Diary of a snow shoveler....

(author unkown)
December 8: 6:00 PM. It started to snow. The first snow of the season and the wife and I took our cocktails and sat for hours by the window watching the huge soft flakes drift down from heaven. It looked like a Grandma Moses Print. So romantic we felt like newlyweds again. I love snow!
December 9: We woke to a beautiful blanket of crystal white snow covering every inch of the landscape. What a fantastic sight! Can there be a more lovely place in the Whole World? Moving here was the best idea I've ever had. Shoveled for the first time in years, felt like a boy again. I did both our driveway and the sidewalks. This afternoon the snowplow came along and covered up the sidewalks and closed in the driveway, so I got to shovel again. What a perfect life
December 12: The sun has melted all our lovely snow. Such a disappointment. My neighbor tells me not to worry, we'll definitely have a white Christmas. No snow on Christmas would be awful! Bob says we'll have so much snow by the end of winter, that I'll never want to see snow again. I don't think that's possible. Bob is such a nice man, I'm glad he's our neighbor.
December 14: Snow, lovely snow! 8" last night. The temperature dropped to -20. The cold makes everything sparkle so. The wind took my breath away, but I warmed up by shoveling the driveway and sidewalks. This is the life! The snowplow came back this afternoon and buried everything again. I didn't realize I would have to do quite this much shoveling, but I'll certainly get back in shape this way. I wish I wouldn't huff and puff so.
December 15: 20 inches forecast. Sold my van and bought a 4x4 Blazer. Bought snow tires for the wife's car and two extra shovels. Stocked the freezer. The wife wants a wood stove in case the electricity goes out. I think that's silly. We aren't in Alaska, after all.
December 16: Ice storm this morning. Fell on my ass putting down salt on the ice in the driveway. Hurt real bad. The wife laughed for an hour, which I think was very cruel.
December 17: Still way below freezing. Roads are too icy to go anywhere. Electricity was off for five hours. I had to pile the blankets on to stay warm. Nothing to do but stare at the wife and try not to irritate her. Guess I should've bought a wood stove, but won't admit it to her. God I hate it when she's right. I can't believe I'm freezing to death in myown living room.
December 20: Electricity's back on, but had another 14" of the dang stuff last night. More shoveling. Took all day. The freakin' snowplow came by twice. Tried to find a neighbor kid to shovel, but they said they're too busy playing hockey. I think they're lying. Called the only hardware store around to see about buying a snow blower, and they're out. Might have another shipment in March. I think they're lying. Bob says I have to shovel or the city will have it done and bill me. I think he's lying.
December 22: Bob was right about a white Christmas, because 13 more inches of the white crap fell today, and it's so cold it probably won't melt 'til August. Took me 45 minutes to get all dressed up to go out to shovel, and then I had to pee. By the time I got undressed, peed and dressed again, I was too tired to shovel! Tried to hire Bob, who has a plow on his truck, for the rest of the winter; but he says he's too busy. I think the butt is lying.
December 23: Only 2" of snow today, and it warmed up to "0". The wife wanted me to decorate the front of the house this morning. What, is she nuts!!! Why didn't she tell me to do that a month ago?
She says she did, but I think she's lying.
December 24: 6" Snow packed so hard by snowplow, I broke the shovel. Thought I was having a heart attack. If I ever catch the guy who drives that snowplow, I'll drag his ass through the snow and beat him up with my broken shovel. I know he hides around the corner and waits for me to finish shoveling and then he comes down the street at 100 miles an hour and throws snow all over everywhere I've just been! Tonight the wife wanted me to sing Christmas carols with her and open our presents, but I was too busy watching for the damn snowplow.
December 25: Merry Stinking Christmas. 20 more inches of that white shit tonight. Snowed in. The idea of shoveling makes my blood boil. Gees, I hate the snow! Then the snowplow driver came by asking for a donation and I hit him over the head with my shovel. The wife says I have a bad attitude. If I have to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" one more time, I'm going to stuff her into the microwave.
December 26: Still snowed in. Why the heck did I ever move here? It was all HER idea. She's really getting on my nerves.
December 27: Temperature dropped to -30, and the pipes froze. Plumber came after 14 hours of waiting for him; he only charged me $1,400 to replace all my pipes.
December 28: Warmed up to above -50. Still snowed in. The woman is driving me crazy!!!!!
December 29: 10 more inches. Bob says I have to shovel the roof or it could cave in. That's the silliest thing I ever heard. How dumb does he think I am?
December 30: Roof caved in. I beat up the snowplow driver. He is now suing me for a million dollars; not for only the beating I gave him, but also for trying to shove the broken snow shovel up his rear end! The wife went home to her mother. 9" predicted.
December 31: I set fire to what's left of the house. No more shoveling.
January 8: Feel so good. I just love those little white pills they keep giving me.
Why am I tied to the bed?

