Happy First Day Of Summer!!!  I think.  Yes.  The calendar says so.  Wasn’t sure it would ever arrive, judging by the weather we’ve been having.  Cool days, much rain, very little sunshine.  And this has been going on since pretty much April.

So now it’s finally warming up, and of course hot weather plus recent rains makes the lawn grow like crazy. Then of course it must be mowed. But hey, I’m sorry… I’m still convinced that this is a totally STUPID human custom! Lawn mowing seems so fruitless. We certainly spend a lot of time tending a crop we can’t eat! Well, I suppose you could eat it; but you can never be sure of whether it’s tainted with doggie weewee.

Perhaps the only reason our lawn gets cut is that I have a spouse. Left to my own devices, my yard would probably grow into the giant weed patch that God intended it to be. But our marriage contract would never allow this; so I have come to accept the weekly ritual of beheading the huge conglomeration of plants we call a lawn.

We don’t harvest the clippings or fertilize or anything, just mow. Fortunately, my wife and I agree that the less work a lawn brings, the better off we are. Sure, she would LOVE to have golf course quality turf; but she begrudgingly respects my organic gardening philosophies. In other words, no chemicals are ever applied to our lawn. Consequently, grass grows but so do lots of other green things. Some people are very fussy though; and they water, fertilize, and carefully count the blades of greenery. They want to make absolutely sure that grass and ONLY grass is growing. I’d love to invite some of those types to inspect my weedy ground, and watch them go nuts. Then I’d invite them in for a grapefruit milk shake and rationalize the value of a weedy lawn.

Many of those “weeds” mingling with our grass are actually beneficial! Here are two examples: clover is a legume, so its roots make nitrogen (as all good legumes do), which feeds the lawn. Dandelion greens are rich in vitamins and minerals, and the tender young leaves have long been valued by the French and many other cultures as one of the earliest vegetables available in the spring.  And their flowers feed the bees!!

Personally, I find myself grateful for clover and other weeds. They join together with the grass to form a nice carpet at my place; one that I’m not afraid to play Tackle The Grandkids on. If we go a little longer between mowings, we get some beautiful flowers, too! Hate to mow then, because the bees are feeding!

I mean, we must be doing something right, because the lawn is always nice and green, and we never water it. I’m beginning to think there are some sick puppies out there, because I see a lot of lawn watering. There is only one result of watering the grass. It GROWS. Then you have to MOW it. Are there really people in this world that LIKE mowing? If you’re one of this strange breed, lemme check your temperature once.  You may have a bad fever that’s affecting your brain molecules.

Some eggplant-headed folks (pardon my French) even post KEEP OFF THE GRASS signs! That’s more anti-American than flag burning if you ask me. How do they mow the stuff if you have to KEEP OFF? They’re probably the same guys who have their automatic sprinklers going full goose Bozo during thunderstorms.

Thank you Uncle Eric, I love “full goose Bozo.” Do you even say that anymore?

Anyway… the kids are grown now, so long gone are the days when I could pass the job to them whenever I could get away with it. Ahhh those were the days… I could actually focus on much more productive chores like spending more time in the garden. And as I pulled weeds and munched the occasional radish, I could daydream about them mowing down my baby trees and flinging rocks at the picture window at 87 mph. But I distinctly remember taking comfort in the fact that they finally understood why I freaked out about all those toys that used to hide in the lawn on mowing day. Nothing like the “ker-CRACK!” of a squirt gun being processed by the mower! Or the unmistakable “VOOOFF!” of a Nerf Ball disintegrating with a single pass.

Oh well. In the interest of domestic harmony, I will continue to obey and help with the lawn.  I do the trim with the push mower, and my Beautiful Girlfriend pilots the Cub Cadet.  We both wear ear protection in an attempt to save what little hearing we have left.  However, I miss the days my Sweet Honey Pie would ride the tractor and sing out loud to the songs I put on her MP3 player. Of course, she had noise reduction headphones on so she can’t tell whether she’s off key. I confess I’ve had a chuckle or two listening to her Cub Cadet Karaoke sessions while I was out running the trim mower.

