Unlike most days at Rainbow Bridge, this day dawned cold and gray, damp as a swamp and as dismal as could be imagined. All of the recent arrivals had no idea what to think, as they had never experienced a day like this before. But the animals who had been waiting for their beloved people knew exactly what was going on and started to gather at the pathway leading to The Bridge to watch.

It wasn't long before an elderly animal came into view, head hung low and tail dragging. The other animals, the ones who had been there for a while, knew what his story was right away, for they had seen this happen far too often. He approached slowly, obviously in great emotional pain, but with no sign of injury or illness. Unlike all of the other animals waiting at The Bridge, this animal had not been restored to youth and made healthy and vigorous again. As he walked toward The Bridge, he watched all of the other animals watching him. He knew he was out of place here and the sooner he could cross over, the happier he would be.

But, alas, as he approached The Bridge, his way was barred by the appearance of an Angel who apologized, but told him that he would not be able to pass. Only those animals who were with their people could pass over Rainbow Bridge. With no place else to turn to, the elderly animal turned towards the fields before The Bridge and saw a group of other animals like himself, also elderly and infirm. They weren't playing, but rather simply lying on the green grass, forlornly staring out at the pathway leading to The Bridge. And so, he took his place among them, watching the pathway and waiting.

One of the newest arrivals at The Bridge didn't understand what he had just witnessed and asked one of the animals that had been there for a while to explain it to him. "You see, that poor animal was a rescue. He was turned in to rescue just as you see him now, an older animal with his fur graying and his eyes clouding. He never made it out of rescue and passed on with only the love of his rescuer to comfort him as he left his earthly existence. Because he had no family to give his love to, he has no one to escort him across The Bridge. "

The first animal thought about this for a minute and then asked, "So what will happen now?" As he was about to receive his answer, the clouds suddenly parted and the gloom lifted. Approaching The Bridge could be seen a single person and among the older animals, a whole group was suddenly bathed in a golden light and they were all young and healthy again, just as they were in the prime of life. "Watch, and see" said the second animal.

A second group of animals from those waiting came to the pathway and bowed low as the person neared. At each bowed head, the person offered a pat on the head or a scratch behind the ears. The newly restored animals fell into line and followed him towards The Bridge. They all crossed The Bridge together.

"What happened?"

"That was a rescuer. The animals you saw bowing in respect were those who found new homes because of his work. They will cross when their new families arrive. Those you saw restored were those who never found homes. When a rescuer arrives, they are allowed to perform one, final act of rescue. They are allowed to escort those poor animals that they couldn't place on earth, across The Rainbow Bridge. "

"I think I like rescuers", said the first animal.

"So does GOD", was the reply.
-- Author Unknown

Not so wordless Wednesday

I am trying to put into words the month of June and when I do I will get it up here.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Once Upon a Time Challenge

Well, I missed the deadline for the Challenge by 30 minutes. AAGGGG!!!! But that is OK, this was my first one and I think that next time and there will be a next time, I will do better.

For this challenge I read:
Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
Game of Thrones by George R R Martin
One Hundred Words for Hate by Thomas E Sniegoski
Castle of Wizardry by David Eddings

I will be doing the RIP challenge too when it is posted.

Wordless Wednesday

Game of Thrones

I read the Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin for the Once Upon a Time reading challenge. I finished it last week and I am still not sure if I liked it or not. It was not the story, or the writing style, I just could not get involved with most of the characters.

I am being vague on this, as I know there is a TV show being made, and I know some people actually will read the book so I am trying not to give to much ways.

Bran Stark - I don't feel sorry for, I find his Summer a much more likable character.

Catelyn Stark- I am still not sure about her, I don't know if I like her for going forward or hate her for leaving the wee ones.

Daenerys Targaryen- started out as a wimp, her character development is the best so far in the book.

Eddard Stark- I want to say that his character is the catalyst for the book, without him none of the story would move forward.

Jon Snow- I think he could be an interesting character, and he is one of the few I want to know more about. I am going to look at then next book to see if there is more on this character in them.

Arya Stark - She is like Jon one I want to know more about to see grow, and expand her story line.

Tryion Lannister- He is one of the most well written and thought out characters in the book. He has more sides to him than an octagon.

Sansa Stark - Oh dear gods she reminded me of Bella from the Twilight books. Just shoot me when I have to read about her Please.

In this book in the series the above are the main characters. I will read the rest of the books just to find out what happens to Jon, and Arya.

Honey really liked this one and maybe I can talk her into writing her thoughts on the book for here.

Next for the challenge we are reading The Name of the Wind.

The Weekend

My weekend started on Friday, I went shopping. Wooohooo. OK so that woohoo was sarcastic, unless I am shopping for books or food I hate shopping. It took me a hour to pick out some underwear. I went out to dinner with some great friends and ate way to much.

