Noury's Creative World…

As far as I can remember, I have always been a control freak.    So I was surprised at my reaction this morning when I was taking my daily doses of my sunny sun, reading a book at the same time on being efficient and being busy doing the things you want to accomplish, because as this guy says, “if you keep on doing the things you always do, guess what, you are going to get the same results.”  I had been exposed to that concept earlier in my life, but this time when I looked up to the sky to ponder again on that one, my eyes caught a glance of the little tick tocker that I always use to keep me abreast of how much time is passing through my day.  The sound of the tick tock this time did not go unnoticed.  I thought “here I am reading a book on efficiency and other good-for-me stuff, and this little beast is trying to tell me to get off my derriere and get going with the things I need to do today.”  Believe or not, I got up, put everything back on its place, including the tocker and headed downstairs to get going.  Such a small apparatus was able to control such a big me.

I looked at my list of the things I wanted to accomplish for February, and at the top of the list was the forever famous crooked quilt.  As you can see, I have made some progress and there is a batting being placed.  I had to do more trimming today, on the quilt and the batting, and I have been thinking that if I keep this up, by the time the quilt is finished, probably it will be a quilted handkerchief.  Horror!  Cancel, cancel, cancel that thought!  Later, after the constant trimming, I proceeded to iron two sheets I had purchased to put on the back side.  As the process started…

I found out that the ladies behind the manufacturing of these sheets believe in the same principle that I do.  Crooked system rules!  I took a picture of the label to show where these sheets came from, but later decided that I don’t want to receive visits in the middle of the night by some Asian cartel.  So here I have a crooked quilt, crooked by now batting and crooked back sheets.  It is becoming an awesome unique crooked piece of heirloom unforgettable quilt.  What else is new in my life.  Maybe I am sort of crooked put together individual.  You would tell me if you thought I was not exactly conforming to the evenness of a good level.  Would you?

Even this posting needs some trimming already.  Unfortunately I haven’t figured out yet how to crop things at WordPress.

The piece of wisdom today I think is…Get off my backside and get moving in a different direction if things are going to get done and are going to change.  Remember, change is good.

Hope today is an uncrooked sort of day,  and Lord please give me the strength to deal with my tiny tick tocker.  Give me a break!   Oops!  Forgot, the dentist.  Have to go and open my mouth very wide today.

Sayonara!

Your Happy Contessa

I learned something new!!!  Yeah!!!  Did you noticed there is a title under the picture?  One more for the neurons to remember.  Oh yes, this is supposed to be about my hair (didn’t I write something that had to do with it already?).  One more won’t hurt, while the muses are away. 

I went for a driveabout to take my ever rebellious hair for a change of color, to see if its attitude would change also.  Keeping my fingers crossed.  Went to see Miss Misty at the shop…

Miss Misty is such a delightful young lady.  She patiently listened to my babbling during the whole process.  I love to converse with anyone around me.  Now I understand Ron.  He would talk to anyone, anywhere we went.   

 Sorry Misty, I had to crop myself out of the picture, bags under my eyes were growing and expanding as the seconds went by.  Signs of the process of having had too many happy birthdays.

Why do humans color our hair?  I’ll tell you at least why I do it.  If you would see how I look with gray hair, you would literally run away.  I look like the great-great grandmother I don’t have.  That’s why I particularly do it.  Not a pleasant sight on the mirror, even in the dark.  Most men look kind of attractive with gray hair, I look like the scary lady from some dark lagoon story.

As you have noticed, modesty is not a forte of mine.  I have to give compliments to self, because the spirits around me do not yet know how to express themselves in the slow human language.  Did you notice the sunglasses?  To cover the you know what.  I like the darker tone of hair color.  Maybe the hair will be more subdued.  Hope.  Hey Milagros, I am learning how to take pictures of myself.  Always learning.

Usually in my postings, there is some valuable message hidden, in this one I am still searching for that moment of enlightenment.  I guess during this sugary sweet day (afternoon of St. Valentine’s) that moment is not going to happen.

