"Joy to the fishes ..."

I had a video picked out but XP crashes nearly every time I try to play one. For entertainment, just hum a few bars of Joy To The World while blog surfing.
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Avatar! Finally I watched Avatar last evening. Tammy said that when she watched it she could not tell much difference in DVD and Blu-ray quality and I will agree; I have a TV designed for Blu-ray and I cannot see any major improvement. Of course, my TV is only a 40″ and maybe Blu-ray should be seen on a much bigger screen. Also, maybe the 3-D might make a difference, but most people say it degrades the quality on TVs. Anyway, I will be watching mostly DVDs as long as they are available which should be a long time to come. As for the Avatar movie itself, the special effects are the movie; the storyline isn’t great. Sigourney Weaver never ages. Only three out of five stars is my rating. Avatar 2 is due to be released in 2016.
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Have a Tuesday!
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“Monday, Monday; can’t trust that day”

Carolyn has gone to take Ashley to work and we will have Sammy with us today. He is sunshine.
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The weekend began very well and ended in disaster.
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Occupy Oakland is for the most part being peaceful and law-abiding; if the cops would act the same way there would be little violence in the protests. Being a presidential election year, this all should be interesting. Any Republican candidate will come out against Occupy and Obama is also owned by the one-percent therefore he won’t say much that will stem the flood of money coming into his reelection kitty. He will probably receive more corporate dollars than most Democrat hopefuls would; unless there is a major disaster to waylay him, he should easily beat anything the Right has produced so far to run against him.
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Have a good Worshday!

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Sun Sunday

I caught a cup of sunshine but I spilled some on the floor.

Happy and sunny Sunday!

Little Wing by SRV

Cop a buzz, do a little dance, make a lotta love ...

It’s Saturday Night!

Gathering at the river

Looks like I am going to have to upgrade my Windows OS from a 2002 edition of WinXP Home up to Win7 Professional. XP is giving me a lot of problems but before I shell out $139 for the OEM I am going to attempt to allow CCleaner to unclutter the Registry. I’ve used registry cleaner-outers before and always ended up with an unbootable or unstable PC on which I had to reinstall the OS. I have to use Win7 Pro because I have one program that will not run on Win7 Home edition and I have to have it; it is the accounting program for Carolyn’s business stuff. Win7 Pro has a built in XP “virtual machine’ which allows my 2005 copy of Quickbooks (QB) to work. Win7 Home—if I could use it—costs $89. Microsoft knows how to make money. Of course, I could buy an upgrade of QB to the latest edition but it has a price tag of $159. I would then reinstall XP and hope for the best. Intuit, the makers of QB, also know how to make money. Linux doesn’t have a decent single-entry accounting software package; if it did, I would never use Windows again. If I go missing for a few days pretty soon; you will know I an cussing my way through a Windows and needed software install or reinstall. I have Linux on my Droid and on my laptop which will allow me to access the net when I need a fix of compassion from you, my friends.

I am still working on taxes and will try to keep XP limping along until April 15.

Has anyone seen the movie Avatar? I got a Blu-ray copy just to see how good a picture the player and TV have with that format. I’ve never viewed a Blu-ray movie before but I have read that the improvement in video quality over a DVD is remarkable; we shall see.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Thursday recess

From Hávamál–Old Icelandic poem

Cattle die, kinsmen die,
And each man too shall die.
I know one thing that never dies,
A dead man’s reputation.

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Wednesday's breaking wind

Crap like this has allegedly happened three times this winter in and around Johnson City. What the hell are these parents thinking?!
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We are expecting Jeremy and Courtney to be here this weekend; have a safe trip home to East Tennessee, young’uns.
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There is only one reasonable reason wealthy Americans place a lot of money in offshore banks like Republican nominee candidate Mitt Romney has in the Cayman Islands; he must be hiding a lot of it. I don’t trust American banks either, but I would surely use them unless I was hiding my loot from someone or something … something like the IRS. Mr. Romney, you have no idea whatsoever as to what it means to be an everyday, working, middle class American. Have you ever been not wealthy or were you, like Ann Richards said of G. H. Bush, born with a silver foot in your mouth?
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Have a pleasant Wednesday!
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Tuesday morning

