Bye-Bye

I have been writing this blog almost an entire year now and have posted 141 times. I'm going to take time off from writing while I get use to my new job. Check back in two to four weeks.

This was in one of the earliest entries and I want to repeat it for you now because that last line is so important.

Never accept old age as a reason.
Never give old age as an excuse.
No life is ever long enough, so while you’ve got the chance, live it.

I'll miss you!

Stop me if you've heard this one

Why does a milking stool only have 3 legs?

Because the cow's got the udder!


Picture courtesy of www.stacksplace.com/

Job Description - U.S. President

My co-workers and I have one more week before we move on to new jobs. In case they don't like their new positions, and in honor of President's day, this is the job description for President of the United States.

Job Duties:

• Head of State, Unites States of America
• Chief executive of the Federal Government
• Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces
• Leader of the Free World (un-official)

Requirements:

• Must be at least 35 years old
• Must be a natural-born Citizen of the United States
• Must have lived in the United States for at least 14 years
  

Term of Employment:

• 4 years
• Possibility of a second 4 years, but no more than 2 full terms

Salary: $400,000 plus $ 50,000 expenses

• Fringe benefits while in office include use of The White House and Camp David vacation home in Maryland, armored Cadillac limousine, company plane (Airforce One) and helicopters.
• Personal security guards provided
• Retired presidents receive a pension of approximately $140,000 a year, free office space, free mailing privileges, and budgets for office help and staff assistance.

Responsibilities:

• Choose cabinet members
• Command the armed forces of the country
• Meet with leaders of foreign countries
• Make treaties with foreign countries
• Appoint judges and ambassadors
• Propose new laws
• Sign bills into law and veto bills
• Protect and defend the laws of the United States
• Pardon criminals
• Report to Congress once a year

America's Favorite Topic

In case you haven't noticed, it is really cold in Indiana today. It was as low as 5 degrees around here last night. I don't really mind too much because (1) I didn't have to go outside and (2) it's only 29 more days till spring.

Spring in Indiana is an iffy affair. Full of hope and broken promises. We can have balmy breezes that gently lift a kite up towards soft scattered clouds or tornado force winds that will rip the roof right off your house while you're taking a bath. Ice storms in March compete with the famous gentle rains of April for equal time in conversations. We can expect snowfall and sunshine, sometimes on the same day, occasionally at the same time.

Tulips and daffodils shyly poke their heads out of the ground, then bloom bravely, well aware how vulnerable they are to attacks by killer frosts. Trees begin to bloom, slowly at first, then in a rush, almost before I've noticed the first, pale leaves, their branches are clothed again.

Daylight saving time comes to Indiana this spring, . In honor of DST, here is a short quiz.

Spring Questions:

1. What season is it when you are on a trampoline?
2. When do monkeys fall from the sky?
3. Can February March?
4. What flowers grow on faces?
5. What did Summer say to Spring?

Spring Answers

1. Springtime!
2. April Showers! (Get it? Ape-ril showers?)
3. No, but April May!
4. Tulips! (Two-lips)
5. Help! I'm going to fall.

Everything has a beginning and a middle,

but sometimes the end is hard to find.

Midnight last night marked the middle of February. The beginning of the last two weeks of the month. Both a beginning and an end.


Oh crap! You're going to try and cheer me up, aren't you? ---- T-Shirt

Whatever Floats Your Boat

Today is National Singles Awareness Day, formerly known as Valentine's Day. You hadn't heard that? Well, apparently, some whiners decided that it was rude and poltically incorrect to call attention to the fact that they were uncoupled so they refuse to recognize a day set aside for lovers.

I say, let's compromise. Let's recognize both.

Lovers, old and young alike, can celebrate Valentine's Day while gazing starry eyed across the table at a special resturant. School kids can exchange heart shaped cardboard cutouts of cartoon characters. Friends and family can exchange cards overflowing with expressions of fondness without being embarrassed.

National Singles Awareness Day can be reserved for those singles who embrace the freedom and lifestyle, as well as the bitter-hearted who feel that love has left them behind.

