Fandango’s One Word Challenge

SKULKING IN THE SHADOWS — Marilyn Armstrong

/ Marilyn Armstrong / 7 Comments

FOWC with Fandango — Skulk

This is one of those words that sounds like what it means. Skulking in the shadows in the darkened alleys of Gotham. Bwa-ha-ha-ha! The man in the black coat and fedora gum-shoeing after him. And somewhere, a cop, an FBI agent, and private-eye are lurking, waiting for the moment of truth if there is any such thing.

Reindeer, sleigh, snow guy, and a path.

It’s a great, cold day here on the Atlantic coast. A good day for skulking. Even the birds seem rather sinister. I think I’m too tired to feel sinister. And we have an evening event. At least the hearings are over and I can go back to having a permanent nervous breakdown.

All the buds … and notice in front the one red segment. That too will flower.

Does anyone believe we are already supposedly “in the holiday spirit?” I’m not sure what that means anymore. I think it’s mostly about taking my tree from last year, plugging it in and making it ready to do its annual job as “tree of the holidays.”


Personally, before the subject comes up (again), I don’t care whether you say Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noel, Good Chanuka, Felice Navidad, or Happy Kwanza. Or just “Hi, how are you?”

I do not care! It’s the thought that counts … and a fat envelope full of greenbacks wouldn’t hurt either.

PRUDENT IS UNAMERICAN — Marilyn Armstrong

/ Marilyn Armstrong / 11 Comments

Prudent. Maybe like the Impeachment Hearings?

Prudent seems like a very strange word these days. Here we are — Garry and I — and the impeachment hearings are on the TV and we’re having little conversations about how people feel about this. I gathered, but last night’s “comedy” television that these hearings are getting gigantic ratings. Garry said he was sure that Trump would be very proud of this and I thought that was pretty funny.

I think this IS part of the space force!

I guess he moves on with his life in which I think he still wants another television show of his own (like who does he think would hire him?) explaining that he had the highest-rated television show of 2019. But if he’s not the President, I don’t think he’s going to get such great ratings.

I also learned last night that he was worried that naked pictures of him (Trump) would surface. Naked pictures of DJT? And the man who is our “president” is worried about naked pictures of his big fat self?

No, no, no.


I can barely stand to see whats-his-face fully clothed. The idea of all that blubber naked is beyond me on every level.

Prudent? Careful? Working within limits? Honest?

Sometimes these guys go on for five minutes and I look at Garry and say “Was there a question in there?” We have our own version of “Law and Order” going on here.

Prudent?

I don’t know how the reporters understand what’s being asked and answered. Do they?

TOO MANY BIRDS! – Marilyn Armstrong

/ Marilyn Armstrong / 19 Comments

FOWC with Fandango — Rely

Be careful what you wish for. I wanted more birds? I got more birds. I have new birds I do not recognize, or at least don’t recognize them as the usual local avians. There is a white one with a cockade that looks like a huge, overgrown Titmouse, but he’s the size — maybe even bigger — than the Blue Jays. He looks like a Gray Jay but might be an immature flycatcher. I rely on my bird books and the Audubon lists on the Internet, but so far, they have failed me.

The birds are moving as the weather moves, so it can be hard to ascertain if that bird now lives here or you’ve got the identity all wrong.

Everything except the finches have returned. There are no finches. They may still be nesting in Canada and I think I spotted a house finch the other day, but I didn’t get a good enough look at it. They may have been pushed out of the feeders by the squirrels or Blue Jays.

We are out of bird food. They ate 36 pounds of food in about a month and that is a LOT of bird food. We need to check out the feed and grain stores and see if we can come up with something they will eat that costs less. I can’t afford $100 worth of birdseed in a month. That’s more than the dogs — including their medication — cost. And of course, there are the squirrels who eat at least half the food — if not more. I wanted birds? I got them!

Chickadee and Titmouse

Mom, he took the WHOLE FEEDER!

