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 followed some e-mail stuff 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.

A friend of mine just shared on BookFace that she has not had a day off since May 3^rd. That seems illegal to me. Dunno about youse kids, but if I had a job like that it wouldn’t be for much longer.

My mission this weekend (5 DAYS!!!) is to get the rest of the garden planted. I had my plants (transplants) in the ground already, so now it’s time for the seeds. 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

Please everyone, have a safe and enjoyable Memorial Day weekend.  And if you get out on the road, please do your best to avoid Motor Mania.

I remember adults saying things like “kids these days… whaddya gonna do??” when we were growing up. Well I guess now it’s our turn. Most of it, at least in our family, is pretty fun really. For example, watching our oldest grandson experience his first baseball game. He’s all of 7 years old, so of course he’s a very early beginner in Little League. The coaches were great and very patient. They placed emphasis on playing and learning; no pressure, just fun. Some of the parents we sat near, however, were a different story. Not many, mind you, but there are inevitably a couple who voice disappointment when their 1^st grader is not quickly grasping the path of becoming a professional ball player.

We had no expectations; which was very good because Ollie was not really sure what to do when on the field. Coaches operate a slow pitch machine that’s pretty consistent with getting the ball to the batter. While the coach runs the machine, one of the boys is stationed on the pitcher’s mound. Well, while Ollie was on the mound, the ball came very near him a few times and he just kinda watched it roll around. So we’d yell instructions but I’m not so sure those were really audible to him. There seems to be some sort of shield that protects young players from hearing the shouts of eager loved ones. Probably a good thing!

During the game, our other grandson Gabe, who is all of 3, was of course bored out of his mind. He kept wondering aloud why he couldn’t go out on the field with his brother and the other boys. We tried to explain several times, but the only statement that seemed to sink in was, “you’re not allowed. But that’s OK because we’re not allowed either!!” “Oh…., “ he said with a puzzled look; and played about in the sand behind the backstop. After a half hour or so Gabe sat next to me and looked up, paused for a minute, and said, “Papa, you have hair in your nose!!” “Yes I do,” I replied. “Everyone has it. You have it too but Papa’s nose hairs are easier to see.” Then he asked quizzically, “what’s that for??” “To keep the bugs out!!” I exclaimed. He wrinkled his eyebrows a bit but appeared to accept that one.

The game continued for a little while longer, but they had a formula worked out: 5 strikes at bat, 5 innings, and a maximum of a hour and a half of play. Afterward we had a nice meal and headed for home.

When the work week came, my Beautiful Girlfriend and I were on the phone about our prospective tenant who is interested in renting part of the duplex my Aunt Joyce left behind for us. The new renter sent me a text saying, “well you might be jelly but I found some morel mushrooms!!” My reply was, “ruh??” She went on to say that her 12 year old son uses “jelly” as slang for “jealous.” I quickly found myself outdated, just like I thought the adults were when we were kids. “Doesn’t anyone use English anymore?” was one of my first thoughts. Is that like, Squaresville or what, Daddy-O?? You dig?

This duplex is a blessing and a curse; because although our son lives on one side, we need to have a tenant on the other to pay for taxes, insurance, and et cetera. It’s a nice duplex, really: 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths on each side. Somehow my Beautiful Girlfriend and I got onto the subject of toilets, and the total number we own. She pointed out that the full count was 6: two at our house, and 4 at the duplex. As soon as she was done talking, I blurted out, “holy cow!! We’re a 6-toilet family!!”

Gave us both a much needed belly laugh.

None of the previous scribblings are interrelated; so because of that, the moral of this story should be this: If you get jelly in your nose hairs, don’t bug me; just choose one of the 6 toilets and blow.

Or something.

Speaking of kids… gotta love ’em!! There was a show on TV when we were kids. A man named Art Linkletter interviewed kids and found out that Kids Say The Darnedest Things. Life was a great deal simpler then; because I was… A KID!!

