Blogging is impossible tonight. This is because Robby got in the dryer without my knowledge, and I turned on the dryer. I had a bad day anyway with a migraine and other bad stuff, so when I heard a thumping in the dryer, I just thought it was Jazzi's bulky bed, not thinking very clearly. When Jazzi gets groomed I always wash her bed. She was groomed today.

But, you know, that thumping noise, it wasn't right, I didn't remember it quite like that the other times I washed and dried Jazzi's bed. The bed is cumbersome but not especially heavy. I did have some towels in with it.

I sat down at the computer, which isn't too far from the laundry room, and the laundry room door was open. After a very short time I heard a loud, distant, unfamiliar sounding MEOW! MEOW!

Then I knew in that instant. I flew to the dryer and that poor little cat was in there all right. He was hot and surely he was dizzy and disoriented. Oh my goodness, I went completely to pieces. But Mike ran over and took him and after a few seconds said he thought Robby was okay. Robby was very fluffy.

Then in a few minutes Robby played with his muskrat on the end of the fishing pole. He has been napping ever since, but that's what he does, because he had been playing for quite some time before the dryer incident.

Also, Robby has been sneezing for the last several days. The vet told me that these stray kittens that get a bad URI as a small kitten can be prone to getting repeated infections. Oh dear, this is just not good at all, then being traumatized in the dryer. I practically want to give up the ghost.

Well, all I can say is, when life gets ahead of you, big bad mistakes can happen. I'm afraid to go to sleep tonight, I'm worried about Robby. But I think God spared him, so far He has. Then Miss Orcas tells me that her mother accidentally killed one of their cats in the dryer. It happens. Well, I've tried to be careful all along about the washer, dryer, dishwasher, but I was negligent tonight, by mistake, unintentionally. Never again, God helping me.

Okay, that's all I'm worth. This whole thing was just unbelievable to me. Unbelievable. I feel like a criminal or something. Not good.

Didn't I just write something about God's new mercies each morning? Boy, I'm hanging onto that right about now. And God WAS merciful to let me discover Robby so quickly. Oh, I can't even go there...

KEM P.S. And I trust Robby is afraid of the dryer from hereon out, more of a carnival ride than he bargained for.

Pure happiness is going to the malt shop where your beautiful and vibrant red-headed friend treats you to a chocolate malt for your 50th birthday. Aaaah. It rained buckets while we sat at a corner table, all windows, jabbering our lips off. Then the sun came out, blue sky and white fluffy clouds, typical Florida afternoon. I am now ready to do this every Friday afternoon, Red's day off from being a brilliant college professor, and more.

In case you haven't noticed, I use nicknames for friends and family. To protect the innocent, of course.

Then, I scoured the earth (the earth being the Old Northeast, St. Pete) for a garage apartment for DTD. She's ready to rock 'n roll, i.e., move. If anyone out there in cyberland hears of a darling little garage apartment for rent, with DTD'S name written on it, please call me. Time is of the essence. Thank you. BTW, I am doing this because DTD is too swamped with school and work. And maybe I will fall into a real estate career...somehow. Everyone I ever heard of says I love houses so much that I missed my calling to be a real estate agent. This is true.

Oh, and my grandparents' old apartment house is being restored, and DTD wants to live there, in her great grandparents' old apartment house. Now THAT would be cool. I need to investigate further.

Meatloaf sandwiches were the ticket for dinner tonight. Since I had meatloaf. You know, I never had a meatloaf sandwich in my life until I was out of college. I was helping this really neat lady in her home and she offered me a meatloaf sandwich. I was puzzled, but I'm also not one to refuse anything with meatloaf in the equation. Of course, I'm not one to refuse food, period. As long as we're talking good old Southern cooking. And this lady was from the deep south. So, I had my first meatloaf sandwich and the rest is history.

But my good white bread, Rudy's Bread. Something is amiss. The last two loaves I bought, the bread is all dried out. Yeah, let's just say it...it's stale. I don't know why this is. The store sells it defrosted, but I stick it back in the freezer when I get home, 'cause little ol' KEM and Mikey can't eat a whole loaf of bread in a snap of the fingers. Eh, but the red grapes were wonderful. This other lady shopper said to buy them, she had them the other day and boy, were they good. I love tips like that. And here's one for the store. TASTE your produce before you put it out for some poor unsuspecting customer, who, of course, would be moi.

