Not My Holiday.

Halloween is tomorrow and I hate to say it, but it’s not a big holiday for us. I remember trick or treating when I was a kid, and when my daughters were small we would decorate the house and take them trick or treating in the neighborhood that we lived in. However, a lot of people see Halloween as a big party. I don’t know why, but it has never been that way with me. I don’t dislike Halloween, but it’s not high on my list for holidays. I guess I’m more of the family oriented holidays. I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas. If for nothing else, that’s when the entire family gets together, even if just for a day.

So tomorrow night, Fmom and I will have the lights off, and we’ll be hearing kids and adults scurrying all around the house. The day after I’ll be happy if only for of all things, TV. I’m not a big blood and gore/horror movie type person. So on Thursday its back to normal non-gory type stuff.

Hope everyone has fun on Halloween.

Pond Picture

We have a lot of yellow flowers/weeds growing around the pond. FMom told me they are Black Eyed Susans. You would know that the only places where they are cut back, and the growth is kept down, is my two next door neighbors. Since our part stuck out, Fmom wanted weed eating down there. My nephew did that last week for me, and I hoping the cold weather gets here before they grow back up. And no Andi, I haven't made it to the other side of the pond yet. :)

Click for larger image.

I'm still sending out good thoughts to Puget and hoping that Head is OK and maybe some rain will come his way. Hope everyone else has a good day.

Added: George scared the every living hell out of me this morning. He did his bidness and went to the carport. I walk down to the carport from the patio and he’s not there. I go out to the front lawn, back to the carport, back to the patio and around the house twice. I’m yelling his name and nothing. I grab the keys to the car and head down the road looking for him. I find him four houses down. I figured he’d taken after a dog or something he saw in the carport. He thinks he can tear up any animal around here, and he doesn’t know to look for cars going by on the street. Quite frankly he’s lucky to be alive right now. When he saw it was me in the car, he did come running and jumped in the open door. He had sort of a frightened/lost look on his face, and he got right next to me on the car seat and wouldn’t move. I started to give him hell about it, but didn’t. But he knows I’m not happy with him.

Car Radio.

Do you have to have a radio in your car? Just about everyone does. I know most people can’t get into the car without having the radio on. One of my cars that I owned for 13 years had no radio. When I got it at the dealers, I picked it without a radio. I thought I would find one I wanted, and it would be cheaper to have it put in later. Well for 13 years I kept saying I would put one in. Can I procrastinate, or can’t I? It’s funny but I got very used to driving without any music or other diversions. That doesn’t mean I didn’t make diversions. I drove from New Hampshire to Florida one time for a meeting. Instead of a radio, I was singing at the top of my lungs all the way there.

Well it has gotten to the point over the years that I don’t really like to drive with the radio on. I will cut it on to listen to Public Radio, to the talk shows and news, but that’s about it. I found out that driving with music on the radio made me sleepy. When my daughters were young and wanted the radio on, that’s what I would tell them. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Anyway, I was wondering if any of you just have to have the radio on when in the car. I’m pretty sure I’m an oddity when it comes to driving with no music.

ADDED: If you haven't already, go over and give Puget4 some good thought. Finding Beauty Everywhere.

ADDED AGAIN: I've been watching the news about the California fires. I haven't seen anything from Knucklehead today, so send some good thoughts out that way too. White Knuckles

Exercise.

Yesterday we had bad weather come through here, well sort of. Thunderstorms and bad weather have always frightened Fmom. She can’t sit in one place, and wants to get in the car and move. When the tornado warnings on the TV, and the siren downtown started going off, Fmom wanted to move. I had been tracking the storm on the computer and it kept saying it was South of us. Fmom was down in the den, up to where I was and down in the den. She did more moving in that time then I’ve seen her do in a week.

Once I started hearing thunder, I turned the computer off, and went and sat with Fmom. We still had one TV on, and were watching the news that was tracking the weather. She was reading the usual things they say to do when a tornado was near and one is if you’re out in the open, to get in a ditch. OK, we’ve got a tornado around here somewhere, and she wants to get in the car and go the other way, or go and lay in a ditch. I keep telling her everything is fine and we are safest here. Well it ended up that the storm was South of us and we only got a little sprinkle here.

