Age is Just a Number

Spam - A Historical Perspective

Real men who ate Spam in ancient times:




Theirs was a unique flavor.   They gathered the honey from the Royal beehives to create a classic taste of bygone times:




A more modern approach:




However, there are those of us who remain Sane:

For The Love of Spam

Life on the Island

My brother has this really great view of the harbor in Saipan from his balcony: 





And this ship pulled in this morning (or rather, tomorrow, for us)

Kaiwo Maru

Just a little fun stuff to take your mind away to distant places.....

Just Peachy

We are in Prime Peach Season and Palisade offers their annual Peach Festival,  so we were off to another weekend adventure to Palisade.   We stayed at our favorite former KOA in New Castle in a kinda kampin' kabin - it's kinda because,  really,  how is it camping when all you take is a sheet,  pillow and a change of clothes?   It was Tori's last weekend with us before school starts,  so we packed up the dogs,  cereal in tupperware with spoons,  other snacks,  a grin-and-bear-it-fill-up at the gas pumps and down the road we went. 

The festival was the usual assortment of booths selling apple pie candles and crystals,  funnel cakes and corn dogs,  mixed with some local band's versions of former hits.   And they had a car show where I found a 1948 Willy's Jeep.   Growing up we owned a '41 Willy's Jeep and I LOVED that thing - we had it long enough for me to drive it around in the small town where I went to High School - another bunny trail blog....

We bought boxes of peaches and apples,  a watermelon and cold Root Beer.   That was my soda for the year - John suggested I might want to think about cutting back.    We drove back to the campground and ate the entire watermelon for dinner.    Well,  it wouldn't fit into the cooler after all.

Sunday I attempted to wear out Izzi on a walk - fat chance.   She's 3 1/2 months old to my 544, and me thinks I am not an adequate workout for this pup.   It's notable to mention that the Wild West Relay has inspired me to start running - and Izzi is forcing me,  but I am not cutting it,  and I am not sure I will see the day when there is a beneficial cross-over of my ability to run far and fast enough as she grows up to give her sufficient exercise.   I AM the limiting factor.

We moved on down the road and decided on a diversion to Aspen.   They have a Prada store in Aspen.   I put my noseprint on the window and confirmed I would never own Prada shoes nor any other Prada merchandise.   We passed by a realtor's office and noted that there are no single family homes for sale under $2 million,  and better than half the homes for sale are between $5 and $10 million.   Yikes.   My Costco shorts were cringing just walking around the streets.  Izzi, however,  caused a stir and had her picture taken. 

 

We opted for a fast food meal in some town other than Aspen - why?  I don't know, when we had 3 boxes of fruit in the car.   Then it rained and we drove home.   Our 30 hour absence evoked only 1/2 dozen phone calls and a colorful note from The Mother.   Me thinks she thinks we're important.

We decided it was a successful weekend.

No Excuses

Grumpy and Blessed

I've been thinking about my blessings.   And I've been thinking about my grumpiness.   Interesting relationship between Grumpiness and Blessings;   Acknowledging  and Entertaining either one eliminates the other.

I work for a family owned business.   The Patriarch is nearly 90 and shows up every day.   His son, John, who also shows up most every day has multiple myeloma.   Between the two of them, the company will face some changes in the organizational structure in the near future.   We, the employees, get regular emails from John filling us in on his cancer treatments and how he is doing.   He ends his notes with "Have some fun today".   How many heads of companies do that?

He comes to our office in Denver from time to time to have meetings, conduct business and generally touch base with most of us.   Last week I was in the midst of one of my grumpiness-es and my complaints were at the forefront of my brain, permeating my outlook.   John happened to ask me how I was doing.   It was like the ON button.   I started in...the antithesis to my usual professional ethic of exhibiting a reserved nature in the workplace.   I was saved by noticing an unfocused look on his face and immediately realized what I was doing.   I was complaining to a man who's life is pared by cancer.

I walked away shaking my own head at my own self.

If you've read Frank Peretti's novels This Present Darkness and Piercing The Darkness about spiritual warfare, you will know about the Demons and how he visually depicts them and their vile and wicked stench.   They each have a name and they each have a purpose.   This visual works for me as I am a visual kind of person.   I can name about a dozen right now that hover and grasp at me on a regular basis.   It's head shakers like the one above that send me on a dive into the deep depths of  questioning "WHAT Am I Doing?" and to remember the demons sent my way who keep me swimming in a drunken self-involved stupor.   WHAT am I doing?   How do I let these Demons propel me on these Waves of self-involved grumpiness?




