When you are over the hill, you pick up speed!

Well, this is one of my more recent snap shots.  I mean this is a more recent snap shot that some one else took of me.  I even look blurry.  Age is not wearing well on me.  And it is happening so fast that I am about ready to jump out of the way of this speeding train.  By the way, my shirt says "Jesus is coming!!!  Quick   Look busy!"  Well actually my shirt just hangs there and does not say anything.  I embroidered that on there as a message to those who have the idle hands in the day to day life we are forced to live.

At one point in time I was into decorating the "Necessary Room"  with wise sayings.  The first to hit the wall was one that had a sheep and said, "Ewe's not fat!  Ewe's Fluffy!"  That was followed closely by "Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most!"  I soon tired of that one and replaced it with "Either lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way!"  These little jewels were all made in counted cross stitch that I toiled long and hard over.

Well, now it is many years later and the old eyesight is matching the picture there and the counted cross stitch is a thing of the past.  I used to crochet with the smallest hook and use thread that was like a spider web and make beautiful doilies to put all over the house.  The thread I use is now rug yarn and the doilies have been replaced by a store bought kitchen towel draped through one of the handles of the stove.  I always tilled my own garden, but now I am thinking of having some one come over and do that for me.  Actually I am looking to sell the tiller and do the container gardening thing where I do not actually have to bend over.

When we moved here in 1983 it took me about 35 minutes to mow and trim the yard.  Thank God we had a hot, dry summer last year and the grass refused to grow!  The chore is now up to over an hour and that is not counting the 3 breaks I need to take to rehydrate and dry the sweat that now runs off my head in rivulets!  I thought about hiring this out to my grandson, but when I told him I would pay $20 for the work and he looked at me with disdain, I just wanted to rip his head off his body!  Proving that not only does either one of us know the value of a dollar, but also that my sense of humor is definitely down the crapper.

For the first 55 years of my life I did not need an air conditioner in the summer and a wood stove was fine in the winter.  Shoveling snow was just something I did when it fell on my side walk.  At some point in time I must have blown my thermostat, because now an air conditioner is a must and I ain't chopping that damn wood, no way.  Right before Christmas we had to really big snows and I managed to make it in or out, but this past week when I looked out in the morning and saw that crap I picked up the phone and called the step daughter.  "Was Michael on his way over or shall I go ahead and shovel this stuff myself?'  Dead silence.  We both knew the answer to that one!  And my thoughts on this were almost profound!

Why is youth always wasted on the young?  When we were kids growing up at home and it snowed, we never shoveled.  No one shoveled.  The tallest one went out first and "broke a path"  to wherever we needed to go.  Usually the first path was to the out house.  And luckily that path led past the wood pile so eliminated the need for the second path!  (My momma didn't raise no fools!)  Hopefully someone had chopped and stacked some wood on the back porch before the "storm hit" so there would be dry wood for the necessary parts of life like cooking.  We did have a propane cook stove, but we only used that on Sunday and not always then. 

Winters were hard back then.  The stove would inevitably burn out in the night so we had to rely on the pile of quilts on our beds for survival.  That and shared body heat.  Us kids slept in a pile on two beds.  Now each little angel needs their own room.  And a furnace to keep them the same temperature all night and day.  Course we did not know any better.  That was how the world turned back then.  So let me get to the point and I am sure there must be one.

I do not remember ever doing any manual labor growing up at home.  We must have because I am pretty sure there were dishes to be washed, meals to be cooked, floors to be swept and mopped, laundry to be done, chickens to be fed.  It is just that I do not remember ever doing any of that stuff back when I was young and strong and could have done it very easily.  Back when I could have made a difference in my mother's life I do not remember doing anything.  Youth is wasted on the young, like I just said.

I am drifting from my original goal because thinking back to my younger days always makes me nostalgic, so I am going to wind this up, but I will be back very soon and I am going into the years in Nickerson, Kansas in much greater detail.  For now I just want to tell you to seize the day, which in French is "Carpe diem!"  or something like that.  I now refer back to my final piece of needlework.

When you are over the hill, you pick up speed.

(And the nearer you get to the bottom, it becomes a very slippery slope!)

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I am awaiting the words of a groundhog?

