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 |  My second blog. What you get are pieces of me; my humor, my memories: be welcome. |
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MY BOOK! http://www.lulu.com/davidmac73 This picture was in the header of my first blog and I wanted to bring it back. Me and my sweetie on our wedding day....it is my favorite picture. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** This is my second Blog on WDC. The first Blog, Random Thoughts, is finished and done and I loved almost every minute I spent doing it. This blog will be somewhat different than the first because I want to use this space for my humor and my memories. The humor may sometimes fall flat and the memories may, at times be boring, but isn't that the way it is with life. Please join me here and partake in these pieces of me and if sometimes you find the jokes unfunny or the memories dull, then please come back another day and maybe you will find something to your liking. After all, like my daddy always said: "Some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you." Thank you, vivacious   for this neat new logo for my blog! Yup, this about says it all, I think!** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** I thought that Independence Day was the appropriate day to put this great new siggy in my blog....Thank you sultry ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Please check out Scarlett's Newsletter for Bloggers: The Blogville News
** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Thank you, Startiara  for this lovely Siggy!! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Warning: The following blog entry is solely due to a devil's concoction of drugs administered to my person in the ER this morning shortly after daylight. Anyone expecting cohesive thought and understandable ideas to be set forth here today shall be sadly disappointed. Take my advice and back out now...... Still here? Okay, you asked for it... Today, while laying flat of my back in bed, I was subjected to a particular TV commercial. Though I think I have seen it before, it has never really registered with my thinking brain. Maybe it is the drugs, maybe just the weakened condition of my fever-wracked body but I suddenly found myself really listening to a commercial for MaxiDerm. Now at this point, you lady readers might want to step out of the room...this is kinda "Guy" talk coming now. See, this dang MaxiDerm crap is touted as a "Male-Enhancement" drug. It clearly states that this stuff will make your man-parts grow! Okay guys, pull your chair up closer and have a listen ole Unca Tor for a minute: THERE AIN'T NO DRUG THAT'S GONNA ADD INCHES TO YOUR PECKER! Now forget about that. God gave you what you got and now it's up to you to use it....dang I can't believe I gotta tell you guys this. Well anyway, after watching this silly commercial, I bounded out of bed and went forth to the fountain of all knowledge..."Google" and did a search. Sure enough, there it was as big as life: The MaxiDerm home page. Of course it just repeated the outlandish promises of the commercial: "We will add inches to your pecker!" BALDERDASH! I saw, at the bottom of the page a listing for :Ingredients. I went there, still searching for some kind of scientific proof of this products ability to do what it said. The results was not promising. How's this for a scientifically worded Trieste...it starts out: "The good stuff, delivered in a great way!" Yeah, right...I kept reading..... List of ingredients: 1imedium Leaf Extract - Epimedium Sagittatum Also known as "Horny Goat Weed", Epimedium has been used for thousands of years as a libido enhancer. First used in China. 2.Cuscuta Seed Extract - Semen Cuscutae 3.Cuscuta Seed Extract - Semen Cuscutae 4.Ginkgo Biloba Leaf - Ginkgoaceae 5.Asian Red Ginseng - Panax Ginseng There are a few more such ingredients as the above and you know what they all share in common? They are all Chinese medicine! It says so right on their webpage...go read it! It was then that I had an Ah Ha moment...I saw the light. I perceived the veiled threat behind all those promises of a big pecker and more action than a banty rooster in a hen house. It is a plot by those damnable Chinese Reds! Don't you see it? If this stuff were to work then all us red-blooded American men would be running around with over sized peckers and chasing everything in skirts. Those slimy Reds would be able to just waltz right in and take over our country...not to mention our wimmen...then what good would those over sized peckers be? Bottom line: Anyone silly enough to believe this crap works will probably be silly enough to believe my Red Chinese Conspiracy Theory. I think I shall repair to my bed and let these drugs wear off. |
| Completely without my permission, and totally on its own accord, my body has gone into business for itself. Tuesday I was feeling a bit "off" and decided to take a nap...no big deal...after about an hour's sleep though, I awoke to find my body had begun to furiously mass produce Mucus. Of course all the hard work of mass production caused my body to over-heat and gave me a fever near the temperature of the surface of the sun. Oh yeah, and I discovered that my body is not real concerned with the method it used to get rid of excess "product". As a result, my nose has become the Niagara Falls of Snot. I am fairly certain that the body did not think this thing through completely before it began its production because it made no allowances for the excess heat required to go into such large mass production. Thus I have had to deal with alternating high fever and chills. At this point my only hope is that my body has some concrete idea as to what he is going to do with all the Snot and Mucus. Maybe he has plans on offering it as an alternative fuel to replace gasoline. This might work since at this writing, production levels have reached the point where the entire country could be supplied with fuel for at least a solid year. Damn, at even 2.00 a gallon, I could be rich!!! I hope this is the body's plan. I would hate to think that all of this pain is going to be for nothing more than the fun I will have standing at the door at Wal-Mart and infecting the customers.....come to think of it....that's not a bad plan. |
