The Ghost in Grandma's Kitchen! by Diane Ogden

OK so I couldn't find a photo of a ghost in someones kitchen.
But it was there I swear.  It was 5:23 a.m. and I awake with one of
those dastardly upper thigh muscle spasms. I prayed for at least 30 seconds for it to leave my presence knowing that doesn't usually happen so I leaped up! Stood there while it got worse, hobbled to the kitchen for water because that is one of the main causes of muscle spasms. Lack of H2o.  Also I read on Dr. Ott to drink pickle juice.  That was not gonna happen, but I did the next best thing.  Picture this 8 x 10 glossy of me standing in the kitchen in an over sized T-shirt, glass of water in one hand and chowing a pickle down in the other at 5:30 no less.  That is when I faintly heard my phone ring. 
S H U T U P, that cannot be good news at 5:30 a.m. and I RAN for the bedroom, missed the call, checked the last # and it was mother calling from the funny farm.  My brain fried like an egg in an instance because dad is in the dying mill (nursing home) short term after a kidney removal.  Mother tells me she was sleeping in the downstairs den when she was woke, waken, waked, whatever, by the sound of my dad's cane walking across the kitchen.  I said, "Say what?"  She said, "Diane, it was the exact sound of your dad's cane moving across the kitchen."  She told me she got up and went to the kitchen (braver than I am) and she grabbed his cane and walked it around and sure enough it was that exact sound. So she tried to call the dying mill to check on him cause she thought he might have died overnight and come to see her! No one answered. Imagine that.  She told me it was the erie-est sound and feeling.  I told her I would call dad and I did.  He answered. Said he slept good why?  I told him Gma had a bad dream and wanted to make sure he was alright.  Hell fire I wasn't going to tell him she thought he croaked and was walking around her kitchen thumping his cane at 5:30 a.m. this morning.  Nope...  They do say dusk and dawn is when the spiritual veil is lessened and "they" can come through more easily.  Something came through alright. 
I do wonder who was in that kitchen.  Man I wouldn't live out there in the country alone without an M-16 at my side at all times for nothin or no one. Of course an M-16 wont kill a ghost now will it?  It's already dead fred! I wonder who was in that kitchen.  I mean if your going to come visit in the dawn hours say who you be.  Otherwise what's it all for except for fear and who needs to wake up to that.  It is odd though isn't it that we both woke up at the same time. Hope everyone else in the fam is OK. 
I personally have saved the family ghost photos over the years.  Think I'll post some in my up and coming blogs.

Esther and The Colonel.... "The Barnyard Inn"

On occasion Esther and The Colonel oblige/resign themselves to ride together in his "blue" (Esther hates blue so The Colonel bought a new blue car) vehicle to a cozy German restaurant about forty minutes from where they live.  That's a long time for them to live together in the blue car alone and come out alive. They arrived safe, but not sound of mind, to greet The Colonel's son and his wife.  Praying all the while The Colonel's Grand would not make an appearance.  Not so lucky!  Here he comes...hold ya nose!  He smells like a wet dog in heat.  That would be because Harold has something against water that runs out of pipes and over the body to wash away smelly.  He also does not believe in deodorant. What? Hey, no one would care if he jumped in the dirty river, anything would help. 
Esther is absolutely beyond her wits as he heads straight for her arms.  And as he does, she is taking in oxygen as fast as he is stepping so she can hold her breath until he walks away.  But he doesn't walk away!
He sits right on down next to Ms. Esther.  She told me her meal was over.
The smell was bringing tears to her eyes.  The Colonel had thus far this evening did her brain in, and now his Grand was doin' the rest of her in.  Her mind kept seeing herself at her own wedding to The Colonel and that is when she lost a tear or two more right into her plate of stake and lobster. Someone asked her what was the matter?  She responded with. "Oh nothing much, it's just sitting here with all of you, that is getting to me." (she didn't say how) And of course they thought she was being sentimental and reminiscent. Esther excused herself to the ladies room to finish out her cry over how she got into this mess in the first place because right at this moment she felt like she was in last place. That is when she opened the bathroom door for some respite and was hit in the face with something worse than The Colonel's Grand's odor. OMG she thought...  what next as she backed out and headed for the outdoors and fresh air.  It must be a curse she mumbled as she strolled away from the barnyard inn.
You see Esther in anal....in the area of cleanliness that is.  All she wanted was to go to her clean nice smelling home but that meant another forty minute ride with the grump.  He was so kind and mannerly to the fam but when they got alone he was grump butt. I heard him myself one day...He was walking somewhere in the condo and Esther said, "Where ya goin'?"  And he answered harshly and with gruff tones, "To the bathroom, what's it to ya?"  Ooooooooooohhh. I told Esther to tell him to flush some of his bad behavior down with the rest of his chit. Might make him somewhat easier to live with.  I would call them "The Bickersons," but its not that good.  In fact I sense a large bomb about to hit the condo and that would or should be called D I V O R C E.  Nawh, only in their dreams.  The word that comes to me regarding Esther and The Colonel is "Stuck like a truck in the muck!" 
What's the good news?  Lexus (they named her Lexus cause they couldn't afford the Lexus car) the Grand on the other side of the clan started High School a few days ago.  Esther paid for Lexus to get her hair colored with The Colonel's credit card.  That was fun.  He wont get the bill until next month.
By then he will be onto something else to crab about.  The Colonel is 70% Archie Bunker, and 30% Scrooge.  Seriously.

