Gingerbread House Take 2

Following up on yesterday's plan to pick up another gingerbread house kit, I popped into the market after that morning’s workout.

While there, I quickly found the Elf, once again nestled in with other holiday items, partially hidden in a boat.

Seeing a mini house kit on sale, I purchased one for my next try at a build, a second one for the White Elephant Gift.

At sale price, I had to add something else to reach the $10 threshold Red Light wants. I chose to add an Ugly Sweater Cookie Kit.

So that’s killing two birds with one stone — a kit for myself to try, a package of two kits for the White Elephant Gift party.

Also, while there, I saw some little chocolate bars dressed up as $100,000 Santa bills.

Having a feeling I’d not seen the last of Talker’s granddaughter, that she’d be knocking on my door to give me a hug sometime in the future, I picked up a bar as a treat for her.

Heading to the checkout stand, the plan after paying was to stop by the Security Guard’s station, tease him about how wired … out there … off tha hook the young lady he was talking to when I entered seemed — the young lady who interrupted her conversation with him to loudly say to me, "Wow! Look how cute you are!"

As I’d entered the market, I observed the young lady talking to him — the Security Guard.

Unlike the former security guard that gave me inappropriate looks that made me so uncomfortable that I switched markets, this security guard presents as nice, normal, non-flirtatious and I’ve often seen him chit chatting with customers — both male and female.

On this particular day, the customer chatting him up was a young lady who looked quite cute wearing army fatigue top, fatigue leggings, braids in a bun over her head, with an afro hair wrap.

So here I was thinking she was cute and probably flirting with him, when she suddenly looked my way, interrupted her conversation with Security Guard, and loudly exclaimed, "Wow! Look how cute you are!"

"You’re cute too" said I and continued on my way.

At my age, it’s nice get a compliment but I really wasn’t looking any different than any other regular day, so I thought the compliment, especially spoken with such exuberance, was odd.

I figured something was wrong with her.

While in the market, I ran into the young lady once more.

She came up behind me and, as she passed looked back at me and said, "I remember you. You’re banging!".

"Banging" for you slang novices means looking great! terrific!

Reading her high energy body language, I became certain she was high, was on something.

So, the plan when leaving was to tease Security Guard about his girl being wired, but I never got the chance because, when I saw her heading for the exit door, say something to the Security Guard as she passed him, I saw a surprised look on his face and his eyes follow her as she walked through the exit door.

Another customer was exiting behind the young woman, whereupon Security Guard left his station and used the excuse of helping this second customer push her cart through the door.

Ostensibly, so he could see where the young lady was going no doubt.

THEN, after Security Guard helped the second customer through the door, I could see him hold the door open, look around outside, look back at his station as though he was having second thoughts about what he was about to do, then he continued outside.

Guess he saw what he’d been looking for — that young lady and was weighing his choice to go back to his post or go get her number before she left the lot.

He totally left his station.

Dereliction of Duty.

Abandoned his post to chase tail.

I suppose you all know what "tail" is slang for, LOL.

He had not asked anyone to take over while he left and had not returned by the time I left the market.

Would have been a good opportunity for shoplifters to get away scot free.

Once outside, I didn’t look too hard, but didn’t see either of them on the lot.

On another note, it was a good thing I followed my instincts and picked up those chocolate bars because, along about 4:00 this afternoon, there was a knock on the door.

Guess who wanted to give me a hug.

Looks like I’m going to have to keep some little treat on hand at all times.

NEWS FLASH: I heard from Red Light that decorating cookies is one of the activities for Friday’s White Elephant party.

All of a sudden, the gingerbread house kit and ugly sweater cookie kit don’t sound like such a good idea.

What do you think?

Is it too redundant?

NEWS FLASH: Two hours after the first knock on the door there was another.

Yes, it was she again. This time Talker's grandaughter had a gift for me — a flower she'd probably plucked from somewhere on the property and said, "I love you".

Nice, but WTF?!

Time is Relative

I had the bright idea last night, when there was nothing worth watching on television and the lighting was not bright enough (inspite of the LED magnifier) to work on the never-ending needlepoint project, to put together the gingerbread house I purchased in December ………… December of Last Year but never could fit into my schedule until now.