This winter has me totally confused. Yesterday and this morning the yard was full of robins, both male and female. Carolyn says she has occasionally seen a flock in the yard  ever since winter began. Migrating robins usually do not get here until mid-February (early February last year) and the males are always here for a few weeks before the females begin to arrive. My theory is that a mixed-gender flock has wintered in the area but I have never known it to happen before. If so, it sure is going to crap up the old “I just saw the first robin of spring” ritualistic saying. Weatherman says we may have a bit of snow this weekend coming.
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I didn’t think Sammy was going to be with us today, but Carolyn has gone to pick him up. Things are changing more rapidly in my life than my simple hillbilly mind can keep up with.
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Be sure to check out and “Like” Mark’s Fading America Facebook page.  He has been and will be posting photos from his travels around the country, each a story of the way America was just a few years ago.
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The body shop called and said the Escape is ready. They pulled the bottom part of the air ducting out and cleaned it. Maybe the insurance company held the body shop to its estimate and refused to pay more to clean the entire A/C system. This all leaves me with a bad feeling; what if one of us is later on hit in the eye and blinded by a shrapnel of flying glass?
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Have a Tuesday!
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Monday + Rain = Monday

Another rainy Monday, however the temps are mild and should reach near 60°F (15.5°C) this afternoon. I don’t recall a January being this mild, but then, I try not to remember any January.
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Spastic; my word of the day is “spastic”. Spastic is a word my friend used often, but not enough to wear it out. He used the word to comically describe someone who was acting more out of control than was usual for our circle of friends. We were all spastic at times and he never failed to include himself when needed. I used to go spastic when I caught him cheating in a card game but I soon got over it; dealing from the bottom of the deck was the same as breathing or eating to him. At times, innocuous spasticity was rampant at our Friday night poker games. It was nickel-dime-quarter stuff therefore no one got too mad when my friend was the usual weekly winner. It was best not to play deuces wild when he was at the table; he seemed to be able to conjure deuces from the nether regions. He had a nice little library in his house and among his books were several about poker strategies which included chapters on how to catch a cheat. I think he reverse-engineered a few chapters and used them against us. In the end, it was all good fun. He used a lot of good words; he was very intelligent. Somehow, spastic is one of his words that stuck with me over the years and I don’t think I’ve heard it since he left us in 1980; I would surely love to hear him say it again. Spastic.
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Sammy was with us all day Friday and again Saturday; he is with us again today and is in the process of refusing to eat his baby cereal. Can’t say as I blame him.
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I am dedicating the video Southern Man to those who claim the New South as home yet would have us return to days of Jim Crow and total segregation of the races.
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Hey! The sun just popped out! Have a good Worshday, my friends.
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Splitting sinus headache today; I thought I could do some taxes while Carolyn is at work and Sammy isn’t here to hog my attention. I’ll have to wait until my forehead quits throbbing.
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Cortez The Killer song was at one time banned in Spain; maybe still is. Mr. Young is a great song writer as well as a superb performer. I like him best when he is with his band Crazy Horse as he is in this video. Yes, I know; the audio is atrocious here.
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The body shop manager called and said they had all the repair work done to the Escape except that when the AC/Heat blower is turned on small missiles of glass come flying out of the vents. He said he would contact the insurance adjuster and see what he wants to do about it. The repairs done so far, including a new windshield, have been a bit less than $2000; not bad really. I wonder why the body shop didn’t take shattered glass into consideration from the get-go? The first place the glass would have fallen is into the inside windshield defroster vents and into the outside cowl air intake (and Carolyn’s face and hair). I expect the insurance company is going to be pretty pissed about that much extra work; removing the entire dash and sucking out all the glass fragments and then having to clean up the inside of the vehicle again. I hope they don’t give up and consider the car to be worth less money than what it takes to fix it.
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Have a good Sunday afternoon and evening.

Spring???

Sammy was here until 11:00 last night; we had a good time playing and watching cartoons. He is back today and came in wearing his bib overalls and a red shirt; much like some of the old farmers I wrote about a few days ago.
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We had thunderstorms last night and today is nearly continuous rain. Thursday I saw a fat, male robin in the yard and he acted like he may stay for awhile. I also saw a pair of rufus-sided towhees this week and a mockingbird has set up his territory around the suet feeder; he is constantly on guard against any suet thieves; the smaller birds are upset but the big peckerwoods pay him no mind.
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I am sleeping better every night since I stopped taking the Ambien.
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Have a great Saturday and weekend!