Traveling companions

My daughter and her boyfriend, who now live in SC, spent the Christmas week in Ft. Walton Beach, FL. at his parent's house (temp 70 degrees). They drove down last Friday with the cat and dog in tow. She said it was a pretty uneventful trip. The dog is used to traveling by car and plane. The kitten isn't even one yr old yet, but he didn't seem to mind; after all - he had his best friend, the dog, with him. When they arrived they realized that the 2 older cats that already lived there, were out to kill the new arrivals that had invaded their territory. So, the whole family has spent the entire week keeping the older cats away from the kitten and dog. So far there has only been one major encounter and since "Mom" was able to intervene, the kitten survived.

One thing in the "newbies" favor: one of the older cats decided to climb atop an unstable stack of Christmas presents and all crashed to the floor, leaving the cat limping badly. A trip to the emergency vet ensued and the older cat had xrays where they discovered a bone had broken away from the joint. One cat down and out of commission for awhile.

Don't know how this story will end, since I believe my daughter is staying through New Year's day, but now "my grandkids"?? only have one adversary to deal with. Hopefully all will arrive home safely and intact.

. . . . to be continued.

Stress

So many things have happened in my life in the past 6 months, I can't even begin to explain.
So I won't. Explanations are not needed here; they can go on and on and tend to be very boring for the listener. I will say, though, that for all the stress my life has brought me, I've lost about 15 lbs. without even trying! That's part of the good news.

The bad news is, I chose to give up ALL my dogs - sold some, had one put to sleep and gave the rest away. This was not an easy decision, believe me! (hence the stress) The one I had put down was 14 yrs old and had major stomach problems: it was time. I'd had him since he was a puppy when I found him wandering the streets of Whiteland. He had a very good life with me, as did all my dogs.

More good news: After three months with no dogs - I've got 3 of my dogs back and may get one more back, eventually. I'm fine with this decision. I read once that a person who "hoards" animals was mentally unstable and that kind of scared me. Me, mentally unstable? Although, no one has ever said that to me, I began to think that maybe people did see me that way. Personally, I don't think I was hoarding dogs but I was living my life just to serve my dogs. It seemed like all I did was buy dog food and pay vet bills and clean up after them all. (In the past 15 months at any given time, I've had anywhere from 9 to 13 dogs.)
Overwhelmed? Yes. Crazy? I don't think so.
I just love animals and wish I could give all the homeless ones, a home.

He's just smiling

This is one of my 6 month old pups and everytime he does not want to go out or he gets into trouble and knows I'm gonna yell at him, he will roll over onto his back and look up at me with this face and "that grin". No other dog I've had has ever done this. I'm thinking, there were 5 pups in this litter and he is the only one that grins like that. The light from the camera makes his eyes glow and someone told me, "that dog looks possessed".

I know that pups lose their baby teeth usually between 4-7 months old and I wondered if these were his permanent or baby teeth. So I look into his mouth and lo-and-behold all his adult teeth are in, but the problem is - NONE of his baby teeth have fallen out yet! He has two complete sets of teeth, one behind the other, just like a shark. Poor thing, has eight K-9 teeth and he has trouble closing his mouth. None of the baby teeth seem to be very loose either. I'll give it another couple of weeks to see if they start coming out on their own, otherwise it'll be a trip to the vet. Meanwhile, I'll be living with my puppy that smiles.

A Trip To Spain

Had the pleasure of visiting Spain for 8 days in the mid 70’s. We stayed along the Costa del Sol in the city of Marbella (SW of Malaga). From the Mediterranean Sea shore we could just make out the Rock of Gibraltar. It was too cold to go swimming in the sea or the pool and looking back on my pictures most of us were wearing long sleeves or jackets. I’m thinking it was Sept. or Nov. that we were there. It was a company sponsored trip so there were about 15 couples and we all knew each other and two of the couples were our very best friends, which made the trip that much more special and enjoyable.