| Isn't it funny how sometimes a significant date will slip right past you. An anniversary of some importance will go completely unnoticed. Well that happened to me. March 31, 2005, at nine-thirty in the morning, I hit "send" for the very first time and launched a blog. I can not help but feel a bit nostalgic when I think of that first blog effort. Last night I went back over to the old fellow and gave him a read and I discovered something that is somehow troubling....the first blog is a lot better than the current one. A person is supposed to improve with practice, not get worse. I was going to reprint my very first entry as evidence of how much better it was then than now, but I have changed my mind. Here is the link in case anyone cares to check out the proof of what I am saying. "Invalid Entry"  I remember the day I launched Random Thoughts, I was scared. Doing a blog was completely foreign to me. Hell doing even a private journal or diary was foreign to me and here I was about to begin one for public consumption. I was definitely walking point on an unknown trail, one I was afraid was full of booby-traps that would blow up in my face at any moment. I figured I would be lucky if one person read the thing. And, maybe that is the difference between my first efforts to blog and my current blog. Back then I knew no one on this site. I was a stranger with no real ties to the community and I felt a certain freedom to say whatever was on my mind. After all, it was not like anyone was going to actually read the thing.....geeze. Yep, I have seen a lot of words pass under the bridge since that morning three years ago. Nada touched upon this subject in her last blog entry. I have seen a lot of good writers come and I have seen them go. Some left because Life took up more of their time or they simply felt the need to move on to other projects. Some I have seen, who would come in, write a few entries, then get mad because they were not getting the number of readers they felt they deserved. These folks would simply pick up their toys and storm off, vowing never to return....some did, some didn't...that's life.I have made some good friends here in Blogville over the past three years and I wouldn't change that for the world, even though I also believe that making friends has caused me to change some of my writing style....maybe it needed changing. When I was new at this, my humor was a lot sharper, my style a bit more caustic. Now however I am aware that what I write may hurt someones feelings and I tend to put a muffler on my words. After thinking about that for awhile, I think I am okay with it. After all, I would rather have my friends than be funny all the time. Like Nada, I miss some of those bloggers who have left us, then again some of them I don't miss at all. The thing is, for every good blogger who falls by the wayside, there is always a new one who is sitting down at the computer for the very first time and applying words to the screen. They are just beginning a journey that some of us have been on for quite some time and I welcome each and every one of them. I know that there are new writers out there who will someday end up in my favorites. It is this new infusion of talent that keeps the blog page fresh and entertaining for all of us. So happy anniversary to me...it ain't what it was, but it is what it is....I can live with that. |
| I would like to preface this entry by saying: "IT IS NOT MY FAULT". Words echoed down through the ages by husbands from every continent and walk of life, I am sure. But, it's true; I am faultless here...this time...to my knowledge. I blame what happened on two things. First, as with all things in Missouri, I blame the weather. It was sixty-three degrees and sunny today...absolutely beautiful. Of course husbands know this is the kiss of death. It is when the weather is at its sunniest that wives break out the old "Honey-Do lists. Secondly I blame Mel and all wives. You see the whole problem is that wives tend to over-think things. They make otherwise simple tasks, overly complicated and time consuming. Men, on the other hand, seek out short-cuts, time and energy saving methods to get a particular job done. My motto has always been, "Work smart, not hard." Of course my other motto is "Hide well, and she won't find me." Well today I stuck to the first one but was woefully slacking in the second one. The morning started out innocently enough. Mel was up and bustling about the house by sevenish or so while I, in anticipation of two days off work, was catching a few well deserved, hard earned, hours of sleep.....I got up about ten or there abouts. I panicked when i did finally climb out of bed and stagger into the living room. I could see out the front window that the sun was shining.....bad news for any husband with free time. I opened the front door and it was downright balmy outside. Red Flags began to pop up and sirens screamed in my head...DANGER, DANGER WILL ROBISON!!! So I did what any self-respecting, man of the house would do in this situation: I grabbed my first cup of coffee, moved my keyboard and monitor UNDER the desk, and proceeded to make myself comfy and read blogs while Mel searched high and low for me. I am sorry to say that it was my buddy Sherman who led to my downfall. It seems that in my haste to pick a hiding place, I chose badly. Under the desk is Sherman's favorite place to wile away the hours. The dang Judas stood at the desk and stared at me for a bit, then began barking his fool head off. This, of course, brought Mel and her Whooping-stick...CURSES, THE JIGS UP! I AM CAUGHT! After the dust settled, she presented me with my first two jobs of the day; Feed the goats and mow the side yard. She then announced that she was taking a break from house cleaning to rest and watch a bit of TV. Okay. Fair enough. Humm...let's see now: "Feed the Goats, Mow the grass, feedthegoatsmowthegrass....my brain was kicked into overdrive trying to figure out a suitable short cut: "Feed--Mow--Goats--Grass! EUREKA! I HAD A SHORT CUT!! After she was safely in the bedroom, laying in bed watching one of her horse shows on the RFD channel, I put my plan into action. I went out to the goat pen, opened the gait, and shooed all the goats into THE SIDE YARD! I know, I know....genius wasn't it. I planned on letting the goats do the "mowing" and at the same time get fed. See, men are just too smart for women...that's a fact. Fast forward one hour: Mel comes out of the bedroom and sees me sitting happily at the computer, without a care in the world. "Did you mow the grass?" "It's getting done as we speak." "UH?" "Don't worry, I got it under control." "Did you feed the goats?" "It's getting done as we speak?" "OH MY FREAKING GOD! