Karen says she is making plans to go, once again, to Disneyland, her favorite vacation spot.  She will probably see those happy little people, the Seven Dwarfs.

I got to wondering how the seven of them got along for so many centuries until Snow White came along. They were terrible housekeepers she discovered. They were barely hygenic, they washed in a trough outside the cabin door.  "Step up to the tub, aint no disgrace, jest scoop up some water and rub it on your face and go BRRR BRRR  BRRR."

Then I decided it was team work.  Each had his role in the Septal society.  Here is how I see them:

The Seven Dwarfs

A caricature of personalities

All: fun loving, hard working, cooperative, short, overweight. Here is their hierarchy and order of succession.

Doc: Assertive, gives the orders naturally, decisively   Tolerant, accepts the other’s whims and foibles

Grumpy: Pessimist, observes the negatives, expects them  Pleased when things go wrong so he can say “I told you so”

Happy: Optimist, expects the best, observes the best in things

Sneezy: Hypochondriac. Allergies and ailments are his specialty  The acting physician of the dwarfs

Bashful : Obsequious*, polite, shy, mediator in dwarfs’ disagreements

Sleepy : Always tired, lethargic, works with others, but slowly

Dopey : Willing, always on the go, but always scatter brained and wrong

* ob·se·qui·ous
Pronunciation: &b-'sE-kwE-&s, äb-
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, compliant, from Latin obsequiosus, from obsequium compliance, from obsequi to comply, from ob- toward + sequi to follow
Date: 15th century
: marked by or exhibiting a fawning attentiveness

POST SCRIPT.  Honey Bea makes a comment below>> I always thought that the seven dwarfs somewhat represented all the differnt sides of our  own persinalies.
Comment from hunybea4him  

My gosh, she's right.  Never noticed that before.

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

 

Meet Jerdine.  I took her picture in the rose garden for that is where I see her most.
   Jerdine had to leave her home and garden and come live in an assisted living facility because of a nasty old stroke.  Here she found there was nothing for her to do. She bought lots of house plants and they fill her room. Then she discovered the roses.
   The roses in our garden had bloomed and faded, and they would require attention before a second bloom could come.  The dead blossoms needed to be plucked so the new buds could flourish and flower. Here was something Jerdine knew exactly how to do. She set to with a will.
   “Hey,” she was told, “get out of the garden. Don’t pick the flowers.”
   Jerdine explained the best that she could, words not coming easily after her stroke, that old dead blooms had to come off before the new little buds could blossom. And despite folks grumbling, she kept preparing the roses for new blooms.
   “Look,” she told me. “They be comin’ back. See here, and here. You come back on Wednesday.  Be all beautiful.”
   And I went back on Wednesday and took my daughter to meet Jerdine because I appreciated her enthusiasm.
   “Not ready yet,” she told me, but pointed our several new buds on the stems where she had pulled off dead blooms.
   “Be ready on Saturday, sure,” she assured me.
   But that afternoon, the institutional gardeners, working on a schedule of their own, using electric loppers, CUT THEM ALL BACK TO THREE FOOT STUMPS.  Every one. Baby buds and all. 

   I haven’t seen Jerdine since. She must have discovered the mayhem by now.
  The second blooming of the roses has been postponed. Until next year.

A Gaggle of Goofs

Grandmother used to say, "Good news comes singly, and bad news comes in threes".  Im not so sure about that, but today acomplishments came singly and goofs came in threes, or more, vertitble gaggles.

Woke this morning at four to watch the shuttle blast off.  Had trouble finding the AOL multiple camera viewing site, and when I did it was blank, except for a notice "Facility overloaded".  Oh well, a pen pal discovered me online and IM'd me.  And that was wonderful.  We IM'd for about two hours, chatting about life, love, and the price of beans in Mexico.  Well, no, that is a figure of speech, we discussed no beans. I was so captivated in fact that I forgat all about the launch of Discovery.

We chatted until I went to breakfast, starting my chain of goofs, by leaving the computer on and on AOL.  Thus I blocked my fone line all morning long.  So when I returned I started to write an email.  Wrote a full page attached a picture, and then it vanished.  Error two.