The really good news is that Esther "loaned" me her mother's antique oak center table.  Esther hated her mother so I am not sure what all this means. I think the value of the table is truly not the value of the table to Esther.  I just hope it doesn't have any mean mother attachment spirits on it!  I don't wish to be any closer to Esther's clan than listening by phone. Her dead mother was mean and now she's got  a mean colonel to live with.  Me, I got the good table, on loan anyway, and material for the blog.  Maybe not a funny as usual but I'll get it back on track.

I am praying for Esther to get her little shabby chic cottage to live in with her dog Harry.

photo from: http://www.agiftwrappedlife.com/

Worst Blog I Ever Posted......by Diane Ogden

 This is half of something.  This is half of a union, a pair, a couple!
One white and one black.  One salt and one pepper.  Now I stand alone, really alone on a vast wooden table left to deal with life half-way. 
Salt was sitting on the counter attached to me, pepper, at the side by a strong almost unbeatable, unbreakable force called a magnet. We were like twins, inseparable, where one went the other usually always went too.  Silly huh?  Not really....just look at me now. Poor soul.  Not only standing alone now, but I'm black on the inside living in a white outer side!  This is no good life anymore.

After salt fell off the the edge of the counter and died a big smashing death, I knew it was over.  The life I had known for years was over.  I could see the person that shoved her off the edge was upset.  Standing there gazing at salt trying to figure out a way to put her back together...sort of worse than humpty dumpty or scrambled eggs.  There was no putting salt back together.  So I watched the lady sweep her up and drop her into a big white bag and that was the last time I saw salt.  I have an empty spot now.  Its right on my side where she used to be attached and sit every day, every month every year.

The lady that accidentally killed salt was talking to someone.  She was saying, "OMG, I hope those weren't a wedding gift, or maybe carried some sincere sentimental value.  What if they belonged to the deceased Grandmother, or they might have been a gift one of their children walked a mile to a store with only a few dollars they'd saved for months to buy a Mother's day gift for!" 

That lady carried on so long I started to think she might know I had feelings. Nawh, impossible.  Salt is gone and I will have to find a way to move on.  I have some other friends on the counter. A large brown wooden grinder and some new fangled plastic (probably from Wal Mart) with big salt inside it.  When they turn the top it makes noises and then salt like my old friend that got pushed off a cliff counter and smashed into a thousand pieces, comes out the top.  The new salt is OK, just not my cup of salt is all.  I will adjust to the loss.  Not so sure that lady will.  She was more upset than I was and salt wasn't even hooked up to her.  I think she was just a-scared the people that owned salt and I might be upset. She still isn't over it.  It's been a few months now and today when she came she sat me on the table and took some pictures of the missing salt.  I'm fine, she isn't!! 

Hells Gates! (Wal Mart) by Diane Ogden

No one is lying when they take these pics at Wally world..... I am telling you the truth.  I have my camera ready when I walk through the hells gates of that place.  It never ceases to amaze me what I see and it has nothing to do with China.  Rather its us-in's USA country folk.  OMG totally embarrassing. They shouldn't been allowed outta the shoot!  That's all I can say, but then again each is here on this earth for his or her own learning.  Does that only include the ones with class vs ass, the ones with smarts vs farts, the ones with more vs the whores, the ones with totes vs smokes, the crazies vs the babies, the nuts and butts vs putts, and so on....??  I am not a judgemental person but omg I cant believe what I see at Hells Gates when I HAVE TO go there.  I mean come on they have the only $4 prescription program. Even though I heard there is asphalt and paint residue in the meds!  Do I go anyway?  Sometimes yup.  But I dress well when I go for my Chinese blue asphalt ka-douches and drugs.  I lock my car, and watch certain groups of different color park right in front of the door with no matter of anyone else. Just sit there in the way!  IN THE WAY!  I and most others don't do that!  But then who cares, pull out the smart phone and take a few pics of Hells Gates People...better known as Wal Mart frequenters, grab a cart, stay away from those that fart if your smart, get out real fast before you see more a_s (then you want,) get your drugs, run from the thugs, swear to never go back, cause most of em on smack, All so crass, has to be why they show their  a_s, .....scary place, take along mace! China owns them! Cause they sell the drugs cheap, which draws in the tricks of the folks in the pics.  You have to go there to believe it!  Bless the greater!  That is the good news for the day... not necessarily the happy news. I took the photos from the website "the people of Wal Mart."  You have to go there before you die.  Put it on your bucket list for sure.  It's out of this world, or at least the one I live in until I need a $4 prescript. 