Every single day of life consists of the good, the bad and the ugly, with hopefully the good tipping the scales. I keep waiting for days of good only, and they are rare, but I just had one on my birthday, so they are not impossible. Man, my birthday was two weeks ago already. The next thing I know, I'll be 51. In only 50 weeks I will be. Red and I were laughing today because my brain is wired like one of her young daughter's. We think outside the box.

Okay, this is a blog of mostly pure jabber, as you see I enjoy from paragraph one. Tomorrow I am going to eat my meatloaf sandwich sans the bread. Ain't that sad?

Now I'm going to go eat a hunk of chocolate that says Happy Birthday on it. I don't see anyone else making good use of it.

Full o' Fat KEM

Tonight while I was washing dishes, the thought came to me that I am impressed with the resilience of the human spirit, and, in particular, mine at the moment. Can't you just be in the dumps one day, or even one minute, and then, miraculously, the next day or the next minute all failure and depression is suddenly vanquished by the thought of a new start, a new day, no mistakes in it yet, quoting Anne of Green Gables.

I mean, how many times have I done this? Oh, maybe only 18,263 times. Which, my friends, is one sprout of hope for each day of my earthly existence, minus maybe a few days for leap years, which, of course, I have neither the patience nor wherewithal to go figure.

But it's so true. I was wondering How this can be? How can we forget what is behind, when it is so nasty and heavy, and press on to what is before? Especially when taking the "de" out of depressing to turn it into pressing might seem a mountain too steep to crest.

Then it dawned on me...because of God's grace. His mercy is new every morning, here I see it rising like the sun (well, I don't see it rising like the sun, I'm always asleep and missing the sunrise, sorry to say). But, still, I imagine it. There is something so marvelous about each new day, each new sun. Whoever said "hope springs eternal in the heart of man" sure nailed it. But it's because we are created in God's image that this is possible at all. He knows our downsitting so well, He knew we needed a boost every 24 hours and planned accordingly. My, I'm glad I'm not left to my own devices.

All these thoughts started because a dear young man in my church posted on Facebook that he felt out of place. Someone asked, Why, what's up, bro? The young man replied he didn't know, he just did (feel out of place). So, of course, I had to write, Well, don't you worry because your feelings will pass and we all feel like this sometimes, at least I know I do.

So, tonight I'm basking in the wonder that even with millions of mistakes, goofs, regrets, disappointments, disasters, pressures, freaking out moments, may-I-please-take-that-back episodes, you name it, still, in the glorious reflection of God's generosity, each new day can feel as exciting as the very first day of our life. Something like that. Pardon me while I wax philosophical tonight. I just don't know how God wipes the slate clean for us like that, but it's one of those things I think I will relish and not overly dissect.

That same cute little boy, the one who always peps up the children's sermon at Mike's church, his latest...the teacher asked, What does a potter do? I KNOW, I KNOW, his arm about detaching from his arm pit in his excitement. "A potter barks." Wow, talk about a quick wit, he can come up with an answer even if you asked him in Chinese. Knowledge of subject matter positively has nothing to do with it. An answer he will produce. Love it.

Then on Facebook a friend shared a tidbit about her 5 year old son. She asked him to put his shoes in his closet. As he picked them up and walked off he muttered, I am the hardest working man in this house. The other men in the house include his father and his toddler brother. What a hoot. Kids are the greatest. With kittens a close second.

I Googled, How long does a cat sleep each day? (a little wordy, I realize). The answer is...a looooong time. And experts aren't sure why kitties sleep so much each day, something about their past hunting expeditions, don't quote me. Somehow, I think I should have been a kitten. Lately, I think Robby is sleeping even more than the average 16 hours. My vet tech actually said mature cats can sleep 20 hours. Robby is far from mature, so maybe he is just growth spurting. Huh?

Okay, now that I am full of sun-shiney goodwill and energy, off to do my daily chores. Too bad it's high midnight, exactly. Tomorrow at 1:00 I get belated ice cream malt with my friend. BTW, the lunch I brought when my other friend invited me over for lunch, well, she had leftover frozen homemade carrot cake from her son's birthday. She emailed me today that maybe since it was my birthday lunch that I shouldn't have paid for it. But, trust me, the carrot cake but the "C" in birthday cake, it was delicious. I had two pieces. Besides, I told her we were having a mutual bday celebration, since she turned 10 years older than I am over a year ago.

KEM, Who makes all the sense in the world...ahem...

