The Saturday Six frin Patrick's Place

The Saturday Six from Patrick's Place.  If you'd like to play, copy the questions and post them your own answers in your journal. Post a link to the entry in the comments at Patrick's Place.

 

1. What is the most inexpensive, non-valuable thing you tend to collect and hoard? Why do you do it?

1. PAPER the printer wastes. The printer is always doing things like running ALL pages when I tell it to print page two only. I say I can turn this over and print on the back, but I rarely do. In fact, when I need scratch paper, I take a fresh sheet out of the printer feed tray.

2. PLASTIC TUBS the cottage cheese and margarine come in. Those nice little tubs make neat storage containers. “Nuts,” my daughter says, “If I need storage tubs I’ll buy Gladware at the market and I won’t waste water washing them out.”

3. PEANUT BUTTER JARS. Same reason. They are light, wide mouthed convenient pencil holders, coin repositories, urinals. Now isn’t that gross?

4. CARDBOARD CARTONS. I have moved many times and with each move I have had to scout the trash bins of every market and appliance store in town to find cartons to move things in. Now I loathe to throw any cartons away, even though I don’t expect to move again.

5. OLD MAGAZINES. What good are last week’s Time Magazine or mail order catalogues? So why do I hang onto them until I have to pay someone to haul them away? It is learned behavior. My family used to save National Geographic for years and years. They took up one whole wall of the garage.

6. SUITS AND COATS long after they are much too small for me. I used to wear large, long ago, and then extra large. Now, dear me, I am Four X large but cannot part with those suits and coats that are perfectly good for wearing again when I lose weight.

2. What is the highest price you've paid per gallon for gasoline where you live? Do you use regular, mid-grade or premium?

Rising gas prices do not affect me. I drive so little now that I buy gas only three times a year. I am not sure what I paid, but I think it was $2.58 a gallon. I have heard that it went to $3.25 a gallon for a while.

I used to work in a service station and pumped gas for $.26 per gallon and that included 4 cents state road tax. So, for 22 cents per gallon you got your fuel, your windows washed, your battery checked, your coolant refilled (with water in those days), and the correct air pressure in all four tires. No, you didn’t need to tip the attendant.

I use regular, for that’s what the owners’ manual says to do. You do read the manual, don’t you?

3. What is your favorite Bible verse and why? If you don't have a verse from the Bible that holds meaning to you, what's your favorite saying and why?

Isaiah 20,3 Isaiah went naked three years as a token and a sign against Egypt and Cush.

I like it because I’d like to think there is a reason I feel the need to go bare, and not that I’m just weird. What would happen to someone if they went around naked as a protest against Al Qaida. I think I’ll give it a try.

4. What was your favorite movie from the 1970s? When did you last view it? Do you have it in your movie collection?

Who remembers what movies came out in which decade? I like Big with Tom Hanks and True Grit with John Wayne, and I have them in my collection, and I liked ET, but I don’t have a copy, but now I have to go look up their dates.

5. Do you weigh more, less, or the same as you did one year ago? Six months ago? Three months ago?

A little more, and I hope it is only a little more.

6. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #54 from Jennie: What one lyric sums up your current love life? Your view on life? Your past? Your hopes/dreams/fears?

Love is lovelier, the second time around. (love life)

A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down (view of life)

Thanks for the memories (past)

Roll out the barrel, we’ll have a barrel of fun (hopes)

Follow up -- Painting The Parking Lot

They painted the parking lot of the old folks home --  except for one space where a lady parked her car, locked it, and went away for the week-end.  They painted AROUND her car.  This is that space, where her car was parked.

And there is another little unpainted spot... I wonder what was parked there.

Ooooh, look what someone parked in the new parking lot.  A brand new Toyota XR.Something.

Someone asked me "Isn't that one of those new hybrids, part electric?"  I didn't know, but as I watched the driver came and got in, and the huge thing glided off, as silently as the fog drifting away.  Spooky those electric drives.

Makes my old van look boxy and old fashioned.  Here is my '95 Chevy Van.

And just because I have up-graded my Photobucket membership, and have unlimited photos, here is the front of the old folks home where I live and write my journal.