Sorry.   You will just have to put up today with an episode of my unruly,  now darker than ever hair.  It could have been worse.  I could have had returned from the shop without any hair at all, and nothing to post about.  Not too bad of a comeback.

Angels in my neighborhood…

The way it looked when my angels delivered it…

Their names are Miss Kim and her delightful and ever so pretty daughters Little Miss Hannah and Little Miss Loran.  Around 5 pm today (Valentine’s Day) I heard my door bell ring.  I opened the door, and guess what.  My real tangible Valentine’s for the day.  A red velvet cake with pink frosting.  Is life full of blessings and with lots of angels around us.  This lovely family has adopted me since Ron went back home.  They have always been there for me in significant days, such as today.  As of this moment of typing half of the cake is gone!  Very delicious, homemade too.  Thank you Lord for allowing some of your angels to populate our planet and make a difference in people’s (like me) lives.

With a moment of gratitude and a very full stomach, I must admit this Valentine’s Day has not been that bad at all.

Your Happy Contessa

P.S.  “Love is never absent or too far away from us all.”   Me

“Learn to love yourself first so you can feel what is to be loved, and then you can proceed to love those around you.  If you don’t know how it feels to be loved, how are you going to be able to feel what is to love others.”  Noury

A movie line comes to mind …”you complete me”…  You better be complete before entering into any kind of relationship.  If you expect this “right” person to complete you, and then this person leaves you to complete somebody else,  you are left hanging in there semi-complete.  Come on!

This Valentine’s is not going the way I envisioned it.  Sounds kind of strong.  Doesn’t it?  But this is the way I feel.  Even with friends, you have to be a content with yourself person before you even try to make friends.  So it is with family.  We don’t have the power to make anyone happy;  or anyone’s attitude towards us should have the power to ring the bell of happiness.  That is delegating too much power to others, or thinking that we are God.

Let me put on my sweet St. Valentine’s hat.  The above card was made by my daughter for me when she was around seven or eight.  I treasure this card.  When I had the bookstore, I placed it on the window for everyone to see during the whole month of February.  It was the effort behind making the card and thinking what to write on it that is so meaningful.  She even put some roses inside it.  Thank you my dearest Milagros.

I wish every one of you a happy day and go and get yourself something that brings a smile to your face (ie., 72% cocoa chocolate bar) and some fresh flowers if that makes your heart swell with joy.  I am getting my hair colored by a professional, because I hope that will make me happy.  Hummmm…..The after-the coloring episode at a later posting.

My warmest love goes to a precious little girl who was born this past Saturday at 27 weeks.  I pray that she and her parents feel so much love for this precious gift to have each other.  My best wishes for the three of them.

I will like to close this posting with a grateful heart for having each and all of you that somehow have touched my life. 

Namaste.

The Spirit in Me salutes and honors the Spirit in You.

Your Happy Contessa

I had decided when I started this blog, that I would not discuss politics, and some religion issues.  But today I will make an exception.  Due to the fact that our brothers and sisters in Egypt are going through a change of monumental magnitude, I will say a few words.

I was born and raised up to the age of twelve under a dictatorship.  I know what the people of Egypt have been going through throughout all these years.  I believe, 30 years.  That’s exactly how long the dictator in the Dominican Republic, Trujillo, lasted.  I even had a hard time typing his name.  Still I can feel some kind of intimidation saying his name.

When you are living under such a system of government, the freedom and liberties we all take for granted in the United States of America, do not exist.  Still to this day, when I am having a phone conversation with my mother, she refuses to discuss some issues because she always says, you don’t know who is listening.  The reason my father took all his family out of the country was mainly because he had five daughters.  Daughters meant that when one of the relatives or sons of the dictator wanted to have one woman, it didn’t matter if the female was young, single or married, she will have to go with them, and if there was a pregnancy involved, nothing could be said or done, otherwise all your family will just disappear in the middle of the night.  No one would dare to ask any questions.  One of my uncles, extremely bright young man, law school student, had the courage to speak against the “government” and he disappeared.  Complete silence.  A few years later he showed up on the streets very mentally disturbed.  “They” had given him electric shocks to damage his brain.  You just had to accept things or you and your family will die.

