As naked as I can get.

Well, tomorrow it is work again.
It’s been nice to have a week off. I didn’t get a lot done in the last few days, but with the heat wave, you really want to do as little as possible.
I did get the headboard for the spare room done. I’ll post a pic once it is painted. This will take about a week. With this heat, you can’t paint after 9am. It’s so hot that the paint starts to dry as you apply it!

The always say, ‘it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.’
Liars
Once things get above 100, it’s hot. Above 110, it’s the freakin’ heat!
(yes, the 40% humidity does make it a little stickier)

So if you have to go outside, you wear as little as possible and you get back inside as soon as possible!

So if I can get away with it, I don’t wear a hat and I don’t care what my hair looks like.
Flip-flops, if I have to wear shoes.
And if the neighbors see me working in the garage without a shirt on, well too bad.

Hey, it’s only supposed to get up to only 106 tomorrow! I might even wear a shirt!

Who will guard the guardian?

Or watch the Watcher?

The moment you even think of opening the cupboard where the peanut butter is kept.
There he is.

Open the package of cheese, or salami.
There he is.

He loves to watch me chop nuts.
Watch WG doing anything in the kitchen.

Because he has a job to do, to protect the floor. Keep it clean.

And maybe to catch bits of cheese or salami, as they fly through the air passed him.
Just to keep them from landing on the floor.

For his job is to guard the floor and protect it from falling snacks!

A day at the beach

Tuesday, we packed a picnic lunch and drove over to Stinson Beach. It’s a nice beach and we hadn't been there in a few years.
So we found a nice spot and set up lunch. We had canned, smoked oysters and brie cheese on crackers. Some whipped cream and strawberries. And of course, a little bottle of champagne.
We strolled up and down the beach and Wonder Girl looked for interesting rocks and shells. The weather was perfect. No fog, warm, with just a nice breeze.
We sat and talked, watched the people walking by and walked up and down the beach some more. Sometimes, the small waves would wash around our feet as we walked. The cold water felt good.


Then we went into the little town (population 476). We looked at the little shops and then sat down in a small restaurant and had a light supper. Wonder-Girl had her favorite, Fish & Chips. I had a simple burger.

It was only an hours drive home, traffic was very light. When we got home, our friend had fed Tommy(like we asked her to) But she also left a trail of rose petals from our front door to the bedroom, a happy anniversary card, and a bottle of champagne chilling in the refrigerator.

A nice ending to a nice relaxing day. A good way to spend our 25th anniversary.

Silver

A long time ago, on a certain day, I thought I might be the luckiest man in the world.



Twenty-five years later, I know I am.

Mother of Invention

Years ago, as a single guy, I could indulge in tinkering.

The small black and white TV(color was still very expensive). With no remote, no sleep timer, everything had to be done manually.

So the TV was hooked up to a modified clock radio (the brown box to the right of the lamp). This gave me the ability to use the clock radio’s sleep timer to turn off the TV automatically.

Another switch on the clock radio operated the motors that raised and lowered the TV.
This allowed me to adjust the volume, change the channel, then move the TV back up to an easier viewing place.

Bootlegged cable gave me more than the normal 3 TV stations that were available via the rabbit ears.

And one week after ES send me a card about TV falling on a guy in bed, my TV fell, narrowly missing a comely, freckle-faced lass who was watching TV with me.
The TV never went back up.

That man said ‘puppy biscuit’!

And you know the story.

So when I let my mind wander into scenarios like Walter’s I eventually have to add a name to my character. Find a name that I think fits, weave the story. But I have to choose a name with care, for I don’t want to upset someone I know.
It’s easy here, I just make up nicknames. Like Danger Girl (yes, there is a hint of danger about her), or Coconut Girl(and her marvelous Magellanic features. Oh! Now there is a good new slang expression! Yeah yeah, Warty’s a pig.)

But I digress.

It’s hard enough keeping track of all my characters, so that I don’t reuse one. But real life has a way of intruding too.
There have been several times where I have met a new coworker and immediately realized that I now had to revise a short story because my character is not a nice person.

So even though I have plausible deniability about who I am here, I still need to watch what I say.
And pick and choose my names carefully, so no one I know gets upset.
--
‘Pocketa-pocketa-pocketa’ was the only sound he could hear, as he drove the little scooter along the interstate. He was lucky that he had packed it, just in case the car broke down.
‘Bastard car’, he thought. ‘Brand new out of the showroom in Boulder. And the damn radiator springs a leak!’
He knew it was just thirty miles to the next town. He had to get there before nightfall. For at night, the dogs came out and they would be hungry. The heavy automatic on his belt was good, better yet was the shotgun slung over his shoulders.

‘Damn bird Flu! Wipes out 98 percent of the people and now there is no one left to feed the dogs.’

In the next town, he knows he could find another car. That would get him to Kansas City and a new car.

His last words to Nancy were, “You know I would travel cross country to find you.’ And that phrase haunts him and drives him down the road.

Curious

It is amusing, how you set up a profile on a social website. Mainly to track your friends in faraway places. Keep up with a bit of their lives. Mainly pictures, for most don’t write anything. I like to leave a comment once in a while, a way of saying ‘Hi I was here.’
And occasionally, some stranger looks at you. I always wonder how they found me.

But not everyone uses there real name, so they might be people I know, might not be.
And maybe they see that I stopped by and wonder how I found them. So they go look at me, and wonder if they know me.
I wonder if I know them.
But I don’t know anyone in China, UAR, Paraguay, or Pennsylvania.

If I know you, then I’d like to read about you. If I don’t know you, I really can’t seem to care very much.

Millions of Blogs out there, some could be interesting. But I really only have time for the people I know.

Do I know you?

Nerd is the word

My half-awake mind wanders down strange paths, when we take our early morning walk with the dog.

Can you use Nerdlette? Is it more of a female nerd, or just a little nerd? Or maybe a little female nerd?(perhaps there is cuteness factor?)

I guess I should use the more common ‘ette. (female)
As in “He’s an Usher, she’s an Usherette”.
(or small)
“It was cramped with the two of us, in the little kitchenette.”

So then she is a Nerdette? But I like Nerdlette better, it sounds more fun and more feminine.

This is Jack, this is his sister, Jackette. No no, you say. You meant a jacket. The thing you wear that keeps the cold away.
Well my friend, I am sure that a Jackette can keep the cold away too!
But I digress.

Pip calls me Dude!, I call her Dudette.
Perhaps a Dudelette is just a small dude? (is it one ‘t’, or two?)
I call our Tommy dog ‘The Dudelette’, because when we had the big dog, it was the Dude and the Dudelette.

And as my mind wakes up, the train of thought jumps back on the track and stops wandering.
You could just call her by her real name.

But I have too much fun playing with words.

Nonsense

While I was surfing through Friendster
I met a girl who wasn’t there.
She wasn’t there again today,
I wish, I wish, she’d go away.

Okay, it almost works.
(apologies to ee cummings)