Help, I'm being held hostage in Facebook and don't have the coins to escape!

I have been hearing about Facebook for ages now from my friends and my children. Ages, I tell you! I was quite content to stick with Blogger and give Facebook a miss. Ever hear how hindsight is 20/20? Well, they were right. Once I started accepting invitations, there was no end to it.

Facebook. Facebook is a world all to itself. There is Yoville, Farmtown, Farmville, The Cotton Mill and the Candy Shack...and God knows what all other fresh shades of hell. I kept hearing about how much fun I was missing. "You've got to come to Facebook, " they all cried. "It's FUN!" I went in and found that I had about a hundred invitations. My pal Evil Sister asked me, "okay how does one enter Facebook one day and have 74 friends the next?" I had no answer for her. I simply was acknowledging invitations. Okay, does anyone realize that I have been missing from Blogger for over a week? Did anyone send out a search party to find out what might be going on? If so, I didn't see you waving at me on that distant shore known as Bejeweled Blitz world. Yes, Facebook has games, too. By the way, Facebook has a new apartment for me as well. My friends and family keep sending me gifts with which to furnish this apartment. Of course it took me days to figure out how to accept the gifts and then place them in my new pad. My new apartment looks great. The house I actually live in looks like hell but my new apartment is set up for a party all the time.

So I of course accepted an invite to be a neighbor in Farmville. Great. The garden outside needs weeding and mulching, but I'm in Facebook Hell trying to keep the herd of cattle that my friends blessed me with from eating the crops that I "planted" and intended to harvest. If I get one more tree I'll have a forest almost as dense as the one I have in my actual world. I need a cattle dog to herd the cattle, a sheep dog to herd the sheep but does anyone send me one as a gift to go along with the bovine crew? Or a fence? No, I'm expected to go harvest other neighbors crops to earn the coins to buy my own fences. And possibly dogs. And my darling Anna (DIL) sent me the gift of a cat for my Yoville Apartment. Now why didn't I see that one coming?

I was talking to Evil Sister the other day and she said, "what are you doing in Farmville? I sent you an invitation to be my neighbor in Farmtown! It's a lot more fun...you need to come check it out!" I have noticed a twitch in my left eye and my right hand seems to have a mouse attached to it permanently. I can't put it down. And then last night I saw a new game a friend had been playing. It was Break the Brick Wall. So I had to go check it out. The twitch is decidedly worse and I'm overdosing on caffeine.

I really must go now...I hear a cat calling me and I'm not sure if it's the one in my Yoville apartment or one of the ones who live a real life in my real world. Facebook. It's stolen my life.

For Ben

There are many occasions to commemorate, celebrate and validate this month. We've just finished with 9/11, my father and my son's birthday are coming up on the 24th, but for my dear friend Sally the 16th is the sad date that commemorates her beloved grandson Ben, who left this earth far to soon one year ago (on that date). He was an avid sportman and skateboarder and an admirable teenager with many friends. I remember the day I learned that Sally's lovely boy died and I couldn't help thinking then that there is something inherently wrong about a parent or grandparent burying a child.

To honor Ben, Sally is going to give $100 towards a skateboard for the person who wins her giveaway. To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment on her site and you will be entered into the drawing. This is such a generous thing for her to do to honor her sweet grandson, and I'm sure Ben is aware of the generosity. So, please go over to http://www.whispering-hope.blogspot.com/
at Whispering Hope and leave your name. Ben would be so pleased.

How we came to have so many Pomegranate plants

It's Saturday and Labor day is upon us. Mac is out in the garden with the tiller preparing the beds for our Pomegranate bushes. He is so proud of them, as he grew them himself this past spring, from seed. We laugh about the efforts from last year because he says I sabotaged him at every turn. See, he prepared this nice long planter with lovely compost and spread the pomegranate seed over it, then covered it with a layer of compost and set it next to the shed to get plenty of sunlight and make sure of water. That was February of 2008

I came along and saw this lovely planter of great looking dirt, went into the garden shed and got my little sack of Hibiscus seed I'd gathered. I took the trowel and worked up the the dirt, spread my seed and covered them gently with a blanket of potting mix. I sat back and admired my work.

In April, I was agog at all the hibiscus plants and wondered at Mac's constant comment that they didn't look much like pomegranates. I snickered, thinking "why would hibiscus look like pomegranate?" Out loud I said, "well if they looked like cotton plants or even okra plants I wouldn't be surprised. You know, since they are the same family?" He only gave me that "get out of here" look...you know the one. Later on it dawned on me that he really thought he had grown pomegranates. I wasn't sure how to tell him that he (we) had grown hibiscus. I mean, couldn't he tell from the leaves? Why did he keep going over to the planter and talking to himself?

I picked out spots all around the place where I wanted them to be planted. As we sat on the porch drinking our first cup of coffee, I brought up the identity crisis his pomegranate plants were having. "When did you plant your seed, then? You didn't mention it to me at the time, " I said (sipping carefully, eyes cutting to my right). He thought about it for a bit, then said to me, "you know I put them in there early February. I can't figure out why they look so much like cotton plants. " He shook his head, as though to clear that dark thought from his mind. I drew one leg under me, admiring the red nail polish on my toenails, nodded wisely and said, "that could be because someone overplanted your planter with hibiscus."

I think they heard his shout of "WHATTTTTTTTTTT?" clear into downtown Jefferson. I tried to explain that I had seen the planter, it was so nicely prepared and that I thought about how great it would be to propagate the lovely Hibiscus he had brought me from Alabama that I just went ahead and took it over. I never dreamed that he had planted a thing in it. Really!

Likely story. Yep, that was his answer! I swear, I didn't know the planter was loaded! Ummm...sort of puts me in mind of the old song, I Didn't know the Gun was Loaded. But it is the truth I tell you!

So anyway, there was a planter that sat mutely by the south wall of the shed
fresh compost had been added by the master of the house ONCE AGAIN. But now,
signs were stuck in beside it that dared the housemouse to TOUCH ONE GRAIN OF DIRT THEREIN! Signs like crucifixes were fixed to the pot as though I were a vampire and This Means You and GO AWAY proliferated the outer parameters. I looked at him in all innocence and once more insisted that I DIDN'T KNOW.

His answer? "This time you do!." Yes, I suppose I did! But anyway, I hope you are as proud of his endeavors as I am! Here they are. Not Hibiscus plants, but lovely well tended grown from seed Pomegranate bushes! Properly tended and transplanted into larger cells and ready to be put into the bed. He has green fingers, you see. All those years as a Sailor and who knew he was meant to be a farmer all along?