Kreativ Blogger Award

I like receiving an award for being creative which I always strive to be but Robyn from Creative Corner has given me this one. Here is her link: http://mycreativecornerandthings.blogspot.com/ and I have also placed her blog on my blog list.
Next I need to tell you seven things you might not know about me. Gee, that's going to be fun thinking those up.

l. I won first place in a writing contest in school for the 1st to the 4th grades. I loved my teacher so much and was so grateful she appreciated my talent when I was only in the first grade! I do not think the other kids much liked having the youngest one in the room win the prize, but that was the last bit of appreciation I was to get until the 5th grade, so it had to last. It was a fairy story and right then I determined to become a writer!

2. I received my first stetson cowboy hat from my father after I came home quite impaired from the mental hospital. I always thought it was an award from him for living. I requested black, and black it was. My hair always bleached out in the summer so I thought I would look the most fetching in that color. I never wore it unless I was riding horses.

3. My first horse also given me by my father was a fast stepping litle mare named Wissy, but my father warned me she had been gored by a long horn cow, so she would jump sideways everytime a horned cow got near her. Jump sideways she did. You never knew when she thought she might be gored, so I did not ride her very much.

4. I had a pet pig named Black Velvet, well, my sister Margie and I shared him, and a more delightful pet could not be had. He rooted us out of bed if we slept on the lawn. I would scratch his scales as he grunted blissfully but he grew up to be a big razor backed hog slated for market and caused trauma when my father got nervous and took him off to the pen. But he seemed to know when market time came because he fought as hard as he could to keep from being loaded. I refused to get attached like that to the next runt our father brought home for us to rescue.

5. I never liked to sew but I loved to garden. My mother always planted our garden in what she called Chinese plots, in which you just let the water run until it filled up, but my father invariably spoiled the watering by getting mad every year over her Chinese garden. He was for everything traditional.

6. There are a lot of things you don't know about me since I have lived for 78 years. Name a year. Let's see, I did not see Grand Canyon for many years. I figured I had enough canyons to see right in my own backyard, like Hell's Canyon, deep and awesome, looking off from Hell's Backbone Bridge.

7. A fascinating road I always wanted to see was the Burr Trail with many switchbacks It looks like it goes up the side of a steep canyon wall. It did not disappoint when I finally made it out to the Circle Cliffs and beyond. Had to go through Long Canyon, the longest in the world when you were driving a herd of cattle through it on a horse.

And now I will list 7 blogs to receive my Kreativ Award. I am to go to each one's blog and in a comment tell her or him I have an award for them here, which they can pick up to show on their blog, and do just what I have done here.




1. This is my very own sister Ann's blog Kanyonland King up and running now a few months. She is writing it all in poetry form with a striking photo of some sort to head it. Ann is a former English teacher, disabled by a rare disease of the pancreas that required removing it, so she has diabetes to the max. But she is still extremely busy all the time, tending grandkids, being a great grandma, writing books, and all that finds its way in her blog. http://kanyonlandking.blogspot.com/

2. I also have to list another relative's blog because you don't want to miss what is coming up in Cowboys and Bohemians written by my son Raymond who just arrived in Austin, Texas for a run of his one man show in a theater down there, "Bohemian Cowboy.' It is a true theater blog. http://cowboysandbohemians.blogspot.com/

3. This is my chance to feature my friend and grephic artist Connie's blogs, I love the name of one so much Windswept Whispers, but then there is The Secret Garden, and Connie's Photos and Halloween II and and, but I will give you the link to one and on it you will see links to all her others. I know she's going to do a great story on Christmas featuring fantastic holiday graphics!http://windsweptwhispers.blogspot.com/

4. I have been reading a very touching blog this last while about a very brave mother with MS who lost her beloved daughter at the age of 34. Sherry's love for Nicole has been so apparent, causing her so much pain with her loss, but you know what, a mother's great love for a child is truly moving. Sometimes I can't read her blog for several days, but when I come back she has recovered a little more from the raw pain. And I think this is how you do it. This is how you do it. http://wordsalads.blogspot.com/

5. I am going to give you the name of a blog to read which is lucid, penetrating and sometimes very moving which I think is so pertinent to the times. Sheria and I don't agree about everything, but I respect her writing. She is a black lawyer from South Carolina and she first became a fan of Doc and me when we were making DVDs of my play Aunt Santhea and sending them out free. She actually had an evening viewing of it for some friends. How marvelous is that? I will never forget that as long as I live, and now she is commenting on the times with President Obama never afraid to tackle any issue even if it makes her sound like 'an angry black woman'. Racial issues are tough. http://theexaminedlife-sheria.blogspot.com/