One little nuthatch

Two Tufted Titmice

More Titmice

Name that bird! The size of a Blue Jay with a very small crest in black or dark blue

Titmouse in early (very early!) sunset

WINDOWS ON MY WORLD – Marilyn Armstrong

/ Marilyn Armstrong / 28 Comments

FOWC with Fandango — Windows On My World

My big windows on the world all need cleaning. the ones in the back are easy because you can stand on the deck and just wash them, but the ones in front of the house are two stories up. The ground in front of them is soft and muddy from the constant rain and someone stole our two-story ladder. Eventually, they will become sunglasses … or I’ll have to hire someone to clean them. Not this year, though. Or next. Too many other things need doing.

I am in the middle of a mental muddle.

I have a big collection (not, fortunately, as big as it used to be!) of antique Asian art and hundreds of dolls from the 1930s through 1970s, all in pretty good shape. Some are still rather new, tags and all.

No one wants the pottery, which is heartbreaking. To me, these are pieces of the past. I hold one of these pieces and I can see the world in which they were born. I wonder how many hundreds — thousands? — of people have held them and in how many homes they were things of beauty. But unless I can find homes for them, these irreplaceable pieces will disappear from the world forever.

When you get to my age and the age of my friends, no one is collecting. Everyone is trying to find homes for things because we are suddenly sharply aware that we aren’t going to live forever and those pieces of porcelain aren’t going to live forever on the mantel or the shelves or cabinets. The idea of all of these things going to some big dumpster makes me a little bit sick.

Seriously: if you know someone who wants them, free, no strings, please let me know. I’ve run out of local places with room for them and my friends are my age and don’t want more of anything.

Does is really matter if the world has one more Han pot or Tang horse? I don’t know.

What about all the dolls of youth. Toys represent the world in which we live more than anything except maybe books. They show how we viewed children, especially girls and their roles in the world. I would love to know they will survive!

THE SWING – Robert Louis Stevenson

/ Marilyn Armstrong / 6 Comments

FOWC with Fandango — Youth

The Swing

The swingset for grownups

I still want a swing set! I already have two of them, but I want one like I had in the playground as a youth!

How do you like to go up in a swing,
   Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
   Ever a child can do!
Up in the air and over the wall,
   Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
   Over the countryside—
Till I look down on the garden green,
   Down on the roof so brown—
Up in the air I go flying again,
   Up in the air and down!

Through the wooden glider

CYNICAL? HAVE A CHAT WITH YOUR CABLE COMPANY! – Marilyn Armstrong

/ Marilyn Armstrong / 12 Comments

FOWC with Fandango — Charter’s Best Cynic

I was having a normal day until I realized that for no particular reason, my cable company raised my rates another $5. They are known for not having contracts. What that actually means is they can raise their rates whenever they want. They never lower them. We live in Uxbridge and we don’t have a choice about our cable service.

We have Charter or nobody. We can’t get any other company, not even the telephone company, to serve us. I’m sure someone got a not little extra gift from them to set us up with only one company and no competition or hope of competition.

In theory, we can get DirectTV, but this is a heavily wooded area, so almost no one has a clear patch of south-facing sky to use to receive the signal … and working — these days — with DirectTV might actually be worse than working with Charter/Spectrum (it’s really the same company using two names). I grant you it’s hard to imagine anything worse than Spectrum, but if anything is worse, DirectTV is probably it. And you have to go through AT&T to use them, so you get a double whammy.

Spectrum is very big on advertising how they don’t have any contracts. This makes it sound as if you have the choice to choose another company, but there IS no other company in the area. What it really means is they can raise their rates when they feel like it and we can’t do anything about it.

Great deal, isn’t it?

I remember when Charter strung their first wires on our street. I think I was one of the very first people to sign up with them. We have been loyal to them because we have no choice. Even so, after 19 years, you’d think they might actually care in some way that we are customers that have been with them a long time. But there are no discounts. I cut out cable TV about 8 months ago, so they raised the price of the cable itself to $76 and doubled the cost of our telephone.

You’re welcome, Spectrum or Charter, or whoever/whatever you are. I can tell how much you care about us.