Hi, my name is Ken and I’m a vidiot. Maybe. I dunno. But tell you what, my Beautiful Girlfriend and I sure have been doing some binge watching lately. It seems there’s this new (old) HBO series called “Game Of Thrones;” and we were just recently sucked straight into it.

It’s a total cliffhanger series that, in my warped mind, warrants a nice run-on sentence because it has lots of lords and ladies and kings and queens and swashbuckling and stabbing and naked people doing naked things and explosions and dragons and all kinds of cool things that probably could never happen but the shows sure make it seem like they’re real even though you know they’re not but HOLY MACKEREL they’ve been forcing us to go to the video store multiple times so we can support our local merchant!!

NOT for kids!!

If you’ve ever read this silly blog thing of mine, you may know that when it comes to TV, my Lovely Bride and I were “cord cutters” way before it was cool. In other words, we’ve always been too doggoned cheap to get cable or satellite TV. Our antenna system has always provided us with plenty of good reception, so we saw no need to subscribe to a service. Good thing too… my suspicions have been verified: if we actually paid for TV we’d watch way too much of it. We’d rationalize it all by saying to ourselves, “we gotta get our money’s worth.”

Game of Thrones has proven this to be all too true. There are two episodes per disk, with 5 disks per season. There are 5 seasons on disk so far; the previous 4 came in sets of 5 disks; now the latest has to be rented one at a time. We just finished disk #2. Each disk has just short of 2 hours worth of program material. So the sequence goes thusly: we pop in the disk, and what feels like 12 minutes later both episodes are done!! At this point we both utter a large, simultaneous groan, “AWWWW MAAannn!!!” Then it’s back to the video store the next day. It’s still way cheaper for us to rent these than it would be to pay for cable or satellite TV.

Then you have that other nasty, wicked, wonderful series on the History Channel: Vikings. Now that one is even more insidious because we can watch it for free on our Roku. For those who don’t know, a Roku is a cool device that grabs content off the interwebs and spits it out on your TV. Sure, Vikings comes with a few ads, but because we’ve had free TV for many moons we’re pretty accustomed to that monkey business. And again, we start the “unlocked episode,” and 13 minutes later (add a minute because of the ads) we’re crying “AWWWW MAAannn!!!” That is, of course after I’ve said, “poor Floki” about 18 times during the show.

That one is ALSO not for kids. Not as much nakedness, although it’s definitely implied. Lots of clunking and stabbing and arrows in the nostrils and stuff though. You know, the cool stuff boys like. Well, maybe girls too, because my Beautiful Girlfriend is right there with me when it’s on. Although unspoken, we both know full well it’s basically a crime for either of us to watch Vikings or Game of Thrones without the other.

Yes, I confess, I’m a vidiot. Sometimes… not all the time. I don’t care about sports; and yes I know that’s un-American but I don’t care. So there, nyaa nyaa na boo boo. Several of my friends tell me they must have cable to get their sports. But I hear what their bills are for a month and I’m very grateful this cliffhanger clingonitis we’ve developed has not evolved in a pay TV subscription… yet. No. I must be strong!! Antennas rule!! Long live the video store!! Long live the dinosaurs and cavemen like me!!

Garden season is coming. The TV will basically gather dust until late fall. Sure, we’ll still watch a few things but not like right now. I guess I could try to blame it on my Lovely Wife for being homebound due to her knee replacement surgery and forcing me (yeah, right) to sit with her through all these godawful programs.

Or, I could thank her!!

We’ve been watching much more than normal lately but we’ll try not to be like this lady…

My Beautiful Girlfriend is now a Bionic Woman with a Brand New Knee. Of course, the New Knee to which I’m referring is her Lower Knee, not her Hiney. Her New Knee, after all Need Not Be Capitalized; but this was a Pretty Big Event at Our House so I just thought I’d use Capital Letters indiscriminately to Point This Out.

My poor baby has had a bad knee for some time now… and finally decided that she’d been hobbling in pain for more than long enough. Her cartilage slowly wore away to the point where there was nothing left as a cushion at all. She braved cortisone shots for a couple years; and those did help for some time. But she was told there would come a time when the shots coupled with pain medication would not be enough.