Where else do you get a free workout PLUS entertainment??

Speaking of entertainment, the cartoon for this week has nothing to do with the lawn, but I found it rather entertaining.

Dear Friends,

I am on vacation, and you are not. Unless of course you are. On vacation. Are you? I am. And I’m enjoying every minute of it. Please pass the Lemon Flavored Soil Testing Kit while I rake these flavor crystals into a small, gently seasoned skillet full of fresh asparagus, mushrooms, peppers, and Dondo Frijole Jumping Beans.

See there?? That’s what happens when you work for a very long time, and then vacation comes. Well OK maybe not. But if I remember correctly, vacation is a time for escaping reality, at least to some extent. Reality is this: I like to eat food, and I also enjoy living in a home with electricity that powers various things I use to enhance my tender hair follicles and skin cells. Therefore, these conditions (among others) require money, and that means I need to go to work.

Not sure about you folks, but I work because:

A) I’m too proud to be a bum and

9Z6) I’m too chicken to be a criminal.

So I must work for my money. However, I have earned vacation so I am taking two whole days in conjunction with the Memorial Day weekend. Do the math: that means I get 16 days off in a row!! What?? No??? 5…? OK… 5. 5 days off in a row!!

I feel sad for those who feel compelled to do work stuff while on vacation. I almost always do not… although this time I actually got a call from the Help Desk and did a little “coordinating from the remote position” to help things along. That was yesterday. Today, I peeked at my work e-mail briefly, then put the iPhone down and ran away screaming. Or maybe I just put the iPhone down. OK I picked it up several times later; but no more e-mail peeking. It’s just not healthy to let my mind be consumed with work all the time. So I don’t allow that. I’m pretty good at maintaining strong boundaries that separate work from home.

My mission this weekend (5 DAYS!!!) is to get at least SOME of the garden planted. I’m so far behind… but as I always tell my Beautiful Girlfriend, “work interferes with my free time.” Next year at this time I’ll have a reeealllllyyyy looonnnggg vacation because I’ll be retired.

Got a bit of a start though. Bought some peppers, eggplants (not eggs from chickens. Eggs from plants) tomatoes and herbs. Yesterday I mowed the garden. HUH?? Yes, the quack grass was already out of control, so I took the garden tractor and put the mower deck into soil scrape mode. In other words, I put it on the lowest setting possible and scalped all the weeds and such. Then I began the laying out of the beds in preparation for tilling. And of course: rained much of the day today. I suppose I could have done more garden stuff, but I would have become very soggy. And yes, all this takes some preparation; which of course is time consuming. But the rewards are very great. We not only get wonderful food, but it is also very good for my spirit. And speaking of the spirit, I’m very happy to announce that I’m definitely in vacation mode now. I know this because I forgot what day it was today.

Success!!

This vacation is for staying home. Very few plans. Plant da garden. Be with my Honey Pie. Maybe catch a movie. Just not sure; and that’s OK.

So, I hope you are also on vacation. If not, well nyaa nyaa na boo boo to the likes of YOU!! Ha ha!!

Yours with 3 more days,

Kenny “Am I Retired Yet?” Compostflinger

Now I’m off to learn new gardening techniques from Porky…

You may not believe it when I tell you , but I am blessed beyond belief. Actually, I really could give a rip as to whether you believe me or not, because it’s true!! So there!! Put that in your smipe and poke it!! Sure, I’m getting old. I’m older than compost!! But one thing nice about being older, at least for me, is that I’ve suffered more than enough growing pains for one lifetime. And I may have even learned a few things along the way.