Saturday after going to the gym, and the store. I had a nap, the nap put me behind so I made a mad dash to pack for the weekend. Then a 2 hour drive to Portland.

This weekend was my cousins 33rd birthday, and his fathers 60th. There was a surprise party for my uncle, so I was told not to go to the house as he would know something was up. That was no big hard ship, I went to Powell's. I did not go to the one downtown, I went to the one in Cedar Hills, I had two boxes of books for them to go though and the parking there is better. Powell's ended up giving me $20 in store credit, and then I spent another $20 on top of that. Not a bad deal for the books.

I got:
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss this is for the Once Upon a Time reading challenge
The Harp of the Gray Rose by Charles De Lint
Dingo by Charles De Lint both this one and the Harp of the Gray Rose were bought to fulfill the need to read and own everything written by De Lint.
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett
Living Wicca by Scott Cunningham

After that enjoyable few hours, I went to my cousins because I did not know where the restaurant was located. We went to a place called Jopa Northwest Grill . The room was beautiful, the food was wonderful, I loved the cold asparagus, and the bacon wrapped scallops. I met the most interesting people there, I spent a lot of the night talking to an international attorney, he had just gotten back from Africa.

I spent the night and most of the next day with the family we had brunch at Hands On Cafe that is part of the Oregon College of Art and Craft. Ohh that food was yummy too.

In the afternoon, my aunt and I went to NCO where she volunteers. NCO is a great organization that I when I can take them things that they might be able to use. If you are reading this and live in Portland look into them.

When I got home, I was exhausted, but I had also not slept well for a few days. Today I more than made up for that. I slept all night, then went to the chiropractors came back and slept for another 5 hours.

Guess Who Is Who

Can you guess who is who? Remember Kelevra is the girl, Squeeker the boy.



Kelevra is the smart one. She tries to turn on the water, flush the toilet, and open doors.



Squeeker, he gets lost in the bathroom, the closet, and plays fetch.



So who is who?

 I know I have not posted pictures of the kittens in a while. They are getting bigger, and have very distinctive personalities.

SS$$cat

My cat's love to go behind the TV stand, I think they are looking for monsters. Last weekend they went back there and stepped on my surge protector, now my game console will not connect to anything wireless. As the console is how I watch Ne+flix I had to go out and get wired controllers again. A real bummer. Last night they were back there again. I went out a got a SS$$cat.

Most of the time if I need to get the cats off of something I just use a water bottle. I am not going to squirt water on my power cords, so I did a little research. The S$$cat is a motion sensor compressed air can that when the cats get close to it will hiss and shoot out a blast of air. It works quite well.

The first time it went off Kelevra shot out from behind the stand as if her tail were on fire. Then Squeeker went back there hehe, I watched him bolt behind the couch. Kelevra has not gone back. Squeeker had to try again, I watched as he did the sneak and tried to creep behind the stand. There was a blast. He jumped straight up in the air and three feet back.

The website says that this can be used to keep them off counters, out of rooms that they are not wanted in etc. The price is a bet hefty but when comparing to replacing a game system it is worth the price.

Poetry Month

This month is poetry month so I thought that I would put up some quotes, little snatches of poetry that I love. I am going to link up one of my favorite poems ever to here as well.

Some light hearted poetry.

I think that I shall never see

A billboard lovely as a tree.

Indeed, unless the billboards fall

I shall never see a tree at all.

                                Ogden Nash

And today the great Yertle, that Marvelous he

Is King of the Mud. That is all he can see.

                                     Theodor Geisel

Not drunk is he, who from the floor

Can rise alone, and still drink more;

But drunk is he, who prostrate lies,

With out the power to drink or rise.

                      Thomas Love Peacock

This is one of my favorite poems it is not light in anyway. The subject is dark, but the flow and the story line is amazing. This is from The Goblin Market by Christina Rosetti.

She Cried, "Laura," up the garden,

"Did you miss me?

Come and kiss me.

Never mind my bruises,

Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices

From the Cad Goddeu from the Llyfr Taliesin. I have read this one over and over sill never getting tired of the language or the flow.

I was in many forms

before I was set free

I was a narrow blood-spotted sword

I believed, when I was formed

I was teardrops in the air

I was a star-woven star

I have people tell me that I am strange for reading and enjoying poetry but I think they are missing so much. I hope that this post will get some others to read and explore poetry.

Green Chile Stew

Over at A Butch In The Kitchen, she had posted a recipe for White Turkey Chili that looks so yummy. I posted in a comment that I had made Green Chili Stew and she wanted my recipe so here it is.