Now this sounds like something an intelligent woman would do, doesn't it?  Let me see, if he sees his shadow he will run back into his hole and I will know that there will be 6 more weeks of winter.  Correct?  I got news for all of you, there will be six more weeks of winter whether or not some burrowing animal in Pennysylvania sees his shadow or not.  I live in Colorado and I know when it is winter here.  Winter does not even start till about now.    Right now it is 23 degrees and that is pretty wintery to me. 
Oh, I see by the news scroll that feeds across the top of the screen that he did see his shadow so there will be six more weeks of winter.  Glad he clarified that for me.  Know what would really impress me?  If he learned how to spell Punxsuatawney.  I was not even close, but the spell checker was.  Amazing isn't it?
Now there are signs the "old wifes" can read that will tell you all kinds of things if you know an old wife any where.  Like if the Caterpillar has lots of hair and it is very long, it is going to be a very cold winter. And if they build thier cocoon high when cocoon time is here, it will be a very wet season.  Oh, and there was that one that if the inch worm got on your foot and walked across it, you were going to get a new pair of shoes.  Course we never knew just when those shoes would show up, but they usually did at some point in time and it was all thanks to that worm.
If you spill salt you have to immediately grab a pinch of it and throw it across your left shoulder or you would have bad luck.  Oh and better see who was standing behind you or you  might have worse luck!  A broken mirror was sure to bring you 7 years of bad luck.  Bad luck usually started about the time your mom saw the broken mirror.  Never walk under a ladder cause that was bad luck.  And a black cat crossed your path you better change your course and damn quick!  So remember that inch worms are good luck and black cats are not. 
What I would like to know is who is going to teach this to the next generation?  I have forgotten most of the stuff and the generations coming up never listened so the knowledge is just gone.  I am sure some where out there that some one has written all this down and a ground hog in Pennsylvania is not the only guage of winter we have, but it is fun to watch. 
And hopefully on February 21, I will be able to give you a lesson on Shrove Tuesday and the great Pancake Day Race.  Going to be a great year so stick with me!

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Pick ME! Pick ME!

I would dearly love to blame this on some one else,  but I feel that in all honesty I must take full credit for this.  Granted I do have a lot on my mind here the past few days, but I would be remiss if I let this one go by unnoticed.  You will need all the facts.

I went to the doctor and had blood work done.  When it got back nursie dear (and you know who you are, don't you, Deb?) called to give me the  news that every thing is through the roof except my bank account.  Now granted, I was about to get around to starting to exercise pretty soon, but she informed me that I was way to late for that.  And she was most firm about it and now I know why they call her "Sarge".    So I commiserated with my buddy Tim and he gave me a tongue lashing.  "You have the treadmill all set up down stairs for crying out loud!  Just get on it and quit saying you do not have time!  Just do it!"

Well, the man is right.  So after he left I got to thinking.  I am good at multi tasking and this might work.  I had 3 seed catchers that just needed elastic in them and they would be ready to go.  So I clipped a bodkin on each end of the elastic and started it through the little opening.  That was going well and so I reached up and turned on the tread mill.  You know that safety device that hooks on your belt and if you fall it will turn the machine off?  Yeah, that inconveniently place little do hickey.  The seed catcher kept getting wrapped around that and shutting the tread mill down.  So I unhooked it from my waist and wrapped it around itself.  Then we started again, 

Well all was going real well at the slowest speed so I kicked it up a notch.  And I finished both sides of the first seed catcher.  Things were going so good I actually thought about calling Tim's wife and telling her how good I was doing at this multi tasking thing, but I decided to just finish the seed catchers first.  So I started number 2.  Then I kicked it up another notch.  I had been at this little job about 9 minutes when I dropped the bodkin.  Now what do we do when we drop something?  We pick it up.  Natural instinct dictates that.  Well, let me just tell you when I realized that was the wrong thing to do. 

It occured to me about the time my right leg hit the Oleandar tree and my left leg was sticking out of the Fig tree and my whole backside was being sanded by the sure grip coating on the treadmill which was now spinning freely at about 30 miles per hour.  That was also about the time I noticed my safety cord dangling harmlessly behind the speedometer.  As I drug my poor broken little body across the floor to jerk that loose I thanked my God in heaven and all his angels that I was alone and not being videotaped.

So here I am the next day.  I am not real sure that right leg isn't broken and it is a very funny color.  The left one is sore, but still intact.  My backside resembles chicken skin after it has been barbequed.  Some where in the melee I whacked my head on something and I am not sure I don't have a severe concussion, but for sure there is something loose up there.

So, the words of wisdom for today are this:  Leave that damn safety thing on your belt, do not try to multi task and for crying out loud if you drop something, just leave it alone.  I must confess that I could not get to sleep last night and I am not sure whether it was because of the bone poking through my skin or because I was laughing so hard at the sight that must have been!


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I miss you!

R.I.P

KENNETH ARNOLD MERCER

12/9/1931

1/30/2003

If love could have saved you, you would never have died.

Well, life suddenly makes no sense at all!

