HAD MYSELF A GREAT CHRISTMAS DINNER WITH ALL THE FIXINS' AND I DIDN'T EVEN HAVE TO DO ANY COOKING

 A LONE WALKER MAKES HIS WAY ACROSS ICE COATED ROCKS OUT AT ROTARY COVE

It is the little things that quietly slip up behind me and gently tap me on the shoulder.  It was the sounds of her making coffee in the morning, her comments about how her night went when she lightly sat my coffee on a table beside my chair.  Sometimes we idly chatted back and forth and sometimes we sat quietly with our morning laptops.  No matter, it was her presence in the room that contented my heart.  I miss her so much.

HERE'S A SQUIRREL THIS MORNING TRYING ITS LUCK ON THE TILT-A-WHIRL WHIRLY-GIG

With morning's sunshine trying its best to break through the overcast (but never did) and temperatures trying to reach above the freezing mark, Pheebs and I climbed into the Subaru, maxed out the heat controls, and slowly rolled out of our driveway heading north to Goderich.  One prescription to drop off and one to pick up at Walmart's Pharmacy.  I like going to Walmart on Sunday mornings.  Not as much pushing and shoving and hustle and bustle.  Of course with it only being 10 days until Christmas, the place was a Zoo.  Luckily I was able to quickly get in and out of there without getting hurt.  Christmas shoppers can be brutal!!

 SOME OF THE SECONDARY ROADS THIS MORNING WERE COATED IN HARD-PACKED SNOW AND ICE

 A FEW DOG WALKERS ON THE BOARDWALK HEADING OUT TO ROTARY COVE

 A SHORELINE WALKER HEADS THE OTHER WAY BACKGROUNDED BY THE LARGEST UNDERGROUND SALT MINE IN THE WORLD

I spend most of my time in the living room now.  It's a touch warmer there.  With our sunroom's big windows and high ceiling, it's always cooler there unless I have the gas fireplace stove turned on.  Like I said before, I run a tight ship now and see no point in spending money on extra gas to keep the room warm if I can use the existing furnace heat in the living room.  When Kelly was here I never worried much about anything like that but now that I am in charge of expenditures I have to be carefully frugal with the expenses.  I don't want Pheebs and I to end up living in a cardboard box behind a Walmart store. somewhere.  As I've said many times before, Kelly was the one with the most good brains in our Bayfield Bunch family.

 FLAT SHORELINE ROCKS COATED IN ICE

 DID YOU NOTICE THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN PEERING OUT ON THE LEFT

 THERE HE IS PEEKING OUT AGAIN

Our Park's annual Christmas Party was today in the clubhouse.  Sarah, co-owner of our Park messaged me on Facebook last week wondering if I would be coming to the Christmas Party.  As I've said before, I'm not comfortable in groups of people, and with this germ factory of a head and chest cold still hanging on I messaged back a few days later saying, I would not be going.  Sarah said that was okay and would drop off a turkey dinner for me.  Not knowing if I would be home or not I said thank you and that I would leave a cooler on our porch if someone dropped a dinner off.  Didn't want the squirrels snatching my Christmas dinner.  While in the washroom I thought I heard a light knock at the door this afternoon.  By the time I got to the door, nobody was there.  Thought I'd better check the cooler and sure enough there was a whole turkey dinner with all the fixins' in there on an aluminum plate with a lid on it.  And, that's what I had for supper tonight:))  Thank you Sarah for thinking of me.  I'll get out to one of those clubhouse functions one of these days......

 MY DELICIOUS CHRISTMAS DINNER

 AND THESE TWO FINE-LOOKING FOLKS ARE OUR PARK OWNERS SARAH AND ADAM

A Blast From Our Past Back in December of 2010 I wrote a post called Sir Frog-A-Log, Lady Flop-A-Lot And Little Weinerly Beans and here's one I wrote on this day also in 2010.  Hi-Ho Hi-Ho It's A Jeeping We Did Go  Remember to click on the small pictures to enlarge them.  There are a few nice ones of Kelly.