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" Well she gets all upset and goes running outside...I remain at the computer wondering what the big deal is. The next thing I know, I hear this blood-curdling scream coming from the vicinity of the side yard. I then hear a series of bleats from frightened goats, then the unmistakable sound of said goats getting whooped about the head and shoulders with a big stick. I shake my head...better them than me, I figure. Well then Mel comes storming back in the house demanding to know in what drug-induced fantasy did I come to the conclusion that it was okay to turn the goats loose in HER side yard. I told her, rather smugly that it was no biggie, the damn grass was getting "Mowed" and the goats were dang sure getting "Fed", were they not?" "Yeah, the grass is getting mowed," she yelled at me,."and SO ARE MY PRIZE ROSE BUSHES!" Now how was I to know that goats LOVE rose bushes? "Uh?" "Uh Oh...." That was about all I got out before the wrath of Mel hit me like a biblical plague. The silver lining to this dark clouded little tale of woe is that I have made a new friend at the local Emergency Room, a nice MALE doctor who totally understood and was kind enough to prescribe bed rest for me until Thursday when I have to go back to work....THANK GOD! |
| There has been much discussion over the past week or so over Barak Obama's "misstep" in San Francisco. For those of you who have been nowhere near a television or a newspaper since April sixth, here is what Mr. Obama said: ""You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothings replaced them...And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." Mr. McCain's campaign spokesman was quick to respond with: ""It shows an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking. It is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans." Well pardon me Mr. McCain, but I have enough reason not to vote for Mr. Obama without using that statement. As much as I disagree with Obama on almost every level, I can not, in good faith, fault him for this statement. Why? Well that's easy, you see all he did was speak plainly. He said what he truthfully felt and that is a rare occurrence in a Presidential campaign. Later on, in Indiana, he said much the same thing, only this time he used milder and more obscure language that did not seem to be so condescending. I prefer the first version of his statement because that came from him, his own personal feelings and I respect the honesty of it. And before the Right wing or the Republicans get up on their high horse, they need to look in the mirror. Republicans have used religious intolerance, bigotry and nationalism for years to gain the leadership of this country. They have played upon the fears of the common man, the poor, mostly white, uneducated Americans and have done so with a lot of success. The truth is, Barak Obama simply said what they all really feel. The other two are just better at hiding those feelings from the public. Was the statement elitist and condescending? Well of course it was. The thing is, who among us has NOT been guilty of feelings of elitism or condescending of our fellow man at one time or another. Hell, even the farmer with only one cow will, from time to time, look down upon his neighbor who has no cow. No. There are plenty of reasons not to vote for Obama, I just don't think this is one of them. I am not deluded enough to believe that people such as McCain, Clinton, and Obama would be my friend if they weren't running for office. Hell they would have people hired to keep me off their lawns if they didn't need my vote. Therefor I look more at how they will act on real issues and how they will deal with other nations....not whether or not they feel somehow superior to me. Is it wrong to feel somehow superior to our fellow man? Well of course it is, but it also a common human failing which we all must fight against every day, not a reason to pick a president. |
| It's three-thirty in the morning and I have not been to sleep yet. I went to bed around midnight, but sleep just would not come. So here I am sitting at the computer and typing in "Word" just as a show of solidarity for my buddy, Eric "Footnote" Wharton. I don't have the heart to tell him that he has already lost the short, but bloody War of the Butter-Fingers. Someone needs to clue the bubba in that he has indeed been beaten. After all, Anyea has already gotten him to do to THREE blogs in one week...game...set...match! Where was I? Oh yeah, three in the morning....and here I am writing in Word. That alone should be enough to get me tossed from the He-Man Blogging club. Word is for sissies. It is like a lot of people I have known in my life who think they know everything but who are just stoopid. For instance, it just told me that there is no such word as "Anyea" by drawing that silly little red line under it. So I had to right click the name, hit "add" and suddenly I am a genius! There is such a word after all! Stoopid "Word". It is at times such as these, with my brain and body in a deeply sleep deprived state, that I usually wax philosophical in my blog, but not this time. This morning more of the Dr. Bubba side of me is peeking out from under the rock. His personal philosophy is more along the lines of "Suck it up Suzie, Get a freaking Grip". This is not hard to do as I sit here and listen to the gentle lapping of the waves against my front porch. I just had to let Booker out to do his business and I gotta tell you, it wasn't easy getting that tiny life-preserver on his little body either. Scientific observation #1...it's damn hard for a small dog to piss while dog-paddling in the front yard. Did I mention that we have had some rain? Speaking of Dr. Bubba, he kind of came out in me at work today. I was sitting in the break room, minding my own business and reading my book when this goofy guy starts arguing with three women, the topic: "Kidney stones hurt worse than having a baby". Of course the discussion degenerated into a shouting match and what man can win a shouting match with three women? Well these three women were ragging on his ass something fierce and he was spitting and sputtering and trying to formulate a comeback of some kind. They were graphically comparing the two experiences of passing both baby and stone and finally the guy, knowing I suspect that he was in a losing battle yelled at me: "Come on Dave, jump in here and help a brother out, will you." I looked up from my book long enough to tell him: "You don't need my help, you are showing enough stupid for three men." After which I went back to reading. That pretty much sealed the deal. The women loudly declared themselves the winner and the guy slunk out of the break room in defeat, leaving me to read my book on the Emperor Julian in peace. Again, I have to ask: Why do men think they can win a war or an argument with