Standard Time

Set my alarm clock.

Set my watch.

Forgot about the living room clock.

Went to lunch an hour early.

Sure felt dumb.

House Party

Oh, my wonderful friends from J-land, how I wish I had a great big house with a jillion guest rooms, and a huge parlor with a large fire place. I’d have an on-going house-party and you’d all stay over and we’d sit around together and tell about our cats, and kids, and jobs, and ailments, and cures, like we do in our journals. We’d share our dreams and hopes and fears and joys.

It’d be a come-as-you-are party, because that’s the way we dress when we write our journals. We’d wear our scruffies, our nighties, our jeans and our robes, they way we do when we write. I’d be bare and you wouldn’t care ‘cuz that’s the way I write my best.

We’d be in our best and most relaxed story-sharing mode, each sipping his own favorite beverage, and like our journals, nothing would be un-mentionable, for we’re all new-found fast-friends.

We’d recognize each other from the pictures in our journals, or from the names we call our kids or our pets, or our regional accents. We come from all over the world.

Conversation would be easy. We already know one another.

I know it would be a wonderful exciting, entrancing social encounter, because that is just what my reading our blogs is now. Just like an evening’s conversation, I start with one guest and read his entry, and then listen to the comments of others, and follow the links in their comments to their journals. From their journals I follow to the next and the next. Like a true conversation, the subject changes naturally from one experience to the next.

We’ve become such friends that very little is “off limits” in our discussions. You know that I’m an old bachelor, living in an old folks’ home, and I know you’re an ambulance driver, a store manager, a housewife (or house-husband), an artist, or a long distance trucker writing on a lap top from the sleeping compartment of your eighteen wheeler. I know that you’re estranged from your family, happily married, unhappily married, looking for love, or living with a partner whose gender is not stated. You know I’m eighty with an eighty-nine year old girl friend.

How did such a varied group as we come together at this happy house-party? Because of a common interest we share with the unlikely name: blogging.

Thanks for coming to my party. Come again soon, y’hear?

Wake up, Chuck

Duh, wake up, Chuck.

I am new to the Journal game. I have been saving links like mad.  At one point I had 78, and then I pared it down to 44.  Takes me two days to read the list.

BUT... I pared it down with faulty information.  Some of my links are to JOURNALS and some of my links are to ENTRIES.   I didn't know there was a difference.  I edited my list by clicking on each link on my list.  If what I read was more than a week old, I deleted the link. 

What I was doing was calling up the old entry.  Naturally it was more than a week old. I was by-passing the new stuff.

Ho-hum.  Now I have to build a new list, making sure I get the JOURNAL link. 

So, I'll be seeing some of you on schedule, but others I may have to "find" all  aver again. Well, actually that will be fun.  I love the many topics we cover with so many varied viewpoints  I think we are all frustrated authors.

Well, off I go now to see what "Uncle John" Scalzi has assigned for us this week.  It is Thursday, you know.

 

 

 

Boob Tube

There has been lots of PAP on television, but lots of good story telling too.  I miss L.A.Law.  It was a fine series and a lot of its featured actors are busy today on other series. It was for its time what West Wing is now: something to look forward to from week to week.

Cats in J-Land

   In reading journals I find (1) we all have problems, (2) we all get depressed about them, (3) we all have kids and cats, and (4) writing about them helps. 

   I understand we are in "J-Land" when we read and write in our journals, and that we are "Bloggers". 

   Further, I find that Bloggers name their cats wild and sensational things.  Scalzi has Ghlughghy (or something like that pronounced "Fluffy"), and another friend has Barbeque Aloyisous Pete.  Penguine4050 has babygirl, peanut, mootsey and smokey.

   Put your past and present cats' name in the comments below and I'll make a cat registry. Let me start you off with Missy, Punkin, Gwendolyn, Pudgy.

From Cat>>Winkle, Forrest (Gump), Freddy, Ivy, Misty, Stripes, Alex, Sylvester, Nikki, Gizmo (aka Fat Kitty), Tummy Kitty, and  Baby. Plus 2 dogs.. Tippy , and Cubby
From Kate>>Magic and Goldie, Magic is a money cat and Goldie is a big GOLDEN furball. Other cats:  friends had one named BATFACE...she looked like it too.SUKI, LITTLE KITTY, were once in the family...now I am Grandmother to BUTTERS a cross-eyed siamese.

From Bookncoffee>>Smokie  (Tortoise callico)Then there's Gizmo, Ginger, Bob (the Momma cat LOL!), and Colby (the Dad). Then there's Gizmo, Ginger, Bob (the Momma cat LOL!), and Colby (the Dad).

From Maraine>>Shadow (Also a tortoise callico)

Fom Valphish>>Honey (well, actually Joy Faith)

From Krissy>Mr. Michaels

From Stacy>My past kitties:  Handsome, Snowflake, Jezebel, Greatful Ed, BlackJack, Chairman Mao, Santana, Cowboy, Popcorn and Lasso... Present Kitties: Shadow and Superfuzzzzz!

One last note before this entry becomes history:  A new resident at our old folks home has a poodle named Sir Dog.

I've Gone Nuts Over Journals

I may be  hooked.  I was reading one journal a day, John Scalzi's By the Way. I followed the links in his daily articles and the Weekly Assignments. 

I liked what I saw and added some to my list of favorites.  And in them I found more links, and I followed those links, too. And I added more favorites.

I began adding comments to the journals I read, and some bloggers wrote comments in my journal, and I added THOSE folks to my list. 

I began doing the Weekly Assignments, The Morning Question, and the Photo Scavenger Hunt.

Now I have forty, two score, journals to check each morning.  They are fascinating, and it takes all morning to read, savor, and comment.

I have a question.  Do you think my hobby has become an obsession? 

Photo Scavenger Hunt for Autumn

Autumn? We got no Autumn in California.  Only the swallows know when autumn comes.  They head for Peru.  Peru, imagine, with no reservations.  They will be back in March. 

Pictured are a view from the bridge under which the swallows nest and some pumpkins, the only other clue that it is Fall in Californa

 

Shoes and Sox

We've been asked to show our favorite shoes.  These aren't my favorite shoes.  They're my only shoes.  I live in a retirement home that is being remodeled, and I'm assigned to a temporary room.  These are the only shoes I have with me. I hope I don't step in a puddle.

I notice that my socks don't match.  That's okay, they rarely do.  I have a wooden leg, so I don't bother to change the right sock until it wears out.  It is a matter of convenience taking precedence over fashion.  A pair of socks lasts me twice as long as other folks.  Until the fashion police catch me, I will limp along unmatched.  Hah.

Still Learning to add pictures

This is my "girl friend", age 89.

I am 80.

Now the size is right.  How do I set type to right of picture?

The learning curve is shallow.

Adding a picture

I have been admiring journals with pictures in them and wondering how to do it.

Well, now I see the picture .  At least I am making head way... i think.

But picture is too big and I want to set type around it.

Back to  the drawing board.

Unpresidents' day

We've had presidents' day honoring past presidents.  What about a day celebrating those folks who missed out because of fickle fate.  Say Ted Kennedy, who never got a chance to run because of an accident, but who continued serving his country and his party in his pudgy, steady way.  Or Tom Dewey who cinched the 1948 election, or so he thought.  Or Al Gore who won the popular vote but not the white house.  Robert Taft and General MacArthur could shine again.

   More serious folks will say we should have a 9/11 holiday to remind us of that attack and Pearl Harbor. 

   Or light hearted folks will say "Let's make Ground Hog a national holiday. Let's celebrate the end of our national hibernation."

   More holidays, more long week-ends, hoo-ray.