PEOPLE SOMETIMES ASK ME HOW I'M DOING

With so many cold and cloudy winter mornings back to back it's kind of hard to get excited about anything.  For me, doing anything outside is out of the question unless it's in a warm heated car.  So with that, I loaded up the Pheebs and off we went to I knew not where.  But, wherever it was we went, we got there and came home again.

 EVEN THESE TWO OLD CROWS ON A PUMP HANDLE WERE LOOKING A LITTLE SNOWY THIS MORNING

 SAW A FEW WINTER FLAG FLOWERS IN FULL BLOOM

Well, as it turns out, it was into Bayfield we went.  I was curious to see how far out into the lake the ice had formed.  And, to no surprise, the ice was out as far as the eye could see.  Some may wonder if the lake ever freezes over clear across to Michigan and the answer to that is no.  However, Lake Erie south of us has been known to freeze right across to the State of New York because of its shallow depth.  

 HERE'S A FELLA CHECKING ON HOW FAR THE ICE IS OUT ON THE LAKE

BY THE LOOKS OF IT THE ICE IS FAR OUT AS THE EYE CAN SEE

LOOKS LIKE THE TRACKS OF MORNING WALKER HEADING TOWARD THE BEACH

 A FEW DAYS AGO I TOOK A PIC FROM THIS POINT AND THE ICE WASN'T EVEN BEYOND THE POINT OF THE PIER

 IT WILL BE A FEW MONTHS MORE BEFORE THESE COLORFUL BINS WILL BE FILLED WITH THE FISHERMEN'S CATCH

NO, IT'S NOT THE WRECK OF THE EDMUND FITZGERALD

 THE BAYFIELD BRIDGE AS SEEN THROUGH SOME TREES

 FROM A HIGHER VIEWPOINT AT PIONEER PARK ONE STILL CAN'T SEE OPEN WATER ON THE HORIZON

There is still a mountain of things to be done in the house yet but my problem with getting at them is my lack of inspiration and enthusiasm.  And, I'm not good at getting stuff done when I don't feel like doing stuff.  Well, I suppose that makes me quite normal.  But awe-shucks, who wants to be normal anymore anyway.  In this day and age though it just isn't normal to be normal anymore.

Under the circumstances, people sometimes ask my how I'm doing.  My answer is always the same, 'oh, I'm doing alright'.  And, that's a truthful answer because I am doing alright although every day is not exactly great.  In my case here where grief and sadness are prevalent at the moment it is up to me how I handle that.  Being a realist, I accept what has happened so I don't struggle with denial.  Kelly's passing was not a separation or divorce so there is no anger.  There is a slightly deeper level of depression than usual running through me but I haven't let that hobble me and I know that will slowly lift.  I know from my past life experiences that I will get through this with brighter, cheerier, days ahead.  What I also know is that I will not carry the heavy weight of sadness and grief through the coming years.  Kelly wouldn't have done that either if the tables had been reversed and she certainly wouldn't want me to do that.  

So, for this 80+ guy, the sands of time are running quicker now and I have to think a bit more seriously about my future.  With Kelly's passing, my comfortable little world has suddenly taken a turn and I now have choices to make, and decisions to consider.  My focus at the moment is not on what has been but on what could be.  A few things are slowly beginning to emerge and one of those things up and slapped me in the face today as I was outside shoveling snow.  I said to myself, "self, I do not want to have to spend another long cold gray unhealthy inactive winter here in this cold and gray snow-infested freezing climate"!! But, that's about as far as I got with my thought.  I still had more snow to shovel:((

 THIS IS MY PREFERRED IDEA OF WINTER.....PHOTOS OF PHEEBS AND I BY KELLY

Al's Music Box:)) Time is a song released in 1981 as a single by the Alan Parsons Project. It was from their 1980 album The Turn of a Friendly Card. The song was the first Alan Parsons Project song (and single) to feature Eric Woolfson as lead vocalist and one of the group's few songs in which Alan Parsons's own voice can be heard singing (background/counterpoint vocals).   

 THIS IS NOT HOW I WANT TO SPEND THE REST OF MY WINTERS

GROANER'S CORNER:(( As a senior citizen on a fixed income I realize that the days of cheap cell phones are over...Now, if I fall and hear a crack, I am hoping it's my leg and not my cell phone.

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- I used to think drinking was bad for me.  So I gave up thinking.

- In my last job my wages were paid in vegetables.  I left because i was unhappy with the celery.

