It's somebody's BIRTHDAY !

Yeah, not mine.....dang it.

I have several favorite men in my life (okay, several is not the right word) but the birthday boys today are two of my all time favs !! My Grandpa PD's birthday was today....God Rest His Soul.

AND it's JOEL STOTT'S birthday. He is my favorite all time co-worker. I met him when I first starting working at Meadowlark seven years ago. AND, surprisingly he is still nice to me. I usually totally annoy people in two or three years (except for family members and they are STUCK with me !!)

Here is a picture of Joel and I last year. NOW, I don't need to tell the ladies reading this that not only is Joel a wonderful man, father, husband, employee, and athlete.......he is wicked hot (that is "good looking" to you old folks). Yes, yes, yes....I adore his family but that does not negate the fact that Joel is yummy. His wife is also very beautiful...and his kids, oh...I could just eat them with a spoon !

Well, I must get. I got my new digital camera all figured out so be prepared for some very entertaining pictures. I will try to not to post a different kitty picture every day.

When I grow up, I think I will be that "crazy cat woman" that all the kids in the neighborhood will be scared of. I will chase those little brats off with my cane if they step one foot on my yard or mess with my 40 cats....KIDDING !! TOTALLY KIDDING...I will keep the cat population to under 20.

My love to all of you. I have a four day weekend, so I won't be blogging. I will see you next year (I used that line in the second grade, but it's still gut busting funny !)

Spoiled rotten...who me?

Yep, I got spoiled again. I'm not gonna fib....I LIKE IT !

Poor Bobby Knight had to deal with me on Christmas morning. I got up at fifteen mintues after three AM.....(that's when I used to get home from the bars !!) and went out in the living room and just stared at all my presents. I really wanted to peek, but I thought since I had made it to Christmas morning I better not ruin the surprises...AND I DID WAIT ! I didn't even squish my stocking or do alot of box shaking !

That Bobby, he's a smart one. He "taped" my presents to inside of the box, so when I shook it there would be no noise. I knew he was trying to throw me off and he did. He got me a really nice little digital camera. SO, be expecting lots of good pictures on here (my little phone camera is just too blurry). Anyway, he wasn't impressed with the fact that we had openend every present by six am !! Hey, early bird get the worm...or the camera, I guess.

Had a delicious dinner at Polly and Doug's. Of course, there was a big slab of rare beef on the table...tempting me, but I did well. I just had a little (and I am paying for it today) but it was well worth it. She also had succulent shrimp, weird salad (but it was tasty), restuffed potatoes (oh yum), and this cauliflower dish that was quite the hit. Then, we had bread pudding for desert (Marc Liegeois influence?).

It is SO much fun to watch kids at Christmas. Quynn and Conrad Hope (Doug Greenwalt and Polly's grandkids) are so adorable. That Quynnie can steal a heart in five seconds or under. And Conrad, he is such a neat kid. Love that boy, he's so unique !!

Fizzy and Duncan both had stockings....and Duncan tore right into his. Paper is second favorite plaything (besides a twist tie) so he was in HEAVEN. Fizzy thought we were idiots, but that is pretty much how she thinks all the time.

They got lots of treats and Duncan is hogging them all down. He is a pig/cat. When he was a little tiny baby kitty he always wanted to sleep by my head...so I allowed him. Well, I think that may have been a huge mistake, as he still thinks he can do it. He doesn't realize that he has gained about 20 pounds since he was a kitty...and he has NO tail so bare cat butt is in my face and that makes for less than enjoyable of sleeping conditions.

But guess what....I still let him do it....AND I let him drink out of my water glass. Ha !!

This is a picture of Bobby and I at our company Christmas party. I think I have posted it before, but I gotta get some downloaded off my new camera.

Hope everyone is well.

Cute best friend...and one cute kitty !

I can not believe that I haven't blogged about my sweet best friend or put her little cherub face on here !!

We had a yummy lunch today and then went to my apartment to exchange gifts. She got me the coolest presents, as usual.....this year it was a lovely jewelry box with the famous line drawing of Jesus in the Crown of Thorns. Beautiful !!

Anywho...FIZZGIG (the shy old kitty) and Barb have the same colored eyes. They look like sapphires twinkling !! Here is proof, although Fizz didn't cooperate nearly as well as Barb did.

She is pretty much a "member" of the clan I get to call family. She has met most of them (including Favorite Cousin Denny and Jacob...on my 40th birthday !) Poor Jacob...I will have to tell you that story later.

Speaking of stories, Barb stories are the BEST. I can assure you that at Christmas dinner this year, Barb stories will be told....even though we have told them many times, they never get old. They are timeless !!!