Now, please don’t misunderstand me when I start bribbling about having learned stuff. If you know me well, you know from time to time I’ll mention that I’m on a constant recovery journey. That’s right, friends, I’m trying every day to recover from the dreaded Mr. Know-It-All Disease. Some days I try harder than others… but I think I’m getting better at it. I hope. Maybe. I just don’t know!! To quote the late Alistair Sim, who, in my professional opinion performed the very best film rendition of Ebenezer Scrooge, “I don’t know anything… I never did know anything!! But now I KNOW I don’t know anything!!”

With a little help from my friends and The People Upstairs, I’ve made it to a time in life where I can definitely relate to Mr. Scrooge’s awakening.

So why, you may ask, am I so blessed? OK so maybe you didn’t ask. Well if you don’t wanna know, quit reading awreddy!! Otherwise, know this: I’m in love with THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN THE UNIVERSE!! And guess what?? SHE LOVES ME BACK!! Or at least, she says she does. Now all you other women in the universe, please don’t fret; because my professional opinion is that although my Beautiful Girlfriend is the Most Beautiful Woman In The Universe, ALL other women are the Second Most Beautiful. God doesn’t make junk, you see…

Wow… can you believe that this coming Sunday is May 19^th already?? And you might say, yeah, so what?? And then I might say, “whaddya mean, so what???!!!” And then I might go on to say, “this May 19^th is the 47^st anniversary of my first official date with THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN THE UNIVERSE!!” I can’t believe it’s 47 years already!! Seems like just yesterday, or perhaps the day before!! OK maybe a couple weeks or months… but 47 years??!! Sheesh!! So why, you might ask, would I remember the exact date?? Well since you’ve been silly enough to read this far, I’ll spill the beans.

A little Cosmic Holy Mackerel first: when I was 12, my family moved from Long Island, New York to the North Woods of Wisconsin. When she was 17. her family moved from Ferndale, Michigan (near Detroit) to the North Woods of Wisconsin. Now here comes the Cosmic Holy Mackerel part: after Christmas vacation of our senior year in high school, we were planted next to each other in study hall. I’m very certain that The People Upstairs were pulling strings. We instantly became friends, and then she pulled a dirty trick: she changed her wardrobe from jeans and smock tops to dresses and makeup. My reaction was: holy crap, I think she likes me!! I fell head over heels in love. She went back to the jeans and smock tops; but by then all I could see were her beautiful blue eyes.

Now comes the May 19^th part: Katie, a young lady from Chicago with whom I had a long distance relationship, was coming up to the resort on the lake where we lived. We saw each other when her family came up on vacations and wrote letters in between. But my last couple of letters mentioned a new friend I met in study hall named Kathy. Then on May 19, 1972, Katie and her family came up from Chicago; and of course, she expected me to come visit. I rode my 1970 Honda CB175 racing bike over to the resort; and told Katie about my new love. It was a rather unpleasant thing to do… Katie wasn’t shocked but she definitely was not very happy.

After the nasty deed was done, I hopped on back on my racing bike (OK, it’s not really a racing bike) to go meet up with my sweetie. We had a very provocative first date: we rode to the fire tower and climbed up to admire the view. Then we got in the flat bottom boat and I rowed around the lake a bit… then we went for ice cream… then back to the fire tower at night to enjoy the view again. No kissing, no holding hands, no monkey business. Just deep friendship that was quickly evolving in to much, much more. A little over a year later, we were married at the ripe old age of 19.

Much has changed over the years, but we believe the strong friendship gave us a foundation on which to build a lasting, loving partnership. Our love just keeps getting better all the time. I still have the 1970 Honda CB175 we rode around back in those days. It hasn’t run in years, and I doubt it would accommodate us very well now (we may have um… “grown” a bit). I also have the flat bottom boat… still floats after many patches and gobs of silicone sealant. It sits on the shore of a much smaller “lake” now… our pond.

