Happy Anniversary to me!

 40 years ago it was 15 degrees below zero.  I had been living in sin with Kenny Mercer for 1 year.  When we had been dating for a few weeks we decided we would get married.  I told him of my past marriages and that if we could live together for one year without me leaving I would marry him.  So began a life of sin!

That year went by very well with only a few bumps in the road.  We began a trucking business in and life was good.  On December 23, 1983 Kenny and Gene Baugh were putting a drive line in one of the old tandems.  It was 15 degrees below zero!  They went to Pueblo Brake and Clutch to pick the drive line up that had been repaired.  PB&C was closed!  They came home and Gene left.  Over a cup of coffee and a sandwich, Kenny looked at me and said, "Well, it has been a year.  Let's just go get this shittin' mess over with!"  So we did!

We picked up a license and found a retired minister in an assisted living place in Canon City.  He mumbled a few words, had his bed bound wife in the next room sign on the dotted line.  He stepped into the hall and found a befuddled old man to sign on the other line and we left the building as man and wife!  A quick stop at the donut shop for a cup of coffee and a chocolate doughnut and then home to Pueblo.  

Upon our arrival, we found a cheap bottle of wine in the middle of the table.  Apparently Gene had known what the plan was.  The next time Gene showed up we offered to share the wine with him in a celebratory drink.  He declined, saying "If I knew I was going to have to help drink it I would have gotten some good stuff!"

And so began my life as Mrs. Kenneth Mercer, a role I enjoyed until his death in 2003.  We fished, traveled, worked, learned to square dance, played cards, raised 2 of my kids and adopted a grandson.  He retired and I continued to work with my AIDS patients.  He baked cinnamon rolls and made carmel corn.  We joined a church and life was good.  

Do I miss him?  There is not a day that goes by that I do not see those twinkling, beautiful blue eyes.  He is the person who made me realize that I am a worthwhile human being and I should never sell myself short. I have learned to live alone.  He had always said that I should not give up when he was gone.  Life does not end for one just because it ends for the other.   I do date occasionally, but it never ends well. 

He was honest.  He was patient.  He was faithful.  He had an incredible sense of humor.  Trustworthy.  He believed in me.  

I guess mother said it all when she said "When you lose a husband, he immediately takes on sainthood.  Even if he is completely worthless, you will remember only the good in him."

Momma was right!  Momma was always right!

                                                            RIP Kenneth A Mercer  

                                                                    1931-2003

I wish I was smart enough to read it myself.

The television is full of the Mueller report that has just been released!  I have 4 people on channel 11 explaining to me what the report says.  See, I am not smart enough to read something and know what it says, so they have to tell me.  Hmm.  Seems my late husband had a saying that fits the cause here.  "Opinions are just like assholes!  Every body has one and most of them stink."  Just saying that this is the time of morning when Millionaire comes on for my perusal enjoyment.  I love that game along with Jeopardy and any other trivia game that comes on my television set.

I do not know if the American people have yet figured out that when my game shows are interrupted for a basketball game, a special bulletin from Washington, it thrills me almost as much as when the "breaking weather"  preempts what I am watching so I can stare for 3 hours at the weather map and watch a tiny cloud on the horizon that might or might not come to fruition as a snowflake on the road between Colorado Springs and Denver.  The broadcaster must warn motorists of the hazards if this actually happens.  Not once, not twice, but over and over and over again.  These people out there driving are not smart enough to check the weather before they leave one job to go to another.  Now how many of these motorists have an actual television set in the car and are actually watching that little cloud is beyond my comprehension.  While I am comfy in my chair waiting for a Jeopardy! rerun that is not going to happen the world in the television weather room is a bustle of a man in a suit or a lady in a little blue dress walking back and forth across in front of the camera smiling.