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Put your right foot in
Take your right foot out
Put your right foot in
Then you shake it all about
And then you do the hokey pokey
Turn yourself around
That’s what it’s all about

Etta

 

Etta James
January 25, 1938 – January 20, 2012

Negative Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Three hours sleep last night so no blog today. Dammit!

Bloodhound chew

Farmers may seem like and independent lot, and in many ways they are because there is no other industry to remotely compare to large-scale food production. Even the small family farms which used to dot the rural landscape and were the backbone of America until Ronald Reagan put them out of business in the 1980′s were extremely self-reliant. One thing nearly all of them had in common though was the uniform trousers they wore. You could just about bet that any owner of a small farm would pull on a pair of bib overalls as soon as his feet touched the floor when he got out of bed in the wee morning hours. He might place one of several various types of shoes or boots on his feet, and the type of shirt he wore changed with the seasons, but it was usually long sleeved and made of soft, absorbent cotton. On his head would go a comfortable, disreputable looking, sweat stained, manure spotted, old Stetson hat, or its equivalent. This basic attire was worn by those men born before World War Two; later generations wore Levis, sneakers, tee shirts, and baseball caps. But even they had at lest one thing in common with the old-timers; chewing tobacco. As I remember, chewing tobacco came in three basic types: loose leaf, packaged in a foil lined pouch; twist, usually wrapped in cellophane; plug, also wrapped in cellophane.
I was never a tobacco using person outside of hateful cigarettes, but like most country boys, I did try various things the adults used. I learned early on that any kind of tobacco I put in my mouth which generated a plethora of juice and that no matter how much spitting I did, there was always some of the vile liquid would trickle down my throat. The first response was gagging and then as my skin rapidly changed colors like a chameleon in a crayon factory–white, red, blue, green, and back to bloodless white–I started dry-heaving just as a drunk does after a big night out with the boys when he confronts a fried breakfast egg leering back at him. I always wound up laying on my belly  and hoping how soon I would die. Fortunately, the effects quickly wore off and mostly all that was left of the honor was a bad memory which was soon forgotten, and the guffaws of any of my friends who were around to witness my misery. For some reason, most of them never got sick from wayaward tobacco juice.
There were two basic types of plug users; one was the gentleman chawer and the other was the regular, uncouth chawer. It was never “do you want a chew?” but always “d’yer want a chaw?” It was ‘chawing terbaccy’ and not ‘chewing tobacco’. The uncouth , regular Farmer Joe chawer might remove the wrapper from his plug of Bloodhound®, offer it around, gnaw off enough for a chaw, and drop it in one of his bib pockets until he was ready for another refreshment. He generally didn’t get a lot of takers on his second offer of sharing; plenty of tooth marks and general dirt from his pocket almost always insured he would have the rest of the plug to himself.
The gentleman chawer would begin the process by first taking his folding knife from one of his trouser pockets. A lot of story tellers did it this way and by the time the plug was ready to serve, he had drawn a crowd of store porch-sitters and they wound up either laughing at some funny anecdote he had told while opening the blade of the knife or sadly shaking their heads about something that had happened somewhere in the community or about the latest misdeeds of the government as he was retrieving the plug from a bib pocket. He would top off his tale by slowly and carefully peeling back the cellophane wrapper so as not to tear it and just as slowly cut himself a piece of the black tobacco and then passing it around as his latest revelation was discussed. When he got the plug back, it was usually with the cellophane wrapper carefully refolded on the plug and the knife blade refolded back into the handle. When I was hanging around the store, I kept an eye out for the story telling chawers; to this day I still draw information and inspiration from their stories and the gleam in their eyes as they related them. There is much more to my tobacco chewing stories, but I will wait until allergies and taxes aren’t preying on my goodwill.
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Have a fine Wednesday, every body!
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Thanking you ...

I just realized something… I began posting on Blogger on January 7th, 2006. I’ve been doing this longer than I thought. Alice was my first reader and Robin was my first commenter. Thank you everyone who has read my silliness and kindly encouraged, critiqued, and kept me going through six enlightening and wonderful years. For those of you who I have disappointed in some way with my words, please know that it was not done on purpose to hurt you or anyone. In the case of politicians and fat-cat preachers, I never intended to hurt you either for your own words and actions were all that I was repeating. For those of you who I have pleased with my words, maybe some of it was done on purpose because I like each one of you and many of you have become family to me, but most of  these thousands of sentences and paragraphs were merely me being myself. I like to tell stories and I like to be the brunt of any joke I spew over the net scape. The likes of Mark Twain, Will Rogers, and especially Walt Kelly have been my inspiration for many, many years.