Al's Music Box:)) I Got A Name is a 1973 single recorded by Jim Croce with lyrics by Norman Gimbel and music by Charles Fox. It was the first single from his album of the same title and also Croce's first posthumous single, released the day after his death in a plane crash on September 20, 1973.  While the single was released in September 1973, it was first heard as the theme song for the movie The last American Hero, released in July 1973. Croce composed most of his own material; however, he did not write "I Got A Name." In an interview with Billboard writer Norman Gimbel, it was revealed that Croce chose to record the song "because his father had a dream for him but had died before his son's first success."  The song features a narrator who is proud of who he is and where he is going in life, undeterred by the naysaying of others. He begins by declaring that like any plant or animal, he has a name of which he can be proud. The narrator acknowledges, however, that not all people take pride in who they are in such a way: for instance, he carries his name with him "like my daddy did," but the narrator, choosing to handle life differently, is "living the dream that he kept hid." The narrator, unlike his father, is able to have a proud connection with his name, and live out the dreams that his father was unable to accomplish in life.  In the second verse, the narrator goes on to note that like the wind, birds, or even crying babies, he has a song to sing. Much like he does with his name, he holds his song up as a proud part of his identity, and resolves to sing it no matter what. Even if singing "gets me nowhere," by declaring his identity and worth to the world, the narrator can go to "nowhere" proudly.  In the final verse, the narrator declares that he will go forward in life "free," acknowledging that he will forever thus be a "fool." However, he happily chooses this path of foolish freedom, because moving through life this way can only help him achieve his "dream." This dream is clearly as much a part of the narrator's identity as his name or the song he sings, and he holds it up just as proudly to others. He then notes that while others may "change their minds" about him and his dream, their naysaying can never change his identity. Even so, the narrator is willing to "share" his dream with others, and announces that if anyone else is "going my way"—i.e. they believe in his dream as well—then he will go forward in life along with them.  However, the culmination of the narrator's beliefs and pride in his identity is really in the chorus, as he declares that no matter what, he is joyfully "moving" and "rolling" himself "down the highway" of life. All in all, as he moves forward in life, carrying his name, his song, and his dream as part of him, his biggest goal is to simply not focus on the past, but look to the present and future instead. The narrator ends by sharing his hope that he can live each day to the fullest, "moving ahead so life won't pass me by."  Jim Croce performed the song live on an episode of The Midnight Special in 1973. 

