Road Trip!

School's out, so Cami and I decided to flee the state. We made sure there was enough gas and loaded ourselves and our bags into the car. We waited to leave until later in the day to avoid traffic.

We crossed the Mississippi River bridge and entered Arkansas.

We thought we might be required to have passports, but, to our relief, we were allowed to enter without them.

Surrounded by eighteen wheel trucks, speeding cars and road construction we made our way carefully along the interstate.

It was a nice day so we opened the sun roof and let the wind blow our hair. No worries--we're away from home. Nobody here cares what we look like. We turned up the music, sang along and enjoyed the ride.

What fun!! Fellow travelers....

We were delighted to find the natives spoke the same dialect and used the same currency as we do.

Ce n'est pas la France.

After many long minutes of travel, we reached our destination.

We were pleased with the 5 star service we received. The porters even met us at the door.

We made sure to take advantage of all the amenities offered.

And then, exhausted, we made our way home.

It was good to be back on terra firma. Home! It never looked so good.

Hey!! It's somethin'--

Good Grief--Still Nothin'

LIFE REFLECTIONS BY GEORGE CARLIN:

• Never raise your hands to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected.


• I'm not into working out. My philosophy is no pain, no pain.


• I'm in shape. Round is a shape.


• I'm desperately trying to figure out why Kamikaze pilots wore helmets.


• Do illiterate people get the full effect of alphabet soup?


• I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific.


• Ever notice when you blow in a dog's face he gets mad at you, but when you take him in a car he sticks his head out the window?


• Ever notice that anyone going slower than you is an idiot, but anyone going faster than you is a maniac?


• You have to stay in shape. My mother started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She's 97 now and we have no idea where she is.


• One out of every three Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of two of your best friends. If they are OK, then it must be you.


• They show you how detergents take out bloodstains. I think if you've got a T-shirt with bloodstains all over it, maybe your laundry isn't your biggest problem.


• Ask people why they have deer heads on their walls and they tell you it's because they're such beautiful animals. I think my wife is beautiful, but I only have photographs of her on the wall.


• A lady came up to me on the street, pointed at my suede jacket and said, "Don't you know a cow was murdered for that jacket?" I said "I didn't know there were any witnesses. Now I'll have to kill you too".

Do people still know who George Carlin is? Funny, irreverent guy in his prime.
Anyway, I'm always up for a good chuckle, so thought I would share. Extremely more interesting than anything going on here. (Unless you count whining, but, nobody likes a whiner!)

Rhythm of Life

After I posted the "nothin'" that is my life, I got to wondering how much it bothered me that one day is the same as another. After I chewed on it for awhile, I decided, not at all.
There's a kind of comfort knowing that each day will be the same. Especially after experiencing the terror of not knowing what the next day will hold. I now prefer no surprises.
There is a sort of rhythm in everyones lives. We go to great lengths to assure that rhythm . We have life, medical, auto and home insurance. (As long as we are able to anyway.) We want steady jobs, family and friends we can count on. When we no longer have that sureness, we decide that, hey, maybe sameness doesn't suck.
Sometimes we change the rhythm of our lives on purpose. We take a vacation, we explore new places, we meet new people. I would happily change the rhythm of our lives, if I could be assured that it wouldn't be discordant or disharmonious.
As it turns out, I prefer the soothing sameness to staring into the abyss of uncertainty.

Oh man, speaking of of the rhythm of life, this song is now stuck in my head. It's very old, almost ancient.
The great Sammy Davis Jr.!!
Now, children, this was the sixties.



Kinda changed moods on ya there, didn't I! Ha! I'm allowed. I'm old.

Um--Nothin'

Remember and laugh!

We used to love to dance. Most of these, though, are past our dancing prime. Our development was arrested at the Electric Slide--which is inexplicably missing from this video. Younger readers have probably done most of these. I hope you are appropriately embarrassed!

Supposedly, this is the most viewed video on you tube.

The Constant Gardener

No, not me. I am just an enabler.

We have two baskets with trailing petunias and a cala lily.

We have a jasmine from last year.


We have a mandevilla.


We have a daisy gardenia.

We have hosta--in a pot. This is also from last year. We thought the bulb would not survive the winter in a pot. To our joy, it came back this spring. Who knew?

Our finished porch.

Had to do it to keep up with the neighbors. We have the best building in the complex.

That is the end result. Fun? Not so fast. I said I was just a enabler-not a willing gardener.

David is the real lover of gardening. Now, he only has one good hand and one good leg--dammit. It started when Cami and I went to Lowes to get a fern for her new apartment and foolishly told David what a great garden center they had. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Of course, David would want to go--he loves that stuff!

The journey required loading the wheelchair in the trunk, unloading it and pushing him all around so he (we) could pick out just the right plants. It really is a nice garden center with lots and lots of rows of plants and flowers. Lots and lots--- How do you push a wheelchair and carry plants at the same time?? You get a cart, put it in front of the wheelchair and let David try to steer it with one hand. Good times. Just to make it more delightful, the sun came out, after a day of rain, and the center became a steam bath. Now--I am trying to be helpful and supportive. The good wife. But, damn, I'm old and fat and it's hot and I'm sweating and still have to load and unload the plants, potting soil and wheelchair.

Thank goodness for a daughter who likes getting her hands in dirt. Cami came over and, with David's supervision, got all those suckers planted.

As for me--I do love looking at them!