I will share one with you and let you get the "grasp" of what I am speaking of.

Barb was always "blond" Barb...(she is very smart and capable, but she just gets a tiny bit ditzy sometimes, USUALLY in front of many people !!)

She was a server at a very popular Billings restaurant called Dos Machos during the time we had the big bowling tournament here in town. There was something like 10,000 bowlers in town. Anyway, she went to work one night and a large table of 8 - 12 male bowlers came in to eat. She didn't like waiting on large tables...and mostly all men. (You must understand that Barb is very attractive with a smoking little hot body....you know, the kind I had when I was 10). She is also left-handed. This is a vital part of the story, so remember it for later.

She really didn't want to take that table, but it was in her section. The bowlers and Barb made it through the entire meal without any major disasters. As a matter of routine, she asked any of the men if they would like a cup of coffee after dinner. A couple of them said yes...so she went to get the coffee pot.

As she was pouring the coffee, one of the men said "Oh, I see you are a south paw" and Barb quizzically looks at this fellow and says (after a long pause)..."No, I am not a Indian" !!

All the men at the table just CRACKED up and Barb had no idea what they were laughing at. Now comes the clincher....she come to work and tells all of us what happened STILL NOT knowing that a south paw was a left handed person, not a tribe !!

Oh Lord Above, I about piss myself every time I THINK of that story, let alone tell it.

Oh, here is another quick one. She was getting married and I asked her where she was thinking of holding the reception. She said "Well, I think it will be at the Elks Club or that Volunteer Fire Workers place by my house." So, I am trying to picture a fire station near her residence at the time and I am like "What fire house?" She is like "You know, that VFW place by my house."!!! (All indignant, mind you !)

I was laughing so freaking hard...I said "Barb, the VFW stands for Veterans of Foreign Wars" and again in Barb beauty she says "Yeah, I thought the men I saw going in and out of there were awfully old to be FIREMAN !"

I have lots more...same bat time, same bat channel !

Love you all.

John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and MY COUSIN !

All tough guys........but John Wayne and Clint Eastwood have their "make up" people put scars on them. My cousin gets them the old fashioned way.......he "earns" them !!

Tommy Allen (age 50 - holy crap !) decided to play a little hockey with some much younger and swifter players. OOOPSIE. I wasn't there, so I can't give you the exact play by play but I do know it probably would have made the ESPN highlight reel.

Here is my best Chris Berman imitation calling the play.
"Great pass to the veteran Tommy Allen...oooh, what a slip he put on that youngster...
He could....go....alllllllllll....thhhhhe.......waaaaay....to the hospital in an ambulance. Booya !!"

Those Allen boys, I sure do love them. I never did have a brother, so they were the closest thing I had. I spent 3 months a year with them every summer at the ranch. They were usually very nice to me, although I do remember them throwing me into the GROSS horse trough a time or two.

They also let me "drive". I guess they weren't too concerned about me running into anything with eight million acres of nothing extending beyond the horizon. I think they put the pickup into really low gear and let me steer. I didn't know, I thought I was Mario Andretti.

I went out breaking bales with them one day....man, I was a stupid kid. That was the crappiest job on the place except throwing manure...which my beloved Tommy and Denny somehow suckered me into. They set the governor on the tractor (at about .5 miles per hour) and said "just pretend like you are driving to Box Elder". They forgot to tell me that my entire 55 pound body would be COVERED in SHIT by the end of the day. Including in my ears....IN MY EARS.

Grandma Dorothy would hose me off on the back porch. She would strip me down to buck nakedness and "hose me down". And let me just remind you that the water that comes out of the hose on a summer day is quite warm FOR A TOTAL OF FIVE SECONDS. Then, a cold blast of Arctic water follows...and my lips would turn blue.

I hated when I had to beg my mom to "ski just one more run, please Mommy !!" and she would say in her nicest mom voice, "I'm sorry Petsey (that was what she called me when I wasn't in trouble) but your lips are blue, so no more skiing for you today". Uuuugh. What the heck? Trust me, you just don't grasp the entire concept of hypothermia when you are ten years old.

That just got me thinking....I have been called lots of things in my life. For just having ONE given name (a damn ass long one, but one just the same) all my life, I sure have answered to many "handles".

My Grandma Nonie and Grandpa P.D. called me "Lil' P.D." in my youth. Grandma Nonie started calling me "Lady Di" in the early 80's. She thought I resembled Lady Diana Spencer....wow, what a compliment.

I can never remember my Aunt Florence calling me anything but Pete. She "writes" it P.D., but when she speaks...it's Pete.

