Be Safe

It’s a long weekend so people will be heading out to somewhere. I plan on staying right here, and moving as little as possible. I just can’t get my head around someone hopping on a plane with the chance they could spend their time sitting in the airport because of delays. Maybe if I were going on a long vacation, I would chance the delays, but not on a three-day weekend.

It has been so peacefully quiet around here with just fmom and me. I think we’re going to go and restock up on groceries today. The rels can really go through them. Other than that, just a little cleaning around the house and maybe some lawn work. We got some rain yesterday, so darn it, the grass is too wet to mow right now.

Everyone be safe and have a good weekend.

Sausage Biscuit Morning.

It will be a sausage biscuit morning today. The rels have left for awhile and it’s only Fmom and me at the moment, so no cooking this morning for me. I’ll run down to a local fast food place and pick up some sausage biscuits. They’re a bit of a breakfast staple down here. When you order them, they’ll ask you if you want jelly with them, but I’m not a jelly man. Just the sausage and biscuit and some coffee are all I need.

The house is halfway straightened, so today I’ll try and finish the lawn and clean up the carport. At the moment I’m not sure how far I’ll get with either one of those projects. With my busy schedule I’ll try and squeeze in a nap before I start those.

Well it’s off to the fast food place. Everyone have a good day.

The Queens of the Fishing Camp

Many of you know that I grew up around the Mississippi River. The 1811 New Madrid earthquake produced a lot of lakes and there were many where I lived. Just about at every lake was a fishing camp. There were some people who lived year around at them, but mostly there were a lot of fishermen/fisherwomen coming from Memphis. Mr. K and his wife, who were good friends with my parents, ran one of the fishing camps.

One of my earliest memories of going to the fish camps was of the fish fries. At least once a month my parents would load all of us kids into the car and we would head back into the woods to Mr. K’s camp. We would drive down the gravel roads, finally to a narrow dirt road with thick woods on both sides. Finally we could come to a large opening with cabins and boats on the lake. A lot of the people who came to these were our friends, but a good number were Mr. K’s customers. It wasn’t unusual to have lawyers and doctors with their families, who drove from Memphis to attend these things. Mr. K would start his fish fries in the late afternoon and they would go into the night. He would have lights strung from cabin to cabin so the whole opening was lighted.

Now when you think of fish fries, you think there will be fish of course and coleslaw, french fries, hush puppies, and lots of beer/cold drinks. Mr. K never stopped at just that. He would have a variety of wild game too. Venison (deer) would be the most tame thing to eat, while along side that could be squirrel, possum and other stuff he could find. Fmom and Aunt K always stuck with the fish. At my age back then, there seemed to be hundreds of tables filled with food and drink. Needless to say, beer flowed freely and the adults had a great time. We kids would always have a good time running/playing and taking some of the boats out on the lake.

One time FDad and my Uncle L worked up something with Mr. K, and it was going to be a big to do for Fmom and Aunt K. They were told they would be treated like queens and everything would be perfect. So the upcoming fish fry was to be just for them.

Fmom told me about what happened that night. She said everyone there treated them just as they said they would. She said doors were opened for them, and any and everything they wanted was bought to them. However, they forgot to mention to Fmom and Aunt K that it wasn’t exactly a fish fry. It was a wild game/anything they could find or drag out of the wood dinner. Fmom said there was things she had heard about but never seen, and thing on the table that she didn't know what was, but it was all food. Needless to say Fmom and Aunt K always veered away from these foods during a fish fry, but that night, they couldn’t. The whole thing was set up for them. So she said they took a little of each and piled up on the coleslaw and other sides, but since everything was cooked for them, they ate a little bit of each. She told me after the dinner there was a lot of laughing and people would tell them they really thought Fmom and Aunt K wouldn’t have eaten some of the stuff.

Well like I said, Fdad and Uncle L had set this up. I don’t remember this specifically, but Fmom said, she and my Aunt got both of them back really good. She just wouldn’t tell me what they did.

Pack Rat.

Something that Nancy said yesterday got me to thinking. We had been talking about going to Costco, and she kidded she would pick up 150 rolls of paper towels. Well if I could, I would. I’ve always been a pack rat at heart, but I moved around so much that I couldn’t put that much stuff back. I’ve always thought if I had the room and money that I would have things that you use everyday in and around the house stockpiled.