a woman? Dr. Bubba says: "Suck it up Suzie and just admit it....women are smarter than men. Women can stand more pain than men. Women are just superior beings to men and if they could ever figure out how to build a vibrator that could mow the lawn, men would be in SERIOUS trouble. Oh sure, men are in some cases, physically stronger than women so what does that mean? Well it means we can, if provoked, punch their lights out, but the down side of that is that at some point in time we have to go to sleep and when we do....BAM! We are dead meat. If you don't believe me, as that Bobbitt guy. If women have a weakness it is that they tend to over-think things sometimes. Some men do that too, but we call them sissies so that works out well. Mel does this. She will get something in her head and she will worry it to death, looking at it from every angle, trying to come up with every possible scenario, every possibility. Not me. I'm a guy, I say: "Just do it." I firmly believe in going like crazy and cleaning up the mess later. Besides, thinking too much hurts my head and I know Mel will throw me a rope if and when I need one. Dogs and men are a lot alike in that respect. Now you take Sherman, my big old half Lab, half Bloodhound. He is a male. He likes to lay about in the back yard and enjoy chewing a stick and licking his balls and just generally being a guy. He leaves all the worrying up to Sassy. She constantly patrols the fence line on the look-out for whatever might be out there beyond the pasture, in the woods that may be a threat to her happy home. Sherman just naps in the sun without a care in the world. He has the attitude of: "If it comes close, I'll bite it...or breed it...whatever." Me and Sherman are kindred spirits. Of course Sassy has yet to hit him upside his big old chuckle-head with a whooping stick either. Come to think of it, I guess he has it some better than me doesn't he. Okay so what are we left with? 1. Eric "Footnote" Wharton has lost his war with Anyea and Bugzy 2. Women Rule and Men Drool 3. A little dog can't piss and swim at the same time 4. I am writing this in Stoopid Word and will post it later this morning. 5. Since sleep is out of the question, I need to make a pot of coffee. I'm outta here. |
In keeping with my belief in blogging as often as possible, as touched upon in Eric Wharton's latest blog....consider yourself screwed!  Today I want to give you a round-a-bout weather report for my particular piece of Paridise by sharing with you this old joke. A man dies and goes to hell. Once there he finds himself in this long, long line of other souls in front of this great furnace door. Ever so often the door would open and one of the demons would toss an unfortunate soul into the Fires of Hell. The man noticed that the Devil was walking up and down this line of people and, from time to time he would grab one of them and toss them on a large pile. This continued and as the Devil approached where the man was in line, the man could not restrain his curiosity, he asked the Devil: "Pardon me sir, but why are you throwing those people on that pile and not putting them in the Fires of Hell?" The Devil shrugged and replied. "Oh, those guys are all from Missouri and they are just too damn wet to burn." I rest my case. |
| I have written many times in this blog about music, and how it is such a powerful medium. Music has a way of stirring our memories of bygone days, of opening doors upon emotions, of just moving our spirits. There are a few songs that do those things to me and last week, as I drove to work, I heard one such song and it has stuck in my mind ever since. The song was One Night in Bangkok, by Murry Head and I believe it came out about 1984. The thing about this song is that it was from a musical called: Chess and it was about, of all things, a chess tournament taking place in Bangkok. That is not what moves me about that song...far from it. No. This song brings back memories of a time in my life when I was absolutely at the top of my form, one might say. Young, strong, and completely confident in my own powers as only the young can be, that is what the song reminds me of. Nineteen years old, ten feet tall and bullet proof and turned loose in a foreign country to "unwind" and forget the war for a few days. Now, it is hard to reconcile the man I am today with the man I was then....where the hell did he go? LOL. One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free You'll find a god in every golden cloister And if you're lucky then the god's a she I can feel an angel sliding up to me Looking back now, it almost seems like a dream, a glimmering memory that will not fade. All it took was hearing that song again to bring it back. That cocky, self-assured, child-warrior has traveled far since the nights he spent swaggering down the narrow, crowded streets of that distant city and he has gone through so many changes but somehow a little bit of him has lingered on, refusing to die. He is with me now....more-so when I hear that song. How about the rest of you...do you have music that makes you remember, that moves you? Let me know. |
| Well unfortunately it is official now; the two baby goats are named Wally and Marta! This thanks to one of my more twisted readers whose name I shall not divulge, but whose initials are ANYEA!! I was going to hold out for something more suitable but Mel happened to read Anyea's comment and just thought that was the cutest idea in the world....gawd...wimmen!!! Those babies are just too dang cute. Here they are, just two days old and about the same size as Booker, our white rat that masquerades as a dog, and they are bouncing around the pasture as if they have springs on their little feet...it is really something that you can not watch without laughing. It really makes me wish I had a video camera to record their antics. Oh and speaking of Booker, well the little dog with the big attitude got taken down a notch or two yesterday. Seems he decided to follow Mel out to the goat pen when she went to check on the momma and babies. As Mel approached the pen Booker, unknown to her, was tagging along at her heels and when she opened the gate to go inside, he scooted between her legs and went in ahead of her. The two babies and the momma goat were standing near the gate and I know Booker was just excited to see two new creatures that were actually his size and wanted to go get acquainted. He probably also thought it would be fun to chase the little critters too. Unfortunately, Booker did not count on Momma-goat. Before Mel knew what was happening, Gypsy, the momma goat, charged poor Booker with head lowered and horns