stranger

 I ran into a s stranger I knew today

    I know!  That makes no sense.

    I had some errands to run and one of them was stopping at the museum to pick up raffle tickets.

    I walked in and a lady was sitting in a chair.  I passed her and she said, "Hello, Terry."

    I turned and looked at her.  Her face was familiar, and her voice was familiar, but I could not put. name to the face.

    "Who are you?  You look so familiar," I told her.

    "Norma Thiele," she said and I said of course it was.

    Norma and her husband Joe moved to Texas some 6  years ago.  It was her daughter's 50th high school reunion and they came back for the festivities.

    We had a really nice, but short, chat.  I told her how sorry Jackie and I were to hear of Joe' death just about a year ago.  He was a teacher, superintendent, and just a really nice guy.

    The chance run in improved a day that had been  highly irritating.

    I needed gas for the van and the mowers.  So I went to the station in front of Walmart because that usually has the cheapest gas.

    There is a frontage road leading to the gas station.   The frontage road has 3 lanes with the middle lane clearly marked for left turns.

    So I was a bit pissed when the guy in front of me put his left turn signal on but did not move into the middle lane.  Instead they kept driving, slowly, along the frontage road and eventually stopped because there were cars coming where they wanted to turn.  

    I know!  I minor irritant.  Everybody gets brain farts.

    I pulled into the gas station and all the pumps were full.

    I parked behind this big ass red truck, which was driverless.  I just assumed they had finished and went in to pay.

    This little old lady came out...frail looking, skinny, tiny, and started to try to pump gas.  The guy in the truck also got out and it took the two of them to get he hose into the opening.

    I swear....I don't know how either one of them could get in the truck!  They were tiny and the truck was huge!

    Anyway, another lane opened and I pulled in there.  Took the gas cans out of the back end, filled them, filled the car, put the gas cans back into the plastic tub I carry them in and drove off.

    I pulled off the frontage road and headed north on Caron Road when I noticed my. tailgate was still open!

    Holy crap.

    I stopped, put on my flashers, then went to the back to do a quick inventory.  Everything looked in place, but to be sure I retraced my route looking for grocery bags, or wheelchair parts.

    Now totally frustrated, I headed to the museum and had a nice chat with Norma and everything was ok.

    Just do me a favor though.  If there is a left turn lane, please use it.  And drive a vehicle you can get in without a ladder.

Peace and Love

        Especially Peace

Oh Canada

 My heart aches for our Canadian friends

    Sure, the smoke is a nuisance and hazardous.

    But folks in Canada are losing forests, homes, businesses, and possibly lives.

    I don't understand people who think our climate is fine.  Storms are more severe, flooding is common, droughts are everywhere.  Yet politicians seem to feel that is of less importance than drilling for oil and natural gas.

    50 years from now thpse people will be damned by their actions.

    Anyway.....

    Got my last vent up without any problem!  That surprised me be cause no simple task gets accomplished by me.  They all become major projects, generally ending with professionals being called in to fix my mistakes.

    Not this time!

    5 vents taken down, washed, sun dried and remounted.  Life is good.

    I did some outside chores tonight.  It was quite pleasant.  If possible, I will mow tomorrow evening because my grass is gettin long.  Go figure.  No rain and it is growing.  

    I watered plants, picked up dog doo, watered my strawberries, filled the bird feeders and filled the bird baths.

    Surprisingly, it took almost an hour to do all that.  I went out with the Cubs leading 1-0 in going into the third and came back when it was 4-1 in the fifth.  The boys better get going.

    When I looked outside this morning it was very smokey.  It wasn't as bad as in Chicago or farther north, but I was surprised it drifted out this far.  

    We are supposed to get more smoke t tomorrow, but I think this is from our fires out west.  

    We need rain.  While Texas deals with massive floods, we deal with drought.  Nature sure is funny, eh?

    Speaking of funny, the backs of my thighs have been sore.  I sometimes sit on a heating pad for a little  relief.  Today the pad stopped working.  Then it worked.  Then it stopped.  Now it won't work.

    Guess I should just toss that, eh?

    Stay safe.  Stay cool.  Stay happy.

Peace and Love

        Especially Peace

almost

 I almost finished the vents today

    Took down and washed 5, put up 4.  1 more to go, but it might be a hard one.

    Time will tell.

    My legs have been hurting a lot.  The backs of my thighs throb and sometimes tighten up.  I have tried stretches, heating pads, more stretches but nothing seems to help.

    I do get relief by putting an icepack on my back.  The ice is better with my pants off, so if you decide to drop in, give me time to get dressed!

    It is terrible out there.  I went out at 10 last night and it was very uncomfortable.  Night does not provide any relief, which makes it even more uncomfortable.

    I read that a house in the Naperville area recently sold for a little over $8 million!  I believe they said it was the largest sale price ever for a house in Will County.

    So what do you get for 8 million?

    21,361 sq. ft., 7 bedrooms, l 11 bathrooms, 2 half baths, a soccer field, resort style pool, an in ground trampoline, and a sauna.  No, the sauna is not in ground.

    I think I would get lost in the house.   Imagine cleaning it!  And the utility bills!   

    Maybe the new owners will find some stranger that has been bouncing around and can't figure out how to get out.