Dad's FalseTeeth in My Purse? by Diane Ogden

So my father had a kidney removed this week. My brother drove four hours to be part of the kidney removal scene. Its the only time we, my brother, mother, father, and myself get together. Not kidney's only, but any medical issues of the parents.  The nurse gave me dad's teeth in a plastic container full of liquid, to care for during the kidney removal. I looked at it, went to put it in my purse and stopped....the thought came and then the vision of the plastic container coming open and spilling all about me purse!  Bad memory (of dad) so I didn't put them in the purse.  I carried the blessed things down to the restaurant with brother, mother, and sister-in-law.  I set them on the table suggesting we get a plastic bag for them.  As well as handing full responsibility over to mother.  She acquired a white hospital bag placed them in the bottom and tied the top.  I couldn't help but notice they were sitting on her food tray.  Mother is 809, that was a typo, 80 years and all I could vision was those teeth going into the trash with her food tray.  And I said so!  She rarely likes my said soh's.... Then being a very anal human being, mother decides the plastic bag is too big for the teeth container size and goes to find herself a cutting object.  She comes back with a plastic knife and starts sawing the top of the teeth in the bag.  She gets it done after much sawing.  Now we have a small plastic bag with a twisty tie thingy on top still sitting on the food tray heading for the trash area.  My dad really likes his teeth by the way.  And mother secretly thinks he needs new ones.  He doesn't.  His teeth look totally real with gold fillings and a chip.  My point?  I was watching those teeth like a duck on a junebug!  Finally, mother put them in her purse!  Teeth saved through one last operation...I hope the last one.   This blog was one of those where you had to be there!  Either that or I am sleep deprived from staying at the hospital with dad the past couple nights.  I can't save my dad, but I saved his teeth!  That's my happy news for today.

I Just Met Jane from India! by Diane Ogden

You know that commercial where the guy answers the tech calls? He's a flippin' American with an accent from India and says his name is Jane!  Well I now know Jane!  His name is Satish Rama something.... He was sooosooo nice and intelligent and he checked my computer like a doctor checks my watusi-v!  I gave him total control of my computer,yup.  Let him use me, you know, have access, you know, to my computer thru far away access called remote, no joke.  I did think about it for a second.  Just like my marriages duh.  Thinking longer then a second would be good.  OK, so my virus control had stopped and I wasn't sure for how long.  Just ell-gone-o!  And he was showing me via remote from INDIA why? Because I called the # given for AVAST Security.  The only problem I experienced at that point was that he was sniffing over and over gobbs of sniffing gob. I thought I was going to pueck before he got it all down!  eeeww. Seriously! Every time he started to snort the snot I quickly moved the phone away from my ear for fear I would seriously lose it.  There isn't much that upsets my gag reflex but his oatmeal going down the tube was doin' it.  Reason? I lost my antivirus I PAID some corporation for so said corporate sent me to INDIA! JANE, who was trained to SELL me something. I did catch on 3/4's way thru. I thought it was TOO nice that he was doing all that for little ole mwah her in Wisco.... so at least I give myself a tad of credit.  And I did speak up and say,
Whoa Joe, I smell a rat from India named Jane."  I said, "I am thinking you want $. And the first question I asked you was, will this cost me, and you said no!"  So bye bye Janie.  Then I said, "I will never buy AVAST anti virus again." That is when he handed me to a technician who put my Avast anti virus back on my puter of which I paid for dag gummit. Where did it go anyway? I don't know and I don't know if my puter is OK.  My son told me to buy an Apple! They don't have these INDIA issues, they don't even know Jane.  But I do!  I needed to take my dog out but couldn't because Jane was trying to sell me a $299 plan so he could come into my computer and check it regular like. REMOTE! I told Jane that I used to be in sales and I recognized his talented intent.  I thanked him for his intelligence, asked him what time it was in India....told him I had to go now.  (FOR WHAT did I thank him?)  For wasting my time omg....I have so much to do before bed and morning.  Holy Cows.  I have to take Grace out to podie.
 Goodnight Jane and better luck on the next one.  I am sooo glad I am smarter then Jane who went to college!  Although I once bought an electrolux for the price of used car..... just means I have grown wiser with age is all.  The happy news for today is I caught the thief...and it only took two hours of my life to do it.  Screw corporate Jane in India! (caution: It's comin' this way folks...$2 an hour corporate pay, food lines)

