EVEN YEARS LATER WHEN I WAS A 'BIGGER BOSKINS'

 LOOK CAREFULLY, THERE ARE FACES IN THIS PHOTO....FIND THE TIGER'S HEAD AND THE TROPICAL SMILING FISH ALL WITHIN THE MAN'S HEAD

Another beautiful sunny day with clear blue skies and temps pushing up over 40F by early afternoon.  Wished I could tell you I had a good night but I didn't.  And nobody to blame but myself again.  For the second night in a row, I forgot to take a Percocet painkiller before going to bed.  I'm not sure what's going on with my mind but it sure seems to work against me sometimes.  It was nearly 10 a.m. this morning after taking my my first Percocet of the day that the pain in my right leg began to subside and I started feeling half-human again.  With the pain temporarily stopped I was able to get my exercises going again and the day picked up from there.

 BLUE IS MY FAVORITE SKY COLOR

 OH HOW I LOVE TO SEE SNOW MELTING

 A PHEEBER PAW PRINT ON OUR FRONT DECK

 SUN AND SHADOW

With my overnight stay at the Sarnia Hospital a week ago tonight it got me thinking about whether I had ever spent a night in a hospital before.  Maybe as a kid once.  The only thing my memory would come up with was a night in the Kitchener Grand River Hospital in 1994 after a motorcycle accident.  But then I remembered an overnight stay in a southern Tucson Arizona Hospital as the result of a severe kidney stone attack.  Barring those two times, I have been very fortunate in my nearly 8 decades on the Planet not to have been confined to a hospital for any length of time.  I sure don't have anything to complain about.  

 A VERY LONG 600mm TELEPHOTO SHOT

And speaking of hospitals, here's an observation I made last week.  Years ago I remembered nurses and hospital staff in uniforms.  Not anymore.  I saw maybe a few uniformed people but it seems most hospital personnel coming in and out of my room were dressed in street clothes.  Blue Jeans, sweaters, frocks, and had it been summer I'm sure I would have seen tank tops and heard flip-flops.  For hats, all I saw were baseball caps and banana peels.

 DON QUIXOTE CHASING A GLASS BLUE ELEPHANT

A question from Joe in our 'Shoutbox' asked, 'When can u shower'?  The quick answer to that is 14 days after the surgery.  I have a week to go.  In the meantime, it's sponge baths daily.  Sponge baths are not new to me although it's probably been over 75 years since I had my last one.  Growing up as a small boy in the wee village of Tavistock Ontario in the late 40's we were not a rich family.  No shower in our house and not even a bathtub.  Maybe rich folks had those things but we sure didn't have anything like that.  In fact, with no running water in the house in my earliest days, we got our water from a pump and well outside of the house.  Sponge baths were the order of the day for everyone at our place.  My Mom, my Uncle Fred, and my Grandpa.  I was the only non-adult in the house and a friend of my Grandpa's who's name was 'Cowboy' always called me 'Little Boskins'.....even years later when I was a bigger Boskins.  

 NUTHATCH

A Blast From Our Past:: Looking back to late February of 2010 I see we were in Borrego Springs, California.  Facebook threw me this memory and I remember the day well. Don't forget to click the smaller photos to enlarge them when you get to the site.  Early Morning Photo Group And Wandering Willy Rides Into Town

 BOONDOCKED AT THE CLARK DRY LAKE BED NEAR BORREGO SPRINGS CALIFORNIA....FEBRUARY 2010

Al's Music Box:)) The Shadows Instrumental Show.  Some readers out here may remember Cliff Richards and his backup band, The Shadows.  For you folks who have a preference for instrumentals like I do, this is a performance by the Shadows themselves.  Three guitarists and a drummer.    The Shadows (originally known as the Drifters between 1958 and 1959) were an English instrumental rock group, that dominated the British popular music charts in the late 1950s and early 1960s, in the pre-Beatles era. They served as the backing band for Cliff Richards from 1958 to 1968, and have joined him for several reunion tours.   The group, who were at the forefront of the UK beat-group boom, were the first backing band to emerge as stars. As pioneers of the four-member instrumental format, the band consisted of lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass guitar, and drums. Their range covers pop, rock, surf rock, and ballads with a jazz influence. The core members from 1958 on were guitarists Hank Marvin, Bruce Welch, and drummer Brian Bennett (who has been with the group since 1961) with various bassists and occasionally keyboardists through the years. Along with the Fender and the Burns guitars, another cornerstone of the Shadows sound was the Vox amplifier.  Around 1964, the Shadows replaced the Fender with the Burns, Bruce Welch citing tuning issues as the main reason.  Hank Marvin is considered a wonderful lead guitarist. He came from an era when there really were no lead and rhythm guitarists and it would be hard to find anyone even close.  Not only that, he's also the first British rock guitarist of any note who influenced an entire generation of players to pick up a guitar. His tone and use of tremolo in the Shadows are iconic.   I doubt you’ll find any clips featuring him where he makes a mistake. What he did was incredibly difficult.

 IF YOU WERE PUZZLED BY TODAY'S FIRST PHOTO.....HERE IT IS IN PERSPECTIVE....AN ORCHID FLOWER IN OUR SUNROOM

GROANER'S CORNER:((  A sweet little old lady on a bus offers the driver some peanuts. He eats a few and asks her why she isn't having any herself.  "Oh they're too hard on my poor teeth and I couldn't chew them."  "Why did you buy them all then" wonders the driver to which she replied, "I just love the chocolate they're covered in!"

"Darling, I just called to tell you how awesome you are. You really are the love of my life…""Sir, I’m sorry, this is a brewery!"
"Oh, I know…"

I asked my friend when his birthday was, and he said, "March 1st".  So I walked around the room like a soldier and asked him again.

A man sits down at a bar and orders a double martini. After he finishes, he peeks inside his shirt pocket and then orders another. After he finishes that, he again peeks inside his shirt pocket and orders another double martini. The barman says: "I'll bring you martinis all night but why do you look inside your shirt pocket before you order a refill." The customer replies: "I'm peeking at a photo of my wife. When she starts to look good, I know it's time to go home."

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