Friday, June 15th
Murdoch Mysteries
We finished watching another episode of Murdoch Mysteries and I’ll be waiting impatiently for the next episode!
One of my favorite characters is George Crabtree.
He’s just a sweetie!
He may not be the smartest guy in the world but he works hard, he’s kind and he does the best he can!
He’s learned a lot from Murdoch over the years and has truly grown.
George is a great friend and side kick for Murdoch and if George left, the show would certainly lose some of it’s sparkle!
George aside, all of the acting is great!
I also love Detective Watts. He’s another kind soul, he’s quirky and he’s just so darn adorable!
Jack o’lantern
As far as the show itself, it’s good clean fun – aside from the murder.lol
Could I watch Murdoch Mysteries with my mother?
I guess what I’m saying is, I would watch Murdoch Mysteries with my mother and I would watch it with a teenage child, though, not younger because of the murder.
How I judge a show…
As you know by now, I grew up in a very strict household. For much of the time, I was basically an only child because my sister was off living her adult life, my brother ran away and went to live with Daddy.
And then it was just me with Mommy and John.
My brother, Billy, would come to visit occasionally but not for long. At some point, he did come back to live for another year or so but he never stayed long.
When he did come back, John didn’t allow us to speak to eachother because he said Billy would be a bad example for me.
It’s so wierd now to think that our bedrooms were right next to eachother and we sat next to eachother at dinner but could not speak to eachother. But, you did what John said. No one was brave enough to stand up to him…
Except once…
Well, one time I lost my cool. He made me cry and miss my bus, which was his favorite morning entertainment. Then he was screaming in my face, telling me how stupid and ugly I was… Suddenly, my fist went up without me even knowing it and I punched him right in the nose! His head shot back from the impact and then he looked at me in shock. I thought, “this is it, I’m going to die now” but he laughed, patted me on the back and said “That’s my girl! Get your things, I’ll drive you to school!”
That’s how he was. He would be extremely abusive and then give me $50 or $100 or buy me a fur coat or something else fancy.
In the end, I had 10 fur coats but not enough self esteem to wear any of them.
One of the television rules
Anyway, there was a very strict rule that I (and my brother, if he was home) was not allowed to watch anything over Rated G. Basically, this was meant to be a life-time rule. It was non-negotiable until I got married and lived on my own.
Consistency wasn’t really John’s thing…
Of course, consistency wasn’t really John’s thing so occasionally, John would invite my Grandparents over for a family movie night and it seemed like John would pick the dirtiest movie he could find.
Once, we watched Dirty Harry.
I remember Clint Eastwood saying F-this and F-that and a house he was in collapsing from all the bullet holes left by cops firing guns at the house and some more cussing and then suddenly, my grandmother very bravely, stood up and said, “I will not sit here and watch this filth with my young granddaughter. Eddy, we’re leaving.” And grandma and grandpa walked out!
Pudd
One sign that she was very serious about this was that, grandma NEVER called grandpa, Eddy. She called him Pudd or Puddin. When i was very young I asked her why she called him Pudd or Puddin and she said it was because he was as “sweet as puddin” and from then on, I called him Puddin too! Lol
No more family movie nights with grandma and grandpa
I was sent to bed early that night and Grandma and Grandpop never came back for another movie night.
Gosh, you guys, I forgot all about that until now.
My grandmother told me later that she was absolutely mortified, sitting there watching Dirty Harry with me and she just couldn’t take it anymore. She said everyone was afraid of John but she had had enough!
Many years later
As a treat, I took my mother and her best friend to see one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, I don’t remember which one. I had seen it already and with us all three being adults, I didn’t see anything wrong with taking them to see it.
Well, while we were watching it, I could see my mother sinking farther and farther down in her chair with embarrassment. By the time the movie ended and we walked back to the movie theater lobby, I could see that my mother was angry and embarrassed that I had brought them to see it.
She started apologizing to Mrs. Dot for me bringing them to see such an inappropriate movie and scolding me for bringing them. Luckily, Mrs. Dot said that she had had a great time and that she had absolutely loved the movie! I could see the weight lift off my mother’s shoulders and then she said that she had loved it too.