I would like to say all your names in this posting and tell you how much you have meant to me as a friend and an individual, but like I said in the last post, my eyes no longer make many tears and I am afraid it would bankrupt me to buy all the bottled tears I would need to portray to you my honest, loving emotions about you.

Thank you, my gentle children.

“I have a Dream.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. His dream is yet to be fulfilled.
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I read a recent blog where a 50 year-old man was concerned about being old. Reminds me of the things I wrote about when I was the same age. But to write about being or becoming old, a person should have some experience and being 50 is not akin to being old. I suppose the guy was showing more angst than anything.
I am definitely getting old. There is now more hair growing from my ear canals than there is atop my head. My eyebrows look like two hungover wooly worms having a bad hair day. The bags under my eyes have become full fledged sacks. My eyes no longer make their own tears; I have some extra-virgin tears imported from Italy. Trimming nose hair is a twice-weekly annoyance. My chin was once fairly prominent; now it and all its folds gradually meld into my chest. My jowls flap and are difficult to shave. My ears and the corners of my mouth sag. I see a chocolate commercial on television and a tooth falls out. My chest hair is suddenly becoming all white. My little man-boobies are now larger than those of many women whom I lusted after in my youth. I can’t suck in my gut enough to see if I have any pubic hair left and I have to floss between the fat wrinkles on my belly. My scrotum is sagging to the size where I wanted it to be back when it was useful for something. About five years ago, my sex drive was spotted crossing the border into Tijuana, Mexico and hasn’t even bothered to send me a postcard. I have to wear Velcro strap shoes because I can’t bend past my belly to tie laces. I suppose I should rename my blog to “Loose Straps”. I need a new pair of sneakers but I have these which I have worn for eight years stretched to fit my bunions and hammer-toes. My separate crutches work under either arm and I cannot figure out whether they are bi-sexual or bi-polar. I sometimes have senior moments when I think I am a Conservative. I used to fret about which brand of condom was best but now it is worrying about brands of adult diapers that takes up half my day.
Well, at lest I am still here to write about it.
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Have a fantastic Worsh Day!
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13

Eye allergies again today so I will make it short.
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Snowed again last night.
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Have a great weekend.

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"The survey says ..."