Anyone that has not been under this system of government will never, never have an idea what it is to live all the time afraid and scare.  But mostly unable to speak your mind even inside your home.  I remember vividly when my father used to turn on three radios in our home, so he could listen to one broadcast in spanish (the program was called “The Voice of America”) to keep updated with what was going on outside of the country.  One of our neighbors will come on broadcast days, and both of them used to get very close to the radio to listen, while my mother would be peeking out of the door to make sure no one was around. 

When finally in March of 1961 this dictator met his creator, even to tell us the news (we already were living in Puerto Rico), my father closed all the windows of our home and got us together in a bathroom, closed the door, and told us the news and to pretend that we were sad.  That’s how bad “they” had managed to intimidate everyone.  We were out of the country, but still very afraid.

That’s why today I am making an exception.  Let’s all be grateful here in our beloved country, The United States of America, where we the people have the power, even if you believe this or not.  I strongly believe in our system of government and I am grateful for it.

To all my sisters and brothers in Egypt, I send you my best wishes for a peaceful transition and I think the rest of the world joins me in saying to you, that we are all very proud of you and your accomplishment.

A toast to freedom and its different expressions.

Your Happy Contessa

P.S.  See you on Monday!

I remember how this my very favorite painting came into our lives.  I had just started a job with a Fortune 500 company in Northern Virginia.  I started the job at the end of March 1984, had gotten married in November 1983, were planning to close on a townhouse in Reston, Virginia in June 1984.  Why all this data?  Because now you will understand the relevance.  When Ron and I got married, I had two suitcases with my clothes, that’s it.  Ron had some patio furniture that we were using as our furniture inside our small apartment in Alexandria.  We were literally starting from scratch.

At my job, one day in April, 1984 I had to go inside the office of the president and CEO of this company, to deliver to him some papers from my boss, and this painting was on one of the walls of his office.  I have always liked the French Impressionists, and this painting because of the subject matter,  (a mami and a daughter), colors and style of the brush caught my eyes.  I commented what a beautiful painting that was.  He said “really, do you like it?”  I said yes, very much.  Then he said “it really belongs to my daughter, she sells paintings.”   I gulped.  Then he said “let me give her a call and let her know you are interested.”  What??  We went from liking the painting to being interested.  I said “ok”.” and left his office.  Now, mind you, here’s the president and CEO of this big company, I am a new employee trying to gather goodwill, have literally no money and he is calling his daughter to try to sell me a painting.

A few minutes later, he comes to my desk with the painting in his hands and tells me that the painting was $250, but not to worry, that I can pay for it later, and I can take it home today.  Wow!  I had made a purchase without consulting with my new husband, needing all the money we could save for the closing of the house, and here I was bringing home a painting, that I didn’t even know if he would like it.  Help!

With trembling hands I called Ron at his office, and after asking him how his day was going, I told him that “we” were the proud owners of a very beautiful painting.  There was a silence on the line, and I said “honey, did you hear me?”  He said, “repeat this thing again.”  I almost felt like crying because I didn’t know what to do.  I was hired as an administrative assistant to the chairman of the board, and had just “purchased” a painting from the daughter of the president and ceo.  How do you say that all was a misunderstanding.  What a position I was in just because I paid a compliment to a painting.  Poor Ron.  I totally understood his position.  One of the other secretaries told me that in May (the following month)  we got paid three times instead of two, so I could use that extra money to pay for the painting.  I transferred the information to Ron, even though that didn’t make it any better.

So we had this painting in our brand new living room, no furniture, but a beautiful painting.  I love this painting, because of the attributes already mentioned and because its history about how it came into our lives.  Probably it was painted by some starving artist, but who cares.  It has a lot of meaning.