We’ve been lucky around here, in that most tornadoes that touch down are out in non-populated areas. I do miss the days of when I was a kid though, and we had neighbors who had a storm cellar in back of their house. At least Fmom wasn’t pinging so much. However, I’ve got to look at it in a positive way. At least yesterday Fmom did get a good bit of exercise running back and forth in the house.

Added: I read this earlier, and I can add this on my growing list of reasons not to mow the lawn. Dangerous Mowing

Southeast Drought And Other Things To Ponder.

I never really thought about a drought hitting this area, but from everything I read and see, it has. Georgia is complaining that Alabama and Florida wants more of its water, and I heard on the news today that there has been a two-decade court battle about this. You always hear about droughts and water rationing in the Southwest, but here is a place I never thought it would be. I don’t think the people in this area are really as upset about it as they should be. For the reason I stated above, you just don’t think of a drought in this area. This is from the B’ham news - Alabama Drought

Earlier this year I wrote about how the massive forest fires in Georgia and Florida had been so bad, that we were getting a lot of smoke in my area, and we were over 300 miles away from the fires. I have to admit; I don’t remember fires in the Southeast that bad before. Whenever I see all of this, the only thing I can think of is global warming. I keep wondering what the world, and especially my area, will look like in ten years. Moreover, I keep wondering how the big cities in the Southwest will sustain themselves. I don’t want to be a doomsayer, but I see the increased population going to the Southwest will start to dwindle. You can’t use up that much water and not replace it.

While our pond out back isn’t as low as it was last year, it is getting there. A couple of pictures of my s-i-l and great nephew out fishing at the pond.

I've been ahead of the curve on conserving water. I haven't watered my lawn in years. So has anyone else started with water restrictions?

Little Tornado.

There isn’t that much going on around here with the exception that the rels are leaving today. At the moment, I’m waiting for my great nephew to bust into my room saying he’s hungry, and wants to see what cartoons are on TV. However, for a little while longer, I’ll sit and drink my coffee and wait for the little tornado to wake up.

Hope everyone is having a good day.

Tales From The FM Zone.

For your perusal and reading pleasure, Tales from the FM zone. Which I might add are all true, and it’s a lot of stories, so it’s a long post.

Part I – Moving Into The Trailer From Hell

Once I finally got my divorce, I was transferred from Texas to Mississippi. I knew I didn’t want to live in any dorm, so I tried to find a place that was within my budget, which was very miniscule. I found an old trailer outside of the bases gates, and it was the kind of trailer parks that if you saw it, you would want to drive on by. All of the trailers were old, run down and in need of repair. I’ve always thought you get what you pay for, and I paid very little for this trailer, so you can imagine what I got. The owner of the park said to give it a week so she would have the trailer cleaned. A week later, I go in and wonder what the hell they had done. The place was a wreck. I cleaned for a week before I moved anything of mine in there. As I was to find out, I was one of the few people there to have a telephone and car in the park. Within a week, I had people coming over to use the phone, did I have anything to drink and even can I borrow you car for a minute. I had to put the kibosh on a lot of that stuff, but whenever someone really needed the phone for something important; I’d usually let them do that.

