Friendship, in my professional opinion, is one of the most valuable forms of nourishment available. I feel I can be an authority on this topic because of one very important qualification: I’m human! Mind you, I’m not a professional human… but I am a human who had a profession (I’m retired).  Anyway, I greatly value all my friends; and have even been blessed with a best friend.

We’ve known each other since we were 17… met by happenstance in high school. In those days I already had a best friend; and he still is to this day and I love him to pieces. But this new best friend person stole my heart you see. We got planted next to each other in study hall way back in January of 1972, and became friends pretty much instantly. This was during the time that the internet was still made of strange things called the U.S. Mail and an obscure device called the telephone that transmitted voice signals through wires strung on poles.

Our school was in the booming metropolis of Rhinelander, Wisconsin; and when I left to serve Uncle Sam we used this U.S. Mail internet snail mail not-so-instant messaging thingy and the landline telephone speaking devices to their fullest. We stayed in touch and each time I came home on leave it was obvious our friendship grew stronger and stronger.

As anyone who has a best friend knows, the foundation of such a relationship is comprised primarily of kindness and caring. We grew ever closer over the years, and although times and situations presented great challenges to our friendship, it has nonetheless endured and even flourished to this day.

Now here’s where it gets really interesting: this “new best friend” I acquired in high school just happened to be a young woman!! Through friendship she had already captured my heart; but then she captured the rest of me by switching her wardrobe from jeans and smock tops to dresses and makeup!! At the time, I had little clue that a woman as beautiful as this could have any interest in me; but this sudden wardrobe change became the equivalent of Cupid bonking me on the noggin with a giant 2 x 4.

Naturally, our friendship evolved into romance; and we developed some habits early on that have kept us focused on the continual nurturing of each other. Habits included holding hands, hugging, snuggling, smooching, and saying “I love you” multiple times a day. We still practice these habits; and they came in pretty handy during The Great Adjustment Period of living together. I think that lasted about… um… 17 years.

What can I say? Sometimes I’m a slow learner!!

We’ve discovered some amazing tools along the way, some of which were imparted to us via professional counselors and others via close friends. Thankfully, both of us wanted our friendship to work much more than we wanted it to fail. Some of these tools came in the form of little mantras we say to ourselves, like:

“How important is it? Or put another way, “is this really worth picking a fight over?”

“Do I want to be right or do I want to be happy?”

“Say what you mean, and mean what you say, but don’t say it mean.” and…

“You can disagree without being disagreeable.”

Other important habits were learned very early in life; specifically the practice of respect and just plain good manners. We say “please” and “thank you” often. And although neither of us got much of them when we were kids, we give each other compliments regularly. We both cook so we let each other know when a meal was yummy… and don’t say anything negative when it’s just food. If one of us drops something on the floor and the other finds it, we just take care of it without shaming the pants off the accidental litterbug. In short, we take care of each other; and continue to build more friendship while cementing it together with a few million bushels of love.

I’m a very fortunate man, because my best friend is the Most Beautiful Woman In The Universe (for reference: all other women are the Second Most Beautiful).

And yes, my best friend is married. To me!!

And now for some very mooshy videos.  How could they not be??  It’s Friday, I’m in love!!

Oh and by the way, I’ve been singing love songs to my Lovely Honey Pie pretty much since the beginning.  And after 48 years of marriage, ain’t nobody gonna stop me!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbHDKUXZHFI

So here I am, working at what I’ve always worked for all my life, being retired, not needing to take any jobs to make ends meet, and now that it’s been a little over a year I can really relate to what the “old timers” used to tell me: “I am so busy now I don’t know how I ever had time to work!!”; and now I wonder do I put the semicolon inside the quote or outside because this run-on sentence is big but I needed to include the exclamation marks because hey, I wanted to emphasize that I often find myself with no time!!

Whew!