So what has changed? Tons!! But since I can’t speak for my Beautiful Girlfriend, I can only mention some of my stuff. Most importantly, I’ve lost the “requirement” to be right all the time. I am by no means perfect at this, but I’m trying to remain in recovery from this Mr. Know-It-All Disease. I can still be a stinker, but not nearly as often. And when I am, I’m much quicker to apologize (and mean it). During “The Great Adjustment Period” in our early married years, we’d make each other cry a little more often than we care to remember. Now we make each other laugh, and we know how to be silly with each other and not take it personally. We are best friends. She even lets me kiss her!! And she kisses me back!!

Anyway… I’m fortunate beyond my wildest dreams. We have a very good life. If our marriage survives until August, we’ll be dating for 47 years and married for 46 (I think we’re gonna make it). Does that mean I’m getting old?? Not sure what old is supposed to feel like… but I don’t feel old.

I feel lucky.

OK! Now it’s time to make with the mushy songs!!

I may have mentioned before that I have a retirement countdown thingy that comes up on my work computer screen every morning. Now I don’t want to sound excited or anything, but I am Holy Mackerel, Oh Boy Wow, Hey It’s Getting Close, COMPLETELY GEEKIFIED!!

In other words, I’m kinda looking forward to it.

So there I was, minding my own business, booting up my work computer thing, and there IT was, right there in front of my nostrils, being seen with my own eyes, that the countdown timer had moved to the 9 months, 29 days mark all by itself and now I thought to myself, “hey self, it would be funny to start greeting people with a line like ‘I’m pregnant!!’ and laugh to them as they squint with disbelief and unwittingly become part of a run-on sentence.

So I did.

Yes, I’ve been telling all my friends that I’m pregnant, and when they broop and harrumph at me with gribbly smiles and wiggly eyebrows I of course explain that “yes!! In 9 months I will be retired!! Kinda like carrying a baby, right??” And then they snicker and tell me they’re jealous and such. Of course, this is nothing at all like carrying a baby; and God bless all the Moms out there who have done that. They are amazing people… not sure I could endure such reproductive kaboom!! But lest I repeat myself, and I will, over and over again, because it’s fun, and it can also make yet another run-on sentence to which I can just add more words so you can get frustrated with the silliness and ridiculously long length; this retirement is truly making my brain muscles jump up and down like little aardvarks on a professionally cleaned trampoline during a hail storm while “Bohemian Rhapsody” is blaring on my remarkably powerful Sansui speakers.

I think…

My wife is getting a bit anxious… she’s expressed concern of the “half as much money, twice as much husband” formula some friends of hers have mentioned. I’ve tried to reassure her that we’ll be OK… I guess she’s hoping I don’t cramp her style too much when I’m home a lot more. We’ve talked about it of course, and I continue to reassure her that I’m not interested in disrupting her when she needs space. We’ve talked about lots of things I’d like to get done, also, like removing debris in the garage from when the “clutter bomb” exploded. The clutter bomb somehow made a huge mess of shelves, work bench space, and even the floor. It was interesting because although it sure looks like an explosion occurred; it apparently was very gradual and without much noise.

Lots of chores to do to tidy up around our place.

However, I also have some projects of my own that are secret, because I’m making them up right now as I write this for your smiling muscles to enjoy. How about a zip line from my 2^nd floor office to the back of my property?? Oh, and perhaps I’ll buy a bunch of helium and fill my car to make a lighter-than-air-car… a Toyota Zepplin. Gosh yes, and not to forget the tunnel. I’ll need a tunnel alongside the interstate to prevent driving poopyheads from bothering when the helium runs out. Another invention I’d like to work on is a blowtorch toaster that makes toast in 3 milliseconds.

So as you can see, my Honey Pie needn’t worry about me invading her space. I’ll be VERY busy!!

Maybe Betty Boop and her friends can help me with other inventions…

Sunday, of course, is Easter; and for pagans like us that means the Easter Bunny will be visiting. Not sure how the Easter Bunny came into existence, but my Lovely Honey Pie mentioned a reference she heard that the famous bunny has pagan roots. I did some searching on the interwebs and learned that nobody really knows where the Easter bunny originated; but there is speculation that the pagan festival of the Goddess Eostre might fit. Legends tell of a goddess of spring and fertility, and a rabbit was associated with both due to their prolific breeding abilities. Nobody seems to know for sure.