“I always told the doctor he could have my knee when I’m 60,” she’d say when the pain became excessive.

She’s 61 now, and got her wish not quite two weeks ago. Her New Knee did not come without some ouchy stuff though. It’s a pretty big deal… this knee replacement surgery. I told friends that it must have been pretty gross (and weird) to be in the operating room, watching the surgery. I envisioned the doctor running a nice, shiny Husqvarna chainsaw, spraying bloodly, fleshy sawdust all over the place as he went in to cut the old out to make room for the new. Maybe it doesn’t quite happen that way, but I’m sure that it would have been way more than anything I would like to have seen.

God bless the folks that do that stuff. I mean, I can respond when there’s an emergency and do the right thing; but if I were called upon to assist while someone was getting cut open, I’d pass out in a little less than 12 nanoseconds. Fortunately for us, one of the best knee surgeons in this area did the job, and there were no complications… well except pain of course. Amazing though it may be, knee replacement surgery is no cake walk. No, they don’t even want you stepping on cake!! I’m very glad of that because I’ve never really enjoyed cake with footprints in it.

On her first day home, it was slow going; so I greased the floor with cooking oil so she could slide about with ease. I also put together a rather interesting apparatus for helping her get into bed. It involves large stones, ropes and pulleys. When you pull the large lever, the cat screams while the launching platform lifts her out of her walker and into the air. If all goes well, the shock bladders inflate quickly and she is sloowwwwly lowered into the basement. From there it’s just a simple matter of throwing the soiled laundry down the chute to cushion her non-skid slippers into the variable shaker linkage.

She’ll thank me for all of this sometime in the future I’m sure.

Just to prove I can be a Good House Helper and a Nurse, I’ve been cooking some of our pillow cases with low fat mango peelings while setting up her medications according to the phase of the moon and the color of the snow behind the garden shed. I hope to brighten up her day a bit when I slip some pureed asparagus into her oatmeal, but the next few meals will be much less mainstream. Cream of watermelon soup, eggs on a stick, and buttered newspaper with Chicken Bone Surprise will all be on the menu for tomorrow and the rest of the weekend for that matter.

I must say, though, that without the kindness of friends this journey would be much more difficult. We are very fortunate indeed. We remind each other that this New Knee business is temporary… better days lie ahead. Loved ones who are near and dear to our hearts are plagued with much more serious matters.

Perhaps I should go be a House Help Nurse for them too!!

Or not.

As far as I know, these guys were NOT involved in any of the procedure…

Valentine’s Day is on the horizon, and believe it or not, I’m ready for it. That became fairly easy some years ago. All I have to do really is get a card; and of course some flowers. My Beautiful Girlfriend and I stopped buying Valentine’s Day presents some years ago. The primary reason for that was we got to a point where we had plenty of stuff. In fact, I have stuff strewn all over my office that I suspect may be having babies. Seems like I cleaned this up like only a year ago; yet the stuff seems to be multiplying somehow. All kinds of pens, a battery, a little tiny tape measure, a bigger tape measure, an eraser (an eraser??) miscellaneous receipts from bills, envelopes, oy yoy yoy yoy yoy.

So anyway, here I am, typing amongst all the stuff; being grateful that my Lovely Honey Pie will not add to the pile because we changed the Valentine’s Day Gift Policy (VDGP), and also being grateful that I’ve learned through many Crowded Flower Shop Years (CFSY) that if you’re silly enough to buy your sweetie some flowers the day before (or even worse, the day OF) Valentine’s Day, you must prepare to wait in line for many minutes and then try to pick out a nice bouquet of flowers out of a gaggle of containers filled with blooms that have been fondled to oblivion by other guys scrambling to meet the deadline; and this may be one of my longest run-on sentences I’ve written in a very long time but I don’t care because I went on WEDNESDAY to get flowers and ha ha on all of youse because I scored some really nice blossoms and I didn’t have to wait or nutting so nyaa nyaa na boo boo on the likes of YOUSE BOYS!!