The first story has to do with my neighbor’s mother. I would say she looked to be about 76. I don’t know if it was from a hard life of drinking or what, but a beauty queen she wasn’t. She would come over and use the phone a lot. After awhile she got to talking about how difficult it was to live with her grown children, and how she needed a man in her life. She had told me that her grown children were by the last man she lived with, and who had the tenacity to die on her. However during this time he wouldn’t leave his wife. Obviously when she starts talking this, I get nervous and tell her I just got out of a bad relationship and wasn’t looking for another one. A couple of days later, I go to get into my car to go to work. I see under the window wiper a napkin. I get it and it’s doused in perfume. Written on the inside was the words, “I really really like you and would do whatever you wanted.” I’m standing by my car and the only thing I can say is “Oh God, Oh God.” I kept saying that all the way to work and while still saying Oh God I hand the note to my boss. I had told him what was going on, and he pieced the pieces together and he started laughing. Laughing so hard he’s falling in the floor. I’m still saying “Oh God, Oh God, Oh God.” Things finally start to settle down at work, with the exception that one of my co-workers would grab the napkin and run it by my head and say things like, “It smells so purty.” Well the end of the day finally came and I had to go home. I drove very slowly because I didn’t want to be home that day. I’m finally in the house and ten minutes later I hear a knock. I already know who it’s going to be, and I start my “Oh God, Oh God” litany again. She is at the door and wants to use the phone. I said sure and this time I have every window and door open. She makes a short call and then sits down to talk to me. The litany is going at hyper speed in my skull now. She told me that her and her daughter in law thought it would be a good joke to put the napkin on the window. I told her it certainly caught my attention. Then she just came out and told me she was looking for a man to live with, and I appeared to be a nice man. If it were possible I would have been bouncing off the walls by this time. I explained to her again that I had just gotten out of a really bad relationship, and I wasn’t looking to get into another one. I think she finally got the message, but she would still come over to use the phone and every now and then drop a hint. Luckily about a month later she and her family left. Then about 5 months later I hear a pounding on my door in the middle of the night. I get up and look out the door, and see it’s her son. He reeks of alcohol and he told me he had run out of gas, and could I loan him $5:00 for gas. I told him to stay there and closed the door and go and get $5:00. He started to seem a little pissed that I didn’t have $10.00 to give him, but I told him that was all and closed the door. Of course I stayed up a couple hours after that to see if he came back.

Part II - The Tombstone At The Corner Of My Trailer.

As with any new place you move to, you check the outside and around the trailer/house. After I moved in and finally got around to this, I notice two things. One - a flattened tombstone right at the corner of my trailer, and two - a garden hose running under my trailer. Well the tombstone freaked me out. It gave the guys name, the date of his death and that he died in the Korean War. Needless to say I was starting to get a little worried about living in a cemetery. It took me awhile to realize, but the trailers were so close that when I was trying to sleep, someone walking in their trailer sounded and felt like someone was walking in my trailer. Now I’ve never owned a gun, but I did sleep with the biggest butcher’s knife I had by the bed every night. There were a lot of long sleepless night while my neighbors were walking around in their house. I later found out that there was a monument company in town, and the trailer park owners had bought a bunch of practice stones to use as path liners to the trailers. Obviously with the inscription sides turned down. By the time I moved there this was the only one left and the inscription was up. By now you’re wondering what about the garden hose going under the trailer. I found out that was the water supply going into the trailer. It really came to home during the first freeze. No water in the trailer and I had to gather up all my stuff and run to the gym on base to just get a shower before I went to work. OK I’ve been through the worst, so it has to get better……..

Part III – I’m Innocent.

One day I was pulling up to my place and I see local and state police cars all around my trailer and the one across the street. It was lunchtime and I had to pick up Henry to go to the vet. While pulling into and out of my street, there where police cars, paddy wagons and other vehicles there to pick up things. I pick up George and take him to the vet. When I finally arrived back home, I see more police cars and my next door neighbor being led away in handcuffs. Later on, on the news I found out that she and some other guy had been robbing the U-Store-It places close by. Now I have to admit I liked this woman. She had two little twin girls that loved to play with Henry and George when I took them outside, and she was always nice to me. She had come by the trailer a couple of times to use the telephone. I was going home every week at that time, and I had asked her would she keep an eye on my place while I was gone. I found out that her husband wasn’t arrested because he said he knew nothing about it. I found that kind of hard to believe. Your place is filling up with stuff that your spouse in bringing in at the middle of the night. I don’t know. But I am glad they didn’t arrest him. The couple had five kids and I’m glad they left one parent there for the kids.

Part IV – Get Away From the GD Door!

This tale is about being in the trailer asleep one night; I hear George and Henry barking like crazy. I run up to the front door, and I can hear someone jiggling the door handle, trying to get in. Obviously I had everything locked, but this idiot was still trying to get into my door. Being the highly intelligent person I was, I started yelling at the door to get the hell away because I had a shotgun and I’d blow their damned head off. Obviously I didn’t have a shotgun, but I was trying to put up the biggest show I could. This idiot keeps trying for a little while longer and then leaves. Of course I was up all night sitting in a chair listening for anything. I’ve complained many times about George being a yapper. When I lived in that trailer, that was a definite plus.