Didn’t take long to become frustrated with the royal icing included in the kit.

It wasn’t dry, just wasn’t of a smooth enough consistency to spread and wasn’t holding the walls together.

I was ready to quit when the first structure collapsed.

Remembering a hack I saw on TikTok of using sugar glue instead, I set about boiling sugar.

Takes a long time to melt sugar down into glue and I came too close to burning my fingers when dipping gingerbread pieces into the hot glue, not to mention it got sloppy at times with the glue leaving strings. I even dropped an entire gingerbread wall into the glue at one point.

Before I even got the walls of the first structure together, I lost my patience, abandoned the project, tossed the kit into the trash, disposed of the glue down the garbage disposal, telling myself ain’t nobody got time for this!

How interesting is it that I’ve the patience to stab aida cloth thousands of times to create needlepoint works of art, but not the patience to spend an hour or so building a gingerbread house.

Time really is relative.

I’ve been working on the never-ending needlepoint project practically every day since January of 2021, logging in upwards of 1,116 hours thus far and though not even halfway through have no problem with spending more hours, days, weeks, months, years to completion while I was pretty much over the gingerbread build in the first 15 minutes.

Inspired by Food Network’s Gingerbread Showdown, I still want to do a gingerbread house this season, so I’ll pick up something after this morning’s workout, maybe make my own royal icing and try again.

As for progress on the needlepoint project, though nowhere near completion I’m at least seeing a face appear.

Though my first gingerbread build of the season was an epic fail, I’ve been having great luck in finding My Hometown Elf in the market.

In previous years, our Hometown Elf was Cindy. This year it’s Zippy and he’s pictured holding a candy cane across his body.

I actually spotted what looked like it could be Zippy pretty quick. He was on a ledge nestled in with other holiday items but, inasmuch as there was no candy cane, I couldn’t be sure.

To make certain it wasn’t a decoy, I searched the store, saw nothing elsewhere and correctly announced to the cashier I’d found Zippy nestled and tucked away in a Christmas stocking.

I declined the little Candy Cane reward. I just enjoyed announcing I’d found it.

Next time at the market, I found Zippy with a fishing line hovering over the seafood station.

That was a cute and clever spot, obviously visible thought I.

Running into a 5K friend coming in to hunt as I was leaving, I didn't spoil her fun by telling her where the elf was located.

She later posted to facebook that she couldn't find it.

HOW could she have missed it?

Neighborhood Watch

The new Activity Directors’ first craft session was scheduled for 12/6.

This month’s Activity Calendar was posted to our doors 12/7. So, I and others were no-shows.

I hope the new AD doesn’t take it personal, is aware no one knew of the session.

She should prepare herself to get used to it, because late notice happens more often than not.

It was a constant annoyance to the previous AD because, even though she had prepared the calendar for distribution well in advance, the maintenance guys got around to posting whenever the hell they felt like it.

I think the guys don’t care for posting duty, probably feel it’s below their pay grade. But if they don’t like it, they can take it up with Corporate — which would probably get them replaced with someone more amenable.

Looking at the calendar, I saw yet another holiday event — "Annual Holiday Celebration" on the 20th, 12 to 1, hosted by the new AD.

OMG! — We haven’t yet had the White Elephant Party.

I can’t imagine how much celebrating can be done in a 1-hour period, but I’ll go so I can find out. Then, hopefully, that will be the end of these back-to-back to back-to-back parties.

At last week’s bingo, someone said a car had been towed for parking not only backwards — which is against the parking rule but in someone else’s assigned parking spot.

Right away, I thought of the Ghost Tenant’s SUV but later, returning to my unit, I saw the SUV was still parked backwards in its regular spot.

Though parked backwards, it was in a visitor spot, which may have made the difference to the towing company ……… for now.

While I’m at it …… why do people park backwards?

Is it a sign of having something to hide or is it to facilitate a quick getaway should the need arise?

Also at last week’s bingo, the door opened and a woman dressed like a visiting nurse stuck her head in asking for direction to a unit in the M building.