The shopping was very unique in the small towns. Due to the buildings and houses being very close together and the streets being so narrow, you couldn't tell a place of business from a residence until you opened the door! Where there were no sidewalks, the doors to the businesses and residences opened directly into the street. I, myself, opened several doors to residences until I figured out that the public should only go into the "open" doors. Usually the doors to restaurants and taverns remained open during the day and it was not unusual to see a donkey or two tethered right outside the door. Sometimes a donkey had to be pushed aside in order to enter an open door. A lot of the streets were cobblestone or broken bricks or packed earth and they were closed to motorized vehicles because of the walking tourist business. Donkeys, horses and bicycles were allowed.

Very few locals spoke English, and if they did it was very broken English and it was a hoot trying to negotiate a sale price on items of interest in these shops. At one point, on the way to the Alhambra Castle, we decided to stop at a very small town and look around. We all kind of went in different directions and I ended up by myself in a little ceramics shop. I found what I wanted and proceeded to pay for it. The two people in the shop could speak no English whatsoever and I spoke no Spanish. So I took out all my Spanish money and held it out to them and they picked out what they needed (or wanted)! I had no idea what any of the money meant or how much it was worth. I was treating it like “play money”. My husband had gone to the bank earlier in Marbella and exchanged US money for Spanish money, then gave me some. So if I got ripped off in this little town it was of my own stupidity. But thank god they didn’t take it all.

We had rented a small car to drive up the Sierra Nevada mountains to Granada, Spain to tour the Alhambra Palace - and by small car….I mean small car. We were only able to get 4 people in it (barely). The high mountain roads in this area were very narrow and scary. We laid on the horn every time we approached a curve and kept the horn going until we were on a straightaway again. Other drivers on the road were doing the same. There were very little, if any, guardrails on these curves and the drop offs were tremendous. We actually saw wrecked cars at the bottom of some of these drop offs and ravines. Anyhow, a few hours and several “heart attacks” later, we arrived at the Alhambra and it was a sight to behold. It’s huge and some of the columns and walls inside are hand carved with intricate detailing. It was beautiful.

Just a little history here:
King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella lived here at the time Christopher Columbus cameto them in 1492 for permission and money to sail to the “new world”.

On the way back down the mountains, we stopped at another small town in the hopes of finding something to eat. We were starved but it seemed like the town was deserted! Drove around for awhile, knocked on a few doors and finally found a policeman who could barely speak English. We made it known that we were hungry. I won't go into detail, but this whole communication process was hysterical. Anyhow, the policeman kept saying fuutbal, fuutbal! He took us over to a small building with a locked door and knocked. A man hung out the upstairs window and the policeman speaking in rapid Spanish conversed with the man. The man upstairs kept shaking his head "no". Finally the policeman convinced him to come down and open up. We did not know what was happening; were we being arrested because we were hungry? We all went inside and discovered it was a small restaurant. It had been closed for the day, along with the entire town, because "football" was on TV. Evidently when football is on TV there, it's a holiday! The man and his wife reluctantly cooked us a meal and we were on our way.

We did a lot of sightseeing along the Costa del Sol in our small car and sometimes we’d be driving along and see a run down old castle out in a cow pasture. We’d park alongside the road, climb a fence and go check it out –with our cameras of course. Our entire group also went on a few organized tours of local castles, which was a lot of fun. I didn’t realize how many castles were in Spain, but I guess that’s what the rich land barons lived in back in the medieval times.

Another tour our group took was on a hydrofoil-boat from Marbella, Spain across the Straits of Gibraltar to Tangiers, Morocco in Northern Africa. For some reason, I declined this trip because a few others had said they were going to rent some horses and ride up into the hills for the day. Horses? Oh yeah, I’m there! I actually passed up a trip to N. Africa to ride a horse! I had a great day riding that horse, the weather was beautiful and at the time I couldn’t think of anything more appropriate to do . . . at that time! Looking back, I cannot for the life of me wonder why I chose a horse over a once in a lifetime trip to Africa. It was only a day trip – but still!!!

