take but about 5 minutes, since some 90% of my stuff is on straight automatic. Whatever did we do before online bill pay? I gasp at the thought of writing checks and licking stamps.

Gasp, I say.

I don't have much to post today. It has been an interesting week. I didn't really even have a food for the week. Wait, I made homemade tortilla chips in the oven... take a corn tortilla, cut it up in 6 pieces and bake it for a few minutes. Add some salt and spices and you got chips. Here's a recipe I used. Oh no, I didn't fry them, and I sprayed my baking pan with olive oil spray. That is as good as it gets. And they weren't bad. Just saw that on Pinterest, and I thought, that's simple enough. DO IT. LOL.

So... the most interesting thing of the week (among other things):

My sister Kentucky saw this in her apartment's weekly newsletter:

She was livid. Because she likes to walk the complex everyday.

"Well," I said, "At least they warned you. And coyotes tend to stay away from people. You just be sure you don't be out there walking a small dog or cat. I would be more worried about a pit bull running around."

She wasn't trying to hear all that.

Aww yes... the joys of living out in the suburbs. These are problems of the suburbs.

I live in the hood, downtown. And the only wildlife I have seen was a wild turkey in my neighbor's backyard back in 2006.

Hmm... we will always wonder how that turkey found his way into the hood.

My brother also had a wild turkey in his neighborhood, out in the surburbian part of College Park. I think the kids named hime "James" or something like that. Sometimes James would come out in the open, and someone would yell "There go James!!!", and they would all give chase.

They never caught James the turkey. Maybe James decided to move further out into the southern surburbs... where the ancestors of my sister's coyotes GOT HIM.

LOL...

Now, the only wildlife I have ever dealt with was the nutria rat. I saw those while living in New Orleans.

Such a lovely animal there, smiling, and showing his orange front teeth.

They look like beavers with long rat tails. There was a whole family of them living in the lake of my apartment complex. They were at least 30 pounds. If I was out feed stale bread to the birds, one would walk up on me. I never really noticed what was going on until the birds were O_o and moving slowing to the side. I would look down and see it standing there.

And I would throw it a whole slice of bread. The nutria rat will walk back through the sea of ducks. And everything would return to normal.

I don't think my sister would or should try that method. If she sees a coyote, she needs to go the other way. That won't be a problem, as she said she won't be walking anymore. Too bad because her complex is nice for walking.

Oh well...

Song of the Week. This song was the number one song 35 years ago this week. "Boogie Oogie Oogie" by Taste of Honey.



My goodness. That takes me back to my lil' 9-year-old self. That was my favorite song back then.

That and anything by Earth Wind and Fire.

It's going to a beautiful weekend in the ATL. And I have a ton of things to do. But I will be enjoying some of this good sunshine.

Yes i will.

You make sure to have a good weekend too, rain or shine... on purpose.

Ten Thursday Thoughts

I had a good time cutting grass yesterday. That sounds odd, as I don't care much for yard work. I guess good sunshine and good music make it all a good time. All I needed was a toothpick to chew on and a nice cold beer, lol. I still have to cut my shrubs. But they are doggone near 7 feet tall. Not sure how that is going to work out.

Georgia passed a gun bill yesterday. These good Georgia White folks are jumping for joy right now.

Add this new wonderful bill to the call for a Confederate Flag license plate and it's a GREAT day in Georgia. I'm just about to start whistling Dixie in a minute. I wonder how fast I'd get my azz whooped if I ordered a plate for my car? Hmm.

I feel like if folk can have a Confederate Flag license plate, then I should at least be able to have a Martin Luther King,Jr. or a Mahalia Jackson license plate. I'm just saying.

I have a horrible craving for potatoes and popcorn. Just horrible. I must eradicate that PRONTO. I found a potato substitute called sunchokes, but it's too expensive. Plus, not all people can eat them.

Amber alert is no joke. A child was missing out of Mississipi, and the family was heading to Georgia. You can hang it up when your license plate number is being texted to EVERY cell phone. You might as well turn yourself in, honey. Child was found, parents arrested. And the reason this was an emergency was because an infant was found dead. You can not run. And you can not hide.

There is an excellent discussion about human sex trafficking on black talk radio this morning. This is befitting, as Atlanta is the number one city for it. I don't think I would've thought anything about it had I not read the novel Anybody's Daughter by Pamela Samuels-Young.

I need some new sneakers, but I can't find my size in the stores I have gone to. I guess I shouldn't have gone shopping on Easter Weekend. Folks were buying dress shoes AND fresh new white sneakers like crazy. Maybe I will have better luck this weekend.

I seem to be adjusting to these 6 hour workdays. I hear that we will be doing this for another month. I must admit it is nice to get off from work eveyday between noon and two o'clock. It is nice to be not be caught up in a bunch of ATL traffic. Yes indeed.