pointed. Booker never stood a chance. She hit him one time and sent him rolling a good five or six feet! Now to get the full import of this picture you must know that Booker is only a couple of months old himself and as a puppy he has this problem....whenever he gets scared or overly excited, he lets go an involuntary stream of Pee. So, when Gypsy rolled him, Mel said it was the funniest thing she had ever seen. There was this little white ball of fur rolling across the pasture....roll...stream-of-pee, roll...stream-of-pee...roll...stream-of-pee! When Booker finally stopped rolling he jumped to his feet and ran, yelping and crying, all the way to the house! Dogs are not that different than guys...sometimes we just have to learn our lessons the hard way and sometimes it takes someone else knocking the piss out of us to teach us we ain't the baddest dude on the planet. Something tells me Booker has a lot more of these lessons to learn before he is grown. Such is life on our little farm. |
| Birth...new life and the promise of a tomorrow for a species. There is nothing that lifts the spirits like the arrival of a new life into this world. Yesterday when I went to work, I owned four goats, two males and two females. Last night when I got home Mel was waiting for me on the front porch. When I got out of the car I could see she was holding a flashlight and she told me to follow her. She led me down to the pasture where we keep the goats and into their shelter. There she shined her flashlight on a truly beautiful sight...two brand new babies! Gypsy, our little black female had decided that yesterday was a good day to give us a gift so poor Mel had spent the afternoon and evening playing midwife to her. Here are just two of the many pictures we took last this morning. The babies are almost 24 hours old in these pictures. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Of course we have not named them yet...I see another contest coming up. The little black one is a female and the spotted one is a male. IS MY LIFE GREAT OR WHAT! |
| "Pride goeth before the fall." Yeah, well that's one way to look at it. To be honest, pride is more than a precursor to a fall, it is the gold standard of poor men and women around the world. Pride is what we have that we can hold onto. Pride gives us a reason to believe we are alright...does that make sense? Some would say that I have entirely too much pride, but personally I would rather have too much than not enough. It is pride in myself that keeps me getting out of bed each morning and facing another day with a smile and a conviction that I have what it takes to make it through to the end. I will agree that there is a down side to an over abundance of pride. Because of it, I have kept my personal life private to all but a very few close friends. I have tried to share more of myself lately in an effort not to remain so private and yesterday's blog was a prime example of that. I did not write it, as some would believe, in an effort to beg for an upgrade, but that is what happened anyway. I want to publicly thank vivacious for her kind gift of a three month upgrade. She is a true friend and I am in her debt. The reason I wrote it was to just let readers know that I might not be around for awhile. I didn't want my disappearance to come as any surprise to them. I must admit, that when I came home and saw the email informing me of the gift, my considerable pride took a hit. I am not accustomed to relying on the kindness of others. Then that feeling was quickly surpassed by a different emotion: Humility. I was humbled to know that someone who I had never met before was willing to do such a kind thing for me. Viv, you touched me with your compassion for this old man and I won't soon forget it. So now, in the spirit of sharing more of the private "Me" I want to touch on a couple of topics which I don't normally write about in a blog. I will preface this section by saying that everything is fine with Mel and me. We are okay and managing things well. We are happy. First I need to talk about what is going on with my sweetheart. You see, before we left Texas, Mel was diagnosed with Polymyalgia Rheumatica which is a form of Fibromyalgia. Doing her job was already becoming almost impossible for her. The doctor put her on some damn medicine whose side effects caused her even more problems than the decease. She was finally forced to get off the drugs. So, we made the move but by the time we got settled in here in Missouri, her illness had progressed to the point where holding a job was pretty much out of the question. As a result, we have been living on my single paycheck from Wal-Mart and anyone who has tried to live on one paycheck knows what a struggle that can be. Add to that, Wal-Marts decision to cut my hours at every opportunity, and you see the mountain we are trying to climb. But, we are just fine. We just have to make hard decisions at times on what we can afford and what we can't and most of you know what that is like. It is a struggle we can handle as long as we have each other. Secondly, and some of you have asked me about this in private emails, my youngest son who lives in Washington state is as far as I know...no better. The last time I talked to him he had still had no luck getting help with his medical problems and his seizures are getting more frequent and more severe. I have not spoken to him in a month. He has no home phone and relies on the use of his roommate's cell phone. The last time I actually reached him by phone he sounded so miserable and down that it broke my heart. I know that if I was there or he was here, I would be able to help him in some way. I could stand between him and the bureaucracy he has tried to battle, I could fight for him. But I am not there, nor will I be so I have had to accept that. He is a grown man and this is a battle he has to fight but it breaks my heart that he has to do this. The thing is, he is a strong man and I have to believe he will win this battle...the alternative is too hard to dwell upon. So there you have it....some of the "private" me. Things you might never have known and probably more than most of you ever wanted to know....but I did share. The bottom line is we are doing okay. Me and my family are, in fact, doing so much better than many, many people that we really have no reason to gripe. We are lucky, we have each other and we have some wonderful friends here at WDC. What more could a crusty old codger like myself could want? It's all good...really. |