Red Light spoke up and said, "That’s my neighbor. People came by yesterday to do a welfare check on her, but she wouldn’t open the door. Maybe she’ll open it this time."

That neighbor is the one known in the blog as the Smoker, who deteriorated since moving in due to bad luck and whiskey — First hit by a car requiring hip surgery, recovering, then breaking an arm due to a fall in her unit. Then she came down with Covid, then I heard she was struggling with Long Covid. To top it off, she smokes.

Some of you might recall that, back in May, she was threatened with eviction for smoking in her unit — this is a no smoking complex.

Though she still smokes in her unit, causing the smell of smoke to waft into units surrounding hers, she somehow has managed to avoid eviction.

I myself have not physically seen the Smoker since February 2020. That is, except for a brief sighting in August 2022.

I was locking up for the night — closing the blinds, locking the patio sliding glass door, setting up the burglar bar, and saw her out sweeping her patio with the help of an unknown person — picking up trash that she’d allowed to lay there for the last two plus years.

There’d been a patio inspection and, evidently, she got spoken to about the deplorable condition of her patio.

Because she never comes out, that anyone can see, there has been the occasional request for a welfare check — to no avail because she has declined help.

Consequently, I don’t YET know if the Smoker was receptive to the visiting nurse, let her in to assess and help her.

So, I’ve got two mysteries going on in my quad — what’s happened to the regular resident of the downstairs unit beneath Next Door Neighbor, the unit now inhabited by the Ghosts AND what’s happening with the Smoker, downstairs across the quad … is she eating, keeping herself clean or is she living in filth, smoking and drinking herself to death.

What Heidi Wore

I was watching People’s Choice Awards tonight — not because I’m into that award show but because Lizzo was being presented with an award and was sharing it with a few "special guests" one of which was Twin 1.

At any rate, Heidi Klum was a presenter and I thought the dress she was wearing looked a lot like Yannik’s style — Yannik being the contestant I’d pegged to win "Making the Cut" this last season.

Newsflash — Yannik did win, which makes the third season the designer I was rooting for actually won.

Why I can’t transfer that into picking winning lottery numbers, is a mystery.

So, anyway, I quickly google "Who did Heidi wear to the People’s Choice Awards" and got "Maison Blanche by Yannik Zamboni".

Do I know my designers or what.

Front

Back

Probably not to everyone's taste, but I like it.

Lizzo — there to accept the award of People’s Champion 2022, looked fabulous.

No idea who she was wearing.

Instead of accepting the award for herself, she wanted to "Champion marginalized voices" — share the spotlight with 17 Activists, one of which was Twin 1 (wearing designer Perry Meeks who did her Pride outfit).

Also, among the 17 were Maggie Mireles and Tamika Palmer.

Maggie is the sister of teacher Eva Mireles — one of the two teachers gunned down, along with 19 children, at Robb Elementary School, Uvalde, Tx. Maggie is now fighting for gun control.

Good luck with that.

Tamika Palmer is the mother of Brianna Taylor who was murdered in her bed by cops who falsified a search warrant and later lied to cover it up. Tamika fought for two years and finally got federal charges brought against those cops after local authorities failed to charge them.

After Lizzo did her emotional presentation of the 17 activists, there was no further need for me to watch the Awards show, so I tuned out, checked the Georgia elections and learned Hershel Walker lost to Warnock.

What a relief, and not for the reason you might think.

My relief has nothing to do with majority this, majority that — which I’m not politically savvy enough to understand, but because of the embarrassment.

The weeks and months of seeing Walker being paraded around by the GQP with his being — as Dave Chappelle put it "Observably Stupid", was just such an embarrassment.

It almost felt like the GQP was making fun of us People of Color, showing how ignorant some of us can be and how they like us like that — obedient and observably stupid.

Hopefully Walker lost the runoff because others saw what I saw, were embarrassed as I was, and felt sorry for his being made such a fool of.

Tis’ the Season

Tamale Season

Down to the last chicken tamale I made early last month, having ground turkey in the fridge, I decided to switch it up by browning ground turkey, use that as a filling with taco sauce.