Now I have got to go on record here as saying, my life is pretty much boring or this would not bother me.  I have lived many years on this earth and seen about all there is to see.  I can actually remember back  when Winter weather was predicted by the length of the hairs on the caterpillar and rainfall was predicted by how high up the mud dauber built her nest.  Leaves folded inward if the weather was going to be dry.  And President Franklin Roosevelt had little fireside chats with us on the radio so we knew what was going on with our government.  And when the war ended it took him 3 words to tell us, "The War is over."  And we knew the war was over.  Three means of communications were "Telephone, Telegraph and Tell a friend."

Well, the crisis with the Mueller report must be over for the time being because I hear the sounds of "The Price is Right" on the downstairs television.  Brandi from the Travel Agency just called me so I could hang up on her.  Soon someone else will call to send me my new credit card!  And then there is that trip I can go on if I hurry.  But I have other plans for today.

I am going to crawl in my little car here pretty quick and go meet a couple lady friends at the Red Lobster.  Yummers!  Then I am going to come home and see if I can possibly load a couple television sets in the back of my car and take them to the recycle place and pay them $60 to take them.  Maybe I will get something done down stairs in that one bedroom since I have someone coming to stay with me for a while in May.  Or maybe not.

The nice part of being an old woman living alone is I do not actually have to do anything at all.  Oh, watch Jeopardy! at 3:00 and again at 6:30.  And then there is my 8:00 bedtime.  Seems I am sleeping a lot more lately, but that is alright, because I have very nice dreams!

If you see me on the 10 most wanted list, don't be surprised.

It seems if I get out of bed in the morning, it is invariably on the wrong side.  Or is it?  Could it be that all the news stations are geared to everyone except me and I feel that maybe I have outlived my usefulness?  I love the news.  I must confess I tend to watch one of the more liberal stations, but to each his own.  For the most part the news is geared for some one way younger than me.  The white headed old farts that I grew up watching and trusting are no longer with us and have been replaced by some young stud or studdette who stands in the middle of the empty stage clutching his/her tablet, which they never bother to look at.  Apparently the message here is that they have one and I do not so ha! ha!

They think the fact that Kim Kardashian went to visit trump is big news, but sadly I do not give a shit.  Wrecks, wars, catching a murderer, the scam going on that affects me is way more important to me than the fact that some young chickadee appeared on the red carpet in a see through dress immediately followed by the news that some lecherous old man looked at her and is now being charged with inappropriate sexual comments.  But I am not going there and it is really not the news that ticks me off, but rather the weather.

I watch Jeopardy! every afternoon at 3:00 and again at 6:30 PM and that is when weather happens.  I am treated to a little gal in her pretty little dress walking back and forth across a bare stage and pointing at a little red cloud with blue edges.  Sometimes it is even in my neck of the woods.  Now I heard her the first time.  And then again 2 minutes later and again when I thought I might catch a glimpse of final Jeopardy!  The bulletins are second only to her giving the regular weather when we are not in danger of blowing away.  This is the time she tells me the "out the door temperature" and what I should wear for that.  This is followed by my "drive home" time.  Apparently this is not my weather station because I do not do the "Out the door nor the drive home" times she is talking about.  My times are crawl out of bed time, Metamucil time, and Late night with David Letterman.

I used to be able to turn on the weather and they showed me a very clear picture of the jet stream and high and low fronts and I could pretty much figure it out, but now I have none of those things.  Just the little woman walking back and forth with her tablet pointing at things that mean absolutely nothing to me and telling me the times this will happen in terms that imply I must work a 9-5 job or I really do not need to know what the weather is doing.  So I have found me a weather site that gives me the jet stream, high pressure and low pressure and throws in a temperature or kind of a guess at it and does not force me to go "out the door" or commute back home from God only knows where.  Like right now, I should be slowly creeping along on the interstate, but I am setting at the computer contemplating whether I should puree my food tonight or put in the dentures and live dangerously.

Thus ends my little rant for today.  Hopefully I will be able to watch Jeopardy! tonight.