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t go overboard, but a little storage area about half the size of the house would be nice. Shelves and some freezers in there and I would be happy. Oh wait, I would have to have a generator incase the power went out. Then I guess I would have to have air conditioning in there for the perishable stuff.

I guess in retrospect that I need a Costco in my backyard. I at least need one closer than two hours away.

On Getting Older.

When do you realize you’ve crossed the age barrier? What I mean is when do you realize that you identify more with the gray haired people you see on TV, movies or elsewhere than with the 30 or 20 something’s. When do you get to the point that you think those kids on TV look outrageous, do they ever comb their hair and the clothes they wear? I’ve caught myself thinking these things, and I had to remember what it was like when I was younger.

I never thought I would make it this far, age wise. When I was a teenager, I thought I would probably be gone before I was twenty-five. I hit that milestone and figured OK, thirty. I didn’t worry too much about it because I was too busy making a living and just trying to get by. Thirty came and I was pleasantly surprised, but instead of five-year increments, I went to ten-year increments. No way I would ever make it to forty. Anyway, forty was middle age and I just couldn’t see myself there. Forty came and with that bifocals. I figured OK; it’s downhill from here.

So now I’m nearing right smack dab in the middle of my fifties, and I’m still wondering how I got this far. But it keeps going back to identifying with my age group or older. I’m stuck in my eras. Although the memories aren’t as sharp, my eras were the seventies and eighties. Yes I like the music from back then, a lot of great TV shows I used to love. For some reason I can’t stand to watch them in re-runs now, but they were great back then. I look at the clothes back then, the hair and everything, and I think it’s funny now, but then it was just cool.

Then I think of people my age who try and stay in the pop/youth culture and act and dress like they’re in their twenties. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I just couldn’t see myself wearing a pair of baggy pants with my underwear hanging out and a spiked mohawk. I guess I’m comfortable with my age and my era. I keep thinking does every age group go through thinking the newest era/kids will never be as great as when they were young. I know Fmom thinks the best music in the world was the big band music when she was young. My father fought in WWII and they were/are known as the greatest generation.

So my question is still the same. When do you cross that age barrier to where you remember your era was the best, and the culture and kids now of days are hard to understand? I don’t know the answer, but I think I’ve already crossed that barrier.

Same Old Stuff.

How has everyone been doing? I’m just getting over another migraine and things haven’t been looking too good in that respect. My local Doctor I’ve been seeing for years now has retired and there’s a new doctor taking her place. I’ve only seen him once so far, and that was before he started accepting my insurance. When you’ve got a migraine it seems the costs doesn’t matter until after the pain is over. From what I remember talking to him he seems like a nice guy. I don’t think he has been practicing that long though. Then last week I get a letter from UAB from the Neurologist’s office I’ve been seeing for a couple of years. It appears he’s gone to somewhere else, and they said I should see my GP to find another Neurologist. So it seems I’m starting out from the beginning again with doctors for the migraines. I just hope the new GP and whatever new Neurologist I go to are as good as my last doctors.

It has stayed hot here. We keep staying in the 100s, and it doesn’t look like there will be any relief for a good while. As I keep saying the only good thing is the grass isn’t growing as fast. I’m going to try to get a picture of the new/old lawnmower my younger brother gave to us after he got a new one. It’s a Kubota and has the grass catcher bags in the back, which it like. It has been so dry around here that it’s like a dust storm whenever I do mow, but it has to be done.

Hope everyone is doing well and the weekend is almost here.

Spam

Wow! I just got my first spam in I don’t know when. Something about gambling and the cost of CA. homes. The odd thing about it is they put in a post back in April. Could this be a preview of what’s coming? I have no problem in deleting spam, but I hope this doesn’t turn into an ongoing thing.

I just found out by going to holoscan that all of my comments that they usually keep are gone. I'm not sure if I have to sign up for something new now or how to get them back. AARRGG!

Looking For Cat.