My Dad has called me both Patrice and P.D. throughout my life. It must be a Poindexter thing, as look at all the "handles" Dad has....Allen, Clifford, C.A., Cliff, and Dad. Uuuuftah, we are a strange breed.

Mom has pretty much called me "PaulKelPeed" most of my life. Mmmmm...wonder where that one came from? I thought that was my real name until I was about six. PaulKelPeed, that is original.

I also thought a cow was a "sunsabitch" until I was about eleven. My Grandpa H.H. and I would go out and "check" the cows after dinner (I never understood what we were "checking for) and invariably the cows would stand in the middle of the road. Grandpa would look at me and say "Look at that big sunsabitch..she has really grown" or "look at that stupid sunsabitch..standing right in road" or "sunsabitches are looking healthy tonight".

I am about peeing my pants right now....laughing. Man, H.H. was funny. Every once and a while I make Kelly or Mom do the imitation of H.H. answering the phone. He always answered exactly the same....at about 55 decibels !!

I do remember the time when all six of grandkids were in the front room watching T.V. (Denny, Tommy, Karen, Polly, Kelly and PD) and Grandpa walked in with a BRAND NEW pair of white Nike tennis shoes. ALL of us kids just busted out laughing, as none of us had ever seen Grandpa in anything other than work boots. Grandpa took those shoes off and put them back in the box....never wore them again. Us kids felt bad, but our reaction to him in WHITE NIKES was just too much to stifle.

When Grandpa died, those Nike's were still in the box in his closet. Grandma Dorothy asked my Dad if they would fit him...and what follows is one of the neatest things my Dad has ever uttered. He said "I can wear them, but I could never fill them"....neat, huh?

Okay, I went from laughing to crying in one paragraph. I need to sign off and take my meds. ; )

Prayers abound...

For my cousins Mark and Nancy Jean and their families. Their father (my uncle) Ashley Phelps passed on Saturday, December 15th. It is my wish that my beautiful Aunt Diane (and I mean beautiful) was there to greet him at Heaven's Gate. They had been married so very long and after Diane's death earlier this year, Ashley just couldn't go on any longer.

I find myself really having to be careful around the holidays. My depression has a tendency to sneak up on me during the festive times. I reminiscent....get missing my grandparents, wishing I could have said certain things to people before they left my life, etc.....

Okay, now I am crying all my mascara off.

I haven't opened one present this year AND I even have some under the tree. I am FINALLY maturing at age 43 (okay, that's a stretch). I usually know every single present by at least a week before Xmas. My dad would keep a pretty close eye on me, but I could usually sneak open one end of the wrapping to see what was underneath.

I think my mom may have utilized other people's houses for hiding spots during the Big Sky era. That house wasn't very big (the little big house, remember ?) but I don't remember finding much when I snooped. Funny, that house still looks great. You can see it just east of Bozeman on the north side of the freeway up in the hills. The new owners have done some nice work to it...looks cool.

The merciless teasing of my cousin Tommy has to wait until tomorrow. But I would like to have him help me with this math problem....

50 year old man (holy !!) + hockey stick + sheet of ice = ??? (I came up with DISASTER !!)

You ain't Patrick Roy, silly...Bobby Orr, maybe !!

Frank Sinatra vs. Andy Pettitte

Most of you know my obsession with Frank Sinatra. His 92nd birthday would have been on Wednesday 12/12...but instead it was the day that they unveiled his new postage stamp to go on sale this spring. Well, I LOVE the picture they chose (with the famous fedora) and thankfully they got him smiling. (He was a gracious, giving, loving man...not nearly the mafia jackass most people think he was). He was the first "celebrity" philanthropist giving over a MILLION dollars to mostly youth charities. He vehemently despised racism and once told a big wig at the Sands in Vegas to shove it (not the term he used) when they would not allow Sammy Davis Jr. to use the same dressing rooms as the white entertainers. Frankie Boy said "F*** this gig" and left town....after swooning the big wigs "dame" into bed AND winning lots of money at another casino. That's my man....all 5' 5" of him !!

My Grandma Dorothy thought he "the furthest thing from attractive". When I would swoon about him, she would wrinkle up her nose and say "Oh sister, he was skinny and pale." I would make her tell me the story of how she saw him up close and personal. She was close to graduating nursing school (or maybe she already had) and Frank Sinatra came to play in Minneapolis. (This is, of course, was in his very early years of fame) The venue that Frank was playing at had the sense to hire a few nurses, as so many of the young women would "faint" at the sight and sound of Mr. Sinatra. Well, my grandma took the "gig". I asked her if she was excited about the opportunity to see him perform and she said to me "No, I did it for the money. THAT GUY had no talent and he was UGLY".......and anyone that knows my Grandma Dorothy can totally picture her saying that !!