I had no idea what retirement would bring. My only goal was to be able to coast as long as possible without “working for the man” (or the woman) (besides my wife of course) (and now there are too many parentheses) (but I don’t care). So far, I’ve been able to be just fine without doing any work stuff for supplemental income. I am very grateful!!

Something is wrong, however. The days are zooming past my nose with great zippy fast kaboom all gone the days of quick time passing already!! And that may or may not even be a good way to describe it!! But I don’t care because I enjoy using words to make funny!! So there!! I mean, yesterday it was COVID outside, and today I hugged several friends at a gathering. Another example of how time has flown.

I have been vaccinated… I hope all of them have been too!!

My career as a “techie” has paid off in many ways, but it has also posed some very interesting challenges during retirement. For example, have any of you had the splendid experience of teaching an 86 year old neighbor how to use an iPhone? Much repetition. Much repetition. Much repetition. Also, I find myself repeating the same lessons over and over again. Additionally, I’ve been showing him how to recurrently do the same thing he did 2.4 minutes ago over and over again. No, he doesn’t have dementia. He has just never played with such technical things. Have I mentioned that I’ve been helping him with repetitive lessons on the same stuff multiple times? And he didn’t even get his landline ported over yet!!

Oh God oh God.

On the other hand, you have the vegetable garden. Makes my hands very dirty and I love every minute of it. I am an organic gardener, meaning I do not use any manufactured fertilizers or pesticides. All the soil building materials come from the dump. Yep. I put garbage by the trailer load in my dirt and wait for it to stop stinking. NO!! No, that’s wrong!! I do go to the dump (the politically correct term is transfer station) for fertilizer: free mulch in the form of leaves and lawn clippings. After 39 years of adding these to what was basically beach sand under the turf, I’ve been able to convert very sandy soil into a rich growing medium. And no, there is no such thing as “bad leaves” for the garden. When the worms are happy, the soil is happy.

Anyway, gardening can be very time consuming if you want to get a decent harvest. It’s always been a labor of love for me; and before retirement I had grandiose dreams of having a picture perfect garden. Guess what?? Uh uh. Nope. Sure I’m gonna get lots of food: snow peas, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, beets, Swiss chard, garlic (lots of garlic), popcorn, hopefully some squash… to name a few. But there are some unruly corners of the garden that are infested with catnip, milkweed, lambs quarters, purslane, even some clover. But you know what? It’s very OK. If I had nothing else to do, my garden may (or may not) be free of weeds. People think I’m nuts when I tell them that “weeds are guardians of the soil.” It’s true you know. Their root systems prevent erosion while adding organic matter to the soil. Weeds provide habitat for spiders and other beneficial creatures. And when the catnip is flowering, pollinators of all sorts come a-runnin’. Ever see a hummingbird moth?? So amazing!! And not to forget the milkweed that feeds Monarch butterfly caterpillars. We’ve even enjoyed the fact that plants like lambs quarters and purslane are very edible.

Since we are social people, our calendar has filled up quickly. That’s good, right?? Better to be wanted and loved than to have people shudder at the mention of your name! Of course there are lots of other things that keep me occupied on this 5 acre homestead of ours. Maybe someday I’ll even get brave and clean up the clutter bomb that exploded (very slowly) in my garage!! Or do something really radical like declutter my office!! Are you picking up on a clutter pattern here?? Oh well, retirement really is awesome. And yes, “I’m so busy now I don’t know how I ever had time to work.”

And I really like it!!

We don’t have a lot of money, but we have enough. We are blessed really. Here’s one of my old favorite cartoons about a bad egg who got way too greedy.

Our poor trees here in Beautiful West Michigan. So many of them must be terribly embarrassed these days. That’s because this year we literally have acres and acres of naked trees. In the middle of summer no less!! This horrible phenomenon occurs every 10 years or so due to infestations of that nasty import: the European Gypsy Moth.