I didn’t have to run to the market for corn husks and masa harina, because both are a staple for me, always in the cupboard for when the mood hits.

I usually steam the tamales in the instant pot, but since it’s difficult to squeeze more than two/three in the pot, and it takes hours and hours and hours to steam a batch of about 24, I invested in the regular tamale pot seen above.

That 15-quart pot turned out to be waaaay too big for my kitchen and steaming only 24 at a time, so I gave it away and plan to pick up a 12-quart Rachael Ray steamer for when the mood next hits.

At bingo, Baker was asking if I could eat "Mexican Food" saying that’s what was to be served at the White Elephant Christmas Party. I told her not to worry because I’d bring something of my own.

Then I learned "Mexican Food" was to be tamales.

I should still have plenty in the fridge to reheat, bring as my meal by then and impress everyone with my ability as a tamalera.

Walking into bingo, I checked the prize table to see if that Olive Oil Decanter I’ve been lusting to win for almost two months was still on the table.

It was, but it looked like it wasn’t yet time to come into my possession because I came so close so many times to yelling Bingo and missed when the one number I needed was not called.

At least I had a fun table mate — Talker’s cute little 5-year-old granddaughter.

She doesn’t yet know her numbers, so Grandma Talker helped her out and she came one number short of winning a game herself.

When Grandma Talker won a game, she let the little girl pick out a prize. She chose a cute little wallet.

I had no cash on me, otherwise I’d have given her something to put in the wallet.

A friendly child, she hugged everyone her grandma introduced her to — some she came back on her own and hugged that individual multiple times.

It is a good thing R (the resident that won Halloween as a witch) wasn’t present, because she hates children.

I know of two times R was rude to a child being present. Fortunately, I was not present either time because I’m not afraid of R, as others are and would have said something — as I did when she was being rude, bullying a new Manager in front of a room full of residents.

I called her on it, which set off a thus far 8-year acrimonious relationship between us two wherein she’d turn up her nose at the sight of me, speak ill of me to others. I in return paid her no mind because I’d erased her. I would walk right by her here/there on the complex, look through her, not say a word to her.

She wasn’t accustomed to not being feared, being dismissed and two/three years back began trying to engage me when we’d pass on a walkway. It’s just been in the last few months, when she’s been showing up at Bingo, working even harder at trying to engage with me — greeting me when I walk in the door, say "goodbye" when I leave.

You all know by now, I can be a cold hard hearted beoch when the need requires. Once erased, you stay erased. So, I do not return the greetings, sit with my back to her at bingo.

So, anyway, I’m told that last time someone brought a child to bingo, R stood up, said "There’s a kid in here, so I’m leaving" and walked out.

So here the little girl was running around hugging everyone and fortunately R was not present or I'd have gotten in trouble again for standing up to a bully.

When it looked like she was heading to hug me, I got all Wednesday Adams on her, diverted the hug by telling her to pause for a photo with grandma.

She did, and the ploy worked as she forgot about hugging me, LOL.

Watching Wednesday on Netflix, I’ve learned we have that in common — Wednesday Adams doesn’t like to be hugged by strangers and, like me, she doesn’t care to have her birthday celebrated.

However, during the Blackout Game, I didn't notice when the little girl all of a sudden got up from her seat. She walked around the table, hugged me and put her head on my shoulder.

Caught off guard, I uttered a surprise "OH!" then "Thank you" and something told me my luck was about to change, that she’d just given me good luck.

I say this because, she’s somewhat of a miracle child.

Just before Talker moved into the complex, while Talker’s mom was still alive, the little girl fell two stories off the balcony of her Great Grandma’s apartment, hit the ground, and survived with no damage whatsoever.

I’m told that everyone was screaming and scrambling, expecting to see if not a deceased child a badly damaged one and found her to be okay. Not a scratch on her.

The little girl said, "Jesus catch me" — meaning she saw or felt arms catching her before she hit the ground.

And yes … an ambulance was called, she was taken to hospital, examined by professionals, who also found nothing broken, no internal or external damage whatsoever.

Lo and Behold, after she hugged me during Game 10, my cards began to cover rapidly as numbers were called until BINGO! I won the big game — Blackout. First time ever.