Anyway, we’ll be hiding eggs so the grandsons can go hunting. We might even boil some up and color them! Oh wait… that sounds backwards. Maybe that’s because the ones we’ll hide are going to be the plastic kind. You know, eggs you can open up and stash a surprise inside. Hopefully we’ll remember where they all are… might be a good idea to count them before we do the hiding. Last year there was one “golden egg” that had a $5 bill inside. Seemed like a fun idea, until one grandson got a golden egg and the other didn’t. So this year there will be two golden eggs. That way, regardless of who finds them; each grandson will know in advance that there will be one golden egg per person.

In the “good old days,” we would hard boil a bunch of eggs a day or two before, and then they would mysteriously be hidden by the Easter Bunny. Also hidden were the infamous Easter baskets, loaded with jelly beans, chocolate eggs, and of course a chocolate bunny. Back then, it was especially important to find all the eggs; because unlike the plastic ones, eggs will eventually smell really bad if left at room temperature. So yes, we counted the eggs ahead of time and made really, really sure all were picked up before the Easter morning festivities came to a close.

So the egg hunt has evolved into a cash enterprise… my Beautiful Girlfriend has been dropping coins in a jar for the last several weeks so she can load the plastic eggs with money. I’m not sure money is a good replacement for chocolate, but of course you can use it to buy sweets. But since their parents would have to drive them to a place to spend their loot, cash is probably a healthier gift than a few pounds of candy.

Maybe.

Anyway, the most important part of all this Easter fun is spending time with the family. I’ve invited the family over for Thanksgiving. “I’m making Thanksgiving for Easter,” I told them all. “Mashed potatoes, gravy, vegetables, and pumpkin pie.” “Oooh,” our daughter said, “you know those raisins you put in the pie last time?” I assured her I’d be doing that again. I love to cook, but I also love to push the envelope a bit with recipes. Sometimes that works nicely, other times, not so good. Raisins dropped in the pumpkin pie mix just before they go into the oven turns an ordinary pumpkin pie into an intriguing treat!!

Please have a splendid Easter. Oh, and let me know if you see any of these “funny little bunnies.”

My Beautiful Girlfriend and I bought a home here in Bear Swamp back in 1982. In those days, for the exorbitant price of $36,900 we were able to purchase a 1940 vintage home with 5 acres of land. We probably could have done a little more research before buying. For example, as I mentioned, we live in a quaint area known to the old timers as Bear Swamp. We bought the place in the summer, when the two creeks that traverse the property were flowing nicely, the grass was nice and green, and the basement was dry. “Did you ever get water in the basement?” we asked the sellers. “No, no” they replied, “no problems.” The following spring brought lots of snow melt that made the creek REALLY wide. And something strange happened: water in the basement. Just enough to let us know we live in a… um… swamp. And these folks didn’t even bother with a sump pump!! We fixed that of course… still get a little water that comes up through the cracks in the concrete, but not nearly as much as before the sump pump was installed.

Looking back I also remember asking, “heater works well?” we queried. “Oh yeah, keeps us nice and warm in the winter.”

Well that’s nice.

Winter came, and our ½ tankful of fuel oil was gone rather quickly. No biggie… didn’t really know what to expect. We filled the tank, and it was gone again in less than a month. Not so good!! Fortunately, the chimney was originally built for a coal furnace, so I knew it would be OK for firewood. Got us a cheapie wood stove and started burning wood. Lots more work, but saved us a bunch of cash.