And yes folks, these little stinkers were actually brought from Europe on purpose; by a guy named Étienne Léopold Trouvelot. I did some digging on the interwebs and learned that he fled France with his family to Medford, Massachusetts during the ascent of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1851. Then in the 1860s he thought it would be really cool to raise some gypsy moth caterpillars in the forest behind his house. His goal was to raise a disease resistant caterpillar for the purpose of silk production. So he got some egg masses from Europe and brought them here for hatching. Unfortunately, several of the caterpillars “escaped” to nearby woods and the rest, as they say, is history.

This is by no means the first time people have transplanted invasive species from one part of the world to another; whether intentional or otherwise. One relatively harmless example is the introduction of mulberry trees into the U.S. in 1733, again with the intent of kicking off a silk industry. Mulberry leaves are a favorite food of silkworms you see. Well, the silkworms didn’t do so well, but the mulberry trees are doing just great, thank you.

Anyway, back to these doggoned gypsy moths. I admit that I mistakenly believed they only love oak trees. Well turns out they’ll readily munch on about 300 different species of trees and shrubs. A variety of control methods are being used with some success. One of the most important is not to travel around with firewood or other woody debris that may be infested with egg masses. Big no-no!! There are also sprays that target only the caterpillars; and there are traps that can be made. And yes there actually are a few natural predators like deer mice that actually love to eat the creepy crawlies. I’ll put a couple informative links at the bottom of this so you can educate yourselves if you like.

Don’t despair, this terrible sight of naked (and most likely highly embarrassed) trees will improve after a year or two when the populations collapse due to disease and other factors. Unfortunately, however, it looks like these boogers are here to stay. All we can do is learn to cope the best we can.

So here are a couple of very informative links for you:

https://www.canr.msu.edu/ipm/Invasive_species/Gypsy-Moth/gypsy-moth-around-home

https://fyi.extension.wisc.edu/gypsymothinwisconsin/

And now, as Mr. Cleese used to say, for something completely different:

We just watched Stephen Colbert’s Late Show from June 14, where he was able to enjoy his first live studio audience in 15 months. Being the mush ball that I am, I admit I shed a few tears of joy when I saw all the excitement. So much love, so much positive energy!! It was really refreshing. Almost like… normal!!

So what is “normal” anyway? Several years ago it was not unusual to hear someone say, “normal is just a cycle on the washing machine.” Ha ha… well maybe not… maybe actually profound. The pandemic has certainly turned pretty much everyone’s “normal” upside down. Now that it’s diminishing, in much of the U.S. at least, we can breathe a sigh of relief.

At least for now.

Here in Michigan, masks are still required in medical facilities, but most businesses seem to have removed their “No Mask, No Entry” signs. I’ve actually been to the grocer and other stores without a mask, and at first it felt rather strange. I’ve even eaten at a restaurant a couple times! Again, no mask. But I still sanitize my hands as soon as I get back in the car.

Still not ready to go to the movies yet. However, here in Beautiful West Michigan we have a very safe place to watch a movie on the big screen: The Getty 4 Drive In. That’s right folks, the drive in has been thriving here for some time, and especially during the pandemic. I actually have a date to go with my Beautiful Girlfriend tomorrow (I’m writing this on Thursday night).

We are both still pretty careful really. God only knows what kind of variants will show up in our midst; and whether the vaccine will actually prevent us from being infected. I certainly hope so… scientists have assured us and I feel fairly confident we’ll be OK. But just in case, when it comes to close personal contact as in hugging or even a handshake, our “normal” involves only people we know are vaccinated. And we pray for those who choose not to get the vaccine.

We pray for their safety.

