2008???

Last post in 2008? I guess perhaps I need to pay more attention to some of the genuinely interesting stuff. Today I have been looking at the page for the Lansing City Rescue Mission. A good place, and I need to learn more.

Climbing on over the hump. . .

Thursday morning, and the first pot of chili of the year is setting on the stove simmering. Blossom is sitting here doing her best to convince me to share at least one more piece of Cheddar with her. Judging from the look on her little face, this may be a life or death issue. I wonder if a kitty has ever actually died of being deprived of a piece of cheese, or if she is just a very good actress. Perhaps next year I should nominate her for a Golden Globe award. Just think of how proud I would be as she walked up to the stage to accept her award for best actress.

 

I am beginning to think Blossom may have gone nuts, as she has developed the habit of sitting in the bathroom, next to the tub, and staring into a corner of the room. Nothing at all happening, and I am quite sure the house has no little animals to be stalked. She just sits and stares. Sometimes when we are sleeping she even climbs out of bed to trot downstairs and engage in this activity. Who knows what thoughts may be lurking in the mind of a cat?

 

I need to begin getting things together for my sons' upcoming birthday. Jarek will turn eleven on the 23rd of this month, and I want to be sure the boys have a good time when they are with me this weekend. I suppose if I get to bed at a reasonable hour I may even begin doing that today.

 

I am going to add a link to my other journal, as I think I just may abandon my AOL journal altogether.  electraglide .For those few that enjoy reading my musings (the idea still flabbergasts me) this may make things a bit easier, and might even make folks aware another page exists.

Did you say. . . FIFTY?

Here we go. According to the folks that make the laws in this nation I have another thirty five minutes to look someone in the eye and say the words "I am forty nine" without flinching when asked my age. According to my mother, I would really have fifty five minutes, as my actual time of birth was 12:20 AM on the eighth day of January , nineteen hundred and fifty seven. Either way I can count my time on this planet until I reach up to the half century mark in minutes. I am still not quite sure what I am to make of this, so I just may end up not making anything, other than an entry into this log. For the most part a birthday seems to be a bigger deal to the friends of the person celebrating the day than to that person. Of course, I guess that is all part of the fun. I try, and often fail, to remember the birth anniversaries of those close to me. While I do not believe I would lose any sleep if I didn't hear the words "Happy Birthday", it is always nice to know someone thinks enough of you to make note of a date simply because that day pertains to you.

 

And, of course, there are the people that enjoy giving presents. I can almost hear Carly Simon singing 'Anticipation' whenever I have a present sitting on my lap waiting to be unwrapped. Sometimes I think that anticipation is the best part of the whole deal.

 

At any rate, I am minutes away from the big five-oh, and I guess this is as good of a time as any to remind myself that fifty is only a number. Lately, however, I have found myself rather preoccupied with numbers these past few years, especially numbers concerning the sum of years in my life. Not too long ago the concept of becoming old suddenly didn't seem like such a terrible thing, after all. Very odd how your thinking on that matter can make a turn around when you believe you may not get old.

 

I guess the part that matters to me the most here is the fact that I do not feel as if I have lived a half century, if there is really a way that is supposed to feel. In fact, I often believe, and behave, as if I am not any older than my young sons, and I definitely have notachieved the maturity of my twenty five year old daughter. I am going to be in rough shape the day those boys can outrun me. I should be grateful this body of mine functions as well as it does, especially as badly as I have treated it over the years.

 

Okay, we are now right in between midnight and twenty after midnight. I think I am going to put on a jacket and go for a stroll. Perhaps spend some time thinking of the people that are responsible for giving me this life. Especially that woman whom always claimed twenty after midnight is the 'official' time of my birth. Perhaps while I am walking the angels will sing a chorus of Auld Lang Syne for me.

 

 

Happy New Year. . .

Ahhh, yes. . .that first blog entry of the new year. Two thousand and seven rolled on in quite merrily and so far seems to be a pretty good year, at least from my own personal perspective. I have kinda wondered if anyone else has decided to call this the 'James Bond Year'. . .after all, it has been a lonnng time since we had a year containing the numbers double-oh seven. If that is the dumbest idea expressed by me this year I believe I will be on a roll.

 

I am sitting here at the moment enjoying a bottle of Pepsi and the feeling of accomplishment that comes when you accomplish something. The right front tire on the Buick has had a slow leak for a spell and I had grown weary of re inflating the thing every time I stopped at Meijer for fuel. So, I finally jacked that sucker up, brought the tire into the house, and made it stop leaking. This feels especially good as I had almost talked myself into going to Discount Tire and having them do it. I have no idea what having a flat repaired would cost these days, but I have no doubt at all my own labor costs less, and probably a lot less.