Green Chile Stew

4 pounds chicken

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon dried marjoram

1 tablespoon dried basil

4 ounces Hatch green chile peppers,roasted chopped

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

5 carrots, chopped

5 stalks celery, chopped

1 (14.5 ounce) can stewed tomatoes (optional)

3 potatoes, peeled and cubed

corn starch
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1.Put the chicken in a large pot over medium heat and add water to cover.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium low and simmer until chicken is done. Remove the chicken from the pot and allow it to cool.  Chop the chicken meat into bite-size pieces.

2.Return the chicken to the pot and add the green chile peppers, spices, onion, garlic, carrots, celery, tomatoes and potatoes. Simmer for 30 minutes, or until the potatoes and carrots are tender (or pressure cook for 10 minutes). In a separate small bowl, mix the some corn starch with some water and add to the soup, stirring well to thicken stew. Raise heat, bring just to a boil and remove from heat. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve.

If Hatch green chilies are hard to find where you are Trader Joe's sells them canned in 4oz cans. Also the flavor of the stew changes if another pepper is used. Hatch is a very unique pepper from New Mexico. I was lucky enough that last year a local store had a supply of fresh Hatch come in, I spent about $40 on pepper. Then spent two days roasting and freezing them. I think I need to  make green chile hamburgers.

Book One Once Upon a Time Challenge

For the Once Upon a Time Challenge Honey and I have picked out a book for each of us to read that the other has read before, but will not re-read for the challenge. I picked for her The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper.

For me she picked The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. I tried to read this book when I was a teenager and I could not get past the first few chapters. At that time I did not understand why I could not read the book. Then when the movie came out on DVD I watched it to see what all of the fuss was about. Needless to say I liked the Narnia move better.  This time around as Honey so liked the book I thought I would give it a try and finish it.

I picked the book up on Friday from the library and as it has only 351 pages in it I thought I would have it finished by Saturday night. Not so, it took me almost 4 hours to read 75 pages. I kept having to put the book down and walk away. It was not that it was badly written, or that the plot was not moving along. This book just made me uneasy. Reading it was like going to a concert and all but one of the instruments are in accord with each other. It felt as if something were just a bit out of tune or step with the rest of the book.

We are both going to read A Game of Thrones by George R.R Martin. Honey has already started this one so it is next on my list to read.

T.V or not T.V

When I was a little girl the T.V. was always on in the house. My mother watched soaps like it was a religion. I remember coming home from school to a house where if there was a T.V in a room it was on, even if no one was in the room. As the years progressed T.V viewing changed it went from bad soaps to worse talk show T.V. Mom watched them all, the ones that she missed she would ask others if they had watched. With the advent of the VCR that changed. She recorded the shows that she thought she would miss, and then watch them late at night or on the weekends.

At the time I moved out I was so sick of the thing that I did not have one for a few years. Then when I did buy one it was a small 13inch. My son and I would rent movies and watch what we wanted when we wanted. My mother hear about this and started taping shows and sending them to us to watch. Out of an eight hour tape there might have been one show on there that interested one of us.

When mom got sick and moved in with us we got cable, because she whined about how quiet my place was. It was a total waste of money. I paid $60+ a month and if I got to watch something that I might find interesting it was because she was not in the house. If she were not home when I got there I would turn on the radio, she would then turn the T.V on over the radio when she got home.

I do remember we got into an argument about what I watched. With my work I do not want to see "reality" crap. I deal enough with it on the job, give me a movie where giant pigs eat people, or frogs attack, or swarms of grasshoppers eat cars. Dragons, knights, anything not real unless it is a documentary on a historical figure.

When she left, cable went with her. I was never so happy to get rid of something. I now just have Netflix and love it. I watch what I want when I want. My patients ask who I want to win on a particular show, I get some strange looks when I tell them I don't own a T.V. and have no idea what they are talking about. Many of them look at  me like I have three heads, they cannot imagine a life without the constant bombardment of noise. I do not miss commercials, who won/did/did not do with who. I love the peace that I have, the ability to work on my cross stitching, reading, or going out. So for me the answer is not T.V

Once Upon a Time V

My Honey and I have decided that together we are going to do the Once Upon a Time Challenge. This will be my first year doing it and it looks like a ball. The Challenge is by Stainless Steel Droppings. The rules are with the link for those interested. Honey and I have decided to do Quest the First that is to read five books that fit within the Once Upon a Time criteria. That is reading books that fall into on of the four genres folklore, fairy tale, mythology or fantasy or a combination of any of them. We do not have all of out books picked out but what we are going to do is read four books together. The fifth book will be one that the other picks out and has previously read.

So I have picked out for Honey to read The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. She has never read Susan Cooper and I do love the Dark is Rising books. For our first read together book we are going to be reading A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. I have heard that someone is making this series of books into a TV show or a bunch of TV movies. I can't wait to get started on this reading.