So ends the tales of my trailer living. I have to say there is nothing wrong with living in a trailer, but as with a house, you just have to pick your neighborhood. Plus as I said before, you get what you pay for.

Falling Into Place.

Sometimes things just fall into place. I was talking to Fmom yesterday and she told me my youngest brother and nephew will be here today. She told me my nephew is coming to mow the lawn and do the weed eating. I asked her why my nephew was coming to do the lawn work. She said she had told my brother that my back had been giving me problems, so I couldn’t get it all done. Welllllllllllll, that’s sort of true. I can do the mowing, but since I fractured a vertebra last year the weed eating has become a problem. I was preparing to go out tomorrow and mow the lawn, but now I don’t even have to worry about that. So what is the lesson learned from this?

The path to perfect slackdom is filled with surprises.

Or

Good things come to the lazy that wait.

Of course not to make my nephew feel bad, I’ll walk around tomorrow just a little bent over, and every now and then say something like, “I think I need a walking cane.” Yep that’s me, always thinking of others.

Hope everyone has a good day, because I think mine is going to be. Hah!

Fall

It looks like fall is finally hitting down here. Our temps will be in the mid 70’s/40’s range. I don’t know why but every fall there are always two days when I really feel like getting out and doing yard work. I don’t know what comes over me, because you all know how much I hate yard work, but those two days are there every year. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m so happy knowing that this will be the last time I have to worry about cutting the grass until spring that I don’t mind doing it. The last cutting is my fall festival. If I could, I would build a big bon fire in the front yard and dance around it knowing the winter gods have answered my prayers and stopped the grass from growing. Since I can’t do that, after the two days come, I’ll look out my window at the yard, and think “Hah! Damn you grass, I’ve won for another year.” Or maybe I’ll do what I wanted to do all spring and summer. Just not worry about it.

I found out yesterday that we’re getting a new business in town. Someone is finally opening a coffee shop. I think that will be a big hit with the college students here. At least I hope so. I asked the person that told me about it was it going to have wi-fi in it. They asked me what wi-fi was, so I figure baby steps. We’ve got the coffee shop, and we’ll have to work on the other big city things later.

Hope everyone has a good day.

The Bird Hunting Story.

My first youngest brother always seemed to have something either happening to him or going on around him. When he was perhaps 10 or 11 he wanted to go dove hunting with a family friend. They had gone out to a field by our house. It was a large rolling field with a stand of woods on one side and surrounded by bobwire. Oscar our friend, was one of the college basketball players from the local college, and looked more to be a pro football player. I’d say he was probably six feet eight inches tall and weighed around two hundred and sixty pounds. He took my brother out to the field and had told my brother to stay in this one spot and not to move. So some time passes and my younger brother became tired of sitting in one spot and thought he would move to a better spot. My younger brother knew better than this, and it is a cardinal rule when hunting in a group not to move away from your designated area. Well as you would expect Oscar shot at some doves, and he ended up hitting my brother. My brother stands up in the tall grass and starts yelling, “Oscar you’ve killed me”. Oscar seeing what happened drops his shotgun and runs to my brother. He picks him up and starts running back to the house. Fdad said he saw Oscar running through the field with my brother in his arms, and that he cleared a four-foot tall bobwire fence and never slowed down. The entire time my brother is yelling “Oscar you killed me and Oscar is yelling, ”I killed him”. They get into the house and both of them are yelling the “You killed me/I killed him” thing until my father finally got them quieted down some. They were all frightened at first until they got all the blood cleaned off my brothers face. Fdad saw my brother wasn’t seriously hurt, but he had some bird shot in his face. He takes my brother to the doctor and Oscar is at the house crying his eyes out saying over and over, I’ve killed him. The doctor gets some of the pellets out, but some he couldn’t. Fmom was saying Oscar never did stop crying until my brother came back from the doctor, and he finally saw he was all right. Now my brother could have been seriously hurt, but he wasn’t, and it has since become a family joke of Oscar carrying my brother in his arms across the field, and my brother yelling you killed me and Oscar yelling I killed him.