Since I work for a living, I don’t want to spend all my free time cutting wood; so we buy most of it. Lots of folks out there who want to sell us firewood. Some are better than others. Now my Dad kept me and my brother very busy with firewood when we were kids; so I know a little bit about this wood heating stuff. One of the cardinal rules: seasoned (dry) wood works the best. Sounds like a no-brainer right? And lots of folks say they have seasoned wood for sale.

With wood suppliers, we’ve had good luck and we’ve had bad luck. Good luck is when we get nicely seasoned wood, predominantly oak; nice clean load of logs. That’s the kind of luck we’ve had for the last couple years; but this past time we got about 40 % oak and 60% beech. Oh, and we also got at least 2 cubic yards of soil that I don’t recall ordering. Apparently the front end loader they used to scoop up my wood went just a smidge too deep. I was not very happy when I literally had to use a shovel to get some of the logs out of the pile. And when I bring the logs in the house for the fireplace (actually a furnace with glass doors and fake bricks for pretty), it’s pretty dirty and leaves a nice little mess.

Really bad luck is one of those “learning the hard way” experiences. We ran out of wood a couple of winters ago, so I found a guy who said he had some nice, seasoned oak. Well the wood was green, and about 10% of the logs were full of ants. Can’t really bring logs full of ants in the house… they crawl around while wondering what the heck happened to their home (poor kids…). Well guess what? After exhausting all the logs from the dirt pile, I answered a Craig’s List ad for seasoned oak. Called the guy and he knew who I was!! Then he told me who he was, and I was apprehensive.

“So… your ad says this is seasoned oak? Ready to burn?” I asked. “Yep!” he assured me. So I went ahead and bought two cords. He delivered it after dark, so I didn’t get a good look at it. I did notice it was a bit heavy; and the following day I realized why. Green wood. And just like last time, about 10% of the logs were full of ants.

So this year our wood stove started out eating dirt logs; and when the dirt logs were gone I started roasting ants. I know it sounds cruel to burn the ants. Seriously, my spirit hurts when I embark upon the selfish journey of heating my home with ant infested logs. I keep the logs just outside the door and bring them in only when they can go straight into the fire. And I say a little prayer for the ants.

Needless to say, two of our local firewood suppliers have lost my business. I bet they don’t even know the log driver’s waltz!

It’s that time again… my Beautiful Girlfriend is away for the weekend. She and several of her friends have embarked upon a Women’s Retreat; and of course boys are not invited. That’s OK… I had chores to do. I took advantage of the sunshine today and brought in some firewood to warm our bones. We do have natural gas heat but we like the way wood feels much better. And it’s pretty in our “fireplace” (it’s a furnace that looks like a fireplace, with glass doors).

Anyway, there I was, earlier in the week, scheming about what I was gonna do when my Baby left for the weekend. There was a time when I was young and much more foolish when I would seize such an opportunity for drinking too much herbal stuff and smoking too much beer (or something like that…). Thankfully, those days are long gone; but I still have a propensity to spoil myself with goodies that I don’t normally eat too much anymore.

One of the first treats that always seems to pop into my noggin is pizza. I mean, hey, that stuff should be classified as a controlled substance. It’s right up there with fried chicken, potato chips, and butter pecan ice cream. I like all that stuff way too much. Good thing I limit my intake, or I’d soon weigh 793 pounds. I’m no skinny boy mind you, but I’m not a complete Harold Honk-A-Doodle either. And yes, Harry Honk-A-Doodle is a name I just made up and that would be on my shirt if I ate all the goodies in the universe until my skin exploded.

But once in a while is OK, right? Well I can convince myself of that. And yes, my Lovely Bride knows full well what I’m up to this weekend. I toyed with ordering pizza tonight, but I like lots of sauce. Seems like every time I ask for extra sauce, the opposite occurs. And here in Michigan pizza is often cut into squares. Don’t they know you’re supposed to cut it like PIE??!!?? Pizza… pie!! Hello!!!