GROANER'S CORNER:(( If you are on Facebook, I am sure you will find this familiar.......The 76-year-old woman walked down the hallway of Clearview Addictions Clinic, searching for the right department. She passed signs for the "Heroin Addiction Department (HAD)," the "Smoking Addiction Department (SAD)" and the "Bingo Addiction Department (BAD)." Then she spotted the department she was looking for: "Facebook Addiction Department (FAD)."  It was the busiest department in the clinic, with about three dozen people filling the waiting room, most of them staring blankly into their Blackberries and iPhones. A middle-aged man with unkempt hair was pacing the room, muttering,"I need to milk my cows. I need to milk my cows."  A twenty-something man was prone on the floor, his face buried in his hands, while a curly-haired woman comforted him.  "Don't worry. It'll be all right."  "I just don't understand it. I thought my update was LOL-worthy, but none of my friends even clicked the 'like' button."  "How long has it been?"  "Almost five minutes. That's like five months in the real world."  The 76-year-old woman waited until her name was called, then followed the receptionist into the office of Alfred Zulu, Facebook Addiction Counselor.  "Please have a seat, Edna," he said with a warm smile. "And tell me how it all started."  "Well, it's all my grandson's fault. He sent me an invitation to join Facebook. I had never heard of Facebook before, but I thought it was something for me, because I usually have my face in a book."  "How soon were you hooked?"  "Faster than you can say 'create a profile.' I found myself on Facebook at least eight times each day -- and more times at night. Sometimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night to check it, just in case there was an update from one of my new friends in India . My husband didn't like that. He said that friendship is a precious thing and should never be outsourced."  "What do you like most about Facebook?"  "It makes me feel like I have a life. In the real world, I have only five or six friends, but on Facebook, I have 674. I'm even friends with Juan Carlos Montoya."  "Who's he?"  "I don't know, but he's got 4,000 friends, so he must be famous."  "Facebook has helped you make some connections, I see."  "Oh yes. I've even connected with some of the gals from high school -- I still call them 'gals.' I hadn't heard from some of them in ages, so it was exciting to look at their profiles and figure out who's retired, who's still working, and who's had some work done. I love browsing their photos and reading their updates. I know where they've been on vacation, which movies they've watched, and whether they hang their toilet paper over or under. I've also been playing a game with some of them."  "Let me guess. Farmville?"  "No, Mafia Wars. I'm a Hitman. No one messes with Edna."  "Wouldn't you rather meet some of your friends in person?"  "No, not really. It's so much easier on Facebook. We don't need to gussy ourselves up. We don't need to take baths or wear perfume or use mouthwash. That's the best thing about Facebook -- you can't smell anyone. Everyone is attractive, because everyone has picked a good profile pic. One of the gals is using a profile pic that was taken, I'm pretty certain, during the Eisenhower Administration. "  "What pic are you using?"  "Well, I spent five hours searching for a profile pic, but couldn't find one I really liked. So I decided to visit the local beauty salon."  "To make yourself look prettier?"  "No, to take a pic of one of the young ladies there. That's what I'm using."  "Didn't your friends notice that you look different?"  "Some of them did, but I just told them I've been doing lots of yoga."  "When did you realize that your Facebooking might be a problem?"  "I realized it last Sunday night, when I was on Facebook and saw a message on my wall from my husband: 'I moved out of the house five days ago. Just thought you should know.'"  "What did you do?" "What else? I unfriended him of course!"

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A young deer in the woods learned to use all four hooves equally well...He was known to be bambidextrous.

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Al's Doggy World

Meanings::

Kelly's Corner

Al's Art Gallery

TWO BLOG READER SURPRISES TODAY THAT COINCIDENTALLY INVOLED THE SAME PLACE IN ZURICH ONTARIO

 A COLD AND STORMY LAKE HURON WEDNESDAY MORNING

Walking down our darkened hallway last night around 11 something in the sunroom caught my eye.  It was a large rectangular patch of light on the sunroom floor.  I knew instantly that our night sky had cleared because that could only be the big old Moon shining down through our sunroom's skylight.  It was a hopeful sign for a sunny morning and I right away thought to myself, 'Oh my how I sure could use some good old sunshine right about now'.  And, so it came to be today.  With a clear night sky overhead I knew it was going to be a bitterly cold morning and it was as our thermometer dipped to 14F.  Luckily, we did not have a blustery cold wind to drive those low temperatures even lower.  Knowing the day would be sunny, I had written out a list in my little book of things to do this morning and waited until nearly 10 a.m. when I knew a couple of stops along the way would be open.

 FROST CREEPING UP OUR WINDOW PANE THIS MORNING

With Pheebs in the passenger seat, we headed into Bayfield shortly after 10 a.m. with our first stop being at the Bayfield Garage for a gas fill-up.  Across the road, we went from there to pick up some cold and sinus pills for this head and chest cold of mine at Michaels Pharmasave.  I also stopped at the Bayfield Library because I had a few questions to ask of the Librarian.  More about that in a later post.  Our next stop was Bayfield's Tim Hortons for a decaf coffee to go.  

