Last post

 The year comes to a close. I have great hopes for the next one.

If you go out tonight, don’t drink and drive.

So long ‘21. This is my last post this year. It marks 309 this year. Take that 2019, you slacker of a year.

The Big Wrap Up Edition

 Here we are, December 30th. Time for the annual year-end retrospective. (Aside, in my head this paragraph sounds like Howard Cosell is reading it. I don’t know why)

Nope. Things happened. They did to you too. I will leave the analysis to someone for more talented and wise than am I. 

It remains semi-unseasonably warm but cloudy here at the homestead. I can live with temperatures in the forties in January. 

So far we have no big New Years Eve plans. Our normal New Year couple is not an option. He died. She will hang with her family. Our other good friends are in sunny climes enjoying a mini-vacation this week. I guess we will grab some dinner and maybe a movie. Life is sure boring when you are old. Could you imagine me and the wife out at a club grooving to hip hop or whatever they listen to these days? We are many decades removed from the big holiday bashes at the Holidome in Lebanon, replete with live bands and plenty of booze. *

We need to make more friends. Too bad one of us is anti-social and the other is one of the sweetest women you will ever meet. 

That is tomorrow’s worry. Today I have important stuff to do like…or maybe…

Yeah. 

Have a great day.

*of course that reference has no meaning to any of you.

The gift that lasts forever

My blood sugars are mostly under control. Eating junk is all that gets in the occasional way. My last A1c was 6.3. It will be higher when I go to the doctor next week: lack of exercise and holiday eating pushing things higher. How high? We shall see.

Already my Type 2 has contributed to the lack of healing in my foot. Now I get to have a couple more eye surgeries! Yay for me! The specialist is going to go in and zap my retinas to stop bleeders in both eyes. You know, those pesky things that can make you blind if you are diabetic. Except he cannot laser the one near my optic nerve that sent me to him in the first place. That one will necessitate a repeated needle in my eyeball if it grows any more. Hooyah. 

My new boss is going to be so pleased I need time off a week after starting a new job. 

I thought I was done with this eye stuff. I thought wrong. The front half of my eyeball was rebuilt. Now we work on the back half. Not a big deal. Just one more small, very worn speed bump in the parking lot of life.

Say, what did I do with that box of chocolate covered cherries I got for Christmas…

Still Waiting

 

We’re eight months into this pandemic,” Biden said weeks before the presidential election, “and Donald Trump still doesn’t have a plan to get this virus under control, I do.”

 Well Brandon Joe, it has been almost a year. Do you think it is time to reveal your grand COVID plan?

This is not the post you are looking for

 

Holiday Hangover

Whew!

Christmas is now in the rear view mirror. What a good one it was. The wife went way overboard, as usual. I think she even realized it this year when the gifts for the grandgirls barely fit in the Escape, even with the seats down. I will through in a caveat, a couple of the presents were in very large boxes, and neither cost a lot. But still.

We went to my daughter’s for dinner. She fixed an incredible beef tenderloin. After we ate we opened presents. It was a great day to celebrate the birth of Christ. I got a T-shirt that reads “bookmarks are for quitters”.

The wife gave me some new ear buds and a nice leather travel case for cigars I have coveted for some time. I gave her a new bracelet and a red and white mixing bowl for her stand mixer. 

I hope your Christmas was as great as mine. If it wasn’t, look at the bright side. I won’t post any more Christmas music until next year. 

Merry Christmas

My backyard 2016

 

The Reason for the Season

 

Come to Bethlehem

 

 

Merry Christmas from the Family

 I hope you get everything you want this Christmas 

We interrupt the usual nonsense for something really amusing

Christmas in my hometown 

On a tour of the facilities, the CEO notices a guy leaning on a wall.

He can’t believe this guy would just stand around on the job.

The new CEO walks up to the guy leaning against the wall and asks, “What are you doing here?”

“I’m just waiting to get paid,” responds the man.

Furious, the CEO asks “How much money do you make a week?”

A little surprised, the young fellow replies, “I make about $300 a week. Why?”

The CEO quickly gets out his checkbook, hands the guy a check made out to cash for $1,200 and says, “Here’s four weeks’ pay, now get out and don’t come back.”

The man puts the check in his pocket and promptly walks out.

