Best Time of the Day

Five AM to nine AM is the best part of the day.  I am awake, creative, full of mischief, piss and vinegar.  Some my friends sleep all morning long.  They even SKIP BREAKFAST. Ugh.

I can understand even that.  Five AM to nine AM is the best time to lall in bed, too. Let the world go by. Especially on Sunday mornings.

My next-door room neighbor used to turn her TV on to get her Sunday church programs at seven AM.  Her TV was next to the wall directly opposite the head of my bed, and she was hard of hearing, so the volume was set on maximum. 

I moved, but I still get up early.

Time to go now.  Eggs and sweet rolls for breakfast.

More Quick Shots

1  The Old Folks Home roses are looking better, but still pretty depressed.  I thought flowers liked rain.  Our don't.

2   The prettiest cars in the parking lot today are a Chrysler and two Toyotas.

3   The Merced, CA, sesquicentennial (let the spell checker deal with that word) parade is going on as I type this.  It is on Main Street.  That is a mile away.  And here I sit, bemoaning the fact that I am too sedentary to go see it on my scooter.

4   I am getting lots of nice comments on my journal entries.  Thank you, I needed them.  I was feeling blue, but you kind folks bouy me up.  You are figurative life-savers.

5   I will actually get on my horse (Pride Scooter) and go to town to visit the Art Gallery open house.  My daughter will be there and some of her work will be displayed. 

6   One comment below says, "I'll bet those pictures bring back happy and sad memories."  Happy ones, yes, and yet, as I posted them I had tears in my eyes. One of our recent  week-end assignments asked what were the happiest days of your childhood.  My answer: summer vacation at Carpinteria, CA, beach camp.  We kid's parents took turns staying at the camp so that we could spend a large part of the summer there, living in swim trunks, sunning and swimming. 
   I may be paying the price of all that sunning now, as the dermatologist burns off nurmerous little tumors with his handy spray can of liquid nitrogen.

7  Another week-end assignment was to look into the future and predict what life will be like.  My tablemate and I did that at breakfast.  I predicted that in one hundred years the political  and science center of world will be Asia. Japan, Korea, China will unite and rule the world.  USA, Mexico, Canada will unite and be the second power, competing with South America for that spot.  Africa will dominate the third world and Eurasia will be part of that sphere.
   Science will be the religion of the masses, and the current religions will be hanging on, struggling to survive.  Marriage, burial, family unit customs will change drastically.  And the surprising thing is, that people born today, 2005, will be alive to see it all, but will be grumbling about how good things "used to be" back in the early part of the twenty-first century.

Me and Mom

 

                        Me and Mom --  1924

             Me and Mom 1926                     Me and Mom 1940

 

Thanks to Mavarin for the inspiration -- 2005

For Mothers Day

My mother, right, about 1910, with her mother, and her mother's mother.

Quick shots

1.  I am getting lazier and lazier.  First, I quit walking with a walker and started using a wheel chair.  Now, I have quit using wheel chair and am using electric scooter. I even got on scooter this morning to go to the parlor and mail box, a distance of about 200 feet.

2.  The roses in the garden did NOT like the recent rain.  They are all bent over, with heads in the mud, and looking thourghly soaked and miserable.

3.  The Cinco De Mayo here at the old folks home was delightful.  The dining room was festooned with colorful pennants, and there was a Mexican display in the corner with Serapes and Sombreros. (Let's see what the spell checker does with those.) The entree was enchiladas with beans and rice, one of my favorites, and there were Margaritas to start with.  A little pinata on each table held nuts and sugar free candy. 

4.  Chevrolet has still got it.  The most attractive car in the parking lot today was a new Chevrolet.  They make 'em look like Toyotas nowadays, but this one was even prettier.

5.  There are two rather unnoticed gems in your windows program.  If you haven't discovered PAINT on your computer you are in for a treat.  It is tucked away as an accessory.  You may have to seek it out using the START icon on the task bar.  But once you find it, you can draw, letter, modify photos, and generally waste whole mornings playing with it.  And on your Windows 98 is a handy gadget FAX.  Right on your computer you can send and receive FAX messages.  Handy, huh?  No machine needed to sit upon the telephone stand.  I rue that is missing from my Windows XP.  I don't need it often, but how I hate running to the office when I need to fax some document.  How come Microsoft dumped that neat feature?