Plus, those that went to Tangiers got to ride camels!!!! OMG! I am stupid!

Bull fighting is big in Spain and being the animal lover that I am, I did not want to watch this sport. However, realizing what I had passed up in Tangier, I decided to go with the thought that I would watch it, loathe it and never again go to a bullfight, but I needed to see for myself what it was all about and how it was done. For all those animal lovers out there – Don’t Go!

I saw 7 bulls killed that day and it was not pleasant. They have a couple different ways to finish off the bull and I will not go into detail, it is too gruesome. Believe me, the bulls don’t stand a chance; it is a one-way ticket for them. After watching the first bull get killed the only thing I wanted to see was a matador get gored. It was on the last or next to last bull of the day and sure enough a matador was caught by one of the bulls horns and tossed up into the air several times before he ever touched ground again. OLE! That also was a gruesome and scary sight and the matador had to be carried off on a stretcher. But the bull? Oh yeah, he was killed. It wasn’t a fair fight.

Toward the end of our stay in Spain I went shopping with the intention of buying an oil painting from a local artist. The biggest shopping attractions for most of our group were leather products, silver and oil paintings. I had gone through many shops in the week we spent there and so far I hadn’t found any oil painting that said “buy me”, until the next to last day of our vacation. We happened upon a great little street that was full of artist displays and there was not one, but two paintings that I just HAD to have. One was of the faces of 4 older Tangier men wearing turbans, blended together through their beards. The other painting was of a gypsy mother and son sitting on a street curb looking desolate. Finally the artist came out to see if we needed help and he spoke perfect English. Come to find out, he’s from California and graduated from UCLA. Imagine that! So much for a local artist. We bought both paintings and learned that he had painted the mother & son and it hung in his own house for several years, but after a while it depressed him too much. His wife did the other painting and she has had showings in NYC. These oils were not framed and I had to roll them up and carry them home on the plane with me. The problem was the mother & son was 4’ x 4’, the Tangier men was somewhat smaller. It was a job making sure they weren’t destroyed on the trip home. I had them framed here at home and I still have both paintings today, and yes the mother and son are depressing, so I hang it for a year then take it down for a year.

Say what?

Well Duh……
(On September 17, 1994, Alabama's Heather Whitestone was selected as Miss America 1995.) Question: If you could live forever, would you and why? Answer: "I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever,"
-- Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA contest .

"Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff." --Mariah Carey




"Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life."
-- Brooke Shields, during an interview to become spokesperson for federal anti-smoking campaign .





"I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body"
-- Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky, basketball forward .




"Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country"
--Mayor Marion Barry, Washington , DC .



"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers.
We are the president."
-- Hillary Clinton commenting on the release of subpoenaed documents.

"That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I'm just the one to do it." --A congressional candidate in Texas .

"Half this game is ninety percent mental."
--Philadelphia Phillies manager, Danny Ozark

"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it." --Al Gore, Vice President
and "We are ready for an unforeseen event that may or may not occur."

-- Al Gore, VP

"I love California . I practically grew up in Phoenix ." -- Dan Quayle

"We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need ?"
--Lee Iacocca

"The word "genius" isn't applicable in football.

A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein."
--Joe Theisman, NFL football quarterback & sports analyst.

"We don't necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of people."
-- Colonel Gerald Wellman, ROTC Instrutor .

"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure." -- Bill Clinton, President

"Traditionally, most of Australia 's imports come from overseas." --Keppel Enderbery

"Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992 because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances." --Department of Social Services, Greenville , South Carolina

"If somebody has a bad heart, they can plug this jack in at night as they go to bed and it will monitor their heart throughout the night. And the next morning, when they wake up dead, there'll be a record." --Mark S. Fowler, FCC Chairman

Feeling smarter yet?

UFO ?

UFO Museum
Roswell, New Mexico

Although differences of opinion exist on the specifics, there is a tentative consensus among researchers that an extraterrestrial space vehicle crashed on a ranch located about 60 miles north of Roswell, New Mexico, during the time period July 2–4, 1947.

This is one of the most controversial UFO stories of our time. If you don't believe it, try researching Roswell, NM. or Area 51.

The following is a true story and my personal “close encounter”:

It was during the early 70’s, but let me make this perfectly clear - none of us drank alcohol, smoked or did drugs of any kind.