It's like a Sine Wave - or maybe it's more like a Sin Wave.   I step back and watch the Phases I go through and it appears to be a Function of Amplitude and Time.   The more stress I feel, the more negativity gets ingrained, the more unniceness I practice and grumpiness gets Amplified over the course of Time.  My Wave briefly crosses over Zero - Zero representing Perfect Balance - never lingering, but shooting upward or blasting downward.    I suppose that in itself is some semblance of "Balance".     Hmmm.

Back to Grumpiness and Blessings.   Why is it easy to forget Blessings, and easy to land in Grumpy Land?   Sometimes I wonder if it's a character flaw.   Or hormone imbalance, maybe I don't exercise enough?  Did I eat too much sugar today?   Is it all about The Choice to be not Grumpy?   Like side effects from medications, is it a side effect of 2006?   I suspect it is some combination, but largely rests in The Choice.   Maybe I need to read that book The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale again - it was an old dogeared book laying around the house when I was teen.   Why isn't the natural default Positive?   Too many questions, too much analyzing.   Too much grumpiness.   Let me go off and start my list....

Mixed Identities

I came across the link of Whitney Cerak's family's blog, the young woman who's identity was confused with a similarly looking woman, Laura VanRyn - she posted on the blog for the first time since the car crash that killed Laura.

Whitney Cerak

I was touched by how she came to realize that while she was in the coma for 5 weeks, her family had moved on and weren't with her while she lay in the hospital bed - they thought she was dead.   I can't imagine those feelings.

Her post is her first and last:

"I am just so excited that I am home and going back to Taylor in a few weeks!  I can’t wait to live my normal life again.  So consider this the one and only blog entry from me, concluding this season of my life.

I AM FINALLY HOME, Whitney"

Peeves

This evening I found myself with a rare opportunity to hop in the car and drive somewhere by myself, not commuting to work, where I could adjust and turn up the radio as much as I wanted.  I planned a special trip across town to a store that I'd been wanting to visit for over a month now.  I even showered first!  I arrived without a hitch to find it completely dark.  Hey, the website said open til 9p.m.  (I checked just before I left to make sure),  but the door said "10 a. to 6 p."   Wow, 13 miles there, then back - that's a gallon of gas at best, say 3 bucks.

Trigger pet peeve number 31:

• Websites should be up to date - we ARE in the 21st century.

Disappointed, I moved on to something to make me feel better:   Cold Stone Creamery.   I make a once-a-quarter visit there, sometimes even twice a year.   I can't believe I get minimal change back from a five for a "like it" size cup.   The line was long, but I have patience - most of the time.   Except now the pet peeves starting rearing their ugly heads.

• Grown men pushing 431 pounds should think twice about visiting a place such as Cold Stone, particularly if they are pointing out all the flavor combinations to their companions.   This dude obviously had been here once or twice before.
  
  
• Very young girls, say under 10, need not have pierced ears, AND with dangly earrings.   Strangely, my dad "took" me to have mine pierced when I was sixteen - not something I even suggested I was interested in - and not long after during high jumping in gym class I ripped one out when I landed on the giant foam-filled net thing.   Little girls are just too active to have all that frilly stuff - at least they should be.  (sorry if I stepped on anybody's toes)
  
  
• People who lick their fingers when they eat.
  
  
• Again, if you can't fit between the cars in the parking lot, why are you going to an ice cream shop??
  
  
• If your kids can't fit between the cars, why are you going to an ice cream shop??
  
  
• Pierced eyebrows, or any other face perforations.
  
  
• Tattoos on women who are no longer young and cute.  Okay, any tattoos at all, especially on women.
  
  
• Strangers who touch me on the waist - this lady felt the need to let me know that she wasn't cutting in front of me, rather wanting a closer look at the mix-ins.   Elbows work much better, and they are much more accessible.
  
  
• And how about that 11ish year old with the cellphone-keyboard-flipscreen-scrollscreen-blueberry-huckleberry thing that barely fit into her pocket?  I hadn't seen one of those before, but she used it 3 times in line.  The conversation on her (my) end went something like this:   "Hey"...."Cold Stone"...."No"..."nnttt"..."sigh" with a roll of the eye, disdain, preteen, "if I act like I care it's uncool" slouch look.
  
  
• Businesses such as ice cream shops that are surprised that they could be busy on a Saturday night, in the height of summer and schedule only 3 teenagers to handle the customers.

Guess maybe I wasn't so patient after all.  So after spending, in effect, about $8, I loaded myself with calories, didn't spend my hobby money, and gained fodder for my blog.