Recognizing she’d brought me luck, it was ME who initiated a hug with HER.

"Did Jesus tell you to hug me?" I asked.

She said "yes", 😇

Winning Blackout entitled me to pick a prize from the big table where all the larger and usually more costly prizes reside.

Seeing nothing I wanted, I asked if I could pick from the regular prize table, was told sure, "But three items instead of one".

Of course, I took the olive oil decanter I’d been lusting after, then a glass mason jar and told the little girl that since she was responsible for my win the third item was hers to choose.

She can’t yet read but chose a crossword puzzle book. Maybe she can color in it.

Before I left, she must have hugged me like a hundred more times. Yeesh!

Shortly after returning to my unit, switching into my warm comfortable camo onesie p.j.s to settle down, watch Judge Judy, there was a knock on the door.

It was she again, wanting to give me a hug before she left the complex.

Nice, but Good Lord! I hope this doesn’t mean she’ll be at my door every time she visits Grandma Talker.

Remembering her empty wallet, I gave her something that I keep on hand for special occasion gifting to mostly kids — a $2 bill.

That Naughty Number

Walking into the Community Room, seeing the naughty number on the Talker’s birthday cake, I blurted out, "Sixty Nine!!! What kind of party is this?!"

There was just a handful of us invited to the shindig, seven women and one male whose birthday had been celebrated just before I left for the week in Long Beach.

I had been invited to his party as well, was a no show and darn if he didn’t call me out on it, saying, "You were supposed to be there".

Thinking on the fly, I said his party had been scheduled for 4:00 and at 4:00, I’m in my p.j.s watching Judge Judy.

I don’t actually recall what time his party was scheduled for but my answer had everyone laughing which got me out of hot water.

It’s nice to be wanted, especially when so many others are not — including Red Light and surprisingly the Baker wasn’t invited but, as you all know by now, these back to back to back to back parties are just not my thing.

So, anyway, that one is behind me and I met two new residents — not exactly new to the complex, but new to me.

The two were rather insistent when everyone went around the table, divulged their birth month, and eventually got me to reveal mine.

Inasmuch as so many have tried to get that info out of me for years, the info is likely to get around. So I may have to make myself scarce when the time comes so I don’t have to deal with being celebrated.

I didn’t have to ask for details on former Activity Director because, shortly after I’d blogged yesterday about former Activity Director’s (fAD) news, Red Light called to see if I’d got copied on the message.

Saying I had, I asked about the baby boy and learned fAD is 35 years old, expecting her first child, planning a wedding to the baby’s dad.

FAD’s mom is so excited about becoming a grandma that she’s retiring so she can stay home and take care of the baby when fAD goes back to work.

Red Light was just as upset as fAD at not being given any notice of her being transferred because the ladies were planning a baby shower for her.

Odd that Red Light was upset because, whereas the rest of us just complained about fAD to each other, Red Light had called Corporate and lodged a complaint about her rude behavior. Essentially getting fAD in trouble. Probably contributing to the decision to send her to a different property.

Looks like Red Light will still have an opportunity to plan yet another party — host a baby shower, because our new Manager (No. 10) is also expecting.

I did learn at the birthday party that the White Elephant game is still planned for the Christmas party, so we’ll see how that goes when the time comes.

Today being Talker’s naughty numbered birthday caused me to try to recall how I celebrated when I hit the naughty number.

Of course, I couldn’t remember a thing but fortunately I had backed up posts from when I first began blogging in 1997 on a different platform, under a different domain name, and located that day.

The post that day was titled I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead and below is the text of that post from 2013.

Finding myself wide awake at 1:08 this morning, I had thoughts of naming this post "Up All Night".

I’d gone to bed around 10:30 last night and, after reading a chapter of the fascinating read delivered day before yesterday, I forced myself to stop reading, turned off the lamp and was asleep before I knew it.

