A FRIDAY POST BY MASTER STEWEY ANGUS WILLOWSWAMP, HIS VERY LITTLE SELF

My mom can't come to the blog right now. Truth is, she's driving me nuts today with her pacing about the house. When I ask her what's wrong, she says "Stewey Darling, Mummie feels like half crap today."

First of all, may I just point out that she's taken to calling herself "Mummie"? I'm not buying it one little bit. She is Mom, Mommie, Mommie Dearest, or Mo-ther. Period. And, until she buys me a First Class airplane ticket so that I might actually visit the land of my ancestry where they DO call their adult women people Mum, I'm not playing along.

Apparently half-crap means that she doesn't feel bad enough to go pull the covers over her head, but she doesn't feel well enough to be upright and/or productive. I suspect that it has something to do with her lady time, but given the hysterics that topic brings up around here, I'd rather just say "she has a touch of the flu" and get on with it.

I knew she wasn't faking it when she awoke and headed straight for the thermostat to ratchet it up to a whopping 64 degrees. 64! Imagine my delight when I realized that it might actually get warm enough in here now to melt the little icicle that's been dangling from the tip of my peenie. I'm all for staying comfortable, but my stupid mo-ther's idea of comfortable is a meat locker. So when she decided to crank the heat up today because "her bones were cold" I knew something must be amiss.

Now before y'all go off half-cocked and write comments telling me to be nice to my mommie today, may I just point out that I am the one who heads into the bedroom every afternoon and stands patiently at the side of the big girl sleigh bed until somebody gets a clue and comes for a nap? Might I also point out that I am lobbying fiercely for an electric kettle so that I can finally make the old lady a proper cup of tea each afternoon? And, for the record, I am also the one who calls my Aunt Chrissy when I suspect that Mom is lonely, and good 'ol Aunt Chrissy comes over armed with my smelly little cousin and sitchy gossip.

So don't you dare judge me, Argentina. I do a pretty OK job of being nice when I have to.

There wasn't any stitching last night. I know that Mo-ther is determined to get that damn LHN ornament finished this weekend, but I still don't think it's supposed to be an ornament. At five inches square, methinks it will be much too large for the crappy little tree that we normally have. If she does carry through and stitch all of these things this year, maybe it will prompt her to pull out the big 'ol nine footer and we will have a proper tree for once! (Oh, if wishes made it so!)

I'm off to the bird feeders. I decided to give up my attack on the squirrels, and I've been experimenting with a few different recipes to see what they like best. Turns out, the little buggers will eat ANYTHING, so I'm going to order some more black sunflower seeds and be done with it. They just didn't seem to appreciate my cooking or baking skills, so I'm going to throw in the towel and feed them like the filthy little rodents they are.

We're off to the weekend! I am hoping that we get some West Wing viewing time in. We're almost finished with the fourth season, and despite the absence of Rob Lowe, I'm enjoying most of the plot lines immensely.

Cheerio! Stay warm and safe and dry and stitch/quilt/make/bake/eat something fabulous!

With love from your friend,
Stewey