Got my insurance bill the other day and it rather ticked me off.  I carry full coverage, medical, towing, and all the good stuff.  The one I resent is the premium I pay for "Uninsured Motorist".  Excuse me.  What did I miss here?  Isn't there a law on the books that says I have to have car insurance to drive in Colorado?  I have to show my proof of insurance when I get a tag for my vehicle.  Was this a special law that was written for me alone? 
So I think the way this works is if I crash into someone,you can rest assured it will not be my fault because I am the most defensive driver in the whole world.  So if this happened in a perfect world my insurance would pay for his car and his would pay for mine, sort of a way to say, "Hey guys, accidents happen."  So if he did not have insurance, it would be fair if my insurance paid for my car.  This is in a perfect world.
But here I am with insurance on my car for me and an "Uninsured Motorist".   So I am assuming that the "Uninsured Motorist" premium I pay will kick in and pay to fix my car.  So, does my insurance now pay to fix his car?  I certainly hope not.  So if it does not, and it sure as hell better not, what does my insurance do?  Is this "Uninsured Motorist" something I pay just as a way of hedging a bet that I am the only one on the road out there with insurance?
Now, I had to have proof of insurance to get my tag. So how did he get his?  The state keeps better records than that.  If I forget to take my card when I renew my tag and I quite by accident get a kind clerk at the tag place, they will look on the computer and see that my insurance is indeed paid.  So can't they know when Joe Blow let his policy lapse and declare his tag illegal?
You know, they talk about inequality in taxes and all especially during the election, but is this fair?  I understand that I need insurance, but why do I need to buy insurance against the person who does not obey the law?  And if he should get a ticket for no insurance, who gets the money?  I paid the premium, but the judical system gets the money!  Fair play?  I think not.

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Tracey has peeked my interest.

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http://alongthemalecon.blogspot.com/

You got to read that blog today.  Now before you go, I must tell you there is a full frontal nude painting, so cover the kids eyes. 

Just thought this was a welcome diversion and I am with Tracey wondering just what this is all about.  I will probably never feel the same about orange slices again.

When is the news not the news?

Sorry, just got to vent here a minute.  I do not get the newspaper.  Why, you ask?  Because first of all there is very little content worth reading in it.  Then there is the price which is completely out of reason.  But I stopped after the last big snow storm.  See, I live on a back acre and that means I have a very long walk up to the paper box.  I like to read it first thing in the morning so that would mean I would need to make the walk in the dark in my jammies.  That might be alright, but I worry a lot about the dogs that  people in the county let out at night and hope they be good.  Rabid dogs, marauding bears and stuff like that make the walk something that is not going to happen.  And I tried the old trick of getting Monday morning's paper out of the box Monday afternoon and laying it on the front porch and then being so happy to see it there, grabbing it and my coffee and opening it at the table to read.
I would first read the date.  Hmmm, Monday.  Glance at the calendar and I have nothing planned.  Now you should know that getting old is an astounding process in that you can fool yourself real easy.  So in order to make a Tuesday morning appointment, I had to write it on the calendar on Monday.  Course then when someone told me it was Tuesday and I remembered tricking myself with the paper thing, they thought I was insane.  So I gave that up.
Back to the paper.  Remember right before Christmas we had back to back snow storms?  Well, that long driveway sure came in as something I was not going to travel down.  So when I went to get the paper, I found it thrown on top of a snow drift.  Same thing the next day.  The third day came the second snow and so the paper was delivered to the drift again only now it was a little further down the road.  Well, finally the road by the paper box was cleared, but the delivery boy still continued to deliver it to the ditch.  Then the street under the ditch.  So, I just gave up.
Deciding to watch the news on television I learned another lesson; all 4 channels have a different concept of news.  Some are Liberal, some are conservative, some favor Colorado Springs,  some favor Pueblo, and one in particular favors God.  So let me do the online thing.  I can now know what one of the actresses wore on the runway back in 2001.  And did you know Dolly had a boob job?  And there are some who are actually up on the news, but a couple give new meaning to the word "news".  The one scrolling across the top of the screen now is very tiny.  If I tilt my head just right and get it in the center line on my trifocals, I am good to go.
But here is the biggest news flash of all...As I get older I am realizing that my sources of news really do not matter.  I don't care how much skin Demi showed ten years ago.  I can not do anything about the Middle East situation and that smiling little chickadee on the television is not too worried about it either.  If someone dies, surely some one will tell me in time that I can attend the service.  I put an ad in the classifieds and got one call so I am sure that $37.95 was well invested.  The social page just shows me there were a lot of parties that I was not invited to.  The Tuesday morning sale papers for the grocery stores are wasted on me cause I have Legree's right up the road a piece. 
That leaves the editor's page and opinions of the readers and dear Kenny taught me that opinions are just like the end of my digestive tract, everyone has one.  So rather than read the news, I may decide one of these days to just go out and make it! 
All this because the paper man chose not to drive up my drive way and leave the paper in my yard.  After all I was only a customer for 29 years, but in this day and age loyalty means jack!