| Well I have stared at the screen now for two hours and the situation has not changed....I'm empty...nothing to say. This is an occupational hazard for those of people like me. When I do a blog entry, I never research anything, I don't edit...except to use Spellcheck...I just sit down and write whatever is on my mind. Well today there was nothing. Man I hate it when that happens. When I miss days, it means that it will just take longer for this blog to reach the magic 500 number and lord knows, we don't want to delay that milestone, do we. Of course this may all be a moot point. I have until the 15th of this month to find an extra fifty bucks to renew my membership so just to be on the safe side I am going to start copying and pasting the stuff in my port, into my documents. Now this isn't really a bad thing. It just means that my name will be tiny for awhile until I come up with the bucks...not that big a deal. The only down side is that I will probably lose both blogs, but hey, it's only words, right. Anyway, this is what happens when I have nothing to blog about. All you get is this random babbling from my confused frontal lobe. On the bright side, at least this day is now officially Blue and now I can relax and read some of you really good bloggers out there before I head off to work. |
| There are a few things in my life that I am very proud of and at the top of that short list is the fact that I have never owned a cell phone. Oh I have had many opportunities to purchase one of those things, after all the phone companies make it very easy to get hooked on this technology drug. That's what it is you know. The cell phone is the Crack of the 21st. century. Many cell phone owners would absolutely go into withdrawal without their daily, sometimes hourly, fix of instant communication. What would happen if, tomorrow, all the cell phone satellites fell out of orbit? Can you imagine the long lines of twitching, nervous, addicts lined up at the few remaining phone booths...waiting to reach out and touch someone..anyone...NOW! It has gotten to the point where it is commonplace for me to see people walk into my store, suddenly stop and with a panicked look on their face, turn and bolt back out the door, only to return in a few minutes looking calm and in charge. When I ask them what was wrong, why did they bolt out the door they look at me with a sheepish expression and exclaim: "I forgot my cell phone in the car. I can't do my shopping without it." "WHAT?" Folks, let's face it; if you can not fill out a grocery list without being somehow connected to some faceless circle of five, ten, or twenty, then you have a problem....get help! Driving down the road, walking across a busy street, sitting in a movie theater, in church, even in the freaking bathroom while sitting on the commode, for God's sake....you addicts will use your Cell Crack anywhere, anytime. How many of you even remember the days when you could do any and all of those things WITHOUT the help of a telephone? Think of how weird it would be to stand on a busy street corner and NOT see anyone using a cell phone. That, in my humble opinion, would be absolute heaven. I won't even get into the whole "Texting" mess. Who the hell uses a phone to write a freaking letter? BUY A STAMP! I am proud of the fact that the only Blackberry I have ever used is the natural, fruit, type....in a cobbler or pie. Instead of the Great American Smoke out, where smokers are encouraged to just go one day without smoking a cigarette, why don't we have the Great American Phone-Out and all you phone addicts try going just one day WITHOUT a cell phone. Leave it off. Leave it at home. MAN UP AND BE INDEPENDENT! Just my opinion. |
| If humans share anything in common it is the sense of ambiguity they feel toward their parents. When we are young, all we can think of is being out from under the rule of mom and dad, to stretch our wings and fly out on our own. In our youthful folly, we believed with a certainty that is particular to young people, that we could do all things better than our parents did and with half the work. It is only as we age, do we discover not only how smart our parents were, but just what they dealt with on a daily basis in order to make a good life for their children. I am no different. As any of you know who read this blog on a semi-regular basis knows, I have written many words dealing with my father and the effect he had on my life; it was powerful and far-reaching to be sure. But, I have neglected writing anything much about my mother and I really do believe she had just as much to do with molding the man I am today, as did my father. It was from my mother that I inherited my love of literature and music. She was always the one who encouraged me to write, even as a young child. One of my earliest memories is of being five or six years old and dancing with my mother in the kitchen as one of her "Big Band" records played on the old Victrola in the living room. She clasped my little hands in hers and we would spin around the kitchen until we both collapsed in a fit of giggles. My mother also had a very strong sense of adventure. She was always yearning to try new things, to see new places....to explore. This adventurous spirit was responsible for many rather funny experiences which I cherish today. One in particular comes to mind. Mom wanted to go on a real "vacation". The problem was that dad worked six and seven days a week with no vacation time...you can see the problem here. Well she would not be denied and she kept at dad and kept at him until finally, in exasperation, he told her: "Dang, if you just have to go on a vacation, then GO!" I guess he figured that would be the end of it, after all, back then women rarely just took off on trips without the husband....boy was he wrong. Mom happily loaded me and my brother into the car. I was about twelve years old and my brother was seven and we were beside ourselves with anticipation at the thought of hitting the road with mom. And hit the road we did. I remember asking mom where we were going on vacation. She just shrugged and said: "I don't know. Why don't we just see where the road takes us, shall we." And that's just what we did. We went to Austin and toured the State Capitol, then to San Antonio and walked through the Alamo. To cap it all off we finally ended up in Mexico! Yup, that's right....Mexico. Mom told me she had never in her life been out of the United States and she wanted to be able to say, before she died, that she had traveled to another country. I have to laugh now, thinking about it. Here was a woman and two small children happily headed down the road to see another country...no problem. The people at the border urged mom to leave our car in the US and walk across