- It was a very moving ceremony.  Even the cake is in tiers.

- So, today, I told my team about the importance of dried grapes.  It’s all about raisin awareness.

- I was in a Zoom meeting when I told a joke and they didn’t laugh.  It turns out I’m not even remotely funny.

- My mum told me that I can’t drive a car made of spaghetti.  You should have seen her face when I drove pasta.

- What did the beaver say to the Birch Tree?
  Nice gnawing you!

“My door was ajar, so I added jelly, now it's a door jam.”

- How does Good King Wenceslas like his pizza?
 One that's deep pan, crisp and even!

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Al's Doggy World

Meanings::

Kellys Corner

 A COUPLE MORE PICS OF KELLY CROSSING THE SAN PEDRO RIVER NORTHWEST OF TOMBSTONE ARIZONA

Al's Art Gallery

I DON'T HAVE ANYONE AT HOME NOW TO READ THE NOTE

 MALE CARDINAL

A fiery orange and reddish sunrise through the pine trees this morning.  How encouragingly nice that was to see.  But, it was short-lived and we spent the rest of the day under the usual heavy cloud cover with snow beginning again 'by late afternoon.

With a few stops in Goderich and not knowing how long they would take I decided to leave Pheebs at home.  I headed straightaway for the Dynacare Lab where I had to get some bloodwork done for next week's diabetes checkup.  I figured there would be a lot of people ahead of me and I figured right.  With about 352.4 people in the Dynacare waiting room, I spun around on my heel and made fast tracks back to the car.  Figured I would get my other stops done first and come back later.  The next destination was the hospital where I had to get one of the ambulance bills straightened out.  They had billed me twice for one of the calls so they straightened that out.  From there is was over to my bank where I had to get a new and updated credit card activated.  That was a bit of older technology so I was alright there and didn't run into any hassles.  From the bank, and needing another bag of dog food, I was next off to Pet Value.  In the same mall is Walmart so I hopped over there, dropped off a couple prescriptions, and picked up a few groceries.  Mentally preparing myself for a long wait I hustled on back to Dynacare.  The waiting room was down to 351.6 people now.  Well okay, not that many but anything over two people is a stressful crowd for me.  I tried to find an end seat where I would only have 1 person beside me.  No luck.  But I did catch a break when the person sitting beside me and the person sitting across from me didn't start with the usual bantering chit-chat.  You know....."Oh, what's your name? Where do you work? Are you retired? Where do you live?  What's your bank account number and password?  Got any kids?  Say, have I told you about my knee surgery and did you know my grandson got a new toboggan yesterday and I just have to tell you the story about my niece's first day at school.  Now, luckily none of this happened and it was the modern techno age of smartphones that saved me.  Besides me, there were ten other people seated in the waiting with eight of those ten having their faces buried in their smartphones.  I needn't have worried about anybody bothering me because I think all of those eight people were so focused on their phones that they didn't know anyone else was in the room anyway let alone where they even were.  Oh, and the other two people without cell phones you ask....Well, they both looked to be about a hundred years old and one aging fella even had a cage on his lap with a homing pigeon inside in case he had to send a message home saying he might be late for supper tonight.  All in all, it wasn't too bad though.  I kept my head down and made gurgling sounds.  Nobody wants to talk to an old guy with his head down making gurgling sounds.  I walked into that blood lab at ten thirty and walked out at 11.  It could have been worse though and I might have ended up posting the blog closer to midnight because I didn't get home from the Dynacare lab any earlier.  I thought of the old guy and his carrier pigeon but then realized that wouldn't work for me anyway because I don't have anyone at home now to read the note saying I'd be late for supper.

I found out something firsthand last week that I hadn't known before.  Both my wallet and the Subaru's car key fob float.  No, I didn't drive off the pier into the lake.  I was putting a load of laundry into the washer when I noticed the pants I was wearing had some mud and pine sap on them from picking up fallen pine tree branches earlier.  I quickly whipped off my pants and tossed them into the filling washer.  It was maybe thirty seconds later that I suddenly realized I had forgotten to take my wallet, car keys, and jackknife out of my pockets.  The machine was nearly full of water and about ready to start swishing when I quickly pulled the dial knob out to stop it.  I was beginning to think I was going to need a Scuba suit to get into the washer, find my pants, and bring the pocket items to the surface.  But surprisingly, two of those three pocket items were already floating in the water.  My wallet and my car key fob.  Who ever thought a car key fob would float.  I quickly fished them out of the warm sudsy water taking everything out of my wallet and spreading things out on the counter.  My car key fob I laid on the heater duct in the floor with visions of that fob never working again and me having to push the Subaru everywhere I went.  The jackknife didn't surface so I still had to reach my arm into the water and retrieve it from my pants pocket.  I didn't want it banging around in the washing machine and waking up the neighbors from their afternoon slumbers. 