SO…
That’s basically how I judge movies and TV shows – I ask my myself, could I sit here and watch this with my grandmother? Could I watch with my mother? and Mrs. Dot? Would I be embarrassed to watch it with my adult son? OR would he be embarrassed to watch it with me?
I could definitely watch Murdoch Mysteries with any of them!
Stomach pain
If you’ve been following me, you know I have some health issues.
One of them is stomach problems, which really surprises me because we literally grew up eating vegetables grown on our grandfather’s farm.
I was never one to deliberately eat extremely spicy food, either, so it does not stem from anything like that.
My stomach has been getting worse over the years and now, I, more than occasionally- but maybe not so much as “often”, have what I call stomach attacks.
They usually consist of 4 to 6 hours of the most excruciating pain you can imagine and then another 1 to 3 days of milder but persistent pain and tiredness.
It’s exhausting and frustrating because it’s impossible to pin-point the cause.
All you can do is guess and hope that making a change will help.
How often it happens
In the past, I had these attacks once every few months and then suddenly they started happening every 2 weeks.
My doctor gave me a new medication and my nutritionist reccomended a supplement and the attacks disappeared.
We thought I was finally past them and then suddenly, the Thursday before last, I had another attack. Compared to the usual excruciating pain, it was on the mild side but it lasted until Saturday evening.
Oh no!
We couldn’t think of any food triggers that it might have been.
After thinking it over, we thought I must have gotten dangerously over heated when I went for my weekly walk with my friend Kelli, not thinking about the fact that temperatures were in the 90s.
We had a great walk! But literally, minutes after returning from the walk, the attack started.
So, I thought, ok, walking in this heat was foolish. Lesson learnt.
This padd, we skipped walking but after dinner, I had another attack, au.
Oh, no! That’s 2 weeks in a row!
I was supposed to visit my friend in the hospital today, but I don’t dare go out when my stomach is acting up -been there, done that- so I’ve had to skip seeing her again.
Which I hate because I know her time is short now.
We also have plans for tomorrow, to daytrip with Erum and Peter, so I’m taking it easy today and hoping tomorrow will be better.
In the back garden
I came out to the back garden, thinking that it would cheer me up and that I could get some photos of my newly blooming Hollyhock for you.
It started blooming a couple days ago but I haven’t been able to get out to see it close up, I had only had a chance to admire it from the upper balconies.
Well…
BAD NEWS!
Last night’s rain storm knocked it over and when I came out, many leaves and all of the open blooms had been eaten off!
So disappointing!
There are a couple buds left but that’s about all.
I debated rather I needed to cut it back completely but decided to stake it up instead and see how it does.
We have a lot of deer around here and I know we have a baby bunny back here but the Hollyhock was fine until it fell over, so I think it must have been the bunny that ate it.
You know how much I love bunnies, so I am disappointed but don’t mind too much. I just wish I had gotten photos first!
Despite all the rain, the ground and flower pots are still extremely dry
I started watering the flowers because despite all the rain, everything was terribly dry and looking rather droopy.
It seems crazy for everything to be so dry when most nights we seem to be getting rain. A lot of rain.
When I got around the garden to my brand new ferns and newly sprouted pampas grass (it’s supposed to develop pink tufts!), something had completely eaten one of my ferns.
On top of that, they had eaten quite a lot of my new creeping Jenny AND ate about half of the pampas grass plant!
Who ate my plants??
I was really surprised. There’s no way a bunny could have reached these, unless they had jumped into the flower pots, which you really don’t see them do in the wild and rabbits do not usually eat things like grasses, sedges and ferns.
On top of that, I know deer have long legs, but I wouldn’t think that they could step over our little decorative fence, which is 3 or 4 feet high.
So, it’s a real mystery and quite a blow!
That corner had finally started to look nice and now it’s back to looking sorry. Sigh
Oh, well.
Either way, I enjoyed my time outside, listening to the birds twitter and sing.
Have a great day!