Some things come kind of forced into our lives, and at the moment we don’t realized the significance of it all.  I wish sometimes we could see in advanced, like right now.   Why aren’t things happening the way I do want them to happen?  Only when I look in the rearview mirror in a few months, years from now, I will understand.

On another subject matter totally different,  Mr. Fix-it dishwasher has left the building.  Hopefully I won’t have to see him in the near future.  The dishwasher that I don’t use is flushing, washing and happy to be with its new motor.  The guy apologized for the big charge and the short amount of time it took to do the job, but we have a saying in spanish that goes like this in Anglo “once they hit you with the stick, don’t look back.”  Yeah, yeah, just go and be happy with your rightly earned money,  mister.  Leave me alone with my new motor, new tires, new windshield wipers, new transmission fluids,  new filters, etc., etc.

Life doesn’t get much better.  All new stuff around me and the same old me.

Ta ta,

Your Happy Contessa

P.S.  “I am like a chameleon, I become what the situation I am living at the moment requires me to be.”   Yvonne, from “India.”  Hey Yvonne, need an extra?

 

 

 Written yesterday afternoon.

Right now I feel like my brain is floating in my cranium.  (Actually, I just thought, that’s the way it is anyways.)  Cannot hold a thought for too long.  Getting sleepy and emotionless.  Where am I?

Just came back from the car dealership.  $33 short of a $1,000 bill.  I kind of expected something in the neighborhood, but the bill went much farther than the neighborhood.  It went to the next city.  I have to admit I have four new tires, oil changed, new wipers, clean transmission filter,  and all liquids flushed, and who knows what else, I don’t even want to look at the bill for a while, but …remember that in yesterday’s posting I told you that Miss Tammy will find hidden diseases within the belly of Black Beauty.  That’s exactly what happened.  Kept my appointment of 9 am, was there around 8:45 am, and left the dealership at around 1:45 pm.  Big hole in my assets and less derriere, but of course!  It didn’t help that I went for a walk in the cold weather to try to dissipate around the dealership.  I finished two books and read a magazine.

 Not a too nice picture of me, but it shows how desperate I was to just finish with the whole ordeal.  It was brisk and cold outside, but who was feeling anything?

Tomorrow is the dishwasher’s turn.  New motor.  Did anyone said Happy Valentine’s Day to me yet.  I cannot wait for the arrow to hit me again.  I am going to be hiding all weekend, as a matter of fact, as soon as Mr. Fix-it dishwasher leaves, I am hibernating until the 15th.  I only can take so much emotionally.  Right now I am laughing my heart out while typing it, so that goes to show a certain degree of imbecility is creeping up into my brain.  Laughing about all the stuff I am dealing with.  ???  Mercy, please deliver some mercy on me.

Today the posting is short, the word counterbeing is not happy, but the neurons are shutting down.  They refuse to go an extra inch.

This bottle of wine was given to me quite a few months ago, and has been in my fridge waiting for the right occasion.  Well, tonight’s the night, baby!  Hopefully I’ll have the strength to open the bottle.  I learned in chemistry class that alcohol burns your brain cells.  I don’t think my brain will miss just a few when they fall by the side of the bed.  Need to forget today’s adventure.

Adios,

Your Happy Contessa

P.S.  A quote from my life…”Bring it on, but do it next year.”  Noury

P.S. #2, Black Beauty runs like an airplane on the ground.  Probably it was worth the investment.

 

Let me introduce you to Black Beauty, my workhorse.  It has been at my service since late 2003.  I have treated it right, ie., oil changes, new tires, washing it once in a while, vacuumed it;  so in return, it has taken me to a lot of places and adventures.    I am very grateful when I put the key in the ignition and turn it on, and it responds with an angelic sound of its own.  Blessed be the heavens when the flow goes uninterrupted.  I always check the surroundings to make sure there are no flats. Only once a humongous nail got into one of the tires and very calmly I called Ron and told him I was driving it to Mr. Fix-it to see what could be done.  I was told once that in cases such as this one, if the tire is not totally flat, you can drive for a while, if you don’t try to take the nail out, which was the first thing I tried the first time that happened to me.