I've only seen one UFO in my life, so far, and to my credit the 5 people I was with, saw it too. It was in the early 70's, after midnight and somewhere in Utah, I think Utah but could've been NV or CO. Wherever it was, the country was flat and deserted desert land. Six of us were driving back to Indiana from Las Vegas and we had no hotel reservations anywhere. We all had decided to drive until we tire, then find a roadside motel for the night. For hours we had been traveling on a lonely (and I mean real lonely) stretch of highway. About every hour or so we might see a car going the opposite direction, but not once all night had anything passed us. That's about it. No houses. Trees were few and far between. No sign of civilization for miles and miles at a time. We could vaguely make out the silhouette of mountains in the far, far distance.

The car we were in was a Chrysler station wagon (two seats facing front, one seat facing back) and the couple in the seat facing the rear saw it first. They alerted the rest of us, including Jack, the driver who apparently had fallen asleep while driving because he hadn't seen anything.

The couple in the back seat said, "hey man, something is coming up on us really fast, we’ve been watching it for awhile, but now it’s getting closer and going faster". At which point we all turned to look behind us. Sure enough one huge light was approaching at an unusually fast speed. Because of the flatness of the land and highway we were able to watch even though it was still quite a distance away. That light was approaching at such a fast rate that we knew it would overtake us in a matter of minutes. We were all talking at once trying to figure this out and the consensus was that it must be a semi with a headlight out and he was haulin’ A! Jack had been traveling around 90 mph most of the night and it was unrealistic to think that anything could catch up with us unless we had stopped, which we had not. How could this “semi” possibly catch up with us?

Then as fast as it approached, it begin to retreat back the way it had come. It was almost out of sight, when it suddenly started moving forward again at an amazing speed. It came closer and closer and all we could see was this one bright light. The six of us were no longer talking, only watching. There really were no words to describe how we felt at that moment, and at no time did Jack slow down, he kept up the same pace, 90 mph. The light followed us along the roadway, but as it got closer to us the second time we could tell that the light was too high above the ground to be a semi or any vehicle that traveled the roads, for that matter. Then it did the reverse, again. It began to retreat away from us, as if it was moving backwards and we were the only ones moving forward. Now, however, as the light retreated in the distance behind us, it stayed at this higher level then it had the first time. It did the approach/retreat thing about 3 more times, then followed us steadily at a not to far distance for another 10 minutes, then disappeared completely.

We were shocked, stunned, bewildered – scared!

We did not report this. We weren’t sure of what we saw. There was no way to back up our story. But six people DID witness this occurrence, and I was one of them.

The Plan

Robin Williams wearing a shirt that says "I love! New York" in Arabic.

I believe the following originated sometime in 2003 by someone other than Robin Williams. The internet says it's urban legend and somehow Robin's name got attached to it, but it didn't come from him.

As I read this, I could imagine Robin Williams saying it, the way only he can, and it does sound like something he would create.

Either way, it's funny, interesting, controversial, stimulating, divisive and thought provoking.

He says:

"I see a lot of people yelling for peace but I have not heard of a plan for peace. So, here's one plan."

1) The US will apologize to the world for our interference in their affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic, Hussein and the rest of those 'good ole boys', we will never interfere again.

2) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world starting with Germany, South Korea, the middle East, and the Philippines. They don't want us there. We would station troops at our borders. No one sneaking through holes in the fence.

3) All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave. We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of whom or where they are. They're illegal!!! France will welcome them.

4) All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days, unless given a special permit. No one from a terrorist nation will be allowed in. If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here. Asylum would never be available to anyone. We don't need any more cab drivers or 7-11 cashiers.

5) ) No foreign "students" over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes, they get a "D" and it's back home baby.

6) The US will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy wise. This will include developing nonpolluting sources of energy but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for a while.

7) Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their oil. If they don't like it, we go someplace else. They can go somewhere else to sell their production. (About a week of the wells filling up the storage sites would be enough.)

8) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not "interfere." They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides most of what we give them is stolen or given to the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything.

9) Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island someplace. We don't need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, the building would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.

10) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us "Ugly Americans" any longer. The Language we speak is ENGLISH...learn it...or LEAVE...Now, isn't that a winner of a plan?

"The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying

'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.'

She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling,

'you want a piece of me?' "