There's a big difference between what I should be doing and what people think I should be doing. I find that I am happier and more content when I do what I know is right for me to do... rather than seeking the approval of others. Does that make sense? I hope so.

Happy Earth Day... From Oscar-Tyrone

Hello there.



LadyLee is busy right now, so I am taking over her blogging for the day.

It's me... Oscar-Tyrone.

Call me Oscar. LadyLee calls me Oscar-Tyrone. Oscar sounded too "white" to her...

I don't now why she thinks because she is black that I am black.

Maybe my name is Oscar because I am a caucasian cat. I don't think she ever thought about that. And I am not going to explain it to her.

Happy Earth Day to you.

LadyLee isn't even thinking about Earth Day. We are talking abot a woman who will fall asleep with every light left in the house. And let's not even talk about the plastic bottles and aluminum cans she throws in the trash.

She is not an earth day type of girl. No she is not.

So you have me.



So I was sitting in a chair in the dining room and I saw something that caught my attention. It was a picture of another cat.

I wanted to jump up on the table and get a better look, but LadyLee would have a complete fit if I did so. Let's just say it's been 15 years since I got the notion to jump up on a table.

I hit it with my paw. It wasn't alive. And I saw that it was some type of card. I opened the card and it had words. I don't read very well, so I think I will just let you read it for yourself:

That is from a kitten shelter. Dorothy, one of the readers who won one of the $44 gift cards during the LadyLee Birthday Sweepstakes, wanted her gift card donated to the Tiny Paws Kitten Rescue.

LadyLee was perplexed about that one.

I, Oscar, was elated. Anything to help my fellow brothers and sisters. That could buy kitty litter. And cat food.

(LadyLee only thinks about herself. She would've used that card to buy some groceries, makeup, and a couple of packs of panties from the Wal-mart. She is so crass, she is.)

I closed the card, and looked back at the picture on front.

Look at that little thing. Thank goodness there are kind people at Tiny Paws to take such good care of him.

That little kitten is a lucky one. Because if it was left up to LadyLee to hold a little one like that and bottle feed him like that?

He just would not make it. Unless I can figure out how to nurse him myself. And I am not lactating. Never have, and never will.

LadyLee whines and complains about my $70 a month special cat food. It's not my fault that I have liver and digestion issues. I am 17 years old. What does she expect?

She would really be whining about feeding such a little one with a bottle. With her crass self.

I would have to lead the poor kitty over to my water bowl and hope he drinks. He will, as he will quickly find out that LadyLee will be way off on his feeding schedule.

Sigh.

She's looking for a kitten right now, she is. I hope she gets one who can feed and clean himself. I really do.

My paws are tired from typing, so I think I will leave you with a special song. It is expecially nice, as it talks about rain. LadyLee seems to like it alot.



Maybe it will one day help her to decide to gather and conserve rain water. That would be nice.

Now, you go on out and make it a Happy Earth Day.

Recycle some paper, aluminum or plastic.

Save the whales.

Better yet, save a kitty.

xxxooo

Oscar

Happy Good Friday Freestyles

TGIF once again.

And I meant to say TGIGF!

Thank God it's GOOD Friday!

Hence, Easter Sunday is coming up this weekend. Lent will be over for many of you. I don't do Lent. I am not Catholic. But I think it's a good idea for folks, though. I have known many a catholic and noncatholic who get a LOT of things- physical, emotional, spiritual, mental- taken care of. And that's a great thing.

Anyway, I have no plans. I don't go to church on sundays as it is - I prefer weekday services- so I am definitely not going on Sunday. That's when folks who don't go to church go to church. On Easter and Mother's day. I will stay home, thank you very much. I am nontraditional, boderline heathen, lol. Plus, I figured out from scrolling around on my Roku that my church has a Roku channel. Oh joy! Shouldn't have let me find that. Live streaming on the flat screen. GLORY! *church jog in the kitchen while I'm washing dishes and watching church*

I have had a decent week, albeit I am a little stressed still. Hopefully that will diminish with the nicer weather. Hopefully.

Food of the Week. I am still trying one, maybe two new recipes per week, preferably raw recipes. This seems to be working out pretty well, as it takes me no longer than 10-15 minutes to prepare and/or cook. I am down for that, honey.

Here's one that I tried: Celeriac, pear and rocket salad from the website Coconuts and Berries.

Here is my version.

I thought it was good. It's just that I'm not that big of a fan of celery. And celeriac tastes like celery, but not as strong, if that makes any sense. I kicked mines up a notch and added some walnuts.

And I didn't grow up on celeriac. Grandma was in the kitchen cooking up plenty of turnips (which I hated), but I don't remember her cooking up no celeriacs. I have only heard of it from somebody using it on some cooking show. And even then, I thought "That's an ugly vegetable. Who on earth would have thought to eat that?"

Celeriac is a root vegetable. Here is the one I bought.

