One lemon = twenty cents. Lemon from bagged lemons = twenty eight cents. But the best buy was one lime = ten cents.
It was juicy and tart. I squeezed the juice into some ice water, not to make limade, but just to add a bit of taste to the tap water. Then I turned the rind inside out and ate the lime.
Tell me, what can YOU buy for a dime?
... and so, for the time being, is Inga.
The stray cat, who has haunted the old folks home, and was fed by Inga, is still hanging out. She was invited by Inga INTO the building.
The cat was chased out by a caregiver who scolded Inga.
Anita says that cat is "a huge Vet bill waiting to happen." Others say that the cat looks like it has ringworm. The cat certainly looks hungry.
To be continued.
At the most recent resident's meeting, it was the consensus of opinion to "get rid of that stray cat that is hanging around trying to get adopted".
Well, a "consensus" does not mean a unanimous vote, obviously, for today I noted Inga ("My name is Ingabord, but you can call me Inga.") giving the stray feline some canned cat food, and noting that someone had put a flea collar on the poor creature.
That is NO way to "get rid" of a stray cat.
Today is the birthday of the Oreo Cookie. I don't remember which birthday. I was told, but I guess I thought they had ALWAYS been around.
Anyway we are having a party. Well, actually any excuse for a party is a good one. We are having cookies and milk, and are playing the five contenders for Oreo Jingle of the year.
But what startled me was an announcement on the bulletin board: 3:00 Orio Boscal (Please Boom). I studied that handwritten notice and the calendar of events and discovered that Anna, the youngest resident here, and quite dyslexic, had copied the notice from the calendar to the bulletin board. She is the most active and the most willing volunteer for any of our activities. No one is willing to say "Anna, please don't help," because she tries so hard to be helpful.
Nevertheless, I did write a translation under her notice
ORIO BOSCAL (PLEASE BOOM)
OREO SOCIAL (PIANO ROOM)
I guess it is logical. As I grow weaker, less able to do things in daily life, in my dreams, I grow bolder stronger, more capable.
Today I lay down exhausted...two minutes later I woke up completely unaware of where I was. Then as soon as I got oriented and began to nap I had a dream.
I was flying my little Ercoupe, a two place plane I used to fly, but which I sold (gave away for a thousand dollars) twenty years ago. In my dream I chose to land off field, in the parking lot a university in the mountains. (what could that be?) Without checking with anybody I left it there for five days, taking the parking spots for three cars.
When I went back, I taxied to the gate where the parking lot attendant wanted to charge me for leaving my airplane there. I didn't think he should charge, it's having been such a remarkable feat of piloting. But he wanted $105. I argued and negotiated and only got him down to one hunderd. But by then I realized that he had a point. I paid.
But I couldn't taxi through the gate which was less than thirty feet wide. So, get this, I picked up the plane, which in real life would weigh over a thousand pounds, and carried it sideways thrugh the gate. Then I had to carry is sideways down the driveway to the road where I could take off.
Then I made some approaches to an airport that I once dreamed up, years ago. So my dreams linked one to another years apart. Anyway my flying was sensational.
I like dreams like that.
I casually mentioned that it "would be fun" to have someone call Bingo in Spanish. And WHAM a resident screamed at me, "WHY?"
I touched a nerve, but what nerve? Are people so frightened by immigrants that merely mentioning their language evokes a scream?
I forget if I have posted this before, my forgetter works overtime. But here are the celebrities I remember having seen or met in my lifetime:
Celebrities I have seen
Bob Hope, entertaining at army hospital 1945
Jerry Colonna, same time
President Jerry Ford, campaigning for Pres at Van Nuys airport
Senator Fritz Mondale, in hall at teacher union meet, Miami
Rich Little, in café in Olivera street Los Angeles
President F D Roosevelt, in motorcade west Los Angeles, 1933
Governor Gray Davis shook my hand in parade Atwater, 2001
Katherine Hepburn in As You Like it, Kentucky 1944
Joe E Brown in Harvey in Los Angeles
Richard Arlen at his home in Chatsworth
Hoyt Axton at charity telecast, Hollywood
Jesse Jackson, at teacher union meeting
Governor Jerry Brown, teacher union meeting
Congressman Gary Condit at Villa, Merced
Congressman Dennis Cardoza at local meeting Merced
John Travolta in café in Vasquez Rocks, chatted about airplanes
Congresswoman for breakfast in café in San Fernando
Hopalong Cassidy in Rose parade
Bob Barker doing Price is Right Hollywood
Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Lionel Hampton at Worlds fair 1939
Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, Palladium, Hollywood
Lawrence Welk, Ocean Park ballroom
Danny Kay army hospital Van Nuys
Congresswoman Diane Watson, Board of Education Los Angeles
Supt of Public instruction Jack O’Connell
William Shatner, play in Los Angeles
Jack Lemmon, play in Los Angeles
Segovia on guitar in San Diego
Gloria Allred, attorney, at teachers union committee
Diana Lynn, actress, came to our house seeking her lost dog.
