Frosty November morning

This is our first frosty morning. I took a little walk,

and I know it's jiggly, but so am I.

Cheers

Morning autumn colour





Chickadees at teh guys' feeder

Visited our sons for a few days, who live a little over 200 miles from us.

I had a really wonderful time. I love my kids so much.

Chickadees at their bird feeder.

::

Oldfool

It's hard to type through tears.

I didn't know you very long, Richard,

but I'm glad I got to meet you here in blogland.

I'm honored that you let me live amongst your other friends

in the box under the table.

You inspired me, you made me laugh, you made me think.

You taught me some important things about living.

I know that SWMBO is devastated.

I am bawling like a baby at your passing.

You left too soon, Oldfool. Too soon.

You will be missed, so very much.

::

If wishing could make it so

I don't suppose there's much chance that

one of my biggest wishes

will come to pass any time soon.

That wish is that all organised religion

--- whether it is organised for 2 people or 2 billion people ---

yes, ALL organised religion should be banned from the planet.

This planet.

This amazing planet that is Home.

This amazing planet that could be so much more peaceful without organised religion.

Believe what you want.

Keep it to yourself, in your own head.

I guess that won't be happening in my lifetime, eh?

Bollocks.

::

No-velle Cuisine

When I was shopping online for spices today

at 'The Spice House' website,

I saw this wonderful quote from Julia Child

on the bottom of one of the pages.

She's obviously commenting on 'nouvelle cuisine'.

"So beautifully arranged on the plate - you know someone's fingers have been all over it."

Brilliant.

I made this hash and soft eggs breakfast for Wes and I this morning.

I guarantee nobody's fingers were all over that!

For 36 years, 'nouvelle cuisine' has gotten nowhere near any of our kitchens!

Cheers

::

Atom and Evil

This song has been around since right after World War 2,

but I heard it for the first time today.

'Atom and Evil'

by Golden Gate Quartet, 1946.

The song is very singable, and the message...?

The message is still a warning to humans everywhere.

Boom - ba-ba - boom!

Fantastic.

::

A beginning

This was September 1975.

Newlyweds Wes and Eileen.

Wes and I were both 22.

Wes is the talk drink of water with red hair on the left.

Behind him is my older brother George.

Then me.

Then my Dad, Burton and my Mom, Eunice.

The picture was taken at my Grandma Otillie's house

in Clintonville, WI.

Seems like a long time ago, but you all know how fast life goes by.

My family are all gone now.

But we gained Oli and Dave,

and that's a very good thing. :)

Life, eh?

Cheers,

:: me ::

A very pretty morning

I opened the window blinds, saw the clouds reflecting in the water

and knew I had to take a picture.
And a video.

So pretty.
6.45am
A bluejay was scolding.

There was a chipmunk chipping somewhere to my right.

Perfect.

Cheers :)

Eek. This is the first video I've uploaded to my YouTube.

::

Fall fashion

I know it isn't nice to laugh at other people's misfortunes,

but I'm not always nice,

and this one makes me laugh out loud every time I see it.

Cheers :)

Running hot and cold

Been debating with myself whether to keep going here.

I don't have too much of a life these days, so I don't have much to say.

I've been feeling kind of down. Can you tell? I can. Sorry.

Any road, as they say.

These two photos were taken by my Wes today, out in 105 degrees.

They show the little man-made lake, the lower of two, at

the apartment complex where we live.

By the way, it got up to 108 today, breaking a Little Rock record.

Ho hum. It has been so hot so much this year,

that even something as unnatural as that doesn't seem to faze anymore.

I wanted to have a few pictures to send to the kids to let them see

how the 2012 drought is affecting our neck of the woods.

This little lake is not big or deep, but it is host to some

local turtles and a few small fish and frogs,

and some 'decorative' ducks

which apartment complexes in this state seem to love to stock.

The pictures show where the shoreline should be at normal times,

and just how much the drought has affected this small eco-system.

The water level is down well over 3 feet, and

I wonder about how concentrated and mucky the lake must be

and how that is affecting all those little creatures who call it home.

The little 'x' is where our little upper floor apartment is.

Yes, compared to a lot of people, I guess we live like kings.

But it isn't posh.

The lake just makes it look that way. :/

You can see that it has been dry for so long that plants

have been able to grow where the water is no more.

Here's the other photo, showing more of the same.

The green line I added to the bottom right shows

where the normal shoreline is. It drops down a foot at that point,

and then you can see how far the lake has dropped.

That is the lowest we have seen in the seven years we have lived here.

So, thanks to Wes for this bit of photo documentation.

I hope things are doing well in your neck of the woods,

wherever that may be.

Cyber waves to a wise blogland friend, Oldfool, should he see this.

He was born and bred in Little Rock, and

I should imagine he can cope with this beastly heat

a mite better than this old girl from Milwaukee.

::

Gravity works

I dropped something heavy

on my left thumb

and

on the big and second toes of my right foot.

No pictures, because my digits

are not photogenic.

Ouch, ouch and ouch.

A new creed

I gave up religion a few years ago.

Long, long story.

Also, I like American Chinese food.

And I like our little neighborhood take away,

and the people who own it.

The fortune cookies that they randomly

throw in with your order

aren't usually fortunes. They're more like

good thoughts. And some of them

might even improve your mind

and your life, if you let them.

This one, which I got the other day,

I give 20 stars out of 10.

It's that good.

So good in fact, that I'd like to

adopt it as a creed.

Something to try to live by.

It aligns with my liberal sense that

my time here is not just about me.

For me, it's about 'us'.

Community.

A lot of people don't see it that way.

I tried to take an artsy kind of photo

of this fortune cookie.

Sounds like a good creed to me.

Morning ain't broken

Just some pictures of our pretty morning here,

the small man-made lake,
taken from the little balcony of our apartment.