Cat scared the every living hell out of me yesterday. During the summer she stays outside at night like Tom. She comes in every morning to eat and then sleeps all day. But in the evening she wants out. Yesterday morning I took George out and Cat who is always there and ready to come inside wasn’t there. At the time I thought nothing of it and decided she must be asleep somewhere. I went out three more times calling her that day and nothing. Well in times like this, my mind starts worrying about the worst. Did she get run over, did a wild animal come and take her? So in the evening I starting getting really worried, and I’m looking all around the house. I tell Fmom I didn’t see anything, and I’m going to drive around the neighborhood, and see if I can find anything. I drive around and no Cat anywhere. I pull into the carport and there she is, sitting on the lawnmower.

I guess sometimes you transfer your parental feelings toward your pets, because when I saw her I was mad that she put me through that, and then relieved that she was all right. If you look at it, in equivalent years Cat is older than I am (62) and George is an old man (84). I wish sometimes that I could get them back to their kitten and puppy stages. But then I figure that I just wouldn’t have the energy to keep up with them. So we’ll all grow older gracefully unless Cat scares me really bad again.

Missing Tea Mystery.

We’re not iced tea traditionalist here. A long time ago I tried the Lipton iced tea mix and decided I liked that, and it was much more slackerly to make. When I moved back home Fmom decided she liked it too, so that’s what I buy now. There in lies a mystery in the house this week.

I had gone out and bought groceries a little while back when the relatives came home. I had gotten the largest can of tea mix, which is about 2 pounds. We didn’t have the new can for 3 day when I saw it in the trash can. I was wondering what’s going on, but decided I’d wait to see. Fmom asked me to make her a glass of tea last night and I told her we were out. Now Fmom knows no family can go through that amount of tea in that short of time and I do too. So I don’t know what my relatives did with it. These are the same relatives I wrote about last year that used all the liquid laundry detergent and then filled the bottle up with water, Water and Laundry Detergent..

Fmom said she would ask what happen to the tea, but I figure it’s not important enough to worry about. The rels are leaving tonight, and I have to say I’m ready for things to settle down. These household mysteries are just cutting into my slack time too much.

The Heat

I went out the other morning before sunrise and the sky was clear here. It was also clear of any meteorite. I didn’t see a thing. Maybe next year.

The heat down here has been horrible. It was 103 yesterday and it’s supposed to be 105 today. I keep looking at the 10-day forecast and we might be a break this weekend with it being in the high 90’s. Alaska or the North Pole looks better and better every day. The heat and the haze that has been staying around have been affecting Fmom a good bit. Her asthma keeps acting up. We need a good rain to clear out everything. The only good thing about the heat is it has shocked the grass into not growing. Even if it did grow, I wouldn’t be out there cutting it.

Hope everyone has a good day.

2007 Perseid Meteor Shower

The 2007 Perseid Meteor Shower will be here during the pre-dawn hours of the 13th. Thanks to Knucklehead for giving me the heads up on this. I told Fmom and my brothers last night that they would be here this weekend. I should have been more specific, because at midnight Fmom woke me up and wanted to go outside to watch the show. So we sit outside for a little while and don’t see anything. I tell Fmom that maybe we should have waited until just before dawn. We came back in, and I look back on the computer to see exactly when they’ll be here. Hell I’ve got two more days.

Fmom is like a little kid when it comes to watching meteor showers and comets. I forget which meteor shower it was, but a couple of years ago during the winter, we bundled up and sat in the lawn chairs watching the meteor shower. It was freaking cold out there, but she insisted she wanted to stay out there and watch. Also back in 1997, I was home visiting for a week, and 3 out of the 7 nights I was home, we were outside watching the Hale-Bopp comet.

So I can tell you where I’ll be in the pre-dawn hours of the 13th. Sitting in a lawnchair outside with Fmom and George. Thank goodness I’m usually an early riser.

Anybody else going to be up watching the meteor shower?

Back To Normal.

The medical test is done and as usual the anticipation of the procedure was a lot worse than the procedure itself. I told one of the nurses before they rolled me in, that one of my friends on the internet (Kid Speak) had told me when she had it done, there was ice cream and cookies while she was waiting to go home. I also told the nurse that although I’m sure they didn’t have that, they should think about it.

As I said yesterday, I usually try to fight the sedative to see how long I can stay awake. They usually start out by giving you something to relax you and then something to put you out. I didn’t make it to the second medicine because I was out on the first one. All in all it wasn’t that bad. Anyone, who has been putting it off, you should go ahead and get it done. The worst part about the whole thing for me was not eating anything the entire day before.

