Peace & Quiet – Almost.

Well the brother and sil are getting ready to head back to Arkansas. I keep asking what can I do to help, I’ll carry your bags out to the car and I’ll even start the car for you. As usual they’re taking their time and probably won’t get out of here until tonight. My brother talked to his daughter and she said it was snowing in AR to where they’re going. So I looked it up on the computer and it said rain/snow mix. So to prod them along, I told them they didn’t want to get there in the middle of the night, because it would be all snow and no rain. Of course I’m thinking of them and their safety. OK 99% I’m thinking of them…….well maybe a 60/40 split. OK, OK, OK – I’m just ready for them to get the hell out of here. :)

This year is the first year that my brother’s friend (BF) and his girl friend (GF) spent the holiday with us. I know how everyone always tells me to get the kids and rels off their butts to help clean up after they mess up here. Well the GF surprised me and made me feel bad too. She’s the type that has to keep moving and doing stuff all the time. I felt bad because she was doing so much around the house. Last night before they left, she wouldn’t leave until she had every dish done, the kitchen cleaned (even swept and mopped) and everything just in order. I kept telling her that this was a holiday and they were visiting and she shouldn’t worry about all of that. I told her to just relax and that once everybody was gone that I would get everything back in order. She just told me that she had to be doing something. So being the kind fellow that I am and not wanting to make anyone feel uncomfortable, I told her to go ahead and that if she had any spare time all the windows needed to be washed. I do love to make people happy.

Tomorrow is supposed to be cold. They’re even predicting some flurries for the morning. However, right now I’ve got the windows up in my room and it’s quiet comfortable. Probably later on this evening I’ll have to get the heater on.

Hope the rest of the day is good for everyone and take care.

What Can You Do?

Well there’s still a house full of people here, George is in constant bark mode and I’m already worn out. We didn’t have near the people I expected at the farm yesterday. It was all my brothers, sister, a few nephews, nieces, spouses and friends.

One of my brothers and his family have sort of come in and taken over the house this T’giving. I was thinking of Fmom yesterday for many reasons, but a couple of times I was thinking that she would be raising hell with my brother right now. I always hated to hear and cringed when I heard the words red neck or cracker. Well yesterday my brother and his friend were deep frying turkeys in the back yard. Now the houses here are actually pretty close together. So while my brother was doing the turkeys, my nephew decided to pull his truck in the back yard and started blasting Lynyrd Skynyrd. Our neighbors are an old retired couple, and they had family over for the holiday. It was a nice day and they were on their patio with family, and I could see they were trying to talk. Well I usually feel bad when I take George out and he does his barking, thinking that it’s disturbing them. Yesterday I felt really bad because I could see the music was bothering them. So with George barking and Sweet Home Alabama blaring I asked my brother if he had asked the neighbors if they minded if he had the music up a little bit (actually loud). He looked at me and said, “why”? I just shook my head and while walking away thought, “my first red neck Thanksgiving”. I felt bad about that, but it didn’t stop me from getting ready, getting in my car and heading out to the farm.

Now if all this turkey frying and loud music had been happening out at the farm, I wouldn’t have had a second thought about it. However, in a neighborhood with houses close together like this, I thought it was very uncool. I love coming from a large family, and I love all my rels, but sometimes……….. :)

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to peace and quiet come Monday.

Thanksgiving

Well another Thanksgiving is here. I’m not sure how many will be here this year. I’m estimating around 30-35. The house is starting to fill, but the big influx of rels, extended family and friends will be here Wednesday. We’ll have everyone together out at the farm house, I’ll overeat as usual, find a comfy recliner to fall asleep in and stay planted there until it’s time to come home.

Everyone in my family loves dressing. There are usually 3 to 4 different types that will be bought to the T’giving dinner. I was telling Olivia earlier that one of my brothers had found a little “hole in the wall” café about 40 miles from here that makes the best corn bread dressing. So every year besides what everyone brings to the farm house, we usually buy 2 big pans of the café dressing to just have here for after T’giving.

So the rest of this week will be hectic with kids running everywhere, and George will be barking constantly. I’m always happy to see the holidays get here, but by the end of it, I’m pretty well exhausted and ready for some peace and quiet.

