Scotland, Sausage and Whining Little Mutts

There's sausage cooking on the stove, coffee in the pot and it's a beautiful day in Frog Pond Holler. I know it's a little late to be cooking breakfast and sausage is the LAST thing I need to be eating, but I bought it when the Amazon was home with the intention of cooking her breakfast before we ventured out Monday morning. Things didn't exactly turn out that way and I noticed the little package rolling around in the fridge when I went poking around for grub earlier today. I figured I'd better cook it before it goes wonky.

Nothing like the smell of wonky hog flesh to make you want to pour a gallon of petrol on the old fridge and strike a match.

The power has gone off twice already this morning. I don't know why, it's not storming, it's not hot, so people aren't giving the ac a workout, the wind isn't blowing. When we first came here, the electricity went out everytime someone sneezed, but after we had that killer snow storm a few years back and went without power for about four days, they supposedly replaced a bunch of the lines and we've not been having problems.

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They featured Frog Pond Holler on the news the other day in a story about the fictional cellular tower. The report stated that now that everything has been approved, they should have it up in running in another couple of months.

Good Lord.

I think they got the space shuttle program off the ground in less time. We originally "heard" September 2005, now here it is a year later and they're saying Novemeber. When I say "heard," you need to understand that there is no daily newspaper here. Oh sure, we can get the Big City newspaper delivered (when they can keep a delivery person for the area, it's sort of hit and miss) but they hardly ever mention Frog Pond Holler. There's a weekly county paper, but it's mostly about the high school football team, obituaries and the occasional meth lab bust. Oh and, for some reason, more than our share of escaped convicts end up here. So "heard" just means that Cousin Woodrow's neighbor, Luanne who works down yonder at the forest service office, cleaning up after hours, saw something on someone's desk which may or may not have pertained to the new cell tower. Luanne's got the cataracts ya know. It might have said "bell power" or "sell mowers".... ain't no tellin' for sure.

I've been pondering this creative dry spell I've been experiencing lately and I've decided it's the fault of the plant manager at work. Back a few months ago, he sent around a memo about people taking too many breaks and "excessive socializing" among employees. This from the man who doesn't show up half the time, won't leave your office and let you work because he's too busy running his mouth about nonsense, etc... Anyway, due to this memo, there've been fewer opportunities for me to talk to Lulu. Lulu is just about the only person at the office who appreciates my off-kilter sense of humor. New rules have made for a boring work place.

But it's okay... I have a plan.

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I've been dabbling a bit in another of the Scottish lines in the family. I had delved previously into the McPherson side, not an easy task seeing how the McPhersons seemed to be prolific breeders. They're everywhere. This time I've been reading up on the "de le Glen" side. They appear in a completely different line from the McPhersons, but seem to be connected in some way to Loch Ness, which is weird because the McPherson line seemed to originate from the same area of Scotland, in and around Inverness. There's also a second "Glen" family line which comes from the area around Glasgow, I'm still digging around trying to find out which one is mine. I really need to dig all those papers out and go over them. I wish I was more organized.

Oh and just in case any of you are wondering, I have stumbled across a few Fergusons in my direct line, on the McPherson side, connected to Isobell Ross.

When I get back in to digging around and have found all that I can on the "de le Glen" line, I'm going to start on the Irish side. Scottish, Irish, Cherokee, French and German... all on Ma's side, so far. It's no wonder we're so internally conflicted.

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The littlest mutt is having a nervous breakdown because we're out of dog food. He's not hungry. He's just upset that there's no bag of food sitting where it's supposed to be. If there's anything out of the ordinary, he falls apart. Therefore, I'm off to make a run to the dollar store, before I lose my mind at his constant standing at my feet and whining like he's dying. Then I'll come home, put food in his bowl, which he'll look at and then walk away, content that his little universe is in balance.

Later Taters.