On the home front, I have a brother and s-I-l that’s leaving this weekend, and another that will be here this afternoon. The one coming this afternoon I’m looking forward to. He’s the one bringing me his old lawnmower. The lawnmower that my youngest brother left for us is perfectly fine, but it doesn’t have the catcher bag attachment. So I usually have to hook up the lawn sweeper before I mow to pick up pinecones, pine straw and little sticks. The lawnmower coming has the catcher bag with it, so that will save me a lot of time.

Our local weather is saying we’re at 111-heat index. With the new lawnmower or not, I don’t see myself going out into that. Now that all the stuff from this morning is done and everybody has settled down in the house, I can see a good nap coming on.

Everyone have a good day and a great weekend.

I Want A Lollipop!

Growing older has its advantages. You’re not in the middle of youthful turmoil, and things that used to bother you don’t seem to matter as much. Also with growing older comes some not so good things. Medical test for one. When you’re younger you’ll go to a doctor for one specific complaint usually. When you get older they want to test everything every couple of years. This is a good thing, but you can say dignity and modesty are thrown out the door.

I’ve got to go in for a colonoscopy and the whole thing is not something to look forward to. I admit this will be a piece of cake compared to the hospital stay I had for migraines. I’ll go in, they’ll sedate me, and I’ll wake up after it’s all done. Who could ask for more? Well actually I could. I’ve got to drink that horrid stuff the night before to start the whole procedure. If you’ve never drunk the stuff, you don’t know what you’re missing. Then it’s to the doctor and wait, wait, wait. This is embarrassing enough to begin with, but to be on a stretcher in one of those hospital gowns is not something that adds to your ego. You finally get wheeled into the exam room and once in, you see the scope and all the equipment they’ll be using. I don’t need to see that! If I had my way, I’d be knocked out before I even left the house. Finally someone will start to give me the medicine to knock me out. As much as I want to be out during this procedure, I always try to fight the medicine to see how long I can stay awake. It’s no use because I’ll wake up in the waiting area later on, and I know I’ll be there for awhile until they let me go.

So you go through the whole embarrassing thing and you think, is this it? You remember back when you were a kid and saw the doctor. At least you got a lollipop. Here they will tell you; OK you’re fine, you can go home. That’s it? Wait a minute, I just went through something pretty big and even though I don’t remember it, that’s it?

I want a lollipop!

Cable Vs Satellite

We have basic cable and it really gives me more channels than I can flip through. I see on the commercials all the time that cable says it’s better than satellite and satellite says it’s better than cable. I don’t know about satellite since I don’t have it, but I do know our cable seems to go out about ever week. So this got me to thinking about cable. They have the lines running everywhere and supposedly it’s more reliable. But I thought the lines have to come from somewhere, and at the end of those lines is a satellite dish. It looks to me like I’m paying someone else to use their satellite dish.

So I look at the commercials and ads for a satellite dish. I don’t like them. In the first place any ad that starts out with, “The first three months” you get this, and ends with type so small to tell you what you have to pay after three months that I can’t read it. Well, I’m just not going to pay attention to. Tell me how much it’s going to cost and be up front about it. Don’t have me pulling out a magnifying glass to have to read what you’re trying to sell.

In the end, my family is addicted to TV and I know this. I at least have the computer to mess around with, but poor Fmom and the rest seem to be lost without the TV. I remember years ago I thought I was just going to turn off the TV and do other things. Couldn’t do it. Even though there are very few shows I watch completely through, I still want the TV on and the ability to flip channels when I want.

Oh BTW the cable is out again. AARRGGG!

CM's

I went out yesterday and tried to get some pictures of the CM’s. They didn’t come out that well. It was hot and humid outside and my lens kept fogging up. I’ll keep trying and see what happens.

CM foggy

Click to enlarge.

CM not so foggy

Click to enlarge.

Hope everyone's week is going good and don't get to hot.

Sunset Pond Pictures.

I figured I had been getting a little long in the tooth on my posts as of late, so I decided to post Pond Pictures. It's been very hazy/dusty around here and that makes for some very nice orange/red sunsets.

Sunset reflection on the pond.

Click to enlarge.

Sunset through the trees.

Click to enlarge.

The resident Egrett.

Click to enlarge.

Hope everyone is doing fine today.

Another Weekend And It's Hot!