Yes!! And I got the card a week ago!! So there!! And a little surprise too!! So there again!!!

I’ll show youse…

This Valentine’s Day will be followed by a rather historic event for our family though: my Beautiful Girlfriend is getting knee replacement surgery. Pretty scary stuff, no matter how many people who’ve been there and done that tell you “oh she’s gonna love it.” We’re doing our best to prevent negative thoughts from ricocheting around in our noggins. Has us both a little nervous though. Her especially. But the poor baby has had a knee that’s been bone-on-bone for some time now and it’s been increasingly painful for her to get around.

Don’t know about you, but when something like major surgery comes into our lives we seek comfort and counsel from friends and family. We’re both blessed with people who love us and are willing to share their experience, strength, and hope with us and yet listen to our apprehensions. Because I work in a factory, I’m also blessed with a number of work friends with whom I can talk. And, being the silly boy that I am, I usually sprinkle a little humor into the stress venting:

“I’ll be gone all next week,” I told a friend at work.

“Oh? Going south?” he asked.

“Well, yeah kinda… my wife is getting a new knee on Monday and the surgery will happen south of us a little ways. I’m staying home with her for the first week after the surgery.”

“Oh, OK,” he said with a smile.

“Yeah,” I continued, “she’s getting her low knee replaced; not her hiney.”

“OK…” was the response with gradually lowering intonation. “Never heard of anyone getting a hiney replaced.” And of course both of us chuckled a bit.

Friends have rallied in support already; lending us a walker, cane, a recliner, and other stuff to help her on her way to recovery. We are very fortunate people.

So when my baby asked “whatchya gonna write about tonight?” I let the cat out of the bag and said, “your low knee and your hiney.”

And that’s all the information on her hiney that anybody’s gonna get!!

Fortunately, our my Honey’s surgeon has an impeccable reputation. Not, I hope, like this strange physician…

Greetings, Fellow Snack Handlers!!

Here’s wishing you the Happiest Merry of all Years, with dotted Ts and crossed eyes following all of your newly configured radial sandwich flavors. It is very and ultra important that we greet this new year with pledges of doing remarkable things. As you may already know, pledges are words that express an intent to do something. Politicians know the value of a pledge. They use them to get elected and, once in office, they do what they bloody well want. But when you come right down to it, when people make promises about this or that at the beginning of a brand new year, they have a lot in common with politicians. Many people make pledges, but how many fulfill them?? This I am unable to know.

On the other hand, you have Lemon Pledge furniture polish. This would be especially true if you just got done polishing your tomatoes with that large electric dust mop over there.

2015 was an interesting year… but some things just never seem to change. For example:

1) The rich get richer, the poor become more numerous, and the working class gets to pay for all of it; and

29) War is still not the answer, even though all too many people cling to the notion that it can be “morally justified.” I know, I know… “there’s so much evil in the world;” and “we have the right to defend ourselves…” Yada yada yada. My professional opinion: The use of weapons produces a very immediate (albeit tragic) result. However, there will NEVER be lasting peace until we are all ready to treat each other with respect; communicate; and persistently work together to address the roots of the issues.

Oh but hey, that stuff takes way too long. Let’s just go bomb somebody.

Oy yoy yoy.

I confess, I’m an old hippie. I love the line from that old Ten Years After song that says “Tax the rich, feed the poor, till there are no rich no more…” We seem too have too few people with too much money working to control many MANY people with not so much money.

Gack, ptoo!!

Such ickyness just gives me the warm fuzzy noodle constipation that every Mom loves. But I know that it’s always easier to find fault with others than to look inward, so I thought I’d better lay out a plan for my own self improvement. Therefore, I beg of each of you to elect me as your next Filibuster Yakkity Yak Doo Dah Day for 2016. My plan for self bereavement lies below.

Please be not aware that I have regurgitated the following Noo Yeer’s Revolutions:

1) To remind myself that I need to remember those things which I can’t seem to recall.

What was that again?  What was I thinking about…??

R) To lose weight, gain it back, lose it again, and lose some more until my nostrils can be used for sidewalk painting without fear of changing lanes abruptly.