The more I mulled it over, the more I kept going back to the same conclusion: if you want something done just right, sometimes you gotta do it yourself. Got me a Boboli crust, poured almost the whole jar of Classico pizza sauce out and spread it on the crust. Cooked up some Italian sausage; laid some chunks in the sauce. Then on went the cheese, and on top is onions, mushrooms, black olives, green pepper and uncured pepperoni (no nasty chemicals). I actually read the directions on the Boboli crust package: preheated the oven to 450 and popped it in for about 10 minutes. The final product was magnificent!! Oh, and had to wash it down with a Coke from Mexico… they use glass bottles and real cane sugar.

Am I naughty or what?? But wait, there’s more… I might accidentally eat some ice cream later. And you guessed it, butter pecan. Haagen Dazs no less. A little container. I had to do it you see, it will nicely complement the last piece of carrot cake that’s left over from my birthday.

My Beautiful Girlfriend will be home Sunday some time; so that means I’ll need to chill out on the goodies beforehand. Why? Well no special reason, I just don’t want to greet her while I’m spacing out from a food coma. Probably would be a little weird… eyes like little slits, walking badly, nodding off during conversation, burping, mumbling unintelligibly… yeah I’ll need to avoid that scene.

Good thing she’s only on retreat once a year!!

This week’s video has nothing to do with the story… but it’s a hoot.

So there I was, minding my own business, enjoying life, the universe, and everything (42 for those in the know) (nudge nudge, wink wink), and oh yeah by the way I’m fixin’ to enjoy my 65^th trip around the Sun; when suddenly some radio guy says an astonishing FaceTalking thing: this summer will ring in the 50^th anniversary of Woodstock; and I can’t believe it because, hey, I was 15 that year and I would really liked to have gone to that magnificent experience but there was no way in H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks that was gonna happen so I listened intently to every piece of music on the radio that had anything to do with all the concert action and HOLY MOLY this run-on sentence is OUT OF CONTROL!!

*Whew!!*

This aging stuff is so crazy!! I consider myself very fortunate… my health is good; and I can pretty much do everything I was able to do when I was much younger. The only difference is that sometimes it hurts or sometimes it takes longer. Apparently I don’t look to worn out. I was setting up a computer for one of my very new coworkers; and I mentioned that I had a “big birthday” coming up. She asked, “oh, are you going to hit 50?” My immediate response was, “we can be FRIENDS!!” Not sure if she was sucking up for some future special computer help or what… OK probably not; but I took it as a nice compliment.

Saw my doctor the other day, and we chatted about my upcoming retirement next year. She urged me to make a plan, because “some people have a difficulty with too much time on their hands.” Umm… no problem for this kid!! I have a few million things I want to do, so hopefully I’ll actually get to do maybe a tenth of what’s been floating around in my mind for the past several years. I love to grow food, and I also enjoy writing. I think I’d like to try my hand at teaching food how to write. Perhaps we could use beet juice for ink!! That would involve some “bloodletting” from some “volunteer” beets. Now that I think of it, I’ve never heard beets volunteer for anything. And thankfully, I’ve never heard beets cry when they are bleeding.

I’m often asked, would we be doing any travel? Well we sure hope so. One of the big things on the agenda, though, is to clean up the mess in the garage that’s the result of that giant Clutter Bomb exploding in there. A Clutter Bomb simply has to be what caused that mess. I mean, I walk around in the garage and I fall to my knees and scream “where did all this crap come from??” Then I get up and remember where the hammer is and oh yeah there’s my drill and HOLY CARP I found that door hinge I buried in the back of the shelf about 12 years ago!! So OK, the Clutter Bomb exploded very gradually… over the course of the 37 years we’ve lived here.

There are, of course, other parts of our little universe that have suffered Clutter Bomb explosions. I’ll get to those too… just have to chip away at it. I really do plan to stop procrastinating. That will happen either tomorrow or perhaps a couple weeks after that.

I hope.

Maybe.

In the meantime, I can hardly wait  to see what advances lie ahead for the travel scene…