 

So, now I have my leak-free front tire sitting in my bathroom sink where I can walk past and admire it every so often. I am going to take our local weather forecaster at his word, which is that the rain currently falling will cease sometime this morning, and that our present warm spell will continue. As long as I already have the car up, if it actually does hit fifty degrees on Friday I am gonna go ahead and do the front brakes, as well. May as well get it out of the way now, instead of waiting 'til it has to be done. Sure as God makes green apples we would be ass deep in snow when that happened. I would rather not see that happen, as a quick tour around the yard today revealed to me that my crocuses are already on the rise, which is kind of an odd sight for the fourth day of January. What the heck, we may as well decide we are through with fall and get started with spring. Perhaps the boys and I can go for a bike ride through Riverfront Park this weekend.

The end draws near. . .

Insomnia! I suppose this is what I deserve for sitting in a meeting last night and tanking up on coffee. Taking a walk around the ol' 'hood doesn't work, Stephen King doesn't work, a bagel covered with cheddar doesn't work, so I suppose I think sitting in front of the glaring blue glow of a PC monitor and tap - tap - tapping upon a keyboard is going somehow to put me to sleep. Arlo Guthrie is telling me it is nighttime on the City of New Orleans, which I guess may be a fact, as it is still nighttime here in the city of Lansing at the moment. However,  if I sit up much longer screwing around with this thing that will no longer be true. The winter solstice is now past and the days are growing longer, though I believe we may have a few more weeks before it will be time to tune the mower. Blossom is sitting here begging me for another piece of cheddar, not realizing she and I have consumed the last of that brick. By golly, I think it may be time to head on back upstairs and see if I can find some rest. If a few more pages of Stephen can't do the trick, perhaps I will haul out the vacuum and do some dusting. Housework seldom fails to make me drowsy.

 

As I pass on by the front door I am going to go ahead and hang my flag on the front porch. It is close enough to daylight to put up the flag, and I would like to do something in honor of Gerald Ford. As Ford is former president and a World War II veteran it would be a good thing to do. Aside from which, I just plain like flying the flag and I think it is going to be a nice day. When I was out walking earlier there were stars all over the place. Being the ordinary, straight type of guy that he was I bet if Ford had a say he'd ask the rest of the nation to hang our national symbol in his honor and leave his family alone to mourn in peace. I had even considered a drive to Grand Rapids to pay my respects when the man finally completes his trip home and arrives here in Michigan, but I believe I am gonna skip that. Actually, I showed the guy all the respect I believe was possible when I gave him my vote during the presidential election in seventy six. I haven't kept track of who I did and did not vote for over the years, but I will be damned if I can recall another republican I have ever wasted my ballot on. I still think he would have done a good job had he remained in office, and I bet it will be a long time before we have another person from Michigan in that seat. Hopefully, it will be a very long time before we have another president in the oval office with the capability of remaining there for three terms

And so Happy Christmas. . .

And another Christmas heads on over the horizon. Not in any way a white Christmas, and I actually did some Christmas shopping on my motorcycle a couple of days ago. Michigan weather continues to become weirder. I got to spend some time today with my daughter, and a nice sized portion of the weekend with my boys. I have an improperly functioning light saber I must return to Meijer sometime today. Very difficult to have the Force be with you if your light saber is not working as it should. My daughter presented me with a Mag flashlight, just the sort of thing you would expect from a young lady working at a hardware store. This baby would make a dandy weapon if I ever had a need to use it as one. It would certainly handle any light saber. The thing is at least eighteen inches long and is very solidly constructed. And American made, to boot. A real shame you cannot find a good, American made light saber here in Michigan; perhaps it would be unnecessary for me to have to run Barry's back to the store.

 

My Christmas was quite festive this year. I whipped up my famous Chef Boyardee ravioli along with some stovetop stuffing for Christmas dinner, which delighted my sons, totally. No Christmas turkey for this crew, by golly. Rebecca demonstrated to me a digital memory device that hangs on your key chain and holds up to one gig of information, which is roughly equal to the capacity of my first PC. . .AFTER I upgraded it with a new hard drive. I was quite impressed, and proceeded to load the thing up with all kinds of photographs I have stored here on my current PC. I kept loading in photographs and waiting for it to say it was full, but it didn't happen. May have to get me one of those.

Skywatching. . .

Just back from a morning stroll around north Lansing. As I was out and about tonight I spent a bit of my time searching for meteors. Tonight the Geminid shower is supposed to be at its' peak, and in spite of the fact that I remained in town I managed to spot a few as they zipped across the sky. Walking through the grounds of the School for the Blind I found an area far enough away from street lights to enjoy some darkness. The radiance from all the city lights sometimes makes it difficult to see much of anything in the heavens overhead.