Where In The World Is Todd

Behold a sunrise--not a sunset. I'm so used to beautiful sunsets on the Mississippi, the Great Salt Lake, the Pacific Ocean. So when I saw this, I had to remember that this was the Atlantic Ocean and was, indeed, a sunrise. Beautiful-no?

Todd traveled to Wrightsville Beach, NC for a few days last week for a bachelor party. They all stayed in a lovely house on the beach. Did some body surfing, dining and partying.

We are fortunate to enjoy Todd's travels vicariously and he is faithful about calling and sending pictures.

Here's what's wierd for us. David was raised in NC and his mother lived in Wrightsville Beach for a time. David vacationed there. We went there to visit his mother. Now Todd has returned to NC and is visiting all the places David knew growing up. So it is with some wistfullness that he is able to talk to Todd about the piers, restaurants and beaches he remembers. So, thanks Todd. Your wonderlust is a pleasure for us to share.

One more--just because it's so fine. How anyone could look at something like this and deny the presence of God in the universe is beyond my understanding.

Final Solution for Yeah, Whatever

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people I had to kill because they pissed me off!

Yeah, Whatever

Been a little cranky for a couple of days. So-I say to myself,"self, why don't you try writing something nice on the blog?" Look--a pretty picture! But, at the present, I can find no nice thoughts in my peevish mind.
Then, I get a nice email about stress. "Ah ha", says I, this should do the trick. This one is about how your stress, your burden is like a glass of water. It's not heavy, but, if you try to hold it in the same position for a long time it will make your arm hurt. The point was-- that if we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won't be able to carry on. 'As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When you're refreshed, you can carry on with the burden.'
Well, that's great if your only holding one glass of water. It didn't say anything about juggling glasses of water!
So--still grumpy.
There's an old saying around here that says, "if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy". This mama ain't happy today. It would be a shame if, by my attitude, I affected someone else's happiness, so--lookie what I found.


A little happy dance in my head now. Better.

That Old Feeling

What happened to these kids?

I've been around for a while now. It makes me tired to think about, but I'm old enough to remember:

• riding bikes without a helmet.
• our first TV
• playing outside all day and not coming home 'til mom hollered
• roller skate keys
• walking to school --alone without adult supervision
• penny candy
• full service gas stations
• going the long way through Wyoming to Bear Lake because Logan Canyon was too hard a climb for the car pulling the boat
• ushers at movies
• recess, jungle bars on asphalt
• The Mouseketeers (original version), Howdy Doody, The Lone Ranger
• our first stereo--first record-Around the World in Eighty Days soundtrack
• hopscotch, jacks, marbles, jump rope-for fun, not exercise
• nylon stockings and garter belts (and not to be sexy-just to hold those suckers up)
• the day Kennedy was shot
• the first man on the moon
• eight track tapes (blushing-I actually had an eight track tape player--I'm so ashamed)
• leisure suits (again-ashamed)
• cars without seat belts
• but--no air conditioning, dishwashers, life saving pharmaceuticals

This photo looks a little off kilter. How appropriate!

Saw a cartoon which said "My body ain't what it used to be. Even when I'm naked, I want to slip into something more comfortable" Laugh now young'uns. It'll be your turn soon enough.

Thanks to Jolene for hanging on to these.

God Kissed

Do you remember the Hobbits in the movie (and book) 'Lord of the Rings'? They talked about first breakfast, second breakfast, first lunch, second lunch and so on. In our house we now refer to my sleeping habits in similar terms. I have first sleep--the sleep I have until I wake after 2-3 hours; then comes second sleep, which is interrupted early morning by the girl bringing the anesthesia charts for the day. If I'm lucky I get third sleep after that. (No third sleep, no happy.)

So--one night, in between sleeps, I got to thinking about something I had read about that ordinary woman with the extraordinary voice (a couple of posts ago). The author referred to her as "God-Kissed"--meaning, of course, her gift.

Here's what she wrote:

We each have within us something of much greater value than perfect bodies and unlined skin: the divine spark, the God-kiss, that lives in each and every one of us - no exceptions. We are fascinated with Susan Boyle, because she reveals to us the world of possibilities we too often leave unexplored, within ourselves. We dare to think…has God kissed me, too?

So I wondered, why did we look at that woman and think, that's not the way it's supposed to go. Ordinary people who look ordinary and live ordinary lives are not supposed to be great. And it hits us, whoa --what if there is greatness in me--in all of us?

That's an almost subversive thought in a world where superficial beauty is so admired. There might be greatness in each of us that goes unappreciated and undiscovered, because, what is great in us is not valued by the people who define such things.

Wait, stick with me here. I think about our family and friends--my own children. Earlier, I mentioned Gammy's lovely voice. But, I think she must have been showered with "God-kisses" because she had so many other gifts. And what about the ones who will help whenever asked, the creative ones, the get 'er done, dynamic ones. Those steady folks who get up every morning and just do whatever is required of them. Think about Charlie in his poor twisted body. Just his being here is a sort of greatness. They'll never be famous, and wouldn't care to be. These are the great ones who will never be known outside their family and friends.

Here's what I finally concluded.
The way we came to see this ordinary woman must be the way Heavenly Father sees us: worthwhile, special, talented, unique--beautiful. He sees the real person, and understands the value of each individual’s gifts: rich or poor, young or old, ill or well, lucky or unlucky in life. He knows us. And loves us…Everybody is somebody!

Ha! Now maybe I can get some sleep-