Cheers

It's a wonder

I love this photo. Yes, even as blurry as it is.

Taken with a phone camera, not that it matters, as it would have

come out blurry no matter which camera I was using.

I cannot hold still.

Anyway, we were trying out a pizza place during a short vacation

spent in Hot Springs with the guys, back in May 2009.

Rod's Pizza Cellar, if it matters.

They make awesome meatballs.

Blurry and all, this photo tickles me pink.

It makes me feel extremely and unashamedly proud.

Those two guys are the best things I've done in my life.

I have learned so much from them, far more than they have learned from me.

When they were little, I learned that being a parent

doesn't guarantee you will always treat another human being

with the dignity they deserve.

I have learned what many of my own personal flaws are.

Perhaps those were the most poignant and painful

things to learn.

But look at those faces!

I know you won't see them as I do, which is okay,

since it's just a photo of a couple of guys in a pizza parlor.

It all happened so slowly, them growing into men.

I've lost a lot of the memories that were supposedly

stored in my brain over the last thirty-four years.

Damn biology.

But I retain the gist of their lives, if not all the details.

Frankly, it's a wonder that they turned out so well.

Which is mostly down to them.

Of that I'm very sure.

Well done, men.

It is my privilege to know them.

Being their mother is an added bonus.

So on this Mother's Day, 2012,

"Happy Mother's Day to all mothers and their kids."

Happy Mother's Day.. to me.

:)

Frustrations of a computer 'user'

I don't know. Maybe its just me and my computer.

I use Internet Explorer.

I'm not a computer techy kind of person.

Oliver tried to teach me how to do HTML a few years ago.

I mostly failed.



Why is it that when I try to close some webpages

*before* they have loaded completely..

that webpage starts reopening itself up in multiple tabs!?

Loading.. loading.. loading.. loading!

I had one open up about ten tabs one day!

I couldn't Ctrl-Alt-Del fast enough!

I know, you can click that red X to stop a page.

But.. that doesn't always work!

So what is up with *that*?!?

I'm not a stalker! I don't open up multiple pages on purpose!

Grrrr. Poo.

.

(Not yet the) End of the Line

I've come sort of late to a lot of good music.

I found out about the Wilburys just last year.

This song and their video put my head in a good place.

Glad these dudes came together.

<>

Cheers

Never a dull moment

So...

Wes took me to the doctor's office as soon as we

got back to Little Rock.

Didn't get to see our regular doctor, but was seen

by one of his associates.

A short exam and he says he thinks my rash and puffy edema

are caused by poison ivy.

Well, that's a mystery in itself, as I have no idea

how I could have come into contact with it.

I was given a corticosteroid injection and a prescription

for a ten day course of prednisone, and was told

that I can take over the counter anti-histamines.

While we were still visiting with Oliver and David,

David had the sweet and brilliant idea to

get me a couple of gel masks that you can cool in the freezer.

It really did help to relieve the burning and itching.

Thank you, David!

He took this picture of me using the mask yesterday morning.

Life.

Never a dull moment.

One day at a time

Sometimes in life, you just kind of figure out

that you gotta go with the flow.

I mean, who knows what tomorrow will bring? Nobody.

Sometimes life is swell. It's a veritable picnic.

Blue skies, sunshine, the scent of honeysuckle on the vine, a nice fruit salad.



Sometimes life isn't swell. Ants carried off the picnic.

Sometimes life sucks.

Sometimes you couldn't make yourself smile

because of how sucky life is at that particular moment.

Sometimes you have to make yourself smile

because you know.. you just KNOW..

that life COULD be worse,

and many times it certainly has been.

Today is one of those days when I am making myself smile.

Because I know it could be worse, and has been.

Today isn't one of those sunshiney picnic days.

Today is kind of sucky.

But still I want to smile, because I need to.

Today I am plagued by one of my Mystery Ailments.

Not the one that came upon me suddenly last December.

That Mystery Ailment is still with me, albeit in

a less sucky way than it was.

I will take my Hip-hoorays wherever I can.

But the last few days, a Mystery Ailment which I have had

about three or four times previously,

has again decided to mess with me, and it has

messed with me while we are visiting with Oliver and David.

And that AIN'T COOL.

I know I don't have to put up the picture which I'm going to put here.

It certainly isn't pretty, not that I ever was pretty,

but even for me.. "Wow!" this is nowhere near pretty.

But, it's me.

At least once every year or so, this Mystery Ailment decides to flare up.

In previous iterations it cleared up after a few days.

Fingers crossed.

I'm going to print out this picture and take it to

our doctor and say,

"What in the hell IS THIS?!?"

There's probably a 50/50 chance that he'll know.

Sometimes you have to make yourself smile.

You just have to.

:)

A narrow life abroad

Wes and I shared the dream of living in England,

which Wes made come true back in 2000.

He secured a work permit and his first job in London.

We were there for four years, living first in Aylesbury

and then in Bletchley, both in Buckinghamshire.

We came back to the US in 2004.

It was damned hard to leave,

but that's life.

"You can't always get what you want," intones Mick.

Anyway.. a few times whilst we were there,

we watched narrow boats on the canals.

It looked like such a wonderful way to live.

I probably have an overly romantic notion of it,

as I'm sure it is quite a lot of hard work.

But, oh, I think I would enjoy that life if I

were physically fit and able.

There are lots of videos of narrow boating at YouTube.

Here are two that grabbed my attention this morning.

Sounds like Mick has a great life philosophy.

His temperament matches my own.

I hope his health is improving these days.

<>

And this video of a steam powered narrow boater..

well, let's just say, this thrills me.

<>

You can't always get what you want,

but ah, well.. it doesn't hurt to dream.

Cheers