MyVery Favorite

My very favorite entry and my very favorite comments. They still bring tears of pride to my eyes.

Love,  Chuck

The Bride Wore Purple -- follow up

From Milt, their wedding picture.

       Eva and Milt, Newlyweds

Welcome to the Home of the Obsessed

   Why would a normal adult go to bed at 1:30 am and then rise at 4:30 am to work on his journal?  The answer is: he wouldn't.  Therefor the proposition is wrong as stated. He is not normal.  He is obsessed.

   I am he who got three hours sleep last night and then came and wrote in this journal.  And I am in good company. 

   Sara stays up until three am writing of her days adventures even though she has to get up at seven to go to work.

   Karen goes to a movie at 11:45 pm on a work night.  Not just any work night, but the second work night on a new job.  I haven't checked to see if she came home and wrote a review of the movie before she turned in.

   Krissy is up late at night writing in her journal waiting for new husband to get home.

   So, welcome to our sleep-deprived world, you other J-landers.  You know how it is. You've been there. I, myself, can take a nap after lunch.  I hope you can too.

Weekend Assignment -- Ridiculous Pet Names

   My loyal, best friend, a Golden Retriever, came already named: GRIFFIN. I’m told that means red haired one in Welsh. That was appropriate and it stuck, though I called him Griff. His spayed lady companion, a Border Collie bitch, came named TACKY. I thought that was tacky, so renamed her Tammy. She did not mind.

   When our cat named MISSY had kittens we named them PUNKEN, for Pumpkin, and PUDGY, cause he was the fattest of the litter. Pudgy and Punkin committed incest and produced a litter one of whom we called BAT FACE, for obvious reasons

  My Mom and Dad named their pets as they saw them. GYPSY because she wandered, and SNOOPER because he sniffed everything. Snooper was a Scottie and Dad described Gypsy’s breed as Curbstone Setter. In other words, a non-descript mixture. BOUNCER was a lively dancing boxer.

  Their cats were THIS ONE and THAT ONE. I never knew which was which. Another was COMMON, a common domestic short hair Maybe it was for “come on”, I’m not sure.

   But the most ridiculous pet name I’ve heard was that of dog owned by a medical student. He gave his dog the generic name for Mercurichrome. Imagine calling your dog in at night by shouting through the neighborhood, “Come home little DIBROMOXIMERCUIFLOURICENE.”

   This was a Scalzi Weekend Assignment, but an earlier entry about pet names was Cats in J-land

Center of the Universe

One advantage to living in this old folks home, is that is right near everything.  Only if you lived in Manhattan would you be closer to Starbucks, Quizno's sandwiches, Long John Silver Fish and Chips, Carl's Jr., MacDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Domino's Pizza, Sav-Mart Market, Urgent Care Medical Center, Labratory, Pollo Loco, Hometown Buffet, a shopping mall, other restaurants. All within scooter distance.

I went for blood test this morning, skipping whatever form of eggs they were serving here.  then, as long as I was out, went to Carl's Jr, home of the six dollar burger.  (The Six Dollar Burger cost $3.95)  They had a breakfast burger that was a heart attack on a bun.  Hamburger patty, bacon, fried egg, and HASH BROWN POTATOES in a bun.  I ate it all.

I also had a cup of coffee the size of pint jar.

When I was patting myself on the back a few entries below, I thought I was pretty self-agrandizing, but I can't compare to the Channel Islands Roasting Company.  This was printed on the giant paper cup my coffee came in:

During much of the year here, the costal fog chills the morning air and gives the ocean a gunmetal gray appearance.  It's at times like these that a good cup of coffee really seems like "Nectar of the Gods."

So a collection of old friends and I set out to make that good cup of coffee. We started by bringing the best Arabica beans available from Columbia and other countries in the prime Central and South America coffee-growing regioins. What we craved was the clean, well rounded taste of a medium-roasted, classic "American Style" cup of Joe.

We think this coffee is it, and we hope you'll find it as enjoyable to drink as we do.

   Mike Murphy,

   "Head Honcho"

The coffee was all right.

Wow, this entry wandered...starting with the center of the universe and ending with a bit of the copy writers art.