Gordon Jump, television actor, Maytag Washing machine repairman.
Roy Rogers and sons of the pioneers at charity rally
Clarence Nash, doing voice of Donald Duck same rally.
Chief Iron-eyes Cody gymnkhana, save the SF airport rally.
Jerry Dunphy, Newscaster lived next door but one at Oxnard. Partied.
Frank Ross, astronomer, discoverer of clouds on Venus
Well, I am not fond of washing clothes, but I can't say I hate it. It is pretty difficult from a wheel chair, reaching down into the tub and gathering the heavy wet clothes and then rolling to the dryer and putting them in, and then back for next grab.
But what I do HATE is hanging the dried clothes back in closet. They get left in laundry cart for days.... while I procrastinate. Often I just do not hang them...but leave them on cart until I want to wear them. You can tell when I am in that mode of operation...by the wrinkled state of what I am wearing.
Sometimes I can con the housekeeper into hanging them once I get them on hangers. But at other times, I have to steel myself for the chore, and just DO IT.
And when they are all hung, ready for wearing, I feel good. That is odd isn't it...I hate doing it, but I am glad when it is done.
...loves blogging.
I sure enjoy my journal. I post thoughts, sometimes silly, sometimes serious, mostly banal, and shortly, sometimes within minutes, I get responses from strangers (no, friends) from all over the world.
Incredible: this old folks home resident has reached out and touched folks in New England, Old England, New York, Old York, and even Australia.
Wow. Try Blogging. It's wonderful.
I hate it when I invest three hours in a movie, this one lasted until after midnight on television, and in the end, you have no idea what happened. Mel Gibson in Sign did that to me last night.
It is Science Fiction, ET style, except the ET's are not cuddy little creatures, but wiry BEM (Bug Eyed Monsters) who are here to eat humans. Turns out, that like Wicked Witch of the West they are alergic to water, and they flee, but not until one sprays some fluid into the young mans face. The hero's side kick slays the BEM with a baseball bat, and Mel grabs his boy, takes him outside and, get this, stabs him. Stabs him. The kid has been through sheer terror, asthma attack, abduction by alien, sprayed with out of this world gas, and then his Dad stabs him.
And does it kill him? We DON'T FIND OUT. He utters some words that may be dying words, or may mean he will live. The reactions of his sister and uncle indicate that he is dying and his Dad is so tramatized that we cannot tell.
Today I go on the internet and try to find an explanation in a plot summary somewhere.
Mel Gibson, I forgive you. You were so good in Forever Young as a pilot who was frozen for twenty five years that you can poop around in dogs like Sign and make grand gestures like Passion of Christ for a long time without losing me as a fan. But please, I'd like some closure on films I watch.
Comment from jckfrstross
the little boy lived:) he stabbed him with an eppy pen it took a while but the little boy took a deep breath. and at the end she is playing with his sister. I loved this movie
Deb
Yesterday, the old folks home had a "vintage car show" which was a hit. A couple of local car clubs came with thier prize possessions and showed them off for a couple of hours. There were thirteen beautiful exhibits including one of our residents' own 1971 Mustang and a 1970 hand crafted Berliner, made from a kit to reproduce a 1935 Mercedes. The oldest car was a seventy year old Hudson sedan, highly modified into a four door street "rod".
The Merced Chief of Police came and joined us old folks and the car club members in a steak and hot dog cook out.
.
Part of the line up of cars at the Vintage Car Show
Of the Model A Ford in the foreground, resident Ted was heard to say, "My brother and I were driving a car just like this home from a dance and we hit a bridge abutment, and broke the axle. Dad wasn't angry, but made us pay for the repairs. Took all of my 'Prize Cow Money'. Later we drove the family from Arkansas to California with that car, towing a horse trailer with all our family and belongings in it. Got all the way to Nevada before it broke down. Threw a piston from dragging all that load."
My own father died accidentally when I was less than a year old, and Grandfather came to be known by me as "Dad".
He was very patient, having already raised my own father and my uncle, and I don't remember any swats by him, nor any serious rebukes. Yet he was a good example.
