Sacher? Linzer? Donner? Blitzen? Make mine walnut and keep the coffee coming, chop chop!

I should be working ... well, I was working but I had to stop and share this with you while I was still laughing about it.

If you don't like it when I make fun of the way people fold, spindle, mutilate, and otherwise abuse the English language, now is the time to leave.

If you like to chuckle and/or maybe even learn something, stick around.

So I'm looking over an exhibit to a deposition -- in this case an indignant letter from the president of a company that's about to be sued, written to the lawyer whose client is about to sue said company -- and what to my wondering eye should appear but this priceless sentence:

It appears from your letter that you are not sure what you are asking us to be responsible for, however I thought it well to remind you of the tortes of malicious prosecution and/or abuse of process and request that you and your client act in a rationed and reasoned manner before a determination is made to institute action against blah, blah, blah ...

To quote Captain Hector Barbossa, late of the Black Pearl: "There were a lot of long words in there, missy! We're naught but humble pirates."

Okay ... so much to make fun of, so little time. I'll concentrate on the most egregious crime committed error perpetrated by our outraged would-be counter-litigant -- who, by the way, DID get sued, but clearly for the wrong "rationed reasons."

People. A torte is a cake. You can look it up.

A tort is a civil wrong in law. You can look that up too.

So I do believe it is safe to say that there is no such animal as a cake of malicious prosecution. 

And even if there were, to quote Willy Wonka: "Eww! No one would buy it!"

That is all.

I must get back to work. It is painfully obvious that someone has been grievously caked wronged and there are great matters of cake law to be decided in this lawsuit.

Now I'm getting hungry.

Yay, I won a book!

Well I'll be et fer a tater ... I won a book in blogging buddy Donna's 400th post celebration giveaway!

The book -- Roll the Wheel: The Abundant Life and Wisdom of Mae Phillips -- looks fantastic and I cannot wait to read it.

As an extra bonus, it is signed by the author, Phyllis M. EagleTree! With a name like that, how can you go wrong?

So, many thanks to Donna, and to Marty, the Official Blog Greeter (who, I am told, pulled my name from the hat) -- he who dines daily on fresh clover and presides over Donna's wonderful blog, Cottage Days & Journeys -- for honoring me with this special literary treat.

If you're not familiar with Donna's blog, I can recommend it for excellent writing and breathtaking photography. She and her husband recently returned to their home in East Tennessee from a trip to British Columbia, and Donna is in the process of sharing their adventures in a series of posts!

Her pictures of grizzly bears are rather mind-boggling ... at least to one like me, who would like to hug the neck of a grizzly bear without ever actually getting close enough for it to hurt me.

How's that for faulty logic? Mea culpa.

Hedgehog hounded and ferreted

Now, you know I'm a critter-lover and a true believer in that to-each-his-own thing, but honestly? A household that includes a dachshund and two ferrets and a hedgehog is just ... funny. 

Even the animals aren't sure what to do.

I love it when the lady tells the dachshund not to push the ferret into the hedgehog. ???? What difference could it possibly make? The hedgehog is gonna be a furball until those other varmints vamoose.

In the interest of honesty I must point out that although I'm a dog person and I do love me the occasional ferret, I didn't know until now that hedgehogs served as pets. 

Beatrix Potter illustrations notwithstanding.

Once again YouTube widens the horizon ... and saves my bacon when I have nothing remotely worthwhile to post.

Show and Tell and we won't talk about how I fell ... yet

Sue Osborne -- a/k/a Nostalgic Nana -- of Beaverton, Oregon, showed up according to plan on my doorstep around nine o'clock Sunday night, and we commenced to enjoy a very proper visit!

After gabbing until past midnight, we called it a day. On Monday we set out mid-morning for a sightseeing and shopping excursion. 

First I took Sue across the Lake Murray Dam into Lexington, so that I could show her the house where we lived when we first moved to South Carolina in 2002.

