POOR BABY …

It’s just SOOOO sad. An emergency run to the hospital for a “hiatal hernia problem” and then Rehab…surprise, surprise. I’m actually a bit astounded that his medical problem isn’t lodged a little closer to his anal canal … being the “A--hole” that he is !

His TV show “Two and a Half Men” has been a No. 1 hit for over two years and I find that incredibly sad. He denigrates women, he overindulges in everything and there is a constant undertone of off-color humor that we, the public, seem to lap up and make our own. Whatever happened to tenderness, understanding and just plain love and awe of life?

In case you’re wondering why I am so disgusted with Charlie Sheen it may have to do with the fact that I watch homes being destroyed every day by alcohol and drugs. His TV show stops just short of telling it like it really is and I’m sure it wouldn’t be a hit if it did. We find it so funny when he complains of a hangover or is found in the wrong place after a nighttime of “frivolity”.
How would we feel if we saw the real facts … a beaten wife, the children petrified to speak, the house a wreck and our beloved
“star” engrossed in porn?

The producers of “Two and a Half Men” have put the show on Hiatus and state: “We are profoundly concerned for his health and well-being, and support his decision”. That sounds an awful lot like enabling to me. I guess if you make enough money all else goes by the board.

(I have to admit that my emotions are very close to the surface and with good reason. Last Saturday I attended the funeral service of a dear friend who died of liver and kidney failure. He had tried AA in 1992 but didn’t last. When he died he had four years of sobriety. He was only 52!)

SAY WHAT ??

Here’s a little mental exercise to get the juices flowing. Six well known quotations or phrases have been reworded here. The meaning remains the same, however. Can you identify them?

1. A period of preeminence is passed through by all canines.

2. Prodigality is manufactured by precipitancy.

3. The sum total is sufficient, as is the termination date.

4. Tenants of vitreous abodes ought not to chuck lithoidal
fragments.

5. Every article which coruscates in not compounded from
aureate material.

6. Domestic fowl ought not be enumerated before nascence.


A perfect score of six correct answers will get you nothing but the satisfaction of a job well done !

1. “Every dog has his day”

2. “Haste makes waste”

3. “All’s well that end’s well”

4. “People who live in glass houses should not throw stones”

5. “All that glitters in not gold”

6. “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.”

ALL’s WELL that ……

END’s WELL …


Can you believe that I could do so much damage to my car in a 35 MPH zone? An old truck just stopped dead in front of me and I had no recourse but to hit it. It was three days before Christmas so you can imagine how thrilled I was with the whole scenario.

Of course I was the one who was ticketed since I was in the rear, and to add insult to injury I was not carrying Collision Insurance!! (Maybe not the smartest decision I’ve ever made but I’d gotten away with it for years so I guess I was ahead of the game.)

Anyway, the estimates to fix my car were about a thousand dollars more that I’d paid for it 8 months before so I called a salvage company and they bought it for $1,075 and hauled it away.

Now came the hard part…the search for an affordable car ! It seemed that every time we found something of interest it would be gone before we could get to it. There are many cars in the $6,000 and below range but one of my joys in life is driving and I just couldn’t get excited about anything I saw at that price.

I won’t bore you with the details but it was three weeks to the day before I found, and fell in love with, this 2001 Acura CL Coupe. It’s a year older than my other car and has 108,000 miles on it but those are small details in the overall picture. The wait is over and, “watch out world… I’m back on the road !!”

I refuse to be a CAPRICORN ! **

Look at this stodgy old goat. He represents the Zodiac sign of Capricorn. He’s conservative and cautious and dedicated to his work and preserving balance in his daily life and in the lives of those around him. All fine traits you might suggest and you’d be right; but, to me he is also boring and unimaginative.

Now look at “my sign”, the playful and artistic AQUARIAN …


She is the Zodiac’s most mysterious person. A free spirit who
not only marches to a different drummer, but often makes up new music as she goes along. She is intellectually explorative, highly original and often blazes new trails. She is, in short, a delight and I’ve loved calling her mine !

Well, according to the astronomers from the Minnesota Planetarium Society that’s all about to change. They’ve declared the snake-bearing OPHIUCHUS to be a new sign of the Zodiac and he’s slithered in to upset the apple cart for all of us. The months will now be divided by 13 instead of 12 and that puts my
birth-date of Feb. 15th under the sign of CAPRICORN.

Well, I’ll have none of it … I’ve spent the last 77 years as a proud Aquarian and it’s too late to change now. I simply refuse!

You realize, of course, that this is written “tongue in cheek” but, that being said, it does take the fun out of reading my daily horoscope. What say you? Does it bother you to be relegated to a new sign or do you like it??

**********************************************************************************
** disclaimer … if you happen to be a CAPRICORN please forgive my (admittedly) biased opinion. I’m sure you possess many virtues that this blogger would be wise to adopt !