Please pass the pepperoni flakes and the coagulated skim milk.

24) To change lanes abruptly so all weight loss can be vehemently avoided.

Watch out for that tree!! It has a scale near it!!

++) To boldly go where no earthworm has ever dined before.

Ummm… you gonna eat that compost??

3X) To be nice to all people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Excuse me sire, your toupee is on fire. May I stomp it out for you? Oh, you’re still wearing it…

T5) To dress in all recyclable clothing, in order to lighten the load on my laundry licking machine.

I especially favor the milk jug socks and the recycled string bikini underwear.

Z44) To unite all small countries in a global effort to stop Homer Simpson from eating my cake.

Alright boys, this is it… you clunk him on the cake eater and I’ll spray him with a completely different shade of yellow.

and finally:

9) To sing loudly about how wonderful it is to be alive, ever reminding myself that work is a joy and that complaining is tantamount to feeding dogfood to caterpillars. In other words, no matter how badly I think I have it, I am really a wealthy person. I have received many gifts from the Creator. As Alistair Sim said in my favorite Christmas movie (Scrooge) “I don’t deserve to be so happy, but I can’t help it.”

I suspect that if you are reading this, you are wealthy also. You don’t think so?? OK smartypants, lemme ask you these: Do you have a car? Do you have enough to eat? Do any of your clothes fit nicely? Do you have friends? A warm, safe place to sleep?

If you said “yes” to any of these, you are wealthy. OK??

So I hereby beseech all of you to have a most Wonderful New Year while singing great songs of coagulation. Love your brethren and your cistern. Love your father, your mother, and your Mother (Earth). Share what you can with those less fortunate than you are.

Oh!! And please vote!! Not just for people running for public office. No my friends, please remember to vote with your money. Every dollar we spend helps to determine the type of world we want to enjoy. Buy as much local produce as you can. Support your local businesses. Stuff like that there.

And please, be kind to yourself and other living things.

Peace, Love, and More Peace,

Kenny

This week’s video has nothing to do with New Years Revolutions but I found it rather amusing; so there.

This week’s Happy Friday!!! comes with very warm wishes for all of you out there in interwebs land. I sincerely hope you all had as blessed and joyful Christmas as we did. One of our favorite smiley moments came when we learned that my wife, our son, and I all bought each other the same CD for Christmas. It actually worked out, because our daughter got one, we got one, and our son got one.

Christmas always makes my head spin with memories… mostly good. There are a few recollections of Christmases Past that could be better left forgotten I suppose; both from childhood and adulthood. However, although such unpleasantries float through my thoughts from time to time, their importance is greatly diminished by what life brings to us these days.

Life is very good. As far as money goes, we are not rich; but we are wealthy in many ways.

Materially, I want for nothing. We exchange gifts of course, but in my case, socks and blue jeans are much more awesome than the latest gadget. I am very grateful to Santa for everything we’ve received, but the most important gift anyone could have is the love we share as a family. I would love to solve all the world’s problems and give EVERYONE what we have; but obviously that’s not possible.

With the arrival of grandchildren, our Christmas has changed over the years. Many times in the past, my Beautiful Girlfriend would insist that our kids spend the night with us Christmas Eve and enjoy what Santa brought the following morning. Of course, when our grandchildren came along our daughter and son in law wanted to start their own tradition. We very much understand the need for a family to have Christmas together; but my Beautiful Girlfriend was a bit reluctant to go along with that idea at first. However, she knew there was absolutely no argument that would hold water on that issue. Instead, they’ve blessed us with the ability to spend the night of the 23^rd at their house and wake up for a gift exchange on Christmas Eve Day.

Did I mention life is good??

So the past several Christmases have found the three of us, my Lovely Bride, our son, and me, waking up on Christmas morning together to enjoy what Santa brings. After our traditional brunch of hominy with sausage, peppers, and onions served with two eggs on top; our son went to his house to be with his kitties while we spent much of the afternoon on the phone talking to relatives. Anybody remember the telephone?? Landlines they call them now. Sheesh…

Anyway, thanks to The People Upstairs for taking care of us mortals down here. We are very grateful. And thanks to all of you who read this!! The fact that anyone reads it is a blessing to me. If someone actually enjoys what I write, I feel very blessed indeed.