I didn't want to do it over so started for a soothing Starbucks cooler. Took my camera to take photos for Blog.  The office manager intercepted me.  "Oh, chuck, I haven't receive your July rent."

Me: what?  Of course you have, in June.  But a check of my records shows I didn't pay rent.  So I go pay rent with late fee added on.  Error three.

So on I go to Starbucks and get my pallative.  I take it to the lawn and the shade of large tree.  There I sip and there I decide to take a picture.  What?  No camera.  Oh well, error four.

Now I return to my room and look for camera. Cannot find it.  Oh, here it is, in my pocket, I had it all the time.  Error five.

Bad news doesn't necessarily come in threes, Grandmother.  Sometimes it comes in fives, or whole gaggles.

Genome

Karen wrote and said she was not sure she would have liked seeing a minutes old calf.  I responded:

Oh no, you would have loved the newborn calf.  It was wonderful and heart warming to see him come to life.  He was so in awe of the new world. Sort of stunned. Within a few minutes of being born he (or she, we hadn't found out yet) was sitting up and looking around.  Mother was nuzzling and licking him.  He was sort of dazed.  Well, who wouldn't be?

Within a few minutes more he was trying to get up.  He got his front feet under him but then toppled over.  Mother licked him some more.

  We left before he was on his feet, but we could see he was ready to rise and nurse.       I recently learned that the term for that innate behavior is genomic.  It is behavior in the genes, just like physical traits are in genes, eye color and such.    I had said that I was sorry I hadn't taken a camera. Maybe it was better just to watch and appreciate the process.  Photographing it would have been superfluous and put a gap between me and what was going on.    Other species have genomes too. The baby swallows, in their eggs, under the bridge on La Paloma Road in Merced, have a genome in them that tells the baby swallows to learn to fly, and on September 6th (or some such exact date)  to fly to a certain bridge or building in SOUTH AMERICA and build a nest, etc.    Incredible. And they do it without maps or calendars.  

Scrabble Note

Do you know why a Q in Scrabble is worth ten whole points? Because you can rarely use it without a U, and there are only four U's in the set.

If your opponent has the Q, and if you can play this word on the top row, you got him.  Do you know the word?

              >>MUUMUU<<

To see the answer double click on it.

Remember, you don't have to know what it is, just that it is a word.

County Fair

I went to the County Fair today, but I did not take my camera with me.  Big mistake.

On the old folks home bus were three residents, and three staff.  We were met at the fair but three 4H youth as guides.  Our party of nine was just the right size.  We toured the Pavilions with the fine art and the home arts, including the quilting and the baking.

We viewed people's collections of toys, miniatures, memoribilia. Two of us got to milk a cow, but I declined.  I have never milked a cow and was not about to start today.  Farther on a Gurnsey was giving birth and we arrived a few minutes after it had calved.  We watched the calf pull himself together, and make his first efforts to stand up.  (No one actually knew whether it was a male or female.  The staff was letting the mother bond with it without their coming near it.  What is the term?)

All of this and hamburgers too.  It was a great day with souveniers, but no picturres.

The Geriatric Teenager

I am a young man, looking for romance.  I spend a lot of time playing word games with my little girl. And yet I have every ailment that men of 80 have. My body acts its age but my thinker does not. I think I can eat or sleep like a boy scout.

Our old folks home has put one of its old computers in the card room for the residents to use.  It needs a new mouse though.  I searched through all my electronic junk boxes looking for a mouse.  I know I have one, but I cannot find it.  It must be in storage. Ah well, I will buy a cheap one and donate it, just to get the computer running.

I need paper for the printer, since I am nearly out.  I made a run to the Staples on my scooter.  They have a special on paper so I bought three reams.  I bought a cheap mouse.

When I returned, I opened the storage drawer to put the paper away, and LO, and BEHOLD.  There is already packaged paper in there. I have plenty after all.  Now I have plenty plenty plenty.  And next to the plenty extra paper is THE EXTRA MOUSE. Now I have plenty extra mouse too. 

So my active teen age mind is acting like a normal 80 year old brain. My little girl has passed the half century mark, and beats her Dad fourteen out of fifteen times.

So how old am I, anyway?