 MOURNING DOVE

I guess the morning's activities tuckered me out a bit because I spent most of the afternoon reading and dozing.  No wonder some people think I'm kinda dozy.  Well hey, if I had been one of Snow White's dwarfs I would have been the eighth one called 'Dozy'.  Well, it could have happened, right??  

FEMALE CARDINAL

It was one month ago today that Kelly passed away and it seems like yesterday and yet it seems like it was long ago.  It's so many of the little things I miss.  Her voice, her routines, the sounds of her in the kitchen, our goodnight hug at the end of each day, her setting my morning coffee down on the table beside me, her telling me where she was going every time she left the house, seeing her in her living room recliner off to the right of me, looking forward to telling her what Pheebs and I had seen on our morning drives, helping when she needed tight jar lids unscrewed or something heavy lifted up or down from a high cupboard.  I miss the little talks we'd have going on between us throughout each day.  I miss her patience and understanding.  I miss her technology smarts and mechanical abilities that frustrated me so much.  She was always willing to tackle something no matter how big the problem.  I miss her laid-back calmness and ability to settle me down when I was maybe not feeling so calm about something.  Her ability to reason through any problem no matter how unsolvable I thought it was.  At our house, she was the rock of steadiness, the captain at the wheel through heavy seas.  The one who could calm the troubled waters.  And, as I have said in my blog over the years::  'She is the one with the most good brains'.  Yes she was........

Al's Music Box:)) The Boll Weevil Song by Brook Benton is a traditional blues song, also known by similar titles such as "Boweavil" or "Boll Weevil Blues". The lyrics deal with the boll weevil, a beetle that feeds on cotton buds and flowers that migrated into the U.S. from Mexico in the late 19th century, and by the 1920s had infested all U.S. cotton-growing areas, causing severe devastation to the industry.  The 1961 recording by American R&B singer Brook Benton was released as "The Boll Weevil Song" in an adaptation by Benton and frequent musical collaborator Clyde Otis. Considered a novelty record, it was produced by Shelby Singleton and appeared on an album called The Boll Weevil Song and 11 Other Great Hits.  Benton's recording was a hit single during the summer of 1961 and became the highest-charting single of his career on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, where the singer had eight Top 10 hits between 1959 and 1970. "The Boll Weevil Song" spent three weeks at number two on the Hot 100 chart.  On the R&B chart, where Benton had enjoyed even greater success, the song also reached number two.  "The Boll Weevil Song" holds the distinction of being the first number-one song on the Billboard Easy Listening chart.  The majority of the song's lyrics are spoken by Benton, as in when the farmer inquires, "Say, why'd you pick my farm?", to which the boll weevils reply, "We ain't gonna do ya much harm". The chorus of "we're lookin' for a home" was sung by Benton and the Mike Stewart Singers.

GROANER'S CORNER:(( A stingy old man who had been diagnosed with a terminal illness was determined to prove wrong the saying, "You can't take it with you."  After much thought and consideration, the man finally figured out how to take at least some of his money with him when he died. He instructed his wife to go to the bank and withdraw enough money to fill two pillow cases.  He then directed her to take the bags of money to the attic and leave them directly above his bed. His plan: When he passed away, he would reach out and grab the bags on his way to heaven.  Several weeks after the funeral, the deceased lawyer's wife, up in the attic cleaning, came upon the two pillow cases stuffed with cash.  "Oh, that darned old fool," she exclaimed. "I knew he should have had me put the money in the basement."

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“The other day I held the door open for a clown. I thought it was a nice jester.”

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Two Cows are talking through a fence. One cow says to the other, "You know, I'm really worried about this Mad Cow Disease." The other cow says to him, "I wouldn't be too worried about it. It can't affect us chickens."

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Al's Doggy World

Meanings::

Kellys Corner

 KELLY, PHEEBS, AND LITTLE CORA (MOTORMOUSE)

CHECKERS AND KELLY SOMEWHERE IN THE SONORAN DESERT

Al's Art Gallery