Wednesday, January 11, 2012

I Love Old People

I was sitting in the living room at an older couple’s house last week with my son and one of his friends.  They crack me up.  They talk on and on, smoke scary amounts of cigarettes, and talk on and on without really ever saying much of anything.  But I love ‘em anyway.  You know how it is, you just kind of nod and say “uh huh” every now and then.  They do the rest.

Occasionally, though, a real gem sneaks in.

During one of the husband’s typical ramblings about his past he said, “I’ve had three women and two dogs.”  Then after a brief moment of reflection while he took another puff of his cigarette he said, “I really loved those dogs.”

Then he went on without realizing what he’d said, still reflecting on days gone by.

I burst out laughing and nearly fell on the floor.  I had to stop him because, even though he saw that something had struck my funny bone, he had no idea what it was.  I guess I was the only one in the room that caught it, maybe the only one trying to pay attention.  ‘Cause when I repeated what he’d said, everyone cracked up.

Almost as funny was the fact that, even after she had a good chuckle about it herself, it took a couple of minutes before it really dawned on his current wife.  How does the saying go?  “That’s when the fight started.”

J

smh&g

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Great Blogging Quote

My wife and I watched the movie "Contagion" last night.  This quote made me laugh out loud:

"Blogging is not writing.  It's graffiti with punctuation!"

BWAAA HAhahahahahaha  !!!!!!!

:-)

Friday, October 07, 2011

Painting Pictures of Egypt - Sara Groves

I've typed and re-typed all kinds of thoughts inspired by this song.  In the end I felt I should just post the song and let it go at that.  It touched me.  Maybe it will touch you. 

May the Holy Spirit lead you and guide you into all truth and comfort and peace...

Sara Groves – Painting Pictures of Egypt

I don’t want to leave here
I don’t want to stay
It feels like pinching to me either way
And the places I long for the most
Are the places where I’ve been
They are calling out to me like a long lost friend

It’s not about losing faith
It’s not about trust
It’s all about comfortable
When you move so much
And the place I was wasn’t perfect
But I had found a way to live
And it wasn’t milk or honey
But then neither is this

CHORUS:
I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt
Leaving out what it lacks
The future feels so hard
And I want to go back
But the places that used to fit me
Cannot hold the things I’ve learned
And those roads were closed off to me
While my back was turned

The past is so tangible
I know it by heart
Familiar things are never easy to discard
And I was dying for some freedom
But now I hesitate to go
I am caught between the promise
And the things I know

CHORUS: (2x)
Oh, those roads were closed off to me
While my back was turned

BRIDGE:
If it comes too quick
I may not appreciate it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?
If it comes too quick
I may not recognize it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?

Monday, September 19, 2011

Grrr ...

Saturday was a bad day ...

The plan was to mow the lawn and paint my daughter's bedroom.  But the mower wouldn't start.  The battery was dead.  That's the first time that's happened since I bought it some 7 or 8 years ago. 

Hmmm ...

"No problem", I thought.  "I'll just boost it with my car battery."  I wasn't sure if there was any danger in damaging the mower battery by using my car battery.  But, what the heck, right?  When I tried to lift the plastic hood on my mower I cracked it three quarters of the way to the headlights - right down the middle of the hood !!!!

Crap !!!!  I had forgotten the hood release latches on the sides of the hood.

The mower still wouldn't start.  The engine was turning over now that the jumper cables were connected.  But it still wouldn't start.  "Perhaps it's out of gas", I thought.  I had mowed the lawn a few times since the last time I put gas in it.

So I go to the gas station to get gas, put it in the mower, and reconnect the jumper cables.  Still wouldn't start.

Humph.  No mowing today.

So I put on a slightly better old T-shirt to go to Wal-Mart to get the paint for my daughter's bedroom.  When I get there I realize the ball shorts I'm wearing have no pockets in them.  So I carry my wallet, my car keys, and the color selection in my hand to go get the paint only to find out that Wal-Mart has run out of the base material they need to mix the paint I wanted.

No problem, I usually get my paint from Lowes anyway.  So I go to Lowes with my wallet, keys, and color selection in hand.  I grab a cart just like I did at Wal-Mart to carry my wallet and keys.  While the nice young lady in the paint department was mixing my paint I went down the aisle to pick up a paint pan and trim brush.

While looking for those items I realized I had left my cart unattended for a few minutes.  When I got back to my cart, sure enough, my wallet and keys were gone !!!!

Stupid, stupid, stupid !!!!!

It's my own fault for leaving them unattended.  I had something like $77.00 cash in the wallet along with my debit cards and a few shopping cards.  I figured the cash was the price I paid for learning not to leave my wallet unattended.  And the debit cards are for accounts I keep at near zero balances all the time.  So I didn't think any real financial damage could be done.