Isn’t it funny how we can take something that could have been a horrible accident, and when everything turns out OK, we make a joke of it. I guess that’s part of human nature. All of that pent up horror and fright has to go somewhere, so when things turn out good, laughing and making a joke of it is the only release. Anyway, I’m glad my brother was OK, and 35 years later we can still laugh and make a joke of it.

Wrong Number.

We had the oddest thing happen over the weekend. I heard the phone ring and then Fmom calls me. She said she had gotten a collect from some one in prison. She said she didn’t know of anyone in prison and didn’t recognize the name, so she hung up. While she was telling me this, the phone rang again and it was the same thing. I picked it up, and I don’t know of anyone in prison and didn’t recognize the name, so I hung up. Two minutes later, the same thing. So I decided to accept the call, and find out what was going on. Some guy came on and wanted to know if so and so was here. I told him no and that he had the wrong number. He then asked who I was, and I told him it didn’t matter who I was, but he had the wrong number. He asked again was so and so here and again who I was. I told him I was sorry, but he had the wrong number and hung up.

After this I got to thinking, and then I started to worry a little. I thought what if I pissed this guy off, and he remembered the number. It’s easy enough to find any address by a phone number. I certainly would want some pissed off guy to show up here. Then I got to thinking what if it was one of those cons I’ve heard about from prison. Get enough info and yada, yada, yada. Of course those were just fleeting thoughts, and I finally settled into it was just a wrong number.

I have to admit though, it’s not everyday we get a collect call from a total stranger in prison. Although there’s nothing wrong with that, I prefer to already know whoever is calling collect.

My Brother’s House and Changes.

Before I moved back home to take care of Fmom, my youngest brother and his wife and son lived here. They had lived in the college married housing and it was very small. When Fmom retired at age 72, she had gotten to the point of not wanting to be in the house by herself, especially at night. When they moved here, my nephew was a baby, and whenever I came home it was always good to see how he was growing. Although they lived with Fmom they were buying the house across the street from her. They had been renting it out for a number of years, but when their last renters left, they decided to renovate it and finally move in. Now I have to admit my s-I-l has very good taste, and when they redid their house, they did a wonderful job. They had lived in it for a about three years, and then my brother got transferred by his company, and my sil got a better job where they moved to. They sold their house themselves and really didn’t have a problem with getting it sold.

So yesterday I look out the window and see another sold sign on the front lawn. The people who had bought it from my brother, who I still considered new, had already moved on. They were college teachers, and I guess they got better jobs. The new people I have no idea who they are, but I do plan to introduce myself. I have a few neighbors, who find it too much trouble to say hello, wave or even nod, so I’m hoping these neighbors are friendly.

This got me to thinking about how much this town has changed. It seems we constantly have new people coming in. Our college had a record enrollment this year, and you’re always seeing new faces. Of course some of the new faces to me were kids that went to school with my younger brothers and nephews and nieces. They’ve lived here and grew up while I was gone.

I know I started out about my brother and sil’s house, but I guess today is about the changes that keep happening around here. We have a little bakery downtown that serves breakfast and lunch. I go there from time to time to pick up something for Fmom and myself. I got into the line last week, and they do have long lines, and noticed the different people there. I saw white, black, young, old, well dress and farmers out of the fields. I saw one kid from the college with a spiked orange Mohawk, and thought how things had changed after 30 years of being away. Then I thought I’m glad to see these changes and hope they’ll continue. I hope I’m around for another 20 years to see how things keep changing, and I hope things just keep getting better.

Rolling Along.

Things here have been rolling along, but I’ve been out for a couple of days handling some real life stuff. It’s been pretty nice weather wise. Highs of mid 80s and lows of low 60’s. I saw starting next week we’ll be in the 70/40 range and I’m looking forward to that. Fmom and I have had a week of no rels around, but we’ve got some coming in this coming week. So it’s a trip to the grocery store to stock up.

Hope everyone has been doing good.