Peace, Love and Joy to you all; and thank you for being my friends. And just to prove that it really is me writing this: Please remember that it’s always better to be you than for you to be me; and although you can count to it, eight is a word.

Take care my friends!! See you next year!!

Here’s an oldie but a goodie… some Red Green Christmas spirit.

High On “See”

by Ken Hansen

Holy Moly, what the HECK happened here?? I mean, there I was, minding my own business, feeling pretty young and full of energy (or something), listening to The Beatles on the radio after they landed for the first time in the US in 1964; when all of a sudden, I turned 61 and I’m still feeling pretty young but maybe not full of quite so much energy (but still lots of something); writing run-on sentences for some silly Happy Friday!!! blog thing but HOLY MOLY I got OLD somehow!!

Well OK, I’m not really old, but I am, but I’m not. Do any of you out there relate to any of this? Well if you do you may not want to admit it; because it might mean you’re getting old too!!

So here I am in my 61^st year on this lovely planet, and I’m finally able to plan ahead just a little bit. Please believe me though, that when I use the word “plan,” I use it very loosely. After all, we can try to plan things but inevitably something introduces a change. With any luck at all, the changes are not life threatening; but they can still make us veer off our original course.

I’ve learned the hard way that whenever I profess to be planning something; I need to be very aware that things just may not work out the way I want. Stuff happens, right? Anymore, when I talk to friends or other loved ones about something I’d like to do, I qualify it. For example, friends would ask me what I’m doing on a given weekend. I’d start by saying, “my grandiose plans are to spend some time in the garden.” Then of course something interferes and I don’t get to do what I want. It’s very OK though. I’ve gotten much better at accepting such things. In fact, I’ve learned to embrace one of my favorite expressions I heard several years ago: “If you wanna make God laugh, tell Him you have plans.”

Mind you, I have no idea if God is a Him, Her, or a Them (I lean more toward Them). But I’ve received some pretty amazing gifts from The Great Beyond over the years. In spite of all my attempts to destroy my life with alcohol and other dangerous drugs, I’ve survived pretty much intact. After I quit poisoning myself and got the help I needed, life became pretty darned good. I don’t take credit for that; I believe I’m being helped.

This was again pointed out to me this past week. Those People Upstairs (Them) showed me something I never expected: Plan C. You may well ask, “Plan C?? What happened to Plans A and B??” Well I’m glad you asked.

Even if you didn’t.

For a few years now, my Beautiful Girlfriend and I have been lusting for retirement. OK, maybe I’m lusting for retirement… because I’m really ready to start a new chapter in life. She on the other hand, is kinda frightened about the whole retirement thing. Anyway, the plan has been for me to retire from my job at 66. The mortgage would be paid off at age 65; and “my grandiose plan” was to continue to pretend we had a mortgage payment to build up some cash reserve before retirement.

Then some uncertainty tainted the retirement waters: an announcement was made that several jobs in our department were being outsourced early next year. Unfortunately, I was not shocked by this news… I smelled it shortly after we had a regime change. The effect on our grandiose retirement plans was a backup to Plan A needed to be considered.  Plan A, as I mentioned previously, was to retire at 66, with the mortgage being paid off at 65. So Plan B was formulated: if I lost my job we’d withdraw from my 401K and pay the mortgage off so our income requirements would be much lower. Seemed like an OK formula.

Earlier this week, though, Someone from The Committee Upstairs (Them again) told me to consider Plan C. Pay the mortgage off NOW. I was a bit surprised. I hadn’t thought of this at all. After all, it’s possible I will keep my job until retirement. But the thought of being completely debt free before retirement was exhilarating!! Of course, I also quickly realized that Plan C would only be effective if I continued to pretend I have a mortgage payment and limit our spending accordingly. This would allow me to fund Roth IRAs while building a cash reserve to allow us to stay out of debt.