    Kind of makes me wonder what the salary is of the person who bought it.

    Stay cool.

Peace and Love

        Especially Peace

challenges

 I am working on a do it list  item

    A simple task, yet very challenging for me.

    I took the cold air return grills down to clean them.  

    With the exception of one of them, getting them down and cleaning them was not a big problem.

    It's getting them back up that concerns me.

    I always have trouble lining up. the screw holes.  That should be easy peasy stuff, but not for me.

    I am going to work on putting them back up tomorrow.  So if you hear reports of an old man out in his back yard yelling obscenities, you will not it is not going well.

    I watched an episode of The Twilight Zone (S-2 EP. 29) which featured Burgess Meredith as a man accused by the state of being obsolete because he was a librarian.  There were no books, therefore librarians were obsolete.

    As someone who was  obsolete, he was sentenced to death.

    Rod Serling comes on at the end with a little homily about the story.  Tonight he said , "the entity  he worshipped, any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man...that state is obsolete."

    Serling also said it was a story of a state "where logic is an enemy and truth a threat."

    It was a pretty powerful episode about the future.

    It has been hot and dry and my grass has grown a lot since I mowed last Friday.  If it wasn't so hot, I would mow tomorrow.  But I think that is our last day of 90s......hopefully.

    Stay cool.  Stay hydrated.  Stay safe.

Peace and Love

        Especially Peace

eh day

This was one of those days 

    Nothing to say when I have spent the entire day in the house.

    Well, except for bringing in the trash can and taking out the recycles.

    I still have some picking up to do from yesterday.  Emily came and got her chairs, which was good.

    But it is late and I still have stuff to put away.  I hate to leave it until tomorrow, but what the hell.

    I guess my mental state has been altered by the heat.

    That is my excuse and I am sticking to it.

Peace and Love

        Especially Peace

finally

 I did not burn the burgers today

    That is big for me.  I have a tendency to put the grill on high, flip the burgers on, and do something else.

    I can tell they are done bye the smoke and flames pouring out of the sides of the grill.

    But today I put the burgers on the grill, let them cook for 4 minutes, then flippped them and let them cook for 4 more minutes and then I took their temperature.

    I turned them a couple of more times, which I understand is a no no in grilling burgers.  Flip once is what I read.

    Anyway, when the temperature hit about 145 I added cheese and took them off the grill.

    I thought they were very good.  Not blackened, not bloody red on the inside, but just about right.

    We had people over for Emily's birthday and it was a nice gathering.  

    There was too much food.  We had some leftover burgers, and lots of salads.  

    If you are in the mod, stop out tomorrow afternoon and we can enjoy some salads together.

    Jackie and I made a broccoli salad and I really liked it. I think we will make that again.  Other people must have liked it because there was not a lot left.

    Clean up has been pretty easy.  Most of it went into the dishwasher.  The human dishwasher is finishing the  rest.

    We just had one tiny, little problem.

    I turned the AC down because it was getting hot and there were people there.  After a while, I turned it down again because I was hot.

    At some point Emily can to me and asked if I thought it was hot in here.  I said I did.  She said that was because the AC unit was not working.

    The condenser was silent.  The house was at 78.

    There are 3 settings I can use:  heat, cool, or heat/cool.  I had it on heat/cool.  Emily turned it to cool and the AC popped on.

    For a few minutes I was a little worried.  I saw $$ flashing  in front of my eyes.  But my biggest concern was Jackie and the effect heat has on MS patients.

    Luckily all that was avoided by finding the right setting.

    Life is good.

Peace and Love

        Especially Peace

no sleep

On tis date in 1976 I slept little 

    Bicentennial activities were still going strong.  The 200th birthday of our country was widely celebrated in big towns and small towns.

    But I was worried about trains.

    Rochelle did not have an overpass.  We lived on the south side of town.  That meant we had 2 railroad crossings on each north south street.  It was common to have crossings blocked, sometimes for hours.

    Traffic would back up through town and people would be cranky at having to wait.

    We had a friend, Bob, who was an engineer on the BN line.  Yes, he drove the train.  We went to NIU together and both majored in journalism, but he found working for the railroad paid better.

    Twice we got caught by trains the he was driving.  He would wave to us from the cab, we would wave and yell at him from the car.

     It was a fun relationship.

    But on July 12, I was nervous.

    Why?

    Well, Jackie was pregnant and 2 weeks overdue.  They were going to take her in on the 13th and induce labor.  In Rockford.

    I was worried there would be a long delay if trains had blocked the crossings.

    We would have had to drive west, take a back road north, then drive east to reach the road to Rockford.

    When we got up. to go, no train.  That was great.

    We made it to the hospital, and labor was induced, and Emily came into the world.

    As Jackie lay in the hospital bed, waiting for our baby to arrive, the nurse asked if I was going into the delivery room with her.

    I said absolutely not.  I did not want to have anyone distracted by my fainting. 

    When we brought Emily home, Julia cried and cried because we would not het her hold her little sister.

    But she eventually did get to hold her.  I took of picture of that moment of Julia holding her sister, and tears running down her face.  I wish I knew where that picture was.

    Some people think 13 is an unlucky number.  But Jackie and I know that a 13 brings great things.

Peace and Love

        Especially Peace