day....no no.....475

 I was up late last night

    I caught the last three innings of the Cubs no hitter against the Dodgers.  Granted, the game started around 9 but was over a little after midnight, so I was asleep before 1.  (And I used the word caught as in watched.  If I had actually caught the game I would be the oldest active catcher on record.) 

    It was pretty cool to see a team no hit by four different pitchers.  I had never seen that before and I was glad I watched it.

    But it made for a slow wake up in the morning.

    I did get into town and helped with the mobile food truck that comes several times a year.  The truck distributes food to those in need, and there are a lot of people hurting  right now.  So I helped pack up boxes and bags and distribute them to cars as they pulled into the parking lot.  

    It made me thankful for my life.

    Tonght was pizza night with our third and fourth daughters.  It was fun to catch up, laugh a little, share pandemic stories of a sort.  Thanks Bethie and Sheri for coming and visiting with the old folks.

    Now...it's the fourth inning.  Still a lot of baseball left, but no no hitter tonight.

    Stay safe.

Peace and Love

day....entertaining.....474

 We had a read through for the fall show today

    The show is set in a nursing home and I am one of the seniors.

    Can you believe that?  I have been cast in a show about old people!  Me!!  Why, if I wasn't 7------3 years old, I might take offense at that!

    What was I thinking?  I had enough trouble remembering lines when I was young.  Luckily I only have about 1,756 lines to memorize for this one.  

    I sometimes cheat on stage.

    I was in one show and could not remember my entrance line, so I wrote it in big letters and taped it on the back of the couch.

    In another show I had lines said while reading a magazine, so I taped the lines into the magazine.

    In another show I only had a few lines and was mainly in the background reading a book.  So I put the entire script in the book and just followed along.  Turns out, I am not the only actor who can't remember lines!

    I have taped them on tables, the backs of doors, places where only people on stage could see them.

    It wasn't for all lines, just it seems in every play there is one or two lines I just can not get.  I know the line....it just does not come out and I need a little help.

    When we were doing a Tuna show, my line is/was  "I've had it up to my ass with this sorry excuse for a town and sombody's gonna pay."

    I had that line down cold all during rehearsal.  Opening night comes and I said, "I have had enough of this town....and I'm not taking it."  Followed by, "I've had it up to my neck and somebody will be sorry." and about 4 other variations, none involving the word ass or somebody paying.

    Unfortunately, there was no place to hide the correct line.

    We'd get to that part and TC would watch me, beads of sweat forming on my brow, eyes rolling up into my head, a nervous tick causing my entire body to shake like a lime J-ello mold at a Methodist pot luck....and he never knew what was going to come out of my mouth.

    I was so much younger then.

    We'll see how this one flies.

    Stay healthy.  Stay dry.

Peace and Love

day......hair day....473

 Jackie had a hair appointment today

    She does not like the gray hairs living with me cause, so she went in for a cut and dye.

    That means I have about 90 minutes to 2 hours to kill.

    I bopped over to Acres Bistro and was going to have a sandwich for lunch, but figured if I did not finish it, I had to toss it because there was no way to keep it cool.

    So I had soup.  

    It was amazing!  Red pepper something, and it was very good.  I almost licked the bowl.

    Next  I had dessert, as if you had to guess!   Chocolate pot de creme, I believe....also very good.

    With a little time to spare, I decided to sit and read but the bench was too hard for my still aching butt muscle.  So I stopped at Midwestern Clothing and picked up a shirt for Jackie that we had seen on their posting on Facebook.

    When we got home, I settled in my chair for a read and ..... bingo, it became 5 very quickly.

    I checked my rain guage tonight and was surprised to see there was barely a tenth of an inch.  It seemed like it rained a lot more than that this morning.  It's a new guage, so there should not be any leaks.  And why does the word guage always look misspelled to me?

    We had pancakes and bacon for supper, served with lovingly made Vermont maple syrup.  

    All in all, it was a good day.  But I really need to get my butt and leg healthy so I can get some of the chores on my list done.  I have 187 chores down, running from the mundane (cleaning the basement living area) to the difficult (replacing all the blades of dead grass with live grass, hand grown on my own sod farm.)

    Some things won't get done by July 1, my self imposed deadline.

    Oh well....life is funny, not always in a ha ha sort of way, either.

    Stay healthy.  Enjoy the day.

Peace and Love

day....217,446.....472

 There are plenty of job openings in Rochelle

    I get at least 6 e-mails daily telling me about exciting job openings in Rochelle.

    Just yesterday, I was notified there was an opening for a park ranger and the salary was $58,216 right here in Rochelle!

    Amazing!  These folks knew that I, at the ripe old age of seventy    (fill in the word Jackie does not like me to use in describing my age; a word that is used as a noun, verb and adjective)   three years would be interested in a park ranger job in Rochelle!

     I should apply immediately.  However, I am having a bit of a mental issue on where a park would be in Rochelle where they would be hiring a ranger.  But hey, details, eh?

    Same with the welding and executive positions that are open in Rochelle.  Just ripe for a guy my age.

    About the number 217,446.....that is the number of page views this blog has had over the past 87 years  I am impressed that people are able to put up with the trivialities of my life.