Well the family is here and what groceries I had are gone, so it was to the city today and grocery shopping. Fmom wanted to go, and I think that’s a good thing; it gets her out of the house. Of course when we got to the grocery store, she stayed in the car while I’m shopping. I’ve told her I’m happy to have her with me, but if I were her, I would be bored silly just sitting in the car. I guess when you get to be her age and you can’t move around that well, just getting out every now and then is good.

My nephew got his learner’s permit this week. He sounds like he’s going to be a good driver. We asked him did his parents let him drive down here and he said nope, he didn’t want to. Both his parents are pretty level headed, and I think they’re teaching him right. I keep telling him for his first car, don’t let his parents push any old used car on him. Demand; yes demand a new car with everything. His parents aren't too happy with me about telling him that. His Mom said it was their way or no way, so I think he’ll be happy with anything he gets.

I guess my brother’s class reunion is going pretty good. He was by yesterday afternoon and didn’t even mention how good the yard looks. Next class reunion he has, he can do the yard.

My brother also bought us a lot of peaches this weekend. My s-I-l was busy making a peach cobbler, so I guess we’ll have that along with whatever I decided to cook. I also made up cherry and blueberry cream cheese pies. I’m hoping these will keep everyone’s sweet tooth in check for awhile.

Well it’s off to get the rest of the groceries put away and to start dinner. I hope everyone’s weekend is going well and that the heat isn’t getting you ya.

Connections Again.

Something that Manny asked over at the Welcome Wagon got me to thinking about something else. Connections again. He asked, What's something you always forget to do? I wrote it’s not what I forget to do, but who I forget.

I left this town in my early 20’s. It’s a small Southern town and there just wasn’t opportunity or jobs. I did different things, joined the military, retired from that and then moved back here in my early 50’s. So to say the least, I’ve been gone for a long time and changed in many ways.

A lot of times I have people I used to know come up to me and ask how I’ve been doing, and how good it is to see me again. I’m staring at the people and inside my head I’m freaking. I’m thinking who is this? Say something to where I can connect you back to that time. Just about all the time, nobody says anything to where I can connect him or her and I try to fake my way through knowing who they are. More than once, they knew I didn’t recognize them and that made me feel bad. Although not bad enough to ask them who the hell they were. Now that’s embarrassing to me, and I know that they probably feel bad. I mean who wants to think, geeze I wasn’t important or outstanding enough for you to remember me? I know I don’t.

This bought another connection to me. I’ve looked at life and people I’ve known as a play or TV show sometimes. What I mean is that sometimes I think, am I a main character in their life’s play, or am I a background character? Do I do a walk on and then I’m forgotten, or do I have a bigger part? Do I set up props and scenes in their lives and I’m never seen on the stage? Of course I don’t look at it all the time like this, but the thought does cross my mind every now and then.

With family you’re always on stage. That play doesn’t end until you do. Some people don’t want to have anything to do with their family, and although they might deny it, they’re still in that play. I’ve been lucky with my family in that we’re all on stage and we all play a good part.

So what about the people whose faces I can’t place? I’ll come home a lot of times and tell Fmom or a brother or sister who I had talked to and what they looked like. They’ll usually say, Oh that’s so and so, you don’t remember him or her? Sometimes I honestly do believe I’m an early candidate for Alzheimer’s. Unless I write down what I do everyday, I can’t remember what I did three days ago. Ok make that two days ago. So I’ll probably keep bumping into people who I should remember, but don’t. I’ll probably keep trying to fake my way through it, but I really do wish I had a better memory. Sometimes I just don’t make the connections.

Class Reunion and Lawn.

My youngest brother is attending his class reunion this weekend. I’m not sure which year it is, but I think it’s his 27’th. For me it would be a 37 year reunion. Since some of his old classmates will be driving by the house, he was a little up in the air about the lawn looking good. As you all know I could care less about the lawn, but I did get it mowed. I had to hire someone to do the weed eating and a general clean up of the yard. If my brother still lived here, I would have told him to have at the yard, but he lives over two hours away and works everyday, so I decided to cut him some slack.

The one good thing is I didn’t have to weed eat down by the pond. I hear the snakes are saying they just can’t scare the rest of the residents around here like they do me. Hah!

Hope everyone has been doing fine and thanks for your thoughts earlier.