The manager was sympathetic and nice enough to check the lost and found and to review the surveillance tapes for any clues.  No such luck.  He asked if I wanted to call the police.  But I wasn't sure if it would do any good. 

I searched every empty shopping cart I could find hoping that someone had mistakenly and innocently taken my cart instead of theirs.  I checked the parking lot several times in case the thief might have ditched my wallet and keys after taking the cash.  I asked the manager if they could check the trash cans as they empty them in case my stuff might have been dumped there.

I called my wife from the phone at the service desk to tell her to come and get me and bring the extra set of keys for my car.  Heh, can you believe it, she couldn't find HER car keys !!!!  But she finally found them and rushed to my rescue with the extra set of keys for my car.  But she didn't actually have my extra keys ...

And wouldn't you know it, that was my fault, too.  That very morning I had decided to remove my extra keys from the gawd-awful batch of trinkets my daughter had attached them to way back when.  My wife had grabbed that gawd-awful batch of trinkets.

Sigh ...

So I drove my wife's car back to the house to get my extra keys while she went into Lowes and paid for the paint.  By the way, where we live EVERYTHING is at least a half hour drive from our house.

But you know what?  None of that seemingly never ending series of unfortunate events warrants the "Grrrr ..." in the title of this post.  Not the broken down mower; not having broken the hood on the broken down mower; not the stolen wallet; not the missing cash; not having to drive back home to get my extra keys; not the inconvenience of having to cancel debit cards and order new ones; not even the aggravation of all that combined.

You know what made me mad? 

While I was waiting for my wife, I decided that it might be prudent to have a police report on file just in case there were some transactions on my debit cards that I needed to dispute.  So I go to one of the women working at a desk near the entrance to the manager's office and told her that I had, in fact, decided to call the police after all.

"OK", she said.
"Can I use your phone?".
"You can't use this phone."
("Oh", I thought, "Maybe I have to use the phone at the service desk like I did earlier to call home.")
"Do I have to use the phone at the service desk?"
"No.  You can't use that one, either."
("Hmmm ...")
"Will you call the police for me?"
"We're not allowed to call the police.  And if the police come here, they can't look at the camera without a subpoena."
(Why did she feel the need to add that bit about the cameras ???)
"YOU'RE not allowed to call the police ?!?!?"
"No."
"You mean to tell me that if you see a crime being committed right here in front of you, you're not allowed to call the police?"
"That's right."
"I find that hard to believe", I said and walked away.

The more I thought about that, the angrier I got.  There were several people there I know so I used one of their cell phones to call the police.  I also told another employee that I wanted to see the manager again.

When the manager came out I told him what the woman had told me.  I'm pretty sure during my description the term "horseshit" was used.  I told him I hadn't at all been angry until then. 

To illustrate the ridiculousness of what she had told me I said to the manager, "So if I shoot that guy standing over there in the aisle, none of you are allowed to call the police. The poor guy has to hope he survives the shooting, has a cell phone on him, and is somehow able enough to call 911 himself."

Are you feeling the "Grrrr" yet ????

The manager apologized, assured me she had simply misunderstood store policy, and offered to let me use the phone to call the police.  Oh, and when the police came, the manager took the officer straight to the cameras so he could review them all he wanted...

Later, as we were leaving, I thanked the manager for being sympathetic and helpful and for everything he tried to do to help me.  I'm sure I'll repent for the horseshit remark as soon as I send a nasty letter to Lowes identifying the women who refused to help me.

By the way, as I was sitting on one of those Z-Track lawn mowers in front of the store keeping an eye on my car, the thought occurred to me that we have been blessed so much over the years that they (the infamous they; conveyors of conventional wisdom and ever the other from "us") could never steal or take away enough from us to put us on the negative side of life's ledger.

I waited until Sunday to paint my daughter's room.  It looks great!  I did, however, kick the paint can over and spilled paint all over the carpet ...


This is the Stuff - Francesca Battistelli\

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Better Man

Heard this song on the radio this morning.  I remember way back when it first came out.  That's when I knew Clint Black was the real deal !!!!!!

Better Man

Monday, August 15, 2011

Live Bullet !!!!

One of my all time favorite rock albums has always been Bob Serger and The Silver Bullet Band - Live Bullet.

Here are a couple of tunes from that effort that should ALWAYS be played back-to-back:

Travelin' Man and Beautiful Loser


And here's one that always brings me to tears because it reminds me of how my very best friend thought of his girlfriend right up until the day he was killed in a horrible car crash - right after dropping me off at my house.

Jody Girl


Some other great songs from Live Bullet:

Nutbush City Limits
Ramblin' Gamblin' Man
Katmandu

... and of course ...

Turn the Page (Sorry, couldn't find a link to the actual "Live Bullet" version)

Thursday, August 11, 2011

How Could I Have Forgotten This One ???

Maybe it's the welcome break in the weather ...