P.S.   During this writing someone actually answered my email to the store personally telling me they just changed their hours last week, the webmaster is out of town, and if I come in tomorrow they'll give me 5% off for my trouble!   Well shut me up!

Off Limits!

I have a large number of perennials in my yard that experienced their first full bloom this year.   I also have the new puppy.   She seems to like to eat my perennials.   What's up with that?   So I discovered this stuff at Petsmart the other day and thought I'd try it.  It's called "Off Limits" and it's all natural, my kind of deal.

I sprayed it around the suffering plants - I hope they have enough gumption to come back next spring.   Then I was distracted by weeds in the lawn and moved on to other stuff.  Later I looked out back and saw the bottle I'd left out there.   Turns out I left for work forgetting to retrieve it.

The dogs ate it.   I don't think they can read.   I still haven't found all the top and sprayer parts yet...it was an expensive treat.   I don't think it works.

You Need Me To Do What???

Climb on the Roof??

We moved into this house 4 1/2 years ago, and a new paint job came with the deal.   The painting people came out and got started.   They powerwashed the entire exterior,  completely covered the windows with paper and tape, and left for 3 weeks.   This was the beginning of spring when we were just dying to open the windows with the new found warm temps - and we were in a cave.   They eventually came back after numerous phone calls, sporatically, tapering off to one dude who showed up about 6 p.m. and worked till dark.   I recall it was called finished after about 5 weeks.   Voila - sort of - we had my new dream colors on a new used house.    About the second summer we noticed a bit of wear and tear, or weathering if you will, and some bare spots.    I suppose the next summer I was in denial that a new paint job would need attention so soon.   Now, in summer number 4 we couldn't ignore complete bare spots and now what appeared to be trim that needed replacing...particularly on the chimney:  read "highest spot".

Begin Project Season.    John climbed up last spring and took measurements to determine our need for wood, some sort of rough cedar.    Last month we purchased the wood - some sort of fabricated wood product that exhibits a "rough" texture resembling rough cedar.    I was raised a carpenter's daughter, so similated wood products are not what I first look for at Home Depot - it's like processed cheese, where's the cheddar?   And besides that, aren't chimneys made of stone or brick???   Like cheddar, rough cedar is a bit more expensive than the processed stuff, so we went the money saving route.   And it's primed.

So last weekend we took this project on by the horns.   It was going amazingly fast, especially since I was the one who got to sit in the chair on the sidewalk, phone handy, working on Sudoku puzzles while John scampered about the roof tearing off splintered wood.   We got the pieces cut, painted and ready to roll apply.   

The temperatures climbed again so it was too hot after work to get up there during the week.   Then John annouced yesterday that I would need to help him hold the pieces while he nailed them - that would be with the nail gun that I was resistant to get in the first place.   Help him hold them up there??   How about superglue?   Duct Tape?   What about the clamps?   I was stalling.

The roof doesn't look that steep from down here I suppose.   I found my walking shoes - flipflops won't cut it here.   I gulped a couple times.   He even put a clamp on the ladder so it wouldn't even think of moving - okay, so it was a false sense of security since it was clamped to the gutter.   I climbed up, stepped on the roof and hit all fours.   I was brave, I crawled to the chimney.   John advised me that it wasn't so bad after you are up there a while, yeah right.   I made my way to the back side of the chimney and sat for a bit, staring.   Birds were flying below me.   I noted the tops of my trees.   I noted the top of my neighbor's house - he needs new shingles.   I noted the mountains.   And I noted that my stomach was upset and I was burping.   And I noticed that I wasn't sure how I was going to get back down, since backing down a roof lends that you actually have to watch where you are going.

I managed to stand up but not without holding on very tight, and swallowing a lot.  I managed to hold wood with one hand while John nailed.   It just occurred to me that if I was the one on the ground before with phone handy in case of an accident, who's down there now?   So I helped to hold wood and I don't remember it much 'cause my head was buzzy.   More birds flew below me.   We finished with the part where I helped.   I held on to John while walking - yes I walked! down to the ladder.   When my feet hit the earth I started breathing correctly again.

What's up with this height fear stuff?   I flew around in helicopters with no doors in my twenties!   I fought forest fires with my bare gloved hands!   What a weenie I've become!   Is it middle age weight that makes me think I don't have balance??   Is it middle age wisdom that subconsciously tells me "don't be stupid anymore, Donna"?   The chimney needs a few more boards, but it can be done singlehandedly.   I am the caulking queen, but my need to have perfect caulking is shadowed by my rooftop trepidation.   I concede.

The nail gun has more than paid for itself by the way.