6.  I had a hurtful prank played upon me by two friends.  I had made colorful placemats for our dining table, using the Paint program.  I made each placemat in the favorite colors of my tablemates.  They stayed in place for several days.  Day before yesterday I went early and added one for Jim, who has returned from a month long illness.  I had to readjust the place setting for each person slightly. 
   Since there was some time before dinner, I left the dining room, and as I left I passed Mrs. Asinine and Ms. Withered, my tablemates, entering.  That's not their real names, and I have changed them, not to protect their identities, but because I don't want to get sued. When I returned in about fifteen minutes, all the placemats were GONE. 
   I was astounded.  I asked what had happened to them, and no one knew.  I asked the waitresses and and even the cook.  No one could tell me what had happened.  I was flabbergasted and very upset.  Later I found them, twisted and tossed into a nearby trash can.
   Later I reasoned, only Mrs. A and Ms. W could have taken them.  For some reason they resented them, and removed them, and yet, couldn't tell me face to face.  In fact, they lied about removing them. It made me feel very defeated, and small.  I had made them for them,   What about all the other contributions I have made to the life aroud here?  The giant exercise ball, the card shuffler for card games, the funny signs on my door, my musical entertainment.  Is everything unappreciated?  It makes me feel very OLD, and very ALONE.
   I didn't confront Mrs. A nor Ms. W about this.  I may be wrong, and any further separation would merely add to the hurt. Thank goodness for my friends in J-land.

Whoa, Nellie

I am old enough to have known some people who have actually lived through a runaway horse adventure.  Not too long ago, in the way I figure time, people's main mode of transportation was THE HORSE.

The horse is a large square animal with a leg at each corner, and you got from place to place by sitting on his back... sitting right down on the horse.. and saying GITTYAP. 

You steered the horse with reins.  Some reins ran to a bit in the horse's mouth.  He didn't care much for the bit, who would?  You tugged on his mouth to make him whoa (stop). 

Sometimes, the family horse, Fred, or Bessie, or Dobbin or Nellie would become agitated, and TAKE THE BIT IN HIS TEETH (so you couldn't tug on his mouth) and take off for Cleveland at a dead run.  There you were: completely helpless, on a horse that wouldn't pay attention to your tugging or your yelling or your tears.  Where Nellie wanted to go, you went.  And fast.  You couldn't bail out, Nellie was going full speed.  You hung on.

What am I getting at?  Just this.

My Hewlett-Packard sometimes takes the bit in his (her) teeth and runs.  Tugging at the reins, that is... clicking on the red x in the corner of the window... doesn't stop him.  Sometimes turning off the computer at the console doesn't stop him.  I have had to UNPLUG THE COMPUTER FROM THE WALL. That is equivalent to knocking Nellie unconscious with a club.

So, what would you do with a horse that ran away with you?  When you finally somehow got control, you gingerly urged him home or shopping, or visiting, with kind words and nice slow, soft guidance.  So I do with my computer.

And if your horse ran away with you two or three times a day, you would take him to an expert for retraining.  There are such specialists for computers too.  But if that failed and he continued to run... you'd SELL him.  And if you couldn't sell him, or even give him away (there is little market for used computers) you would take him to the GLUE factory.  (That is a gentle metaphor that means you'd put him down... which means KILL him.)

A horse that runs away is useless.  So is a computer.

I hope my Hewlet-Packard has been listening to this.

Hail Umblicus

A comment was just added to my March entry about belly buttons.  Likely you wont have seen it, so I copy it here. 

I have just come across this website for Biannual Belly Button Day. I am the director of BelliButtonz.com (bellybuttons .com) and we have so many photos of people showing thier belly button. We are based in New York and have had BelliButtonz for almost 3 years. People have often asked, what would a Beely Button Day or a Belly Button Parade be like. I think it would be huge gathering considering how many people we know would come consisting of people of all races. It's funny, it's not raunchy and it's unique. Why don't you have any photos of this Biannual Day and is it in New York? How would we make a Belly Buttons Day here or even a fair in someplace like Flushing Meadow Park in Queens or Even Central Park. It can consist of Belly Dance school performances, body painting, on the site body peircing or tatooing, hula dancers, body builders, best belly button contest, and more. I want more information concerning this Biannual Day and where it can go from here.
Comment from drajahla - 5/2/05 6:13 PM

   It all sounds fine to me, except the piercing...that sends shivers up my spine.