6. I could name other outstanding and enjoyable blogs I read regularly as Nelishia's which Robyn has already nominated. Some blogs are just simple daily accounts that the blogger makes interesting and enjoyable to read. A blog like that is Missy's What Comes Next? She is always changing. I never know what she is going to do next. Now she's on Facebook. She changes her blog names. But she has always blogged about some very important issues like anorexia and Chiari's Brain Malformation which is one of her big causes. We went through her knee surgery with her. I was riveted to her blog when blood clots developed, and scared. She has a genetic tendency to form kidney stones, and her kids have it, too, and she is always well informed about her issues. I have learned a lot from her blog about medical problems I really knew very little about. She's got another controversial surgery coming up and you won't want to miss her blogging about it. Missy's blog is not responding but she is on Facebook as Missie Ramer Ruth.

7. Last but not least. I read some blogs regularly--that country gal Paula from Texas comes to mind who I think is very creative with what she does with her country tales. I swear she can come up with an interesting take on something probably nobody else would notice. Her sight is keen as she travels the country roads with her male companion and rancher John. I have always related to her country life, her cows, and now her turtles. They remind me of all the cows I have loved before in my country many years agoooo....http://pl78064.blogspot.com/

Got that over with! Strangest Tenants Meeting!

I had my CT scan this morning which was not too bad. I did walk all over the earth trying to find the building. Everything well well. Next week will probably get the results.
Went to the Westward Ho tenants meeting last night. Nikita was supposed to be sworn in a the new chairman. We voted last Monday, but she was the only one running so was sure to get it.

Well, to my surprise, none of the new officers showed up until the last few minutes when Reggie and Bill came who were sworn in as parlimentarian and I believe treasurer. George, last year's treasurer, completed his report and we all went home after 30 minutes. I finally asked, "Where is Nikita?" Reggie said all he was told that she had to make an emergency trip to the hospital. The night of the party she seemed a little worn out as she had done bingo the night before. She said it has been a strenuous week. The flu is going around, too. I haven't been able to find out today what happened to her.
I just saw Daniel, my next door neighbor, and he said he had been sick with the flu since Halloween. I was playing pool with my next door neighbor Scott who was supposed to have been sworn in as the new vice chair and didn't show either. Scott said he had asked that his name be taken off the ballot so they will have to delegate the one with the next most votes to take his place. I told Scott that was the strangest WHo meeting I have ever attended.
I am glad to get my CT scan over with, and now I will have to schedule an eye exam. Always somepn'.
Doc was my alarm clock this morning, but I had two alarms set, too, just in case, and they both went off. At least I know they work well. He offered to go with me, but I said that wasn't necessary, and I was fine. Now I am full of barium and must stay near the bathroom.

Texas bound: I am going to run this header a while until Raymond gets Bohemian Cowboy up in Austin, Texas