Sammy Bunny

The following conversation would have been funnier if I was telling it just after it happened which was mid-1980s. My friend Steve–Bro Hill–and I were sitting in my living room drinking beer and playing Atari; we were actually pretty bored. Later, I made a few notes about the happenings and from them I give you this telephone conversation. Be aware, it did not happen exactly like this and some of the conversation is slightly altered and I cannot remember all of it, but the fact is that it did happen.
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Ring-g-g-g-g!
“Hello?”
“Good evening sir; I am Lori and I am calling from Johnson City Specialty Hospital. We are taking a short survey of area residents to see how they use our hospital. Would you be interested in answering a few questions for us?”
Lori sounded like a very young woman. “Hi Lorie and I don’t mind at all; this is from the new maternity hospital, right?”
“Yes sir, I am happy you have heard of us. Could you tell me how you came to know about the hospital and its services?”
“I’ve heard the radio ads and read an article in the paper about it. It is located where the eye hospital used to be, I think.”
“You are correct, sir. We renovated the eye hospital and it now serves the community for other purposes. May I ask if your wife is present?”
“Sure you may but my wife isn’t here right now.”
Ok, sir, I will just ask you a few short questions if you don’t mind.”
“Sure.”
“You say you are married; is that correct.”
“No, I am not married.”
“But you just said your wife isn’t presently at home?”
“That is correct; he is not home right now but I expect him at any moment.”
Pause … “Your wife is a man?”
Me chuckle … “Yes, my wife is a man and his wife is a man; also, we both have husbands.”
In the background I could hear the young caller saying to someone else “you should hear this!” That meant I had an audience so it was time to put on my best show. Luckily, Bro Hill came in just before the conversation began and I winked at him and whispered to him to be ready. I heard several clicks on the line as other people where Lori worked began eavesdropping on our conservation and at the same time Bro Hill was listening on my extension phone.
“I better explain, Lori. Steve is my wife and I am Steve’s wife; he is also my husband and I am his husband and that is the way we live.” I heard a half-squelched snort and a few giggles come across the line; the snort was Steve’s as he was about to break up laughing. I quickly shushed him.
Lori said “Oh- h-h … I think I see.” I could tell she was still trying to put it all together.
I said “Hold on just a minute, Lori; I hear my wife coming in right now.” Half covering the transmitter with my hand, I said, “Stevie, honey, there’s a young lady on the line taking a survey; would you be kind enough to say hello to her … her name is Lori?”
Says Steve “I sure will , Sweetheart”; he clicked the phone as if he was just picking it up. In his most demure effeminate voice he said, “Hello dear Lori; this is Stevie, Kenny’s partner and lover; we are happy you could call us this evening.”
Lori said, “Um … ah … hello Stevie … it is nice to meet you.”
“The pleasure is all mine, darling,” crooned Bro Hill. “is there anything I can do for you?”
“Ummm, maybe I should ask you the survey questions?”
“Well, either one of us is as well equipped to answer them as is the other, but you began with Kenny and I will let you have him back; please forgive me but I must undress and take a shower. I just came in from work and am not very dainty at the moment. Kiss-kiss, Lori.”
I said to Bro Hill, making sure Lori and friends could hear me, “Stevie honey, give mama a big kiss before you go to the shower.” Steve placed a loud, wet smooch on the back of his hand. More giggles from her end of the line. Steve had to leave the room to laugh.
“I’m back Lori; forgive Stevie for running but he has a thing about his hygiene. Do you have anymore questions for me?”
“Just a few” she said. “If you ever need the services of a specialty hospital, would you consider Johnson City Specialty Hospital?” By now Lori was flustered trying not to laugh every time she said a word.
“Well, I keep telling Stevie we should have a baby and we keep trying, but so far we haven’t been blessed. I sure would be glad to use your hospital; wouldn’t it be so wonderful if he and I both got pregnant at the same time? I bet that would be a “first” for the hospital!” The echoing giggles from across the phone lines broke into outright guffaws and I was wondering how soon someone was going to catch on that they were being shucked.
Lori was now laughing outright; she said “I’m going to finish this survey if it kills me!”
“Just go ahead and ask your questions, honey; I’ll make sure we aren’t interrupted on this end.” I let her hear me slam a door shut.
“It looks like it will be difficult for Stevie or I to ever make use of your hospital, but I tell you what Lori honey, if you will come over to my house sometime when Stevie is at work, I will try to fix you up to where you can use it. I bet you will even get a discount because you work there. You do work there, don’t you?”
“Oh, my god!,” she said. The uncontrolled laughing was coming from her and her entire crew. “Yes, I work here; I am a nurse in training. I will have to take a rain check on your offer and my supervisor who has been listening in says to tell you we all appreciate the entertainment but to please use someone else’s hospital if you get pregnant. Goodbye, sir.” She was still laughing.
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Have a good pre-Friday 13th, y’all!
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Rainy Days

Rain again; looks and feels much like an early spring day but I know Mom Nature is just feeling playful. The temp. is 50°F (10°C) but another cold front is on the way. Good news is that we are gaining more than a minute of daylight each day.
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Carolyn has gone to take Ashley to work and Sammy will be here to spend most of the day.
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The Escape is at an auto-body shop; Carolyn drove by and gave it a quick once over. She said the deer left a deep dent from its hoof just at the outside mirror; a few inches higher and it would have been through the side window and could have done her much damage. I still don’t think she realizes just how bad it could have been for her.
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I love the song Rainy Days and Mondays by the Carpenters. With the exception of Patsy Cline’s unparalleled presentations, I think Karen Carpenter had the most beautiful singing voice I’ve heard. Both of these ladies died at the height of their careers.
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Have a brolly-free Wednesday, dear friends.
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Monday reflections