We all know the traditional ways of celebrating Valentine's Day. Who hasn't seen the ads for cards, diamonds, heart shaped pizzas, heart-adorned underwear, and restaurant specials for two? So I'm going to give you some suggestions for celebrating National Singles Awareness Day.

1. Buy your own chocolates - you don't have to share.
2. Get a pink flannel gown - the kind you really like to sleep in.
3. Get something special for your remote control and watch whatever you want, wearing whatever you want, and eating whatever you want.
4. Throw a party and invite only single friends (see comments after Go to a bar).
5. Do something nice for an old person. (Hint, Hint)
6. Share a pint of mint chocolate ice cream, with real whipped cream, and tell her/him how much her/his friendship means to you. (You could share a beer and punch him in the arm, it that's your thing, but really it's not the same.)
   
7. Buy yourself an extra nice bottle of wine and drink it with strawberries or steak, as your heart desires.
   
8. Go to a bar - you could meet another celebrating single, fall deeply in love, and next year celebrate the other holiday or you may find someone wallowing in self-pity that will be thrilled to hook up for the night.
9. Hug everyone you love - family, friends, your faithful dog.
10. Do whatever you want and have a great time doing it.
    

To all you lucky lovers out there: Happy Valentine's Day! May you and yours be truly happy.

To all you lucky singles out there: Happy National Singles Awareness Day! May you be truly blessed.

A Valentine Treasure

My grandfather wasn't a demonstrative man; he rarely, if ever, hugged me, or even touched me except to shake hands. He would let me hug him, but reluctantly, embarrassed by my display of affection. That wasn't the way of his generation, but I still knew he loved me and would protect me.

I treasure deeply the one time he gave me a Valentine card. He sent it the year after my grandmother died and I think he sent one to all his granddaughters. "It is Valentine's day. I don't have the one that I loved most now. But I do have ten Grandsweethearts that I love very much. I know that you all love me."

I keep the card in a treasure box filled with special letters, cards, and momentos. I don't look in the box too often. I always find something that makes me cry. Poems from a young nephew; graduation cards, wedding invitations, birth announcements, funeral cards that mark the passage of time; good-bye cards from friends that I met as I drifted from job to job and town to town; lonely messages from brothers and nephews in the armed services; loving notes from relatives; bittersweet reminders of long lost loves.

My treasure box is an old Thom McAn shoe box. Not a very grand container for precious, priceless pieces of my life.

Piglet sidled up behind Pooh. "Pooh," he whispered. "Yes, Piglet?" "Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw. "I just wanted to be sure of you." - Winnie-the-Pooh

Cloak of invisibility

It came to my attention this week that I am again driving an invisible car. Tuesday, I drove less than a mile, round-trip, and

1. one vehicle made a left hand turn in front of me at the light as I was trying to cross the street (contrary to popular belief, SUV's do not automatically have the right of way)
2. a pedestrian stepped between two parked cars into my car’s path, looking neither left nor right before stepping out into traffic (but, as she had her head stuck where she could check for polyps, she would neither have seen nor heard an elephant, much less an invisible car.)
3. another car pulled in front of me as I was leaving the bank parking lot,
4. and a third car made a fast rolling stop at a crossroad stop sign apparently unaware that I, in my invisible car, had the right of way (see # 1).
   

I know that I was as invisible as my invisible car because not one of them returned my friendly little salute.

The Olympics

NBC has scheduled the 2006 Winter Olympics opening ceremony broadcast for Friday, February 10th, and the last event on February 26th.

(Check your local TV listings for times of both ceremonies and all events in between. (http://www.nbcolympics.com/).
For official Olympic information from Turino, check http://www.torino2006.org/ENG/OlympicGames/home/ )

I’m looking forward to seeing “Grandma Luge” (because she’s old like me) and Apolo Anton Ohno, (mostly, I just like saying the name - say it with me, with rhythm Apolo Anton Ohno, Apolo Anton Ohno, Apolo Anton Ohno). I want to watch curling because it’s a “foreign” sport to Hoosiers and the ski jumping because that looks really scary, but I think it was a sport developed by bored Switz teenaged boys.