He worked hard, five and half day per week at the office as an attorney for a title insurance company. I used to walk with him when he walked the dogs. By sitting on his lap while he read the Saturday Evening Post and pointed out words in advertisements I learned to read. The first word I learned to read was not "run", or "spot" or "Dick" or "Jane" but GOODYEAR. The kids in the Campbell's Soup ads were my Dick and Jane.
He rode the "Big Red" street car to work with such regularity that he became a favorite of the crew, and they would drop him off at our driveway, not a scheduled stop, on rainy days.
When he retired from the title company, he opened an Escrow service of his own. I was hired to prepare the office and I went on my bicycle before school each morning and swept the office and emptied the waste baskets.
He ordered my first movie camera and started me on a hobby that I have loved all my life. When I got a Jiffy Kodak for my first still camera, one of the first pictures I took was of Dad
My father, whom I never got to know, and my Mother, 1923
My Great Grandfather
Sorry, no pictures of "Dad" whom I wrote about above.
I have searched my brain (short search) and searched Google (Long Search, but speedier), and I cannot find whose dog Dreyfus was. He was a Saint Bernard, I am sort of sure, but what movie or TV show he appeared in I cannot recall.
Martin Crane's (Frazier) dog was Eddie, and Timmy's dog was Lassie, but whose dog was Dreyfus?
Dennis' dog was Ruff, and Uncle Elby's dog was Napoleon, but whose dog was Dreyfus?
Nelson's dog was Bethoven, and Dagwood's dog was Daisy, but whose dog was Dreyfus?
Nick and Nora Charles' dog (the Thin Man) was Asta, and a famous ventriloquist's dog was Farfel, but whose dog was Dreyfus?
POSTSCRIPT: Thanks to Silk, see comments below, we know Dreyfus was the Saint Bernard-Golden Retreiver mix who belonged to the Westons in Empty Nest. Weston, played by Richard Mulligan, used to have long heart-to-heart conversations with Dreyfus, who responded by looking wise, or, al least, interested.
I was feeling bad for having so few recent journal entries. So I took a tour of journals on my "list", and found that we all are slacking off.
Most had their most recent entries last month, and even the few who had a recent entry, had a gap preceding it.
So I guess we all have sping fever. Well, Spring is over next week, and summer begins. Unless we hit the Summer doldrums, we should all get back in harness and up-date our Blogs.
That's my Summer resolution.
I recently emptied Windows Trash with some un-backed up files in it. A year's worth of letters down the toilet.
So I went to search for "lost files". I got a link to a program called File Recovery. Download here. So I downloaded. ho hum wait wait. restart. ho hum.
Search for all lost files. click and away she went, bit in teeth, wow, those lost files flashing by faster than a speeding bullet. After three thousand found files I thought I'd better stop and see what it is doing.
Holy cow, here is a list...I read. I dont see the ones I am looking for but I try to recover one just to see how it works. and LO.
TO RECOVER LOST FILES, NEED TO PURCHASE FULL VERSION OF FILE RECOVERY. $29.95.
Scam scam. This is first mention of "purchase". Well, I may purchase, or I may go to Staples and buy a file recovery program off the shelf. They are honest.... they tell you that you have to pay before you take it home.
It has happened often, and this time to ME, alas. I put a YEAR'S worth of letters in the trash, by mistake. (I thought they were duplicates) Then I EMPTIED the trash.
Are they gone forever? Aren't they lurking there on the hard drive, with addresses erased? A hacker could get them... how can I?
Help me, you computer literati, Help.
I made my first visit to a market with self-checkout today. There was one conventional checkout line and five self-checkout lines. The self checkout lines had NO clerks. You put your purchased goods on a scanner, one item at a time, then into a bag. Your total is announced and you put your money in a machine, and away you go.
It was awesome, and intimidating. My first experience and I was hesitant. One of my two items did not scan and I did not know what to do, so I went to conventional check out... but had mixed feelings about no clerk checking out.
How impersonal service has become. And yet, I used to hate it when the check out clerks banged my dinner through the scanner and a box boy (box-person) bagged it, and shoved it at me. I have become used to buying gasoline without an attendant, why not groceries?
But, my, the store itself: Huge, wide wide aisles lined with sparkling products. Lots of room for my scooter. Rack upon rack of goods of all types and descriptions. The sea-food alone was impressive: great trays of shrimp, all looking exactly alike...looking almost factory made...amid other trays of edibles.