Keegan has left Korea and returned to Japan; we’re hoping he can get a come-home pass and visit us.
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Jeremy and family are planning to come visit before the end of this month. Looking forward to some time with them.
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We are in the process of rearranging the furniture so we can have an extra room for guests. Chris will be coming back to stay with us for awhile and maybe Mark will mosey across the hill one of these days. I will be giving up my office and returning it to a bed room like it is supposed to be; my office will share the living room and will be downsized a lot. I have too much junk anyway.
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Yesterday morning, Carolyn fixed each of us a bowl of sweetened rice. She carried mine to the office and as she reached to set it down in front to me, she lost her grip on the bowl and the hot, overly-sweetened grain with extra-hot liquid spilled; half in my lap, half and my keyboard and half on my Droid phone-cum-book reader. I naturally grabbed the Droid and began wiping it while all the good stuff in my straddle finished cooking my noodle. I dumped the keyboard as quickly as possible and only then got the scalding food off my legs and out of my crotch. A 67 year-old man has different priorities than does a 60 year-old man. We both tend to save the things which will be used the most in the order of importance: Droid; keyboard; gonads in my case. Together, we got the electronics back in working—yet sticky—order. Fast cleaning work on the phone saved it; the old Logitech keyboard keeps doing its thing without a sign of a sticky key but there are still a few rice grains deep inside I need to fish out. I was having a pretty rough RA flareup, but I was able to help Carolyn a bit with cleaning the mess. She never once offered to clean me. I will have to live with my sticky butt until Saturday when I will take my weekly shower; when you are old you don’t break any routines unless absolutely necessary. Wednesday is “change underwear” day; I am looking forward to it. When I change underwear in midweek, it isn’t always fresh, clean stuff I change into; I dig through the pile of dirty of clothes until I find some that look and smell less foul than the ones I have on. However, Saturday always finds me with a clean and fresh springtime smell down below.
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I seem to have begun my recovery from the sinus infection; it feels to be about 50 percent of original. I think this is the worst I’ve ever had it and there is still a lot of drainage.
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A right pretty day in the hills, but rain is supposed to return this evening and then turn cold.
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Have  a Tuesday!
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Another rainy Worshday

Lots of rain! Fog! Monday!
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This day had gone to hell in a hand basket by noon; hope the rest of it settles down to normal, barely bearable Monday.
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Hope Mark got through his leg surgery ok.
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Have a decent Worshday, my friends.
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Boston

Mark’s blog video of Boston got me into a Boston frame of mind.

When the band came out with their signature album in the mid-70′s, some critics called them the East Coast Eagles on steroids. They certainly did bring a new electricity to the guitar playing and they had a superb vocalist, too. Although the band was continuously wracked with personal and business problems, they managed to create three excellent albums before New Wave, MTV, and hair bands replaced traditional rock ‘n’ roll music with all new genres by the mid-80′s. I have more than a feeling that Boston’s place as an innovative and top band in musical history is secure. Great album art, too.

Don't Look Back

Weekend update

Been feeling better most of day but now my headache is back; so far no nausea.
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Carolyn just found out that she will lose another building in mid-March; in fact she will probably lose two buildings then. By losing the first one, she will have to raise the price on the second one and I don’t think they will pay it. She has been working for the same money since 2007 and it will not be profitable without the other job to share the gas expenses.
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The video of Sammy yesterday is the first time he has laughed; he laughed himself sick and then wore himself out laughing at everything.
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Carolyn has gone out to eat and I am sitting home having an apple, but as apples go, it is a pretty good one.
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For the past few days while laid-up, I’ve been reading an interesting and entertaining book by Patrick deWitt titled The Sister Brothers. If you are into Old West adventures, this one might be for you; for one thing, it certainly is different in about every aspect than any Wild West novel or story I have ever encountered. Please read the linked review for a good synopsis.
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Have a good Sunday, Y’all!
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Sammy laughing

First Friday

Uncle Wallace

Sinus infection has a good hold on me today; I’m taking antibiotic but it hasn’t started working yet. This too shall pass.
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Carolyn was coping with the deer incident until yesterday when she passed the place where it happened and saw buzzards picking the poor critter’s bones.
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Sammy is coming over to spend the afternoon; I will be staying away from him so I won’t infect him. Drat!
—-
The pic is the only known existing photo of my uncle Wallace (my mother’s brother); he died from a head injury long before I was born. Seems like he was playing in the yard and a pig knocked him into a cellar door. He seemed ok but after a while began losing his ability to speak and then he lost his ability to walk and feed himself. My grandparents took him to doctors early on, but they said there was nothing could be done for him; the injury was causing bleeding deep in his brain and surgery of the type that might save him these days was unheard of in the late 1930′s. Wallace Richard Phillips — January 4th, 1925 – March 8, 1939. He died in his mother’s loving arms.
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Have a good weekend, everyone.
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Ten Yeas After

