Briefly . . . and I can be brief.

Today DTD was baby-sitting the 8 year old daughter of my "little sister" Barb, we grew up on the same block. I hadn't seen Belle for almost 3 years, for which I should be jailed. I used to watch her quite a bit when they still lived in St. Pete. But they played dirty and moved 45 minutes away, which may as well be Alaska as far as KEM is concerned, since KEM thinks everything she does should be in a three block radius from her driveway.

Anyway, I was charmed to pieces with Isabella. I asked, Do you remember me? She shook her head, No. Oh, man. She remembered my sister, Mike, my niece, Jazzi and the climbing tree out front, to name a few. But she didnt' remember me, the story of my life. She wanted to climb the tree, of course, but it was so cold I said, Well, you go right ahead and I'll watch you from the window. So she went out to the walkway and stood there viewing the tree and all the thick ground cover surrounding the tree. She looked back to ask, with a worried expression, Are there snakes in there?, and pointed to the laurel stuff or whatever it is.

Actually, it wasn't two weeks ago that I was walking the long boardwalk that wraps around the front and side of the house (our house is added onto and the front door is way around the front of the house and down the side . . . weird, but what do you expect from KEM?) and a snake slithered across the boards right in front of me, as in, I came two inches from placing my foot on it. Scared me to pieces, just a medium black garden snake, I guess, I hope. I've seen them before.

So, I said, Well I have seen snakes, but there are no snakes today because it is too cold for snakes today. She looked at me a little strangely but apparently decided to exercise faith because she stepped knee deep into the plant cover and tramped to the tree.

Meanwhile, DTD comes up, having heard all this, and says, You don't tell her there are no snakes today, you tell her there are no snakes, period. DTD couldn't believe I told her there were no snakes today, like an 8 year old would take great comfort in such a hair-brained announcement. Besides, I really didn't know FOR SURE there were no snakes today. We have these horrid railroad ties lined up along the wood walkway, stacked two high. What they are is Roach Motels and Snake Cottages and the sooner these boards and ties are replaced with something civilized, the happier this kid is going to be.

So, I really bombed this whole thing. I should have said, Well, let me come with you, just to be sure there are no snakes today. Live and learn. The sad thing is, the more I live the less I seem to have learned anything. But somehow, I got a kick out of it. DTD has that effect on me.

When Belle came inside, with no snake encounters, Thank you, Lord, she wanted to go upstairs to see if I still had shoes in the big closet. See, she remembered my shoes but not me, so demoralizing. Upstairs we got sidetracked by all these photos scattered on the floor, which I am trying to organize, ha, ha. She was very interested to see and there were some old pictures of DTD as a baby, and me, her mother. Belle said, Oh, now I remember you. I said, YOU DO?? She said, Yes, you had brown hair in these pictures. So, there you have it, my carroty orange "do" has been my undoing and it's got to go, in less than three weeks it will be gone, at my next Fantastic Sam's visit. Back to brown. Then I won't be able to wait to see Belle again and get her reaction, Oh, there you are.

Still kicking, obviously, after Jazzi Jerms. One friend said this story reminded her that when her mother was little she went in the kitchen when no one was around and let her dog "clean" all the dishes. Ha, ha. So of course the little girl's mother was horrified when she found out. Then CDW, never one to let me down, writes this:

OK my darling...letting dear little Jazzi lick the dishes...wellllll, brought memories back when Jon and I were first married. We went to visit his best friend who married his cousin (worked out well for Jon...adding his best friend to the family)...anyway, they had a little dog named Blitz. They let this little dog lick all their plates after eating. It grossed this Kansas farm girl out the door! :) Butttttt, I know my KEM and she is the cleanest girl in the world...until she forgot to wash the dishes in the dishwasher! HA! Oh my goodness...I think I would have thrown-up for sure when I discovered this little fact after consuming tuna-not-tasting-right sandwich. :) But boy, did it ever make a fabulous and funny story!

The sad truth is that KEM'S World Class Cleanliness has suffered some as of late (like the last 10 years, June Cleaver, rescue me!), but that's okay, at least I still floss my teeth every night without fail. The day I give up on that, just shovel the first spade.

Well, I have to be happy (brag) about my new coat, can't help myself here. But I had noticed this gorgeous teal coat with Ethel when we went to the mall over a month ago. We both flipped over it, but it was way too 'spensive even way on sale. But it was a light wool, and supple and stylish. My nice red coat from J. Crew, from way back, is stiff as a board, heavy wool. I feel like I'm in a straight jacket in it or I move like a robot in it, something like that.

Well, J. Jill, home of the teal coat, sent me a lovely coupon in the mail this week, so I wanted to get there in the hopes maybe that coat was still there. But our weather has been SO cold that the hope I held was slim indeed. As I was walking tonight to the back of the store, I spotted the teal coats from afar on the sale rack. Heart beats faster. There were three left and only one in my size and guess what? It was 50% off the sale price. And the nice clerks said teal looked good with my orange hair. So, the long and short of this is, I left J. Jill swinging a sack with a $170 coat for which I paid a gentle $37. See, if I used my J. Jill card, I could get 5% more off. Didn't even know if I had my card, but, lo, and behold, I produced it from the depths. This was a little God gift and I'm very grateful for it and I hope you all get a good deal real soon, too, because it makes you feel SO SMART.

Oh dear, I hope I don't discover a ciggy burn on my new coat tomorrow or something equally dreadful.

Not too brief, huh?

Color me TEAL,
KEM