It is very exciting to have a son going to still another big city to perform his one man show, Bohemian Cowboy. A woman he met in Los Angeles knows how to set these shows up, and she believes in Bohemian Cowboy. By now Raymond expected to be blogging and telling you all about it himself, but his new computer is still on the way to him from China! He will have to get an address in Austin before it can be sent to him there. So he along with Baby has gone to rent a place to stay while he is there. Raymond has another angel in Utah who is backing him with a grant so he can go to Texas.
This is the first time Baby has been on the road with him, but I think Baby will make lots of friends for him as she has a winning personality. Pretty soon she will figure out she is a show dog and nothing will stop her from going to the top right along with Raymond. A cute dog is just like a cute baby.
Then of course we have got Doc in his new video trying to get to the top as a country western singer. This was all his idea. Nothing but do I had to come and be his manager. Doc is tireless in his endeavors. He would make a new video every day if I would cooperate. He wanted to sing karaoke all afternoon yesterday, but I balked. You can find his latest on my blog list in Rick n Doc Emde or on his Youtube Channel emdedoc or on my channel GerryKing40 in my favorites. When I am in a video with him I put it in my favorites. He called it "My karaoke manager hates me" all because I said his timing was off when he was too drunk. I don't like that cutesy stuff he does either he got from playing jazz, to tell the truth, because he can't quite pull it off. Too much drinkee.
We did not dare put any of the Halloween Party Video he filmed up on Youtube, but it was either a hoot or bad taste or he should be run out of town. He would concentrate on such features as their bad teeth or cleavage that said boo upside down. When I protested he said, "come on, it is Halloween. Nobody cares." He also pushed something and made us all look fatter. Grrrr. My butt looked twice the size it really is. Finally he antagonized so many people we ran him off, but he come back and filmed us singing karaoke. He made Daniel so mad trying to sing along with him, he told him if he had wanted someone to sing with him, he would have asked him, so sit down and shut up!
But I have decided just to try to accept Doc's drinking as I do people's smoking, over eating. It just is. Daniel quit drinking 11 years ago so he has little patience with it. He said next time we had a party we needed to ban anybody drunk. But he also wants to refuse to let people eat who won't stay for karaoke. I do remember when Pierre and others prepared a sumptuous feast for the residents to entice them to stay for his karaoke party that cost the tenants $500. They ate and all got up and went home! Except a handful who did enjoy singing. Pierre sang a lot of songs. I even sang a few, but it took the heart out of Pierre for giving karaoke parties. I hope he can find some good karaoke parties where he went in the great beyond.
I admit I always get excited when there is a karaoke party. I am hoping each time that my teacher will be able to help me carry the tune better, or at least find it once in a while. I have had a lot of guys trying to teach me to sing with varying degrees of lack of success. My first husband Dean wouldn't let me sing hardly a lick. My second Ron succeeded in teaching me to play pool but not to sing. Pierre and I sang for hours at home with his karaoke machine and I thought I was getting closer. But Doc said he wasn't always on either judging from the karaoke CDs I made him watch, so how could I be? What do I know?
I know Doc steeps himself in music all day long. He cannot understand why I don't do everything with music. I am not used to it. It distracts me. Raymond gave me Mozart years ago which he said he listened to when he writes. I looked at the recording a lot and felt guilty, but I admit I did not play it while alone. For some reason I cannot listen to music by myself. I have to have company just like I do when I drink coffee. Maybe that was because about the only time I heard music as a girl was when we went to a dance. At home we were so tired from bottling and all the stuff we had to do we just fell into bed at night, hoping for a few winks before we had to get up and start all over again.
I do intend to put the rest of my play reading up, "Red and Dandy: Outlaw Love Story." There is only one act left. Now the plays are all up there I wanted to get produced. They have been produced on Youtube!
I went on Facebook and went to look at all the theater luminaries in Phoenix up there. I ran into a photo of the theater critic who ran me into the ground, saying he did not like my first play, "Prince from Saturn." These critics can kill your career in Phoenix without a qualm. If they don't like your stuff, they can pan the play so a bigger theater company wont do it. I don't know why Phoenix theater critics did not want us local playwrights to succeed, but my theory is that they are rivals. And if you get a chance to kill off a rival, do it. What else is a poison pen for? This particular critic is retired now but we have his book to look forward to. I will probably be wiped out of his history, too, like I never existed. No, the only place I had left to get a play up before I died was Youtube.
Raymond said he might do his show in Phoenix someday, but he has to get credibility somewhere else. He could not get it here due to tepid response from the critics. In every city, you are dealing with a different set and you might hit it lucky, which Raymond did in Los Angeles. Those practically rave reviews he got in the Los Angeles Times for Bohemian Cowboy are theater gold.
May the sun shine on him in Austin, Texas! And I pray Baby remains safe. She is still a baby and likes to run away if she can.

Speaking of Dante, his dad Dan gave me these photos last night

Here Dante is with his little sister, Bella Rosa, and brother Carlos, just before he started school this last summer. I believe his hair was at his longest. Surely!



Oh what a difference a haircut makes. Dante is hardly recognizable as the same 15 year old kid in this ROTC uniform. He looks very mature. In fact I felt a tug. He could be going off to war! I just hope it's over by the time he really is old enough to go!





Angelina is a strong mother to get the wild Dante attending church with her as regularly as she does. He rebels some, and she has blamed his skeptic dad, but she said I told him as long as he is under my roof he will abide by my rules. So now Dante cooperates because he really does love his mother. In these hard times, when the little kids dad got laid off from his construction job and fell into a defunk, she has been working hard to put food on the table. Dan had to help her out with some money tonight for a car payment. She can't afford to lose her car which has room for both little kids to be strapped into their car seats. She had to change job because her paycheck on her maid job kept bouncing! Now she is working as a telemarketer where she knows she will get her pay.
I remember hard times of working to keep everything together after a divorce, so I know what she is up against. She has a few maid jobs on the side. Her sister who gave up her own kids to a difficult ex-husband is tending the kids for her now in exchange for board and room and what Angelina can spare. Their father would smack them out of his 'job frustration' and Angelina could not tolerate him as the baby sitter. She is being a protective mom.

My son Dan was moving into his older brother Gary's house last night. In hard times brothers move in with brothers and cousins and sisters with sisters. I found out that since my sister Linda's house is in foreclosure and will be auctioned off this month, Gary offered his home to her son Scott, too, as a temporary refuge. Scott has been waiting to be called to work where Dan works. He has been okayed. He has been staying to the house, doing yard sales and selling on E-bay what he could.