Dorothy Mae Phillips Anderson September 27, 1919 - January 5, 2002

It would appear that Iowa Republicans don’t like any of the scruffy politicians the Party has presented them. The next election will be another shameful blot on America’s slide into the status of “just another greedy country”. Conservatives have no one whom is likeable and has any fresh or realistic ideas to help the nation wean itself from the clutches of the almighty dollar. The Democrats have Obama who is a proven spineless lawyer and politician who will sell out his people  for a drop of oil. Really no choice for the future in the presidential arena and congressmen and congresswomen continue to prove that their own self interests are placed above the good of We The People.
—-
My Mother passed away ten years ago today. I still sometimes on sleepless nights or during quiet periods during the day wonder if there was something I could have done to prolong her beautiful, delicate life. She placed her trust and faith in her only son to make sure she would be as comfortable as possible and to receive the proper care she required and deserved. Somehow I feel I let her down by not raising enough hell with the medical professionals who were supposed to be helping keep her alive with some semblance of dignity and optimism. Instead, I feel my own tardiness in making them do what was right eventually led to her death; a death not brought on by not by her infirmities, but by the negligent use of drugs used to treat her. She died of potassium poisoning.
Dot, I and nearly everyone you touched in your 82 years were blessed by your presence. You were a mother to Carolyn and I, to our children, and for our grandchildren and I know little Sammy would have adored you. I love you, Mama …
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Have a good Thursday, my friends.

Gack!

Carolyn is ok if a bit sore. She finally got all the glass picked out of her hide.
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I am down with sinus infection, waiting for the doc to call in a ‘script’ to the pharmacy. Gack!
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Have a wunnerful Wednesday!

I resolve to never again …

Yesterday morning there was a huge flock of robins in the yard; I suppose today’s frigid weather explains whey they were there. I hope they made it far enough to the south to miss some of the killer temperatures and wind chill we are now having. We got only a skiff of snow but every flake stayed on the ground. The far mountains are gleaming like diamond dust when the sun pops out for a moment.

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Sammy was here yesterday but he was very ill; He kept poking all his fingers in his mouth, slobbering, and crying a lot. I think the new teeth are giving him fits. I tried to make some videos but he wasn’t up to it. Sammy is six months old today. Happy one-half Birthday, Little Buddy.
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Sinus is screwing with me more than anything right now; my head bone feels like a churn. Welcome to winter, old man!
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Hope Mark is getting along better today. Jola is still recovering from a serious illness and exhaustion; I hope she too is getting better. If any of the rest of you are suffering winter-related miseries, I also hope you soon get over them; the daylight is becoming noticeably longer and spring time is waiting in the wings.
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Have a Tuesday, Dear Ones.
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In the beginning ...

It has been a few days since I blogged and there really hasn’t been much happening in my life worth writing about. I suppose you all have heard by now that 2011 is past and 2012 is here; it’s in all the newspapers. I planned to be awake when the ball fell in Times Square but somehow I completely missed it. I haven’t seen Sammy since Christmas, but he is coming to spend the afternoon with us today.
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Mark is broken. He seems to be the man who knows how to finish a year off with a slam-bang. While practicing the art of a self-powered flying furnace repairman, a seven-foot ladder with a sense of humor skedaddled from beneath him and before he could flap his wings, his head hit concrete and he thought about becoming an astronomer as the sky was suddenly filled with stars, meteors, and shooting comets; in the background he could hear Lady Gaga singing “I Like It Rough”. He eventually realized his head was more pliant than his leg; he had broken his tibia near his knee. He and I both are riding crutches but for the most part I can get by on just one stick; bet he can’t do that yet. I hope he doesn’t have to undergo surgery and have pins or screws or rods or plates placed in the break; it is near the knee and may be troublesome to heal properly without some mechanical aids. He is itching to go to France this year; I can think of nothing more recuperating than for him to spend a week or two on one of the Riviera’s famed totally nude beaches.
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Have a great Worshday, everyone!