I hear that this chain ofr stores is closing many of its outlets. I wonder why. Practically no clerks to dispense all these goods. It is automation carried to the next level...and not doing well, Curious, and poignant.
John Scalzi invites us to make our own highway sign. If you would like to also, visit By The Way for instructions.
A few days ago I showed a picture I snapped while trying to get a silhouette of a plane against the moon. It was remarkable that I got them in the same frame.
Last night I snapped another as a plane passed the moon much closer. I astound myself. The picture is very fuzzy being magnified so greatly.
Believe it or not, I am the repository of a lost art.
Our activity director wants to celebrate up coming Fathers day by having the whole staff wear neckties, the traditional gift for father. So she went to Goodwill Outlet and bought their complete stock of ties...twenty.
But the staff members are young folks, and no one knows how to tie a tie. LOL. Call in the old folks who lived in the early part of the twentieth century when you had to wear a tie to work. Another resident and I each took ten ties and pre-tied them, so the staffers could simply put them on over their heads, like sweaters.
Who would have guessed that a "four in hand" would be a lost art? I wonder if I can still tie a "Windsor".
The Shaw of Ireek and the Shaw of Uran were neighbors, but that didn't mean they got along. Protocol and custom demanded that they be civil to one another even though there was no trust or friendship.
The Feast of Dummyrum was coming up and custom demanded that they give one another gifts. The giver of the least lavish gift would "lose face", so they raided their treasuries to provide a gift with much embellishment and show.
The Shaw of Ireek sent the Shaw of Uran a beautiful scarf wrapped around a myriad of gems and jewels. The gorgeous package was put on display in the center of the Taj Me Hall to be admired by the populace.
And the Shaw of Uran sent the Shaw of Ireek a sacred beast to be worshipped by the multitudes: a huge while elephant carrying a festooned Howdy on her back displaying dancing girls and muscians playing Hagbags, the national instrument of Uran. The elephant was named Joomba.
The multudes roared their approval and bowed down in worship to Joomba, the sacred white elephant. The Shaw of Uran basked in his new found "face" as giver of the most Lavish Gift, and he smiled at a secret he knew
The next day, the Shaw of Ireek discovered that Joomba was hungry and thirsty, the dancing girls were cranky and the musicians were off-key and their Hagbags were sour. What does one feed a white elephant. He discovered that Joomba ate tons of green grass, and juicy fruits from gum trees that had to be imported at great expense.
He raided the treasury to pay for imported grass and fruit. And the next day he had to do it again. Meanwhile Joomba tromped around the Taj Me Hall pooping and trumpeting in ill temper when not enough worshippers were there to bow down. More worshippers had to be hired.
On the fourth day, the Shaw of Ireek was bankrupt, and his Shawdom collapsed.
End of that story and beginning of this: I am giving my grand daughter, aged twenty, her first car. It is a used Mercedes Benz 300-E. It has 229,698 miles on it. It uses premium gas in the age of sky high gas prices. It has a power sun roof and even has windshield wipers on the head lights. It is a wonderful luxury car. I love my grand daughter, but I wonder if she will have to name the car Joomba.
Close, but not close enough.
Last night, seeking some quiet and something to do that took no energy I sat out at twilight, staring at the moon with camera ready. Ready for what?
For a one in ten-thousand chance that a passing airplane would pass directly in front of the moon and make a silhoutte. A few birds came by but they were too fast for me. Finally an airplane came NEAR. In desperation I snapped a picture.
The result is above: a half moon and way...way down in the lower left is a speck that was the airplane. I had to blow the image up immensely to capture even this...
It was not a bad way to spend an evening, and remember, even all of NASA's moonshots didn't work the first time.
I like the new Mega M&M's. As near as I can tell each one is one and half grams. The televsion ads say, "You wouldn't want 'em any bigger."
Wrong. I would. The bigger the better for me.
I even like the subdued colors: Beige, Teal, Maroon, Gold, Brown, and Blue-gray.
Yay for the one and half gram M&M's. can't wait until the three gram babies come out. Mars candy, take note.
What would it take to make you stop writing? Just wondering. I have no intention of stopping, nor do I have any idea what it would take to get me to stop.
Just finished The Lust Lizard of Melancoly Cove by Christopher Moore. Have reviewed two of his books here before: Lamb and Fluke. Liked em both, BUT Fluke stunned me. Changed genre in mid-story. Started as science, about whales and dolphins, and suddenly shifted to science fiction. Once I understood what I was reading, I was all right. Lamb is fantasy...what Jesus youthful life migt have been like. Lust Lizard also fantasy, but you can sort of tell that going in.