Come to think of it, a lot of the Olympic sports look like they were originally accidents or kids goofing around. Why would you need to have 5 men crammed together on a sled unless somebody had lost the other 4? or 1 person screaming down the mountain with no brakes and no steering? (I'm thinking somebody got in to the St. Bernard's emergency flask the first time that happened, or maybe just after.)

What ever your sport, enjoy! Because there won't be anything else on TV till it's over.

Poetry of The Seasons

Saturday,
a fluffy white blanket of snow
was tossed over my part of the world.
Today, it's dirty and tattered.
Let’s throw it away.
I prefer a green grass duvet
sprinkled with bright yellow dandelions.

Are you ready for some football?

Super Bowl XL is today. It comes every year about this time and has for the last XL years (more or less) so I don't know what the hoopla is about.

The pre-game shows starts at 2:30, The Game itself at 6, and then the Post-game around 9:30.

That's about 8 hours of football for those of you are wondering.

I need a new hobby

I think I'm going to take up drinking.

It's been that kind of a week and I don't think it's going to get better anytime soon. I'm sure my co-workers would appreciate it if I'd just take something to smooth out the edges. Say a little something every morning, and about lunch time, and for my afternoon break, and maybe with supper, and then just before I go to bed.

Yeah, that should just about do it.

Whew! I'm too old for this.

As I get older I find that things change. Sometime for the better, sometimes ... not so much. Lately, I have become a frivolous old gal - five different gentlemen are vying for my attention.

Charlie Horse often wakes me up. When he is here he takes a lot of my time and attention, but it's Will Power that helps me get out of bed. Once I am up, I go see John. Sometimes Arthur Ritis shows up and takes me from joint to joint. He doesn't like to stay in one place very long. After such a busy day, I'm really tired and glad to go to bed with Ben Gay. What a life! When those five aren't around, I flirt with Al Zymer.

P.S. The preacher came to call the other day. He said at my age I should be thinking of the hereafter. I told him, "Oh, I do it all the time. No matter where I am, in the parlor, upstairs, in the kitchen, or down in the basement, I ask myself, "Now, what am I here after?"

I still have a full deck; I just shuffle slower now. ~Author Unknown

To each his own

The President of the United States gave his annual State of the Union speech last night. To be truthful, I only half listened to it. I feel like I have heard the same rhetoric before, several times before, and know it will be followed by more rhetoric from the opposing team. Heavy on promises of reform that get sidetracked by long-winded senators that have long forgotten why they were elected.

I have heard there were ways to have more fun listening to the speech. An on-line sportsbook offered good odds for those eager to bet on how many standing ovations President Bush got, as well as how many times he said Iraq, Evil, or Patriot Act. Drinking games gave TV viewers a chance to participate more actively in the speech by dictating how many drinks you took for each word, round of applause, or standing ovation. Actual cheering got you an extra drink.

I really started this entry to tell you about my parakeet, Buford. He's long since gone, but I never hear a political speech without thinking of him. Buford was a Bill Clinton fan. I don't know why; he certainly didn't learn it from me. I was amazed the first time I saw and heard him watching a Clinton speech. He listened intently then cheered and booed as he saw fit. At first I thought he was reacting to the audience applause, but he was always his own bird and paid no attention to the noise from the crowd. He would occasionally glare at me if I dared venture an opinion of my own.

I think Buford was a Southern Democrat, but I didn't know much about his family. I found him walking down a sidewalk in Lafayette one day. He was walking, I was in a car. Later I learned that Buford (and his roommate, Bubba) liked car rides as long as they sat in the front seat and I played the radio. They would try to talk me into playing country music for them, but you have to draw the line somewhere, so ... not in the car. I did let them watch Hee Haw when we were home. Next to Clinton's speeches, that was Buford's favorite TV show. Silly little green bird.