Made it to Mr. Fix-it, he put a plug, and I have been driving all plugged since then, around three years already to be exact.  The tires are over five years old, so it is about time to give them a rest.  Need to take the baby to Miss Fix-it.  She has been taking care of my Black Beauty since late 2006.  She has been good, but of course nothing is for free.  We had to trade services for goods.  And the goods have been plenty.  The trick to cars is if you give them good maintenance, they are going to respond in kind.  This has been the case with Black Beauty.  There has been some coughing and close calls, but nothing major.

I remember when we bought it.  I did not want to park anywhere close to another car.  You know how people are.  Bang doors, scratch cars just because… and etc., etc.  We have had Black Beauty for about two months already and one Saturday during one of my driveabouts, I parked it in front of this shop in Zellwood, Fl.  I finished buying some books for our store, and then after placing them in the car, proceeded to leave, but another car had parked too close to mine and kind of put me on a tight spot, so I thought I could come out with no problem.  I forgot that there was a small white fence on my right side, and suddenly the inevitable happened.  I heard this noise and my heart sank.  I came out and there it was, a big dent.  I did it myself.  Shaking and crying I called Ron and said “I have good news and I have bad news, the good news is that I did it myself and the bad news is that now we have a car with a big dent in front (right side).”  I couldn’t stop crying and after he calmed me down (he was taking care of customers at the shop), I left to go home.  All the bad karma I had surrounded myself with the fear of no wanting to have a tiny scratch on the car, came back and materialized itself in a big way.

After getting home, I thought, well, there is a good part to all of this.  I am not hurt, the dent can be fixed, and to make myself feel better, I can have half an apple pie with vanilla ice cream tonight.  That will do.  Ron will be happy too because he loves apple pie a la mode.  How convincing can we be when we want to.

Where am I going with all of this?  I am trying to trance and brain wash myself for my field trip to the dealer.  Currency is leaving my pocketbook, but in turn, my Black Beauty will be breathing better and I will feel more confident while going about my driveabouts.

So Black Beauty and I are going on an adventure today.  We are going to visit with Miss Tammy and hopefully she won’t have any surprises for me with some additional aches and pains BB may have.  Let’s be positive here and let me go to my closet and take out my blue halo. 

On the road again…

Your Happy Contessa

P.S.  Another quote from India.   “Nothing should stop you from contemplating the possibilities.”  Shankar,  an older wise sage.

Dear Jesus!  I just had a blank moment!!!!  While searching for this photo, I went to my files, and then…an empty screen with my name on it.  I tried a few times and same thing happened.  I thought, what the heck did I do now?  I know I was messing around yesterday with my Control Panel (nanobrain of my PC), but…then the usual screen came into reality.  Phew!  That was a close one to disturb my blue aura.  Now I can go to start the posting related to the above referred photo.

I have been reading this book that talks about auras.  I thought there were only two, red or blue.  Wrong.  There are orange, yellow, green.  I guess the blue is the halo we all should aim for.  It dawned on me that maybe the color orange has been hanging over my head more than the all becoming to my skin color, light baby blue.  Orange is a dead zone color for my skin color, but it seems from the description of this book, that probably that is the color I have been hanging with most of my time.

What do I do to make it blue?   Went to my sunbeam private area and got my ccc (cheap, chic camera) auto mode and my aura really turned very inferno red, because I couldn’t get the photo that made me look fairly decent.  No makeup, and sun hitting you with all its powerful rays.  It doesn’t get any better or worse than that.  After many deletions, because my ccc suddenly announced with a beep (soft one may I add), that memory was depleted or full, I don’t right now remember its language, I finally approved to myself the one you looked at the beginning of the posting.  Fair enough.  I hummmmmed and hummmmmed (is that the way to write it?) to claim the throne of the blue aura.  After the hummmmming enough, I called my fix-it-car person, because I need new tires, oil change and new windshield wipers.  I thought that by transmitting my good vibes, we could work out a good deal.  It looks as that is going to happen.  You know how things are, when you get to the dealer, oh, my, “we just found out that your car needs this, that and the other.”  Oops!  I can feel the orange with tones of red surfacing in my halo.  Cancel, cancel, and cancel again.  Back to my blue tone.