When I mentioned this to my Beautiful Girlfriend, her eyes got a bit wide with disbelief. Not sure if she thought I was out of my mind or just as amazed as I was!! There was little discussion though, as we both knew this was a good way to go.

Once we decided, I was like a kid in a candy store. At work, I told any friend who would listen about Plan C and all but one was very happy for me. She probably still thinks I’m a bit nuts to rob my 401K like this, but after all, I’m older than 59 ½ so there’s no penalty, just tax. Gonna pay tax on it sooner or later anyway.

One of my more Christian friends was very excited for me, and he also was really digging on my description of what I consider a spiritual experience. He smiled broadly and said, “I think you need to call it Plan See, like S-E-E!!” I couldn’t agree more. I don’t subscribe to any religion, but I do try to see where religious people can help me through this journey we call life.

Today was the Big Day. Mortgage go bye bye. No more debt. Holy Moly. I was out in the plant at work today and when my friends asked me how I was, I told them: “I’m high on life today.” And then of course I’d say how fortunate I am to have zero debt.

I guess you could say I’m high on “SEE.”

One thing nice about being older than compost: the blessings of some awesome entertainers over the years. I mentioned I was high on life? Well I think these guys were high on life too…

You know, food can be given lots of fancy names; but if it’s not prepared correctly it can be just plain bad. Worse yet, you can get sick!! At least, that’s what seems to have happened to me and one of my nice lady work friends.

A bunch of us work folks were invited to a “Team Dinner” at a fancy restaurant this past Thursday. It was a nice opportunity to meet a couple new folks; and also play catch-up with some old friends. We started off with the normal drinks… mine was coffee but others had something a bit stronger. Then came the appetizers. Not too bad… although my friend Jeff referred to the pate as “cat food.” I tasted a smidge, I think he may have been right.

Finally of course the time arrived to order our food. All the entrees on the menu had fancy French names… things like “Beef Bourguignon,” “Steak Frites,” and “Perch Meunier.” The first was what I ordered, sounded good by the description. However, the dish that was presented to me was basically pot roast nestled on top of a small bed of egg noodles. Beef was very tender but the gravy was a bit less than wonderful, in my professional opinion. When my friend Jeff was perusing the menu, he saw the perch dish and wondered aloud, “what the heck is Perch Manure??” We all had a chuckle and moved on.

I felt full but OK after the meal. The following day (yesterday) however, I had a terrible case of intestinal volcano. Also thought maybe I was going to barf. I mentioned this to my nice lady work friend and she said, “seriously?? Wow I thought I was the only one… when I got home I had to throw up!!” I tried to tough it out all morning but ended up going home early. I could no longer bear the pain in my guts… felt like someone was dragging a length of rusty barbed wire through my innards. And of course my added happiness was that I thought if I ate just one molecule of food I’d toss my cookies.

The next 18 hours were spent in bed, and when I got up to go potty I’d hit the home remedies of Vernors ginger ale, Altoids, and ginger pieces. Also charred some toast and had that… things were slightly improved but I was in great discomfort for several more hours. Here I am writing Happy Friday!!! on a Saturday night and I’m still not 100%.

My Beautiful girlfriend was out and about when I got home… I texted her and pleaded that she bring home some Vernors during her travels. When she got home she told me there was a bug going around. But my Lovely Nurse Wife Lady told me today, “I really think you had food poisoning.”

Guess maybe I should have had the Perch Manure.

So my friends, sorry I’m late, but Happy Saturday to you all!! “And now,” as Mr. Cleese used to say, “for something completely different.”

When Prisoner was just over a year old, the neighbor announced she was getting married and was going to move. “You want this dog?” they asked. “Ummm we already have a dog,” I replied. “Well, if you don’t take him, we’re going to have to find a home for him.” Judging by their lack of interest in this poor fellow, I reckoned that his first stop on the journey to a new “home” would be the local dog pound. So we took him in.