HEADING INTO BAYFIELD EARLIER TODAY AND HEY, HOW ABOUT THOSE SUN SPLASHES ON THE ROAD EH

FROSTY FISHERMEN ON BAYFIELD'S ICY SOUTH PIER

 THE BAYFIELD RIVER IS IN THE PROCESS OF FREEZING OVER AGAIN

 LAST WEEK A HEAVY SNOW LOAD COLLAPSED PART OF BAYFIELD'S CLASSIC ALBION HOTEL ROOF BUT THE HOTEL IS GOING TO BE THANKFULLY RESTORED TO ITS FORMER GLORY AND BEYOND

Before leaving Bayfield we stopped at the Porters Hill Wild Bird Seed Company and loaded up four twenty-pound bags of birdseed.  Steve, the always friendly owner had built himself a new squirrel feeder and asked me if I wanted his old one and I said sure.  It's kind of a twirlygig thing that has a corn cob on one end.  Wishing me 'Merry Christmas' he generously tossed in a big bag of corn cobs as well.  I will mount that squirrely twirler on one of our pine trees.

 A TAD HARD TO IMAGINE BUT THINK OF IT AS AN AIRPLANE PROPELLOR THAT SPINS AROUND AS THE SQUIRREL TRIES TO HANG ON WHILE TRYING TO GET AT THE CORN COB

I POSITIONED THIS ON A PINE TREE I CAN SEE FROM MY LIVING ROOM RECLINER

 AND THIS IS THE BAG OF CORN COBS THAT STEVE THREW IN WITH A HEARTY 'MERRY CHRISTMAS'

From there, Pheebs and headed down the Bronson Line to Zurich.  Nice to be out in the countryside again with large patches of blue sky overhead.  Zurich is the home of Jerry Raders Homestyle Market which I often mention. A few days ago our phone rang and when I looked at the answering machine it said the call was coming from Jerry Raders in Zurich.  What!!  Oh my, I thought, did I forget to pay for something the last time I was there, were they upset I asked for second piece of 'free pie' the last time I was there on a Saturday morning.  I knew I hadn't done that but maybe somebody that looked like me did.  Anyway, off to Jerry Raders we nervously went.  It's not very big inside and anything over half a dozen people constitutes a crowd.  Because of the 'free piece' of pie on Saturday mornings, I think there was about a hundred and ten people in there!!  I managed to track down a frenzied employee, told her my name, and said they had called.  With a Christmas smile spreading across her face she slipped around behind the counter and retrieved a small white envelope with my name on it.  Hmmmmm, I thought as I carefully opened it.  Inside was a gift certificate for........'WOW'  When the staff peeled me off the floor and stood me back up and dusted me off I stood looking at the gift certificate thinking, OMG I'm going to have to buy a freezer on the way home to accommodate all this food because I knew I didn't have enough room in my little fridge freezer to hold 350 butter tarts.  Okay, okay, so I didn't really think about butter tarts...but I could have.  A nice lady explained to me that I didn't have to use the whole amount on the card all at once.  She said just take home what you want today and we'll deduct it from the card and when you are ready for more just come back again.  So, with two chicken pot pies, two cream of chicken soups, 25 butter tarts, a turkey salad sandwich, and a free piece of chocolate pie I precariously balanced everything and headed out to the car.  Okay, okay, so I didn't get the 25 butter tarts.....but I thought about it.  In the car, I shared the turkey salad sandwich with Pheebs but I didn't tell her about the free piece of plastic wrapped chocolate pie I had stuffed into my shirt pocket.  Sooooooo, where did this Jerry Rader gift certificate come from.  I suspected a blog reader and because of a 'quirk' as it turns out, I was right.  Not only was it a blog reader but it turned out to be an old close friend of mine who I knew very well back in the mid-eighties and someone I had not seen since that time way back then although we have been in contact on Facebook.  This person's caring, concern, and generosity, know no bounds............. But then, just a couple hours after getting home, Jerry Rader entered my life once again.  The phone rang (no it was not Jerry Radar's place phoning again) and it was our good neighbor Monica from across the road.  Her daughter Brenda was visiting her and Monica said Brenda had something to bring over.  Minutes later, Brenda walked up the driveway with a box in her hands and I recognized the contents of that box to be from Jerry Raders.  Coincidentally as it turns out, both Brenda and I had been at Jerry Raders this afternoon at the same time.  She said she thought she might have have recognized me getting into a white car.  Brenda had never been to Jerry Raders before but she knew of it from the many times I've mentioned it in my blog.  All of Monica's grown-up kids are long-time blog readers.  So anyway, in the box Brenda was carrying were two Jerry Rader chicken pot pies, a larger beef lasagna, and a larger chicken pie, and by golly, there was another Jerry Rader gift card in the box too.  Holy Smokes I thought....more butter tarts:))  Also, in the box was a Tim Hortons coffee shop card, a sympathy card, and a warm knitted Mennonite-made prayer shawl that Monica had got for Kelly but Kelly was gone before Monica had a chance to give it to her.  Needless to say, I have a well-stocked fridge freezer now but the only way I could get everything in was to eat what was left of a tub of Kelly's chocolate ice cream.  I am one of those people who cannot throw out perfectly good food. 