Oh, what-a-do you know? I finally had, as of yesterday, 365 blog posts. This fact I actually discovered moments ago. Therefore, I am currently rendered speechless.

Not sure what-a-to do from this point on. I have a bunch of stories I need to get to but I'm not quite in the mood just yet.

Eh, I'll just-a-take it a blog at a time.

KEM, KUEEN of KORN

Busy writing these days, only the archaic way, by hand.

S&S (short 'n sweet),
KEM

On Labor Day...I labored. Whatever happened to baked beans and potato salad at Ft. DeSoto for such holidays? I seriously need to regroup! Let's hear it for hamburgers and hot dogs!

DTD had a friend whose grandmother always fixed the same rotating 5 dinners for her two picky eater boys. Hamburgers, hot dogs, spaghetti, fried chicken (I'm making this up now) and spaghetti again. You know, that sounds kind of appealing actually. I may have mentioned this in an ancient blog, but since I can't remember, I'll assume no one else remembers either. A repertoire of 5 dinners, 4 if you count spaghetti twice, sounds like living the simple life to me. And kids would hardly have to ask, What's for dinnaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa (Robby did that)? And no more mommies going, What's for dinner??????????? HELP!!!!!!!!!!!! Really, my friend with 8 kids would wake up every morning and think, WHAT can I fix for dinner tonight? And then her day was totally ruined. I probably told you that before, too. Well, feel free to pass this little tip along.

Tomorrow is a big day. I MUST mail my sister's birthday box, which I labored over today, a labor of love, I might add. And then to my friend Jo's house for my late birthday lunch, but I'm bringing the food. Rather, I'm buying and bringing the food. Then I get to sit there and watch the Bible study movies I missed, which I love.

I'm trying to write four birthday thank you notes a day. My little problema is that I spend up to one half hour on each one. Once in a while I'll jot off a 5 minute note, just to balance things out a little. This, see, is why I can only average 4 a day, if you do the math.

Robby loves to chase twisty ties. They come from the dry cleaners, they use them to twist a group of hangars together, like three shirts under one sheet of plastic. They're really just garbage bag ties. Well, I knot them together so he can't swallow them. But he loves anything super light like that, it jazzes right out of his paws and skids across the floor. Tonight he seemed bored, all his mini mice are MIA again. So I went to my junk drawer and knotted up three twisty tie toys. Just like that -- one, two, three -- they were gone. They slide under the stove and refrigerator and wherever. Poor Robby.

Friends, I am going to bed. My friend expects my birthday lunch at high noon. I just don't know what kind of schedule some people are on.

Nocturnal KEM

Oops, Wrong Number. And Torch Lake

Tonight I text DTD: I bought you a present.

A little while later I get a text: Who is this?

Oh...DTD hasn't forgotten me completely, I see I typed in the wrong phone number. It was almost right, just one number was wrong. So I guess we can't add cell numbers to atomic bombs and horse shoes, is it? I'm really fuzzy tonight, but what's that saying, Almost doesn't count except with atomic bombs and...what AM I trying to say? At any rate, almost doesn't cut it with cell numbers.

So, I text back to this stranger: Oops, sorry, wrong number.

Stranger wouldn't let it die: Ok but who is this?

KEM: Just a dopey girl who can't punch the right numbers.

Stranger: Ok haha lol it's all good.

Dopey: Ok bye have a nice night.

Stranger: Ok you too thanks for saying that bye.

So then I text DTD and tell her that I just told her I bought her a present but I sent the text to the wrong number and we had a very nice texting conversation.

DTD probably has her eyes balls stuck in an eyeroll, at twelve o'clock.

Today at church I met a new young lady who joined choir. I asked her if she's from St. Petersburg.

NOOOOO...she's from MICHIGAN. Glory. I love Michigan and it's offspring.

I asked, Have you ever heard of Torch Lake?

Has she ever heard of Torch Lake? How 'bout her grandparents live next to it.

Well, old KEM had never heard of Torch Lake and KEM'S mother has never heard of Torch Lake either and she spent 35 consecutive summers in Michigan.

So, now, within 3 days, I've heard of Torch Lake twice and I'm going to swim in turquoise- colored Torch Lake if it's the last thing I do. And BTW, I discovered that not only my friend's mother (whose memorial service I attended yesterday) spent all her growing up summers on Torch Lake, but all her children did (meaning my friend), too, while I was in the opposite corner of Michigan swimming in Paw Paw Lake.

I think a donut is calling me.

BYE,
KEM