“What should we call him??” the family asked aloud. “Prisoner! That’s what he was ya know. Now he’s free,” I said. “No… that’s no name for a dog,” said my Beautiful Girlfriend. “OK,” I countered, “
how ’bout ‘Lucky,’ ‘cuz that’s what he is don’t you think?” “No,” she said again, “we need a better name than that.” Everyone just paused for a bit. “Musky,” I said. “Musky?” asked my Lovely Bride. “Yeah, Musky da Husky,” I retorted with a smile.

It stuck.

Little did we know the challenges that awaited us with this abused child. Until we got smart about crating, he enjoyed chewing the seat belts out of our minivan. Similarly, if we left the house with Bishop and Musky inside, Musky’s separation anxiety would kick in again and he would rip down curtains and chew up things. Again with the crate… problem solved. Eventually we didn’t need the crates anymore, thank goodness.

But then there were other “fun” things, like buying the neighbors a couple doors down some steaks when Musky got off the leash and decided to kill their ducks. The second time he got into the ducks, it was around Christmas; so we bought a fancy gift basket of chocolates for their family. Those were the destructive challenges. It was also interesting to head him off at the pass when nice ladies would come to visit. This was due to his propensity toward sniffing both sides of a lady’s nether regions with a gently push of the nose into the target area. Some of my Beautiful Girlfriend’s more senior friends have commented with a chuckle, “Oh my! Haven’t been goosed like that in many years!” Eventually we got wise and would leash him when visitors came.

We also learned two important things about huskies: they are not very obedient; and they are NOT watch dogs. Bishop the Wonderdog would sound the alarm whenever he heard a door bell ring, or a slight tap a the door. Heck, he would even yell when there was a door bell ringing on TV! But the husky, ummm… no. And regarding obedience, not sure how the mushers work their teams but we often didn’t have much luck with training Musky da Husky. He did learn and understand the concept of NO!! But even that would take some doing at times.

One thing for sure though, we know he loved us. And he was gentle with the kitties, just like Bishop the Wonderdog. We often credit Bishop with teaching Musky how to be a house dog; because God knows he never listened to the likes of us.

Our vet has been so good to both of these guys over the years. Bishop left us 4 years after Musky came aboard. And yesterday, after much weeping and gnashing of teeth, we made the decision to send Musky to his Maker. Never an easy task, but at his ripe old age of 14 he was failing a little more each day. Seemed to be doing OK lately but he had vomiting and diarrhea the other day, after which he laid in bed for 2 days. We knew he would likely not get better, and other symptoms of a nearing of the end of a life well lived were evident for some time.

Our appointment with the vet was yesterday afternoon, and of course he got out of bed and was eating and drinking and sniffing about. None of that, of course, made this any easier, but we had made up our minds and had to follow through. When we got to the vet, she made the comment, “this is the end of an era.” She knows we are not looking for another dog.

God bless all of you out there who continue to take in pups who need a home. We feel we have done our share for now, and are really, REALLY ready to take a permanent vacation from dog parenting. Hopefully the People Upstairs will give us a break; but one never knows. We just pray we don’t have to do this again. As it is, we still have Never Anne, our 21 year old calico kitty. She’s not exactly the picture of health either. And then there’s Freddy the Freeloader, who we figure is about 4 or 5, so he’s just kid.

We will continue to love all the animals we have known who have crossed over to the Other Side. We love you Musky. We love you Bishop. We love you Oberdere. And of course we love all of you kitties: NoName, Silver, Babos, Grisby Anne, Pasco, Tuffy, Nurkey, SugarWoofer, Uriel, Midnight, Ebony, Candy, Colors, Stinker, Sweetie Bogel Pie, and all the others who are almost too numerous to mention.

My Beautiful Girlfriend and I have often remarked, “holy s#@! we’re gonna have a boatload of animals around us when we die!!”

So be it. Just please, no more puppies. Not now.  Maybe later; but right now we hope not.

Anyway, there are a ton of pet videos out there on the web; but this one typifies the unique voice of a husky.  They don’t bark much, they kinda yodel.  Check this out.