SURVIVAL.......I must be one of the fittest! by Diane Ogden

In the past three days I have survived the "good cops, bad cops" deal with my employee and her boyfriend, an email from an unhappy client because said employee forgot to do most everything while thinking about her boyfriend whilst I am dealing with bad cop because bad boy boyfriend called my cell phone 42 times in a little over one hour, texted it, left messages of himself banging either his head (I hope) or her cell phone on something.  Class huh?

I survived setting up a website for someone having never done so before. Calling tech support at midnight yet never have figured out how to set up the widget so someone can subscribe. Rather important piece missing there. And probably the easiest to doo.

I survived my printer dying.  Especially because I just purchased $65.00 worth of unused ink. 
I survived my first pedicure and I am a few plus decades past when I should have had one.

I survived eating at some low rent Shit-zue Japanese food hut at the mall where it tasted like they poured sugar on the meat, rice, and veges. I nearly gagged eating the few bites I did, while watching Justin Beamer on the over sized screen above my little eating table.  My dog wouldn't even eat it.  I made a comment about it while paying $7 (wow deal) at Penney's for a pair of stretch, (I love stretch) work out pants.  She said, "Oh don't eat there, a lot of people have gotten sick."  At that point my brain is telling my stomach that a lot of people have gotten sick from the chit-hut I just ate at!!  What do you call that again?  Oh yeah, stinkin' thinkin'.  Or sickness by association of thoughts.  I forget the correct descriptive word. I survived it tho.

I have yet to survive my 86 year old Dad's surgery tomorrow morning.  I pray he lives because if he doesn't I am next in line for the wrath of "mother!"  I will only survive that because I will move far far away to the woods somewhere.

I also have to survive today's trip to the "funny farm" to visit Dad with the Grands(children) that is.  We will only stay two hours because that is all "mother" wants anyone (me) to stay.  Fine with me!'

I thought about what to say to Dad before he is wheeled away to surgery or heaven (oh God!). And I prayed on my bloody knees he wouldn't ask me to take care of "mother" if he passes on to heaven.  Because if he does I have a coughing plan in order to last as long as it takes until they wheel him away. No death bed promises coming out of my mouth thank you.  Not taking care of "mother!"  Think what you want, she's tough on me and always has been.  I have paid my dues to the world so guilt is not a button on my chest any longer!

I was going to stop and buy some fancy food to take to the funny farm today but we were told to come after lunch so why would I?  So my brother who has more money than God can eat it?  Not gonna happen!  I should have thought to take him some of the "Shit-zue Japanese Hut food."  LMAO (that means laughing my ars (that means ass) off in case I am the only one that didn't know that)

I also survived my little gremlin monster dog of 6 lbs. poo-ing in the apartment sun room and me stepping in it and tracking it allll about the room.  I smelled it but thought some large dog had deposited out side the window I was putting a fan into. Nope, Nadda, it was all over my shoe and seven other nice mushed spots on the light colored carpet.  So I left it until it dried the next day and vacuumed it right up easy. Don't worry I shut the door.  Think what you want, but any other technique smears it all in deeper down to the core of the backing and into the padding.  See?  I know what I am doing. Obviously I have been there before.  And for the record I do pick up the chucks before I shut the door.

I bought myself a honkin pair of feather earrings at J.C.Penney's. See photo of me trying to be cute. Truth is the other two pics were stupid so I chose trying to be cute. They hang down to my collar bone. I love them unless I am outside and the wind makes them tickle my skin.  Sometimes I forget I bought them and start swatting myself thinking they are bees!! How dumb is that? Picture that 8 x 10 glossy of me swatting my own neck and face outside for the world or at least a few in it to see that mess.  When I realize its just my honkin' new feathers I quickly stop and gain my composure and look around to see who saw. Like when you fall down in church and hope no one saw it.

I survived it.

 All that was only two days of my wonderful life!  And the funny farm is next on the schedule.....dear God (he knows the rest of that prayer because it's said before every funny farm visit )

And by the way Barb M.....it's all TRUE!