I really enjoy my moments of solitude or I should say in the company of my sunbeam.  I try to catch as much good energy from that magnificent creation.  Now that I think about it, our sunny sun has an incredible colorless halo.  We color it yellow, but I think it is colorless.  Does it really matter.  No.  I feel that my aura is very blue, feel the good vibes and I am very positive that what I need in my life that is good for me, will show up at the right moment.  Not one second early, or one second late.

A toast to all our blue or colorless auras.

Your Happy Contessa

Do not fear.  Nothing gross, naughty or disgusting.  This one is to remove any thought whatsoever about my belief  of thinking that “I thought I was someone important.”

Back in the days when Ron was getting in and out of the hospital due to his illness, one particular day he was getting a CT-Scan and I had to wait in the waiting room for him to finish with the procedure.

Never mind that this recent photo shows a new, improved and empty waiting room.  They have remodeled and recently I had to pay a visit.  But going back to the episode mentioned above, on this day, there was a standing-room-only crowd.  I was reading a magazine and suddenly had the urge to release some of the water I had been drinking.  So I had to go to the restroom.  I put some toilet paper on the seat after drying any liquids left over by the previous occupant (disgusting), and set about to do my blessing.  When finished,  I proceeded to wash my hands, looked at my ever rebellious hair, picked up my bags, and went back to the waiting area. 

Now, bear in mind that this local hospital is the meeting place of this county.  Everybody (baby boomers, mind you) knows everybody, by first name basis.  There I am walking with my then tight jeans, thinking that I look oh, so hot and cute.  I got to the waiting area and in the process of seating, I felt something on the back of my pants, and looking very cool and casual, put my hand back there, and OMG, toilet paper hanging out from inside the back of my then tight jeans.  The paper that I had put on the toilet seat to protect myself from any germs.  Wishful thinking.  I gulped, looked around to see if anyone had seen this so beyond embarrassing moment, but everyone, I noticed,  had their heads down, even if they were not reading. 

Those cowards!  Didn’t have the guts to tell a save from herself embarrassed woman that she had toilet paper coming out of her behind.  Thanks God I didn’t do #2.  I then pulled out the paper, rolled it in my hands and started to look for a garbage receptacle, but they also all disappeared in a second.  I had to put the rolled mass of paper in my purse.  I then proceeded to seat as if nothing had happened. 

From that moment on in my life, I don’t have any shame of anything extraordinary happening to me.  You name it, I have faced it.  I cannot walk on water, but I can swim in a little pond.

This reminded me of an episode at a German bank I used to work for in New York City.  This terribly handsome man (a vice president of finance that looked like he just came out of a magazine page, with always tanned skin) came out of the restroom and my desk used to be on the way there.  His name was Haig.  Let’s leave the last name out, just in case one day I become very, very famous, and he might be embarrassed.  He had his zipper open!  He went by too fast for me to say anything, but everyone he passed by started to laugh but said nothing.  So I thought,  let me wait to see if a guy will say something to him.  No.  No one.  So I just got up from my chair, went into his office, all glass may I say, and told him that when he came out of restroom his shirt didn’t look properly tucked in.  I then left.  I saw him from my desk rearranging his pants, and then he came by my desk to thank me very much.  Next day, a beautiful bouquet of flowers was delivered at my desk in appreciation.

