songbird's crazy world

 And half the thing I’d planned  never happened. Time to gear up for fall.

 Ordering gluten free soup and salad from a restaurant named  Panera Bread .

 Continuing the theme from two weeks ago … First a suggestion from John …            

  My Sharona Welcome to Saturday: 9 . What we've committed to our readers is that we will post 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love to  answer the questions, however, and here is today's questions! Saturday 9: My Sharona (1979) Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it  here .   1) The Knack's lead singer Doug Fieger wrote this song for his girlfriend, Sharona Alperin.  That's Sharona on the record sleeve shown here. Who took the most recent photo of you? It was at my cousin's wedding in June.  I think it was my sister who took the picture. 2) Today Sharona Alperin is a realtor in Southern California. ( The photo on her website is more demure than the recored sleeve ...

 So my Celiac diagnosis has made ordering take out much more difficult.  Imagine my joy when I found an Italian restaurant that does gluten free pasta and pizza/  And it's just five minutes from my house. So I was craving Italian food last night. Drew wasn't interested in Italian, so I ordered only for myself -- chicken parmigiana with a side of penne, to be delivered to the house 'cause I was feeling lazy. The food arrived, both dishes clearly labeled "gluten free". And then I noticed that a small bag was also delivered. A ciabatta roll.  They gave me a ciabatta roll. Definitely NOT gluten free. Good thing Drew likes ciabatta.

  Part 1 The tree is in our yard.  It’s some sort of evergreen.  It was wrapped in what appeared to be plastic. Today I unwrapped it.  Turns out the material was canvas, tied to the tree with heavy duty string.  Easy to remove. There were bugs living under the canvas.  They scattered as soon as I cut the canvas off the tree. It looks like someone cut branches from the tree just before it was wrapped.  There’s a lot of dried sap where the branches were cut, and some of the canvas clung to the sap. Now we will see what happens to this tree.

 The theme? Robin from  SongbirdsCrazyWorld  says since we’re in “the dog days of summer”, lets put together songs about animals. Yes, I chose today’s theme. So by now you know I am the mother of two adorable cats, Duchess and Shadow. So we will start with songs about cats, of course.       But I also like dogs.  I had a poodle once, and more recently I had a wonderful beagle named Molly.  So, songs about dogs.    You’d expect a girl named Robin to like birds.  You’d be correct.    When I was a kid I’d ride horses at camp.  So a song about horses.    And when I created this theme, I never said the animals had to be real.  I love fantasy,  so …      

 We tried a new, fun restaurant yesterday.  Haunted House of Hamburgers , where it’s Halloween every day. Even the outside of the building is themed.    This little guy was peeping out at me when we parked the car. There’s a small corn maze at the front of the building. The inside is incredible. It’s very dark, with creepy noises, and horror movies on a screen over the bar. Our table Water glasses Drew had the Zombie burger I was able to get a burger with a gluten free bun (not decorated).  And a side salad — the fries have gluten The food is good, some of the cocktails look very 8nteresting, but the real reason to go is the atmosphere.  It was fun.   We’ll probably go back in October.  .

  Michelle   Welcome to Saturday: 9 . What we've committed to our readers is that we will post 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love to  answer the questions, however, and here is today's questions! Saturday 9: Michelle (1965) Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it  here .   1) In this song, Paul McCartney sings to Michelle in French, " Sont des mots qui vont très bien ensemble." Can you say anything else in French? I studied Spanish in school, was quite fluent.  I can manage a few words and phrases in French, but I don’t really speak it. 2) Paul admits he that, as a teenager, he'd perform the first few bars at parties to impress girls. It was John Lennon who enc...

 So Shadow celebrated her first birthday on August 9. She got a new toy for her birthday.  

Last week Drew and I realized we hadn’t spoken to our friend F since June.  When Drew called her, F’s housemate told us that F wasn’t home, she was in a rehab facility. F’s housemate owns a dog, a 50-pound mixed breed, part pit bull.    The dog bit F on both hands, causing serious damage.  And, of course, the wounds got infected.  She spent 10 days in the hospital, and she’s in rehab until she can get mobility back in both hands. We visited her on Saturday.  She’s in a small nursing facility, where the rehab patients and long-term residents are housed together.  Visiting her was not a comfortable experience.  I still think of nursing homes as a place for elderly people, for my parents’ generation.  And while F isn’t the first of my friends to spend time in such a facility, it’s still disconcerting to see someone just a few years older than I am in such a place. I guess we’re all getting older. But that beats the alternative.

 And it’s a free choice week. I’ll let you figure out my theme.               

 The annual pilgrimage to Citi Field.  We went Friday night.   The weather was perfect for a ballgame. We had two minor glitches.  First, we didn’t park in our usual lot because we’d been given a free parking pass, and it took a few minutes to find the right parking lot.   And then Drew dropped his car keys as we went through the metal detectors, and didn’t realize they were missing until we were well inside the ballpsrk, so he had to go back to the Seaver gate to retrieve them, We had great seats. I found the gluten-free food vendor.  I had the breaded chicken tenders.  OMG they were good.   The new scoreboard is huge, I think they can see it all the way to Brooklyn. The game? The Mets are a demoralized team, and their opponents that night (Atlanta) are contenders this year.  It’s tough to be a Mets fan this year… of course they lost, but we stayed until the bitter end. Because it was fireworks night!  Sorry, no pictures or video. ...

  Diana Welcome to  Saturday: 9 . What we've committed to our readers is that we will post 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love to answer the questions, however, and here is today's questions. Saturday 9: Diana (1957) Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it  here . 1) Legend has it that Paul Anka wrote this song about his favorite babysitter. In your younger days, did you make a little extra money as a sitter? Yes.   2) Paul sings he doesn't care what "they" say about his love for an older girl. Have you ever had a romantic relationship that your friends or family didn't approve of? I almost married him, but thankfully came to my senses. 3) Paul was once a ch...

 Shadow is the kid who wants everyone to like her, who wants everyone to play with her.  Duchess has no use for Shadow and no interest in playing with another cat.  Shadow is trying to make Duchess pay attention, to make Duchess like her … So Duchess was on the living room floor. And so was Shadow. Then the fun began.  Shadow snuck up on Duchess and batted her on the hindquarters. Duchess turned around hissed at Shadow, then retreated into the bedroom.  Shadow followed. Mellowing out … Shadow likes the window. Back in the living room, and Duchess took up her position in her favorite chair. Shadow snuck up on Duchess and batted at her.   Duchess hissed. Shadow HISSED. I’d never heard her do that before. Then both cats ran into the bedroom. I think they’re working it out … But don’t tell Duchess …