I hope everyone’s Thanksgiving is a good one. Enjoy.

George Again.

I used think it was the height of uncoolness not to reply to comments. I’m so sorry I haven’t replied to all ya’ll. I took George to the vet and he said nothing is wrong with him. Well I think the vet is wrong. My brother said maybe George is finally missing Fmom. He might be right, but the little guy is still worrying me.

Thank you all for your comments and caring. Just thanks and take care.

FM

George.

George has been whining and crying for the last two days. I’ve got him plenty of food and water, and I keep taking him outside. Nothing is working and he has me worried at the moment. I have a dental appointment on Monday, but I’m going to call and cancel. I don’t know what’s going with George, but as I said, I’m worried. So I go to the Vet tomorrow.

George is in human years around 95. Out of the litter he came from, he’s the only one still alive. Now I know George is old and that soon he will be gone, but I hate to think about that. Since George was a puppy, when his half brother Henry was alive, he’s been very jealous about the love he gives. When I used to sit in my recliner, George would push Henry out so he could be closer to me. I used to yell at him about this, but when Henry died I could see how much he loved him too. I guess even with his constant barking and yapping when family is here, I do love the little guy. I guess again, I’m just worried at the moment.

I’ve been listening to the song I put up yesterday. I’ve been listening to Hallelujah a lot and I think just don’t let George go. I’m so very lonely at this moment. He’s whining at this moment and I don’t know what to do. I just don’t know what to do.

Sneezing and Shrek.

I hate to wake up in the morning, or in this case night. For some reason every time I wake up I sneeze for at least 10 minutes. Been doing it for years and I would think I’d get used to it, but not so far.

Do you remember the movie Shrek? Well there was a song in there called Hallelujah. I’ve always liked that song. As I’ve said before, it’s always the melody I listen to and sometimes I never get the lyrics to a song. Well I finally got the lyrics to this one and I was looking on Youtube to hear the song. I found these four Norwegian guys singing it and it’s the best version of the song I’ve heard yet. I would embed it, but they’ve disabled that, so here’s the url.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2NEU6Xf7lM

Hope you enjoy.

A Little Excitement.

Who says there no excitement in a small town? This weekend we had a little bit. In the city about 35 miles away from here there was a drive by shooting. The police found the car and a chase started. They chased him all the way to my town. Now in my town the highway comes to a dead end and there is a red light. You either go left or right depending on where you want to go. Well this guy didn’t know this. He plows through the red light, hits part of the barbque place and keeps going into the dollar store. He was going so fast that he went half way into the dollar store and from what he hit started a fire. It seems the police car was right behind him. The local police had been notified of the chase and they were there and got both the chasee and chaser out of their cars, before the fire got too bad. Both only had some cuts and bruises and were released from the hospital. The dollar store is gone though, and the police car and the guys cars were burned up.

Who says you have to watch the chases in the big cities? Just sit by the red lights here, and you’ll see something happen sooner or later.

ADDED:

If you look to the left, you'll see a small hill. I don't know if he went flying into the side of the building or the roof.

A little closer look.

A straight on look at what's left.

A Trek.

I had to take a trip into the city for a doctor’s appointment today, and I had forgotten about the commissary at the local base being closed on Mondays. I had promised my brother’s and sister that I was going to make up a big pot of Kiesling Stew, and I thought I would save time and gas by making one trip for the appointment and stew ingredients. Alas it wasn’t to happen. The pharmacy in the city didn’t have the medicine the nurse practitioner prescribed, but it will be there tomorrow. So tomorrow I’ll make a hundred mile round trip picking up my medicine, and then going out to the base that is a distance past the city, and getting all the stuff for making the stew.

To a lot of people that long of a drive is really nothing. A lot of people do it everyday. My sister that lives across the street does a 75-mile round trip everyday to go to work. To her it’s like someone that lives in a city and driving across town could take one to two hours. To me it’s a trek. Last month when everyone had cleared out of the house and I really didn’t have anywhere to go, I filled up the tank and it lasted me almost the entire month. Just trips downtown to pick up whatever I needed and that was it.