So why the 1:08 wake-up call is beyond me. It’s not like waking up regularly between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. isn’t enough. And, though I admit to being annoyed at times, I choose to believe the 3:00 to 4:00 wake-up calls are a spiritual responsibility and a blessing rather than a curse because the 3:00 hour is the time when this part of the world is quiet so that the meditations (prayers) we do for others can sink into the stillness and be most effective. Consequently, I try to roll with waking up so early rather than be annoyed by it. Besides, I generally lay down on the couch around 6:00 and get two more hours of sleep. Except today I’ve got an appointment with the locktician and, thus, am going to have to plan for a long day of fighting drowsiness.

I had the same problem when I was still in the working world. Waking up between the hours of 3:00 and 4:00, meditating, but then having to get ready for work two hours later, was exhausting. I’d drag through the day relying on Starbucks coffee for energy. The caffeine worked – I was alert, aware and effective in my job but there were times when I was so high from two/three big cups to stay awake that you could have scraped me from the ceiling. And once I was so wired – twitching and jerking like a junkie and behaving so strangely that, when I stopped at the mall after work, someone reported me for suspicious behavior and I found mall security following me around.

At any rate, awake at 1:08 this morning, and thinking it might be a sign that someone I knew was in trouble, I sat up and meditated for all in my awareness, then turned the lamp on and read another chapter or two of the Elle Zober book. The book is so fascinating that it’s difficult to put down — I don’t want it to end, so I’m trying to read it in segments. But, taking it with me to the hair appointment today, I’ll likely finish the book by end of day – that is if I can keep my eyes open.

Along about 3 a.m. this morning, I decided it was time to get out of bed altogether and start my daily computer activities. While walking around getting myself acclimated it suddenly hit me – today is my birthday … my 69th birthday.

Is that why I was awake at 1:08?

Not that I’m disturbed about the age. I’ve never really paid attention to the number. I am, however, a bit disturbed and a lot surprised that I’ve lived to reach the number. I always figured I’d be outa here at 39. I wanted to live just long enough to see my children raised then, one way or another, I was checking out.

Infinite Spirit had other plans, so I’m still here and what’s running through my head are all the things I’d have done differently if I’d known I was gonna live this long – like focused more on body image and finances, so I’d now be a slim trim rich beoch.

I don’t plan to do anything special to celebrate. Other than the annual lunch my homie Ras and I have, to celebrate our mutual birthdays during this astrological period, I generally never celebrate my birthday – for no reason other than my birthday has just generally been no big deal to me. Looking back at what I’d blogged in the past on this day, I find I generally forgot it was a birthday, was feted by daughter, or simply enjoyed some little something that happened which let me know though I was up in age, I still had the it factor.

In 2012, busy with making plans to free myself of that situation in Long Beach, I was making trips to Target for storage containers, where some guy stumbled and tripped on his own feet when he saw me and said, "WOW!". I’d posted THAT was a great gift for a woman on the day she turned 68 years of age.

In 2011, I was so involved in the pursuit of weight loss that I forgot my birthday until I saw the date pop up on the computer when I logged on after a morning walk.

My 65th birthday in 2010 was interesting in that, once again, I forgot all about it. Instead, I’d posted about having gotten an indecent proposal at work that day by a kid in his 20’s. He’d sent me an email calling himself a "young hunter" in search of a "cougar". And said that if I ever needed his "services" give him a call, and included his telephone number. Flattered and not wanting to hurt his feelings, I thanked him for the offer and said that he’d be at the top of my list if I became so inclined, then to myself I’d laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed cause, to coin a phrase, "Ain’t nobody got time for that".

In 2009, daughter gifted me with a DVD/VCR player.

In 2008 and 2007, there was no mention of my even remembering I was having a birthday.

In 2006, daughter gifted me with a Mystery Cruise (she’s always been the thoughtful considerate one in the family).

And in 2005, my homies Ras and Angie and I celebrated our mutual birthdays by taking an introductory pole dancing lesson at S Factor, up in Hollywood. Ras and Angie were in their late 20′s/early 30′s, I was turning 61.

So there are no plans to celebrate or even care that today is a birthday — and I don’t mean it in a negative connotation. When I was a child, I would have been hurt had my birthday not been cause for celebration. As an adult, it just doesn’t seem all that important. I just wanna get my hair done and go back to bed.