Idle Thoughts and Other Comments
Random ramblings from a curmudgeon spanning two millenia.
We have a saying here on the compound, it usually goes something like “I’m gonna need more popcorn.” It implies that there is something entertaining going on and a person is planning on just sitting and watching the event, eating snacks. Yesterday daughter-of-Snowball moved out and I ran out of popcorn. […]
The spring planting on the compound is pretty much done. We were lucky to have a late spring this year so we had a little extra time. There was an unfortunate hail storm one night a couple of weeks ago which did some natural pruning to the hostas and volunteer bleeding hearts. They seem to be coming back with the help of a week of sunny, cool days. […]
The first and most used of the Let’s-Get-The-Family-Together holidays is over. In our case it was fairly painless as most of the family has moved to warmer climates. And they filled me with envy when I looked out the window and saw eight inches of ‘White Christmas’ covering everything Christmas Eve. But we still have enough family nearby to easily fill a living room.
I never complain too loudly about any family get-together because the house does get totally cleaned. I’ve never really understood the reason for house cleaning solely as part of a special occasion. It’s not like anyone would have a problem with our day-to-day lifestyle during a visit. We don’t dress up especially to visit family so I guess we dress up the house instead.
And another thing the bugs me about holidays is why it seems we need to use them as a reason to go see family. During the visit you can count on someone saying, “It’s been too long.” or “My how you’ve grown.” Jeez, people you only live five or ten miles away. It’s not like any one still has to hitch up the horses to the sleigh to get over here. Make a tradition of breaking tradition and visit on a regular basis.
The best part of this holiday being over is being able to watch TV and not seeing commercials with some car dealer forcing their kids to say “Have a Merry Christmas” in unison in an attempt to endear us enough to go in buy a car from them. “Hey Frank Ford, get your kids off my lawn!”
That’s only a partial list of why I’m glad the holidays are over. I’m sure I could complain some more but I try not to do that with my mouth full. So I’m gonna go now and have some more leftovers.
Its normal as we age to lose a certain amount of hearing. In my case its a given since I spent so many years in a broadcast studio with headphones that were turned up too loud. But there are a lot of pros and cons to consider before surrendering to the quintessential sign of old age – the hearing aid. […]
Being sometimes a little over-analytical I’ve noticed how many things in life can be broken down into math equations. This came to me as I was sipping my coffee on a beautiful summer morning last Saturday, trying to decide what really needed to get done that day. I didn’t feel like doing much. Actually I had absolutely no desire to do anything. I knew Snowball would ask later for a reason why nothing was getting done, so I came up with a simple equation for motivation. Too bad she wouldn’t care about the equation and just tell me to get off my butt. […]