the bridge into Mexico and just visit the small border town on the other side. They told her that driving your car in Mexico was dangerous, especially when you did not speak the language. Well mom just scoffed at that idea. She had driven this far and she was by God, not going to abandon her car now. So we drove into Mexico. I still remember the narrow, tightly packed street leading into Nuevo Laredo. Cars parked on both sides of the street, the sidewalks packed with vendors and tourist, people walking across the street from between the cars and through it all, mom was navigating our old Ford with both hands clasped tightly on the wheel and kept up a running commentary on all the new sights and sounds that assaulted our eyes and ears. I will never forget that first intersection we came to. Mom was tooling along at about thirty miles an hour...the traffic had thinned...suddenly she exclaimed: "Oh look at that sign, I wonder what that means?" I looked to my right and the sign was right there next to us...it said: ALTO! "MOM", I yelled. "THAT MEANS: STOP!" I had a good friend who was Mexican and he had taught me a few phrases. Luckily this was one of the only words I could safely share with mom. I still remember the squeal of the tires as she stood the old Ford on its nose in an effort to stop in time....we skidded right through the intersection. Luckily no one was coming in the other direction. We came to a stop on the other side of the intersection and mom said in a rather shaky voice: "Well now, that was interesting wasn't it". Yeah..interesting. Mom parked the car, paid some kids to keep an eye on it and we spent the rest of the day touring the booths and buying silly curios. We came back later to the car and made our way back to the American side of the border....minus all four hubcaps of course. Then it was back home....Mom had her adventure and she was happy, which was more than I could say for dad when we arrived back on the farm without the hubcaps on the tires. Mom kept that love of travel and adventure her whole life and it was nothing for her, even into her seventies, to hop on a plane and go somewhere she had never been before. Yeah, she was a big influence on my life and I love her for the things she gave me. I hope I can still retain her sense of wonder and love of adventure when I am in my old age. I think mom would approve. |
| Two things are official this morning. First of all the old saying: "If March comes in like a lamb, it will go out like a Lion." The other thing that is official now is...and you can mark this down on your personal calenders: Yesterday was the worst day I have so far had in this God-Forsaken, poor excuse for a STATE!!! First of all, due to sleep deprivation (less than three hours the night before), and some medical issues which I will not bore you with, I was barely able to stand up straight yesterday morning. No matter, I was determined to "soldier on" and complete my sixth straight day at work. I have to tell you, those eight hours were the longest three days I ever spent at work! Finally though, my time was done and I was finally free to bring what was left of my body back home. I spent the next two hours making the thirty minute commute home. This is where that other "Official" thing comes into play. March went out like a damn lion last night. It had been cloudy and yucky all day, then about an hour before I got off, it started to rain...lightly...no problem. Then when I got off and pulled out onto Hwy 67 it started to rain...HARD. No problem. When I made the turn onto Hwy 160 the roof fell in and it began to flood. The road was barely visible, the windshield wipers were struggling to make headway. Then, as I finally made it to Hwy 142 it was as if all the collected gods of the Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology had lined up, shoulder to shoulder, and were taking a great collective PISS!! Zeus was chunking thunderbolts. The road was a mere memory, and my windshield wipers had given up any pretense of making a difference. I was reduced to hugging the center line of the road, traveling at a breakneck speed of twenty-five mph, trying not to get washed off the road by high water. Finally, I managed to make it to within three miles of home and could go no further. Luckily a random flash of lightning illuminated the road to my sister-in-law's house. I quickly turned in there and sat for about an hour, awaiting the storms passing. So that is how it takes two hours to make a thirty minute drive. I arrived home finally, totally wasted. I was tired, sick, and barely able to drag my sorry ass in the front door...but dang, home sure did feel good when I finally got there. Well that's my story and here I am today, after a solid twelve hours sleep, feeling very close to human again. Oh and outside....the dang sun is shining and the birds are singing. The sky is blue and friendly. But they can't fool me, the state is just waiting for me to show my face outside so it can get another dang shot at me......stoopid state! |
| I did an entry a couple of days ago entitled: "Dumb Animals?" and it was meant to be just a cute little slice of animal life. This has made me wonder. Background story....Elephants used in logging in Thiland. Logging is curtailed to save the trees and stuff. They didn't know what to do with the elephants and were worried that they wouldn't be able to afford to keep the animals since they were no longer making money with their work. They trained the Elephants in three years to do another "Job". Check this out and see if YOU could do as well even after training....I know it would take longer to teach me to do it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LHoyB81LnE Have a great evening, day, whatever you have left before tomorrow. See ya. |