I do know that I usually post Library Loot on the weekend however, I have not finished all of the books that I currently have checked out, and nothing that I have put on hold has come in yet. So I am going to be starting A Game of Thrones after I get it from the bookstore, and finishing up the Library Loot that I have on my to be read stack.

As we come up with or finish reading books for the Once Upon a Time challenge. I will put the badge art work in that post.

Movie Night

So Friday night was movie night. We had Asian food the chicken in the peanut sauce was good. Loved the cabbage veggie mix but that is not what I am here to write about.

1932 /33 the movie that won Best Picture was Cavalcade, however that movie is not out on DVD or on the inst que for Netflix. So we ended up watching She Done Him Wrong with the wonderful Mae West. Now I have seen some of her movies before but none of the other girls that come to movie night have. I have converted them. Not only was Mae hot, she was snarkey, sarcastic, flirty all around Mae West. West plays Lady Lou a woman with more men friends than she knows what to do with. Cary Grant plays a young man from the Salvation Army trying to save all of the lost soul at the bar/club that Lady Lou works at. This is a short movie only 66 min long. If it is a good sexy laugh ( and with Mae West it is sexy) this is a wonderful movie to see.

 It Happened One Night won for 1934. This movie also is a romantic comedy, staring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.  I honestly cannot talk about this movie, it is not that the  movie was bad and I love the acting skills of Claudette Colbert, I just cannot stand Clark Gable. There is something about that man that makes me want to slap him in the face. I think that my not liking Clark Gable is because one of the first movies that I watched was Gone With the Wind and I hate that movie.

Next month we will watch 1935 Mutiny on the Bounty, and 1936 The Great Ziegfeld.

Library Loot

So last week I did not go to the library it was not by my choice. A few weeks ago I sprained my back and my work put me on light duty. Light duty was OK but, it sure messed up my schedule. I usually work 3 days a week but on light duty I had to work 5 days a week. That not being bad enough I also had to work until 1630 the library closes at 1700. So this week I got to go to the library. My loot is:

DVD NCIS season 6

Mercy Thompson Homecoming by Patrica Briggs I love the Mercy Thompson stories and I love graphic novels so WIN!

Chobits Art Book Your Eyes Only by Clamp it is just the art of the Manga

Night Birds Reign by Holly Taylor The High King is dead. The land is in peril. A child has been born to save his people. But a traitor lurks with evil in his mind and murder in his heart, dogging the footsteps of those who protect the babe who would be king. But magic is at work, high magic. Gwydion the Dreamer awakes, screaming, from a prophetic dream of tragedy and loss, a dream peopled by kings of the past. From Powells

Into the Wild Nerd Yonder by Julie Halpern Things are changing fast. Jessie needs new friends. And her quest is a hilarious tour through high-school clique-dom, with a surprising stop along the way the Dungeons and Dragons crowd, who out-nerd everyone. D&D how could I not read this one. From Powells

I do still have some from the last week, but I should have all of this done soon.


Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted alternatively by Marg and Claire that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky (at Marg's this week) any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries

Library Loot March 12th

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries! This week Marg has Mr. Linky.

Chobits: Volume 1 by Clamp I have always wanted to read these and was thrilled to find out that the library has them.

Eden It's anEndless World! by HIroki Endo Now the library had Volume 4 so I had to wait to get the first one.

The Hunter's Moon by O.R. Melling  I read a review of this book and it sounds like a good one.

Travellers in Magic by Lisa Goldstein I loved her book Walking The Labyrinth so much that I thought that I would look for another one of hers.

Witchblade: Talons by John DeChancie It looked interesting.

I just read the best book ever

Out of my library loot, I picked up a book called Walking the Labyrinth by Lisa Goldstein. This is a book that I did not want to end nor could I put it down. I sat in the car at Borders and finished reading it.

Molly Travers,  meets a P.I who says that he is looking for her Aunt Thorne, it is regarding an inheritance. There begins her adventure in to finding out who she is, who is telling the truth, and who is not. She comes across a family names Allalie. The Allalies are a vaudeville troupe of illusionists or are they. Is their magic more or less then what it seems.

Molly after talking to her Aunt Fentrice, Molly goes to England with the P.I John to a house called Tantilly. There they find a diary written by one Emily Wethers. This diary goes on to explain how she meets and then becomes a member of the Order of the Labyrinth. Emily joins the Order at the height of the Spiritualist movement, however she decided to use her power to get a widow to reenter life. In the basement of Tantilly the Lady Dorothy Westingate builds rooms and rooms to form a labyrinth. Where each room, what you see is not what others see. There is a bit of a Gothic feel to parts of the book, just enough that I liked it.

The Allalie family, is chaos, quirky, and one that I think would be better to get to know. There is one question that everyone in the family asks is "What have you learned?" What I have learned is that I want to read more of Ms. Goldstein's books.