The house was partially destroyed by fire in late 2005, a few days before we were scheduled to finalize selling it!

I wrote about that exciting event here.

Having done that, we headed to what used to be one of my favorite haunts when I lived on "the other" side of the dam: the picturesque Old Barn General Store.

Sue had said the magic words "I love shopping!" and I knew she'd love the Old Barn. But when we got there, we found that the Old Barn is soon to be no more. Most of the inventory has been sold but Sue and I spent a happy half-hour trolling for residual bargains.

Store owners Robin and Cindy Jones are known in these parts for their thoroughgoing collection of antiques -- everything from furniture to apothecary items. I found a charming old Luzianne coffee can and two glass jars with screw-on metal lids.

I decided to put my coffee can on the baker's rack. What do you think?

It appears my little glass jars are happy beside my other little glass things, and some rooster canisters that were a gift from Erica, and vintage cards, and a miniature screen door.

From there Sue and I went to downtown Columbia where we had a few excellent adventures, including a visit to the South Carolina State House.

Later I fell down and hurt myself badly enough that I spent all of Monday evening at a Doctors Care.

Sue's asked me to write a guest post on her blog and I think I'll tell you more about it over there. Stay tuned for semi-gory details!

(It's funnier looking back than it was in real life. Let's put it that way. I'll make every attempt to render the facts in an amusing manner. It's either that or cry.)

But since I have you here now and have already posted pictures of recent acquisitions on the decorating front, and in keeping with the theme of Show and Tell, I thought I'd go ahead and show you (and tell you about) some new things I've added to my ever-evolving home decor repertoire.

On a recent trip to Hobby Lobby I was drawn to several half-price pieces in cast iron. Because I love the fleur-de-lis motif, I was thrilled to find a very affordable (as in, redonkulously cheap) set of bookends and a primitive bell. Adding them to the tall thing (I don't know what to call it) in the middle, and arranging it all with my cast iron Bienvenue plaque in the front, Voila! I created a tablescape.

Just because we can, let's do a close-up on my cast iron Bienvenue. It cost one dollar and sixty cents plus tax.

On that same trip I found a large garnet-red glass bottle that I keep beside my sink, full of dish soap.

Speaking of bottles, I found this gaggle of brightly-colored ones for a price no glass-bottle-loving person like me could ever resist.

You may have noticed that one of these things is not like the others. That's because the large clear bottle in front was actually the container for a fabulously decadent substance called Drizzzle, which I obtained when I visited the graves of Henry Luce and Clare Boothe Luce at Mepkin Abbey in Moncks Corner, South Carolina.

(Would you believe my camera was on the fritz when I went there and I did not get pictures? I'll go back when it cools down a bit. I promise. Not one of you will escape. But I did write about it ... here.)

Drizzzle -- "Mepkin Abbey's Signature Sauce" -- is made by Trappist monks, and no I did not drink it (!!!) but I plead guilty to liberally drizzling it onto vanilla ice cream and when I'd drizzled the last drop, I do believe I shed a tear.

I cannot part with the bottle.

Actually all the bottles serve the purpose of making more colorful (and less empty) an inherited wine rack built into my kitchen cabinetry.

Two more things and we're done with Show and Tell. I was sorting through some stuff in a box last weekend and found an apron I'd been missing for years. TG bought it for me! I am no longer apronless.

And the piece de resistance: my Johnny Cube. It's a wrought iron container (also purchased at Hobby Lobby) that holds my collection of Johnny Depp movies. There's also just enough room left over to stash the DVD player remote.

I guess you've figured out I have a hard time resisting visits from blogging buddies, old metal things, glass bottles and jars, stuff wrought from iron, all things French, a berry concoction named Drizzzle (extra "z" on purpose) and Johnny Depp.

My secrets are laid bare.

I'm not sorry.

Guess who's coming to my house?

As in, on her way here AS I TYPE?

One of my blogging buddies!

In this case, better known as ...

NOSTALGIC NANA!

More on our adventures later.