    I did check stats today and admit I am puzzled.  Someone read two entries from my blog.......one in July....one in September.....of 2016.  I don't know if it was the same person, or why they picked those particular dates. 

    Maybe they did a Google search for the word Yikes.

    Who knows.

    Stay curious.  Stay healthy.

Peace and Love.

day...third time.....471

 I planted my garden....again

    I have never had to plant twice before this year....and this is the third time I have planted cucumbers and beans.  They just didn't come up.  It may have been my lackadaisical watering process......especially in this dry spring.

    So, pulled up the 6 or 7 bean plants and replanted them, trimmed up the tomatoes and green peppers and tried to get them more upright, leveled my non productive cucumber hill and made a new hill.  This time I will water regularly.

    All of this did take a toll on my altready sore body, so hoping the ice and ibuprofin help.

    My neighbor has a pool and has invited me over to use it, but I am not a big pool person.  We have friends who have invited me for 20 years and I have been in theirs maybe 4 fimes.

    There is one pool I for sure won't go in, at any cost.

    They have built a glass pool in London.  It spans two 10 story buildings.  You can swim from one building to the next, all while 10 stories above a London street.  You can look down at the traffic below....way below.

    I put this on my no way in hell bucket list.  It is there along with skywalks over canyons, leaping out of airplaines, rooting for the Cardinals, and sticking sharp sticks under my nails.

    Not only that, I will go so far as to say I would not even stand underneath this pool.

    I know it has been meticulously engineered, but I have this feeling that every bridge I have been on is just waiting for me so it can collapse, every elevator is due to fall, every tall building is going to topple over just because I am there.  All I have to do is look up and 70 million gallons of water, glass and screaming humans will plummet down and bury me in the London pavement.

    Yes, it is an unnatural fear.  But I am full of unnatural thoughts.  For instance, I think my odds of winning the lottery with one ticket are greater when the jackpot his $300 million.  Crazy, I know!  But I keep buying tickets....and never winning, as you probably know.

    I just hope my luck is better with my garden.  I really don't have many fears there.  Except failure.  And snakes.  And millipedes.  And deadly spiders. And airplanes crashing into Earth where I am weeding.  And meteorites.

    But, that's enough fears for one night.

    Stay healhy.  Stay safe.  Avoid glass pools.

Peace and Love

day......very cool.....470

I got a grotesque present for Fathers' Day 

    Actually, a grotesque donation from Emily and Julia.  It was a donation to the Friends of Notre-Dame de Paris to help restore the stone statues on top of the burned cathedral.

    The statues are called grotesques, hence the grotesque gift.

    I am so glad I was able to see Notre Dame in its glory.  I don't know what the restoration schedule is, but I doubt it will be a place I will be able to visit again.  I was literally in tears watching the fire consume this magnifcent structure.

    A great gift, helping a great cause and making my whole family a small part of the restoration and rebirth of Notre-Dame.

    I am still taking it pretty easy.  My leg and butt cheek are still sore, bending over hurts, so I figure to go easy for a few more days.

    But my list of things to do keeps getting longer as I look around.  Who would think someone like me would become an obessive list adder on person?

    At least the rain is here.

    A nice, gentle, soft rain....ok, the weather alarm has gone off four times in the past hour for tornado warnings (far north of us)  2 thunderstorm warnings, (south and west of us) and a severe thunderstorm watch (us) so I am in my usual semi panic weather mode.

    At least I won't have to water the garden, or what will be left of it after the golf ball sized hail and 60 mph winds roar through the area.

    Feast or famine.

    At least the Cubs won.

    Hope you all had a great day, dad or not.

Peace and Love

day......darn.......469

 I love to eat

    For the past few weeks I have had a hankering for a deep dish pizza.  Tonight I ordered one, but instead of deep dish, I ordered stuffed.

    I ordered the special.  My fault.

    I did not read all the ingredients.  I saw mushrooms, green pepper, onions, sausage, pepperoni......but I missed olives.

    Now, I am not an olive lover.  Quite the opposite.

    I picked up the pizza, took it home, opened it.  I had to wipe my chin because I was drooling so much.  Took a bite and ..... olives.

    Lots of olives.....by that I mean more than one.  Green olives to boot.

    Luckily I ordered a small, but I still have two meals left of it.  I will eat it, but the olives will take a bit of getting used to.  Understand, the pizza is very good.  And it was my mistake.  I always used to tell students read al lthe information.....I need to get back to doing that.

    Next time I eat it, I may have to have a mojito to ease the pain.

    I did sit out on the patio tonight, sans alcohol, and enjoyed the longest day of the year.  I also had a pity party on my failed garden and my sore butt.  Day three of not being able to sit for long was not a pleasant day.

    At least my leg does not hurt as much.  That's a blessing.

    I gave up on the Cubs at 7-0.  It's not that I am a fair weather fan.....I just can't stand to watch them lose.  It's been a rough two days.

    Here's hoping your dinner met your dreams.

    Stay safe.  Stay healthy.

    And a happy Father's Day to all you pops, here and gone, tomorrow.

Peace and Love