Grandma said she could not understand why these women were falling all over themselves for this "skinny, pale, FEMININE man"........that's when Granny and I stopped talking about Frank Sinatra.

I am quite certain they have patched up all their differences in heaven...and if not, I put my money on Grandma. ; )

YEAH....Cody Hammond is back from Iraq. He landed in Texas yesterday...safe and sound, thank the Good Lord. From the message I got from Dan and Karen (his parents) Cody lost a few comrades from his unit. So tragic for those families. I sometimes forget there is a big old world turning around with lots of terrible stuff happening. I get stuck in my own little mind (and boy, is that scary sometimes !!) and forget how really lucky I am to live in the country.

I knew my favorite baseball player was juicing...but then again, who wasn't. BUT, they put him on the front page. You knew it was going to be a Yankee that got all the attention. What, 89 players on the list but my beautiful Andy Pettitte is splashed all over the papers.

My favorite cousin (sorry to Tommy, Karen, Mark, and Nancy Jean) Denny wanted to know what Kinder Eggs were. Just in case anyone else needs to know, they are hollow egg shaped chocolates with a "surprise toy" inside. They toy needs assembled (very small pieces) so they are not legally sold in the United States. Larry Lamb sends me a case from Canada every year and usually Marc and Kelly pull through with a box or two from their many adventures. SO...just in case anyone is traveling overseas my mailing address is 917 Lake Elmo Billings, MT 59105. ; )

And the ONLY reason Denny is my favorite cousin is because he used to cut my meat and taught me how to do a back handspring. (This was the important thing in my world when I was seven !) Hey, I just remembered something funny about the fav cuz....

Mom and us girls were living in the trailer in Bozeman and Denny and one of his friends came to visit (maybe it was Denny and Tommy). They pulled up in their car and Kelly and I were standing outside to greet them. (Remember, Kelly is waaaay more of a joker than I am). Denny and friend get out and were talking to my mom and Kelly tosses a little baggie of catnip under their car door....then asks "Denny, is this yours? It just fell out of your car !"

It looked just like weed (marijuana, for you old folks) and Denny looked like he was gonna faint. It was cat nip. HA HA HA ! Oh, I got a better Denny story for later. Let's just say that it has alcohol, ski boots, and cartwheels in it. YOU don't want to miss it.

Same bat channel...same bat time. Love you all

I'm baaaaack....

Been a little under the weather lately. Just "girl" stuff that I really didn't need at age 43 !!

Speaking of being under the weather...what about my poor mother? They finally got Highway 101 "opened" but it is still trecherous. Mom's beautiful car (Goldie) is filled with mud and of course has numerous electrical problems. Oh well, atleast they weren't in the car. Many of their neighbors lost more than a car...one man lost his life chopping down a tree.

I got Kinder Eggs from Larry in Canada !! So far no paper puzzles or duplicates !! YEAH !!

Keep them coming !!

Look at these faces !

Too darling....they are my boss's kids on Halloween.

Cassie is the older one and she was a "Midnight Fairy". Desi is the younger one and of course, she went as Cleopatra. Are they not the cutest kids in America? Okay, well I think every kid is cute...mostly if they snuggle with me.

Still doesn't seem like December around here ! Sunny...warm. CRAZY !!

Pacific Northwest Weather !

Just heard from my mother....finally. I was getting a bit worried.

Dick and her live atop a scenic hill, however the drive up said hill can be quite daunting. They tried to drive up to their house on Saturday and couldn't make it so they left the car at the bottom of the hill. And wouldn't you just know it...a big old part of the mountain came loose and landed right on top of my mother's car.

Their little town still doesn't have power....so she is throwing away an entire freezer and fridge full of food in the dump. Dang, she has good shit too !! We ain't talking frozen burritos and "store brand" ice cream....no, no, no...she has GOOD stuff. Wish I was a little raccoon running around that garbage recepticle !!

It is absolutely stunning here today. 50 degrees (on December 4th !!) and sun is shining. I just heard a motorcycle go by....what??

I must be going. Hope all is well with my family/friends/associates...(Dad, remember that guy that used to answer your phone C A Poindexter and Associates in that really southern drawl?)

Ha ! I remember it well !!

Duncan makes the paper !

Okay everybody...go to billingsgazette.com and go to the date 12/1/2007.

Then go to the LIFE section..that is where you will see Duncan Tyrone.

Fizzy was a tiny bit jealous and Duncan did let it go to his head a tiny bit.