 PHEEBS AND I SHARING A TURKEY SALAD SANDWICH IN JERRY RADERS PARKING LOT

THE FIRST OF TWO JERRY RADER GIFT CERTIFICATES I RECEIVED TODAY

Al's Music Box:)) Beautiful is a song by Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot. This song, which is in the key of B major, first appeared on Lightfoot's 1972 LP Don Quixote album and was the first of two singles released. The album's title track appeared on the B-side. It reached number 13 in Canada. It peaked at #58 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and #67 on the Cash Box Top 100 in July 1972.  The song also hit number one on the Canadian Adult Contemporary chart, his second of seven to do so, and number 30 on the U.S. Easy Listening chart.

GROANER'S CORNER:(( A sweet grandmother telephoned St. Joseph 's Hospital. She timidly asked,'Is it possible to speak to someone who can tell me how a  patient is doing?'  The operator said, 'I'll be glad to help, dear. What's the name and room number?'  The grandmother, in her weak tremulous voice said, ''Norma Findlay, Room 302.'  The operator replied, 'Let me place you on hold while I check with her nurse.'  After a few minutes the operator returned to the phone and said, 'Oh, I have good news. Her nurse told me that Norma is doing very well.. Her blood pressure is fine; her blood work is normal and her physician, Dr. Cohen, has scheduled her to be discharged on Tuesday.'  The grandmother said, 'Thank you. That's wonderful! I was so worried! God bless you for the good news.'  The operator replied, 'You're more than welcome. Is Norma your daughter?'  The grandmother said, 'No, I'm Norma Findlay in 302. No one tells me squat!!

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An English fisherman goes to the river to check an illegal fish trap that he owns. He looks around to make sure there are no Fishing Inspectors about and proceeds to pull the fish trap out to check it.  An Inspector steps out of the bushes, “Ahha!” he said and the fisherman spun around and yelled “Oh Crap”. The Inspector, who wasn't expecting such a response said “Settle down, I'm only the Fishing Inspector”. “Thank God for that” said the fisherman, “I thought you were the Sot who owned this fish trap”.

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A father spoke to his son, "It's time we had a little talk, my son. Soon, you will have urges and feelings you've never had before. Your heart will pound & your hands will sweat. You'll be preoccupied and won't be able to think of anything else."  He added, "But don't worry, it's perfectly normal... it's called golf."

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One day, a man was dragged to the cinema by his wife who wanted to watch a romantic comedy.  Half an hour into the film, the man felt a nudge in his elbow. "What an outrage," his wife murmured to him.  "The person sitting in front of us is sleeping!" the woman said, clearly offended.  Her husband was fairly annoyed.  He replied: "You woke me up to tell me that?"

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Al's Doggy World

Meanings::

Kelly's Corner

 IN SPENCERPORT NEW YORK

Al's Art Gallery