Feeling pretty good about himself, the CEO looks around the room and asks, “Does anyone want to tell me what just happened here?”

From across the room comes a voice, “Yeah, you just tipped the pizza delivery guy $1,200.”

Not this year

 

A couple of old ones

 

Thoughts on the current state of things in Washington

I let the winter solstice slip by without comment yesterday. I’m not sure what deep thoughts I could offer beyond “it’s the shortest day of the year, sunlight wise, in the northern hemisphere “.  There. We can be done with that. 

I have nothing more to offer at this point. Sorry. 

Say, why is the burden to keep you entertained around here always on me? 

Oh, it is my blog.

Never mind.

We’re going to need a bigger boat

 

Kinda like that, I’m gonna need a bigger desk. My new work computer gear arrived yesterday: laptop, docking station, and two monitors. It is never going to fit on my cheap old WalMart desk. Further, a bigger desk isn’t going to fit in the corner my current one occupies. It looks like a complete changeover is needed for my office. My trusty, well used recliner may have to go. 

I’m going to need my old work truck back to get rid of some of this furniture. You think my old employer would go for that?

Me neither.

The price of change.

Mingo Sings — I don’t know if Dan’l approved

 

Boo freaking hoo: the update you didn’t ask for

I have been remiss in complaining about stuff the past few days. Some of you probably thought the old blogeroo had been taken over by a kinder, gentler doppelgänger. Not so! 

I woke this morning pain free. My foot did not hurt at all. There was no minor swelling, I could actually see the bones and veins faintly below the skin. Things were the way they ought to be. How did this miracle happen? It is the consequence of pretty much sitting on my tail all day yesterday. Oh, I did some stuff. I ran the vacuum. Wrapped some presents. Toiled over the crockpot cooking dinner. Mostly I just watched tv, read, and dozed. 

I have the answer. I just need to stay off my foot and eschew shoes for six weeks or so and I will be healed.

Wait, I did that. It didn’t help. 

I know this, the next time I’m at the doctor for a routine check and he asks if there is anything else, I won’t say something stupid like “well, my foot has been bothering me for a month or so”. 

I broke it in April when the stress fracture turned into a real break. You might think some of my continued issues are my own fault. I might think you are right , but don’t ever expect me to admit it. I don’t work that way. 

I  finally talked to the erstwhile doc about it in May. I was on my feet more than I should have, walking 40-50 miles a week during my first 8 weeks or so in the boot. The need to eat and sorta pay bills dictated I keep putting time at the Big Box home improvement store. And yes, they could have helped out by putting my in an area where I was not lifting the heaviest crap in the store all day. They didn’t, because they were short handed and needed me there. Even when I asked.

Then surgery. Then six weeks completely off of the foot. I did very good about that. Since, I have followed the surgeons directions. Unfortunately, the design of my foot, the way I stand and walk, and low blood flow from diabetes has made healing slower than slow. I even question, do I limp from pain or habit at this point?

So it goes. I miss walking the neighborhood. If my foot is gonna hurt anyway, I might as well do the stuff I enjoy. Besides, lack of exercise has caused me to put on ten pounds. I’m still not the fat guy I was when I started this piece o’ rap blog, but I’m not as skinny as I was nine months ago either.

There, how’s that for complaining? 

Why not?

 

Easy peanut clusters

 The wife is headed over to bake cookies and make candy with our daughter and her girls today. Great fun, and probably a great mess, will be had. The wife will have to hide a couple of cookies for me because otherwise the girls will douse everything in sprinkles. I don’t do sprinkles because they are nothing more than candy-coated mouse turds. Plus, who wants crunchies on an iced sugar cookie? Not me and not you, unless you want to be wrong. 

I may, if things dry out, make an effort to rake or mow the thick layer of leaves that still cover the backyard. There are a lot of them. The great disadvantage of a privacy fence is that stuff can’t blow away. We shall see. It is not like I can claim I need to watch football. My team played last night. I do think I will wrap up the wife’s Christmas presents while she is gone. She will notice them right away under the tree. Hers all look like they were done by a professional. Mine will look like a four year-old’s holiday art project. I flunked scissors and tape back at Samuel Kyger P. Elementary. 

This post is like a SNL skit. I don’t have an ending. Nor a point. 

Have a great Sunday.