I hope that if ever in your crossings in life, you are faced with a situation as the ones described before, say something.  Don’t let anyone walk around showing things that should be hidden or walking around with a royal train when there is not a queen around.  Now I can laugh about it, come to think about it, I think I was laughing to myself about the whole thing when it happened.  Let me mention, that now every time I go to a restroom I look one, two,  three or more times to make sure there is not a foreign object coming out of the back of my pants.  Paranoia galore.

It goes to show that you never know what is going to show up next in your life.  Receive it with humor (good) because laughter is good for our internal organs and our psych.

I just shared one lesson of the many I have taken in the classrooms I have been through in my beautiful life.

Your Happy Contessa

P.S.  From time to time I am going to share some of the quotes I think are just unforgettable from my novela “India.”

“It is not that difficult to make someone believe something that they already want to believe.”  Yvonne, the she evil character.  She has a psychopathic personality in her role.  It goes to show that you can always learn something from anyone.

Today (Friday) I almost went into a panic episode.  It was almost time to have lunch (I was so into trying to finish the quilt this year) that when I went to pull the stuff out for my lunch my empty stomach had a breakdown.  No enough lettuce for my usual grazing!  That meant that I had to get some lettuce out and all the equipment for the ceremonial event of getting the lettuce ready for my consumption.  Those chemicals with some lettuce added as an afterthought that I used to buy (you know those ones that all you have to do is put it on a plate) I don’t even touch that stuff, unless I am being fed in someone else’s home, and then I get my dosage of chemicals that way.  Have you noticed the smell that comes out when you open that plastic bag?  Pure adulterated chemistry class when I was a freshman in high school.  It takes my breath away, literally.  So imagine what it does to my 62+ organs.  Lord have mercy!

Let’s go back to the moment before the chemicals got me into dreaming of other times in my life.  So I take all my equipment out, start the cutting, rinsing (3 times) and then put the lettuce through the centrifugal force of my salad spinner.  Yes it has a name.  I almost forgot there for a moment.  Neurons, I know my muses have taken vacation, don’t you dare to do the same to me now.  Then after the lettuce has been exposed to violent force, I take the pieces out almost one by one to make sure I won’t be putting in my mouth some dilapidated stuff.  You would think I am going to live forever the way I take care of my lettuce.  Who knows what the heck is being cooked in my insides.  But in the meantime, I just worry about being happy with my very selective lettuce.  Then, the process of cleaning all of that equipment (not just the spinner, may I add) is to make the most motivated individual wish there was not lettuce on the planet.  Finally, after all of this has been going on, for about half an hour, then the preparing of the salad starts.  I am so hungry by then, that I need to grab some junk crackers from my pantry to calm the noise and the revolt going on in my stomach.  Then I need to set the table for one, turn on my “lunch soap”, Atrevete a sonar, and finally I sit to enjoy one of my pleasures of the day.  Because after that salad, I get to have two squares of my oh, delightful…72% cocoa piece of chocolat!

Life could not be better at that moment.  That chocolat is sooooooo  gooooood!!!

Then reality knocks on my door again…time to clean dishes.  Life is so complicated!  Work, work, and more work.  Then have to think what in the world I am going to have for dinner.  Ron used to tell me that I was the only person that he knew that would be thinking about the next meal right after finishing one.  I responded, well, if you plan ahead, you don’t have to eat “garbage.”

Thanks God the day only has 24 hours.  I don’t think I could deal with more time to work and plan what to eat.

Bon apetit!

Your Happy Contessa

P.S.  The word junk just brought some cute memories.  Let me share.  My step-grandson, Ian was visiting one day when we used to live in Florida.  They were going back home and then all of a sudden, Ian calls me aside and whispers on my ear “abuelita, do you have some junk food in your pantry, because I am hungry.”  Oh, my, the boy was hungry and wanted the real deal, his share of junk for the day.  I ended up giving him some crackers, and then his little brother, Logan, wanted some of this “junk” also.  Only “junk” available were saltine crackers, but they didn’t know any better.  They were happy and so were their parents.  Hooray for the “junk” that saved the day.

See you next Monday!