That got me to thinking about the long treks that I used to take. When I was first divorced I would leave from Columbus, MS and drive to San Antonio, TX to pick up my daughters for the summer. It was about a 14 hour drive one way, so I’d find a place to stay that night in TX, and then we would head out that morning back to MS. That isn’t so bad in itself, but it was the return trips that always got to me. I would do the trip from MS to TX, and then I would do a turn around. I would spend just enough time in TX to drop the girls off and then head back home. I remember the longest period for there and back, I ended up spending around 32 hours in that car. Yes I know it was a stupid thing to do, but with schedules and finances being tight, there was no finding a motel. Plus I’ve never been one to pull into a rest stop and sleep.

I look back on those trips and others, and I think to myself how the heck did I do that. I know that a great quantity of coffee was drunk, but other than that it was just a determination to get there and back. Like I said, tomorrow I’ve got to make it 100 miles, and I’m not really looking forward to it. I think I’ll be say Bah-Humbug all the way there and back. :)

What’s the longest any of you have ever driven, time wise or distance?

I've also got a question about blogger if anyone can answer it. When I'm doing a new post, I used to have the option of having the left and right side straight down. I don't know what it's called but what you could check looked like this:
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The other option is what I have now. If you look at my Oct 27th post you can see the lines all end together instead of like it is now. So my question is have they taken away some of the editing options or is just mine screwed up?

D and LF.

When I was in my early 30’s, I was stationed in a New Hampshire. I’ve told of my love of the game of pool back then. One of the best things that came from that was meeting D and LF. I’ve never been one of those people that became a bar regular. However, when I was stationed in N.H. I used to go to the NCO club every now and then. There were many areas to the club, but the one I would go to was called the dirt bar. It was basically just a bar with tables and a room off the bar that had one pool table. Pool had been my passion as a teenager, but I had not picked up a stick to play in years. A friend and I went to the dirt bar one night and the room with the pool table was packed. I looked inside and saw a man that was smartly dressed and his wife who could have walked into any dress occasion as she was. The man and his wife looked to be in their 50’s/40’s, and I figured the man was retired military. The man was on the table shooting a game against someone and I asked my friend who they were. He told me they were regulars in the club and that D was probably the best pool shooter in the place. I wasn’t really looking to shot any pool, but I had told my friend before how much I used to play, so he talked me into putting my name on the board.

My time came up and I said hello to both of them and started the game. To cut things short, I ran the table on him. I could tell D was mad that he lost the game, but he was very polite and congratulated me. His wife (LF) came over and started talking to me. Between the next games I was playing, D, LF and I were talking. I found out that D had met LF in London when he was stationed there. However, LF had the most amazing history. Her father was a Chinese diplomat to Russia before WWII. He met and married a Russian girl while there. LF said her father saw how things were going when WWII started and got his family out of there to England. Years later she met and married D in London. LF was a beautiful woman in her late 40’s. She had such a lovely English accent and she dressed all the time like she was going to some sort of high society thing. It was really something to see someone so refined and dressed in an NCO club in the dirt bar. However, LF had fallen in love with the game of pool. She always wanted to learn and play.

Over time D, LF and I became very good friends. As I said before, I’ve never been one for going to bars, but for one time in my life that dirt bar was like a second home. I would usually come in and go straight to the sign up board and put my name down. By the time I got back to the bar the bartenders would already have my drink ready without me ever saying a word to them. I got to know everyone that frequented the place by first name, and when D and I would be on the pool table I can remember always having a crowd watching us play.

Anyway, D, LF and I spent a lot of time together. I was living in the dorm back then, and they would have me over to their house all the time. Matter of fact, the first time I learned to water ski was when they took me up to a cabin on a big lake in Maine. We used to go up there with their other friends and have a blast. But mostly I remember that dirt bar and the pool table where we three had so much fun.

One of the things I noticed while in the military was that from all the moving around, you make good friends, but a lot of times after you’re gone to a new base, you loose them. When I was transferred back to Germany and over time, D, LF and I lost contact. However, I look back at that place and time and think of how wonderful it was. Not only because of where I was, but because even though it was short and fleeting, there were two such good people that had counted me as their friend.