The Iceman Cometh …

Many of you in "bloggerville" are expert photographers so you will probably laugh at my attempt here, but that being said…

I saw this delightful scene through my window three days ago and loved it. This is very unusual weather for our part of North Carolina and I wanted to share it with you. I tried to take the picture through the window and, of course, that was a disaster so I went outside and the result is the picture seen here.

The sun on the trees lit the ice that coated them and it felt like I had stumbled into a crystallized fairyland. It also made it very difficult to get a good shot since the picture I wanted faced directly into the sun. I was determined to get it however, since icicle trees and freezing temps are definitely not the norm around here and I wanted the charm of it documented.

I have tried very hard over the years to train myself to live in the moment so this was a perfect opportunity to practice that. I have to admit, however, that I was torn between enjoying the beauty of what Mother Nature had bestowed upon us and being annoyed because it was keeping me grounded.

The fact that it was all beyond my control finally dawned on me so I settled back and watched the ice melt away in it's own good time ... satisfied in knowing that the memory would stay with me forever.

A VISIT TO “CROSS CREEK” … FLORIDA, 1995

In 1995 I had the pleasure of visiting the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’s home, “Cross Creek”, in Florida. Entering there was a shock and a delight. The shock came from finding myself in this idyllic setting just minutes from the frenetic bustle of Gainesville, and the delight was in knowing that I could soak up the experience much as she did when she lived and wrote there.

She bought the 70 acres of “Cross Creek” in 1928 with her husband, Charles. She loved the remoteness, the wildness and the simplicity of life that she found there. She had been a city girl but the minute she saw the property she felt it was “home”. Her marriage was not to last but she had found her “place of enchantment” and she lived there until her death in 1953.

This was actually a working farm and Marjorie had high hopes for her orange grove. This never came to fruition but her writing did. She started writing short stories in 1930 and in 1938 she struck gold with her book “The Yearling” which won a Pulitzer for Best Novel that year. In 1942 she, once again, won acclaim with the publication of her book, “Cross Creek”.

The approach to “Cross Creek” is down a winding country road that took us past an orange grove and outbuildings. It then led to a picturesque farmhouse, made up of three separate buildings inter-connected with porches. We saw a daybed on the verandah where she would often sleep when she was working on a novel. It was just paces away from her open typewriter and I could readily envision her sitting there.

Her household is a jumble of contradictions, much like Marjorie herself, from the vintage cooking gear to the elaborate, antique Hitchcock dining room set. She loved to cook and the kitchen shelves are still lined with jams and jellies she made from her own fruit trees. The story goes that she enjoyed a nip or two also and it was interesting to note the empty wine bottles still randomly thrown into the closet !

The spirit of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is very much alive in this place of enchantment and, as we left the house, I had the strange feeling that life has come to a standstill. I could almost catch the sweet, pungent smell of oranges and herbs and it wasn’t difficult to understand how this place could nourish the soul of a gifted writer.

PICKLED and BRINED to last forever !

I guess you could call it “gallows humor” but my friend Karen and I got a big kick out of this sign we saw a few nights ago. It is a self-storage business that looks like all the others until you see it lit up at night ... then the AA jumps out at you ... or at least it does if you are an alcoholic and follow the AA program.

We had great fun imagining how this business could be used to our advantage. Self storage facilities lease space to individuals who store all sorts of items in them. What about old Uncle Joe who never seems to be able to stay sober? We could keep him off the street and out of his car if we stored him in one of these handy lockers along with his usual quart a day. He’d never know the difference and we’d be doing the town a favor.

We could also store our sordid past in an AA self-storage unit and label it “open when needed”. In AA we adhere to the notion that “we neither dwell on our past nor wish to forget it” but we want it to be available when needed. Often times it is the sharing of how we were then and how we are now that helps the newcomer relate and feel like they‘ve “come home“.

And, lastly, I think of the units that are accessed by opening a roll-up metal door, usually about the same size as a one-car garage. What a perfect spot to store that dented old car that reminds us of “the wreckage of our past”. We can visit it on occasion and be glad that those days are gone forever … that is, they will be if we just stay on the golden path known as SOBRIETY.

NORTH CAROLINA, believe it or not…

December 26, 2010


December 31, 201

Isn’t this incredible? Just 5 days and the thermometer, in my little town in North Carolina went from 29 degrees on the 26th (with lots of snow) to 65 degrees on the 31st
I guess the pictures tell the whole story. That’s the front of my house and I have to admit that I much prefer it without the snow. I know you readers from “up North” will consider me a wimp but I’ve had my share of winter weather to last a lifetime.

So, now it’s 2011 and I wonder what Mother Nature has in store for this year. Let’s hope it’s less dramatic in scope but still worth blogging about !