I told Raymond it is a poorer America we have now since this big recession and so many people, even the rich, lost money and also became poor. But I like to see people helping people to weather hard times. This may even be a good thing. I think whatever brings people closer together is a boon.

We have had a consumer driven economy which means we bought a lot of 'stuff.' Well, now it's less stuff and maybe more emphasis on human relations.

Raymond has been trying to get his brother Dan to move in with Gary. I think he feels he needs family around since his heart attack.

Raymond and his dog Baby playing in the park

Raymond stopped by on his way out of town to Austin and we went to Margaret Hance Park close by for a photo session. He wore Baby down by throwing the ball to her. I got this cute photo of them. Lucky me. Then after a short chat he took off. He has to find a place down there to live for a month, get his theater space set up for doing Bohemian Cowboy!
The people who sold him his new computer did not tell him it had to come from China, and it did not arrive in time. Guess they needed to sell something too badly. He has to send them an address in Texas.
He said he went to watch my daughter dance at her West Coast Swing dance club, and he said he thought she was the best dancer there! She has been dancing west coast swing for 15 years. She loves her club. He enjoyed getting better acquainted with his nephew Ethan. Talked to Chad, my SIL about his new job as general manager of his company. (He's a very capable guy) Raymond has hired Dan to redo the website on their series "Caffeine." Dan is recovering from the flu and should soon be able to work on it. I think he did go back to work.
People here in the complex have not been hit with the Swine variety yet. I am concerned about the really ailing ones which they say the virus is hitting hard.
I made an appt. to have the CT scan done on Friday. I don't know if Doc plans to go with me or not, but he did promise to wake me up in time! I have been talking about me dying all week He thinks I am overeacting. I hope so, but you can never tell. I never had any symptoms of anything so my doctor was really on the ball to be doing sonor readings on our parts.
I think my new diabetes pill is working well. My poor sister Ann is taking shots all day long.
Raymond and I compared my grandson Dante's behavior in this very park park when he was a wild little cuss and his dog Baby, and you know they acted an awful lot a like. In fact I had to put a leash on Dante so I could catch him. He fought it until I told him he could be a little dog along with the other Westward Ho dogs, and he liked that. Talk about a hyperactive kid. His dad was too. His dad said they will never drug my kid! They were athletes, natural born. I told Dan if he would take Dante out and run him every day he would calm down and act more housebroken. That's what Raymond has to do with Baby. When Dante got a wild dog to play with in the house everybody else ran out. His mother gave that wild dog away and kept Dante.
Baby is so cute. People fall in love with her, so I am sure he will find people to help him with her in Texas!

Raymond calls and I meet Baby, my granddog: Plus karaoke videos

Oh was I happy to meet my new granddog at last in the above photo. The photos were taken by a relative up there a while back. She is a little bigger now but it is still her. I will try to get a current photo if I see them before they leave. Baby is so smart. She is only 8 months old and she can already sit, fetch, and roll over! Never have I seen such a smart dog! We went to the park and she showed me her stuff. Raymond and I enjoyed catching up, and then he was off to his brother Gary's, who he hasn't seen yet. He saw Dan last night, but Gary was not home. I may see him again before he leaves for Texas. He spent two night to his sister Ronda's house. Baby bonded with their dog Bailey.
Doc and I spent the day recording some of the karaoke songs we sang last night, so you could get the flavor of our party. The first one I will embed features both Doc and me on Country Western songs. The last one is my favorite that Doc sings--"You never even called me by my name" by David Allen Coe.

One last Halloween party with photos

She likes to call herself the Westward 'Ho.

Doc running his video camera as well as providing entertainment! He sang "Hello, Darlin'" Conway Twitty style and pleased the ladies.

Nikita was in charge and worked hard, especially since she managed a bingo party the day before. She likes to sing "Grandpa" by the Judds. She's running for Chairman of the tenants' organization and should win.

This guy always looks like this. I call him Wild Hair.

Roger and lovely wife.



Lady in Mad Cow beret, ran the karaoke machine. Her singing? Well, so so.

Betty and Ali scared us silly along with that fellow behind them! There's always a terrible wounded soldier in the crowd.



Here is Lois as in Superman. Boo in the cleavage.

Tallest Susie.

Mr Piggy here, nice guy, he did not sing.



Daniel, my neighbor as Dick Tracy. He is about 6'4' and wore size 12 heels. He is a good karaoke entertainer.


Folks, this is all the photos I could post tonight. I got more, but this is a good representation. Let me tell you, Doc was the hit singer. I was proud of him. I will tell you that man can sing. We had a big screen for the karaoke lyrics. It was perfect.