| Well it is official....I am going to be forced to either cut back, or completely do away with any and all sleep-aid products from now on. This has not been an easy decision for me but I think that doing away with these pharmaceuticals will go a long way in reducing the amount of total weirdness in my life! What possible weirdness...besides, of course my friendship with ccstring, could I be talking about, you ask. Well that's easy. Dreams. My dreams have always been rather vivid, but I find that when I take any sort of sleep-aid, those dreams become even sharper, more life-like and realistic than normal. Most of all, some of those dreams peg my own personal weird meter into the red zone! Let me recount for you my latest foray into the world of weirdness that ferments in my sleeping brain. It happened two days ago and I gotta tell you, it weirded me out for a whole day. The dream began with me getting a call from the National Coalition of Carrot Farmers. They wanted me to develop a series of Television commercials touting the benefits of eating and cooking with carrots. Now if that were not weird enough, they insisted that I use three particular "stars" in these commercials: William Shatner, Bugs Bunny, and Howdy Doody! For my non-American friends, Howdy Doody was a string puppet that had his own children's TV show during the '50s. I was hired to write and direct these television spots and I gotta tell you, one of the most surreal aspects of the dream....besides the actors...was the part where I was sitting in a large room with a group of people trying to hammer out some kind of script and me, asking the other writers: "Okay, but what's the rabbit's motivation?" Then listening as each writer gave their ideas....gawd. The last thing I remember about the dream was opening the door of a broom-closet and finding William Shatner and Howdy Doody in a compromising position! I woke up screaming and was unable to go back to sleep for hours after that! Gawd, who would have ever believed that Shatner and Doody swung that way? Speaking Howdy Doody...How many of you out there even remember The Howdy Doody Show? It was huge in the fifties. Remember Howdy Doody's side-kick, Buffalo Bob Smith? Come to think of it, was he the side-kick or was Howdy Doody the side kick? I think it must have been Bob who was the side-kick. After all, the thing was set in the fictitious town of "Doodyville" so if the town was named after the puppet, he must have been the leader....right?? I know, I know....the weirdness is still with me isn't it. For God's sake, don't let ccstring read this entry. He will have a field day with the thing! |
| Ever since reading "The Greatest Generation" and the story of Eugene Horgan I have been unable to get him completely out of my mind. This sad, little old man living in a sparse apartment, with his one picture adorning blank walls points up a detritus of war that people rarely give any thought about. In my life I have seen many Eugene Horgans, from many different wars. No, I did not know Mr. Horgan personally and my impressions of him have been gleaned from the well written interview written by C. Anthony but that was enough to convince me that he was one of those forgotten casulities of war that most people never recognize as a casualty. He lived alone, never married and had no children. His home was devoid of the sort of personal mementos we all gather in a lifetime. I believe Mr. Horgan was one of those walking dead men who come home from every war throughout history. They are fundamentally detached from the rest of the world around them. They come home, resume their lives, but are never able to form close personal relationships...something in them has died.These men are the saddest residue of war there is, sadder even than the many flag-draped coffins of those who died. These men are just as dead, in many ways...they just continue to walk the earth. Anyone out there who believes that war is somehow glorious and noble should study the plight of these men. Anything that scars the psychic and wounds the soul to the extent that war does, can not be noble. Do not get me wrong. I do believe that in some cases war can not be avoided and must be fought for our own preservation, but I do believe there would be far less wars if only people would study these walking dead men more closely. Make no mistake about it, a war does not end with a simple treaty or a cease-fire. No, for many men that war continues and the pain goes on fifty or sixty years later...in a small, sparse room as they sit alone with their memories. Yeah, Sherman had it right when he said: "War is Hell". He just didn't tell you that Hell follows many for the rest of their lives. How much better for them, had the bullet struck true and they had been able to lay down and end the pain. |
| This will be a short entry today. No stories, no opinons, and no less than funny jokes. Today is special. What makes it special is that I did something I love to do on this blog page...found a bright, new talent whose writing voice is strong and their grasp of the craft of writing is good. If you do nothing else today, please go over and read "The Greatest Generation" . It is from the blog of C. Anthony and I promise you a good read when you get there. |
| I wonder, sometimes, who it was that coined the phrase: "Dumb Animals". It must have been a scientist of some kind, or some over-educated, city-dweller because, after a life-time spent close to nature, I have really seen no evidence of dumbness in the animal kingdom. Take, for example, the family of deer that frenquent our pasture. These animals know all about fences. They know that the stoopid dogs that bark and growl, and run back and forth, can not reach them if they stay on the other side of the fence. So, it is common for me to see three or four of these beautiful creatures sedately walking along the fence line, stopping to graze as they see fit, and completly ignoring three very large dogs who are going absolutely ballistic on their side of the fence. Now inside that fence, with the deer is where our pygmy goats call home. The deer ignore the goats as if they were poor cousins who had gone astray somewhere on the evolutionairy ladder. The goats, for their part, try to stay out of the way of the much larger animals, and go about their business. Well, the exception to that rule has to be Addy, our resident ram. He looks at the deer and I can almost hear him thinking...."Damn, iffin I could get myself a ladder, I might get lucky!" Luckily, he has yet to find any form of climbing devise to aid him in his somewhat Quoxitic quest. No, animals are anything but dumb. I come from a long line of hunters and I was introduced to the hunt by the time I was seven years old. At that young age I was given an old single-shot 20 gauge shotgun and was expected to bring home squirrels and rabbits to add to our freezer. I had killed my first big buck by the time I was ten years old. Hunting was a way of life for me and my brothers. It was not until I came home from the service that I began to find it less than satisfying to kill any animals. Now, at this point in my life, I must admit that the thought of pulling the trigger on any creature turns my stomach. I don't hate hunters, I understand them and I have nothing against what they do if they hunt for meat and not trophy. I just no longer find it within myself to end life....even the life of a so-called, "Dumb Animal." |
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