Thankfully, I was able to retire just as the pandemic was beginning to rage. My Lovely Bride still works a couple days a week, but we are basically in retirement mode. Over the years, we talked about checking out Europe or maybe even just Hawaii when retirement came around. However, quarantine has blessed us with the ability to be grateful and content at home. So our dreams of foreign travel have been forever altered. Currently, our idea of a long trip is driving all the way to the distant land of Wisconsin later this summer. Although we’ve heard it’s fairly safe, neither of us is interested in getting on an airplane. We’ll probably drive to Florida some time, but I just looked at the latest COVID map and there are still some “hot spots” between here and there. Guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

So whatever “normal” is will continue to change for us I suppose. And that’s very OK. The bottom line is that we really are very blessed; and have learned to make gratitude our attitude. If anything, COVID has strengthened our resolve to be thankful for what we have, and our list of wants has lost importance. I mean really, who’s to say that there won’t be yet another pandemic down the road?

We certainly hope not, but God only knows!!

And now some more mush ball stuff. I would not be able to imagine what it would be like to lose someone close to me from COVID (God bless those of you who have).

This song tugs my heart. And this version is truly exquisite.

I am SO MUCH looking forward to Monday!! Why? Well I’m retired, so it’s not work… actually while working I don’t believe I was ever happy about Mondays. Unless I was on vacation.

So Sunday I begin the prep for a most wonderfully enjoyable procedure known as a colonoscopy. I think it’s pronounced co-LON-o-scope-eeee. Maybe not, but doesn’t that sound like fun? I can hardly wait to drink 430 times the normal dose of laxatives to clean my guts out. I had to do this before… and I “fondly” remember the happy intestinal volcanic rumbling that ensued during The Big Cleanout. I’ve always loved Intestinal Volcano. Has a way of letting you know you’re alive.

All this wonderful fun was prescribed as preparation for some happy probing of my southern torso by aliens on Monday. My exciting dining regimen for Sunday will include clear liquids and PKP (Poop Kaboom Powder). Around noon Monday they will clunk me with the anesthetic sledge hammer and have their way with my colon. Those medical people think they have me fooled… they think I am not aware of their little game. This is all an excuse for them to do pole vaulting experiments with my hiney hole. You see, when we are zonked out, they play funny games with our bodies and we just lie there with that anesthetized look on our faces. Perhaps while I’m there, they could take some of the hair from my back and plant it back on my head where it used to be. Or possibly they could do a little liposuction while they’re in there with the garden hose thingy that has the video camera on the end of it. I’m unreasonably sure the hose is what they use for the Happy Colon Scoping.

Perhaps they have a trained snake or eel that they use to climb inside and look around for clingons, or whatever else they hope to find in there. I’ve heard about polyps being removed during the procedure, and I figure that snakes and / or eels would be very good at biting those off from the inside. Of course, a snake would need some sort of breathing apparatus during all this. Maybe a snorkel or some kind of miniature aqualung. Eels probably would need something too, because although they can breathe in water with their gills, I would never send a trained eel into a poopy environment and expect it to try to breathe the kaka water. That would be cruel and inhumane treatment, even for an alien-trained poopy probing eel.

Or maybe this “procedure” is actually a ploy to extract methane from unsuspecting visitors. With all the tooting I’ll be blasting during the prep, I’m betting the gas could power a generator for the day. That would certainly help those medical folks curtail their energy bills. That’s probably it… they need the gas! I’m sure they don’t want the fertilizer from all the trips I’ll be making to the potty, because otherwise they would have specified that I collect it as I go. I believe enough fertilizer will be made to cover several acres.

While I’m sedated I’m sure they will have fun drawing cartoons on my belly with magic markers, or maybe they’ll be taking provocative photos of me posing with food and non-clear liquids. Pretty sure I’ll be craving a nice burger and a shake afterward!! All this in the name of prevention. Ya, right. Whatever. If nothing is wrong, I get to stay clear of this happy time for ten years. By then, technological advances will make a big difference. They’ll probably be able to zonk me out with a little zapper the size of a pencil. No prep, they’ll just use a machine to purge all the goodies out of my booty. Finally, rather than trained snakes or eels, they’ll be sending in the robot snakes and eels.

OK, maybe what I described about the Happy Colonoscopy Day is not what really happens. But I’ll never really know for sure now will I??

And now for something completely different…