It only cost $1.00, as they were on sale at the Whole Foods that day. They had some as big as a human head. I bought the smallest one. I am not a fan of root vegetables, but I thought I'd give it a try.

Peeling that sucker is more than a notion, though. You best not use your good vegetable peeler on that one or you gonna break it. The longest part of the process was peeling it and chopping it down into matchsticks. As you can see, my matchstick cuts aren't all that uniform. It looks like I was a bit tipsy while cutting it up, lol.

It was interesting. Like I said, I don't care much for the celery taste, but it was good.

And "rocket"... You know what that is? That is the british word for arugula. LOL! Who woulda thought that? We would've ALL lost money on Jeopardy behind that one.

I am not a fan of arugula unless it is mixed with something. And if I buy a container of it, I better eat it fast, within a week, or it wilts away. But it was good in this recipe.

Celeriac is actually very good for the body.

And the celeriac root is heavy as hell. So if a sucker runs up on me, I can bust him upside the head with it and knock him out!

All that is useful to me. I have looked up other recipes. *in my Bubba voice* You can broil it, you can bake it, you can fry it, you can sautee it, you can mash it, you can eat it raw.

I may try something else with it.

I have also taken a liking to spiralized veggies.

That's zuchinni and squash. I can use that like spaghetti. Or just straight sautee it.

Hmm hmm good.

Thought of the Day. Man. I have been watching too much news. Much of that is just to see the weather reports, because the weather is so trippy... hot one day, freeze warning the next.

But is it me, or is there a LOT of craziness going on? They still can't find the Malaysian airplane that went down. And a ferry boat capsized this week. Between those two events, close to 500 lives were lost. Hopefully it's less than that, as they are trying still get up in that ferry boat.

But just think of that. And I am not one to watch much news, but it is a way overwhelming. It makes me think.

I wrote a post titled "5 Minutes" some time back. One of my favorite ministers said the following:

You worry about the future. You wail about tomorrow. Get all depressed, let the circumstances get to you. The truth of the matter is that you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.

Tomorrow isn't promised.

You can't even see 5 minutes in front of your face, people.

I have thought about that for a long time. The more I think about it, the more I realize how strong that statement is. We really don't know what will happen in the next 5 days or 5 hours, let alone 5 minutes. None of the passengers on any of those trips from point A to point B knew that THAT DAY would be the day of their death. And that is haunting. It truly is.

I myself try not to worry about the future. But it is hard with the media and all this outside distraction feeding my fears. So I must continue to do what I like to do: starve my fears and hope they die. That is a lifelong process.

My goal is to live in expectation. I like to expect some good "and suddenlys" in my life. And suddenly, something great happen to LadyLee. And suddenly something good happen to LadyLee in the next 5 days to LadyLee. And suddenly something good happen to LadyLee in the next 5 minutes.

And for me that could mean winning the lotto. Or it could mean making it through the day, and living to see one more day. It could mean getting 5 out of 10 things done on my "to-do" list for today. It could mean even mean the involuntary sneeze I may have in the next 5 minutes, where my body is trying to get rid of something that is not suppose to be there.

It's important to be thankful for the day... because we don't know what will happen tomorrow. We don't even know what will happen in the next 5 minutes. Let's hope and pray it's good things.

That's my mini food-for-thought, the freestyle edition. *throws mike to the ground and walks off*


Songs of the Week. It's gonna rain cats and dogs and frogs today in the ATL, so I need some rainy day music.

I love some Vesta. This is a song that never got any airplay, but it was a good song.



I heard this song last night, and I'd forgotten about it. "Whatever it Takes" by Anita Baker from the Compositions CD.


That's what I like to call "Begging after a man" song. Don't act! We ALL done "begged after a man" before. I know I have. Been awhile, though. Ya'll need to kick my azz if you see me doing that at my age now, lol. I don't do the desperation thing.

And my FAVORITE rainy day song, by a Anita Baker wannabe, lol.. Milara!


She is a bit dramatic in that song. But she's 1990s sharp, standing at the window wailing about a lost love!

That's the ultimate "my man done left me and now I'm crying". Don't act! We've all cried over that breakup.

I am particularly puzzled by the line at 1:37.

Oh Lawd I can see
So many eyes on me
And I imagine what they're saying...
They say I'm a fool.
They say I'm a fool,
If I'm still in love with you.
Don't they know I'm only human?
Human.

And she sings with SUCH emotion when she sings "Don't they know I'm only human."Ha! How self-conscious we become in these situations. I never look at any stranger on the street and say "She's a fool cuz she still in love with that dude."

I like Milara, but she is WAY over the top. But that's a good song. And she is sharp while standing at the window and wailing hard. I do think that I would be standing there in my pajamas. LOL

And that's my Friday freestyles for the week. You would think I would spread this out over the week, right?

Uh.....nope.

You have a good Easter weekend.

On purpose.