Saturday (After my Birthday) / Liquor

I didn't want to forget about my birthday just yet, although having birthdays isn't as exciting as it once was.

Today, I went into the cellar to clear out some shelf space in our cold room (that's what it says on the blueprint from 1911) for wine bottles that had been stored on a table in the main part of the cellar. Anne noticed that the sun would hit them, even on cold days and warm them. Not something that should happen to wine. After I had accomplished this, Anne said, "We have an awful lot of liquor down there. We should use it up." I said, "Okay. I will proceed to do that." I don't think we have an "awful lot" of liquor. We have a number of bottles of various kinds of spirits that have been acquired as gifts or by purchase over the years. Some are actually quite ancient.

Since Anne went to a shower this afternoon, I decided to go down into the cellar and proceed to carry out her instructions.

I lined up the bottles on the drain board by the sink. I picked up the first bottle, pulled the cork out of it and poured it down the sink, except for one little swallow, which I drank.

I picked up the second bottle, pulled the cork out of it and poured it down the sink, that is, all except for one little swallow, which I drank.

I picked up the next bottle, pulled the sink out of it and poured it down the cork, except one little swallow, which I drank.

I picked up the next cork, pulled the bottle out of it and poured it down the sink, all except one little drink, which I drank.

I picked up the next sink, pulled the cork out of it and poured it down the bottle, all except one little drink, which I sank.

I picked up the next drink, pulled the swallow out of it and poured it down the sink, all except one little drink, I think.

Now, let's see how many bottles do I have left, which I drank. I ask you, though, wasn't that a terrible thing for my wife to ask me to do? But, bless her little heart. I know she only has my best interests in mind. And you listen, buster. Don't say anything against my wife, because I have the wifest little nice you ever saw, which I drank.

Birthday, the Day After

I got through my birthday without pestilence or a plague of locust descending upon us. Since Anne had such a beautiful day for her birthday, a week ago, I thought surely that one of those would befall my day. It turned out to be a nice day, not as sunny as was predicted, but nice anyway. We started out with mass, had a lovely breakfast and then went for an hour long hike on the Blue Trail in Chesequake Park. I did not bring binoculars, but wish I had because we saw a bit of wildlife including a raccoon, osprey and cormorant, along with ducks and geese. We went to dinner at Charlie Brown's and then went to a play at Two Rivers Theater in Red Bank. The play was Orestes by Euripides. It is a Greek tragic romp written 2400 years ago, but is still funny today, with some tweaks to the language to make it more relevant to the modern audience. It is amazing how human emotions and conditions can transcend the centuries and be recognizable even now. You see, Apollo (the god) ordered Orestes and his sister, Electra, to kill their mother because she had killed their father, Agamemnon, who had killed their sister, Iphigenia, to get the winds to blow so that his ships could get to Troy to do battle because of the trouble started by their aunt Helen. Well, now the whole town is upset and has condemned Orestes and Electra to kill themselves for their deeds, but they reason that their mother was a bad person anyway and they were ordered to kill her by Apollo, so they hatch a scheme to save themselves and be hailed as heros for what they did.

My birthday celebration really started on March 12th when my friend, Marie, took me out for a delightful lunch. Today, two former coworkers, Laura and Kate, are taking me to lunch. On Sunday three of our children and their families are coming for a March birthday celebration. By the time all the celebrating is over, I will have gained an unmentionable amount of weight. On Monday, however, the gaiety ends because I have a dentist appointment to begin putting in a crown or cap or something. A couple of weeks ago I had a root canal done in preparation for this. Oh, joy, joy, I can hardly contain myself.

Birthday

Tomorrow is my umpty umth birthday. Oh, what the heck, I'm going to be sixty seven. Why hide it? That's how old I am. I can't do anything about it. Today was my pre-birthday celebration day. Since we are going out to dinner tomorrow evening and I am the designated driver, I decided to have my birthday drink ( a wee dram or two or three) today. Anne made me one of my favorite dinners, chicken cordon bleu. Yummy. We had peanut butter Girl Scout cookies and chocolate ice cream for desert. That is living.

We also took a walk in Holmdel Park. It was windy, but pleasant. I listened to music of Chris Via and the Giles Mountain String Band. Chris, who I met at the Folk Musicians' Retreat made my new banjo, the one I got myself for a retirement present. Neil Turner, who I also met at the Retreat, made the neck, shipped it to Chris who then finished the neck, built the pot and put the whole thing together.

So here I am on the threshold of another birthday, getting another year older. Really, I've been getting a year older all year. Tomorrow I will only be another day older, but the number changes. It increases. Sunday we will have three of our four children and their families gather at our house. This, to me, is the best birthday present and I am thankful for each of them, Anne, my health and my friends. I guess my health is okay. Who ever knows? I'm still here, so that is one criteria of well being. A former colleague from work lost her brother this week and he was only forty nine and in "good health." They say he was in good health, but he obviously wasn't since he had a heart attack. He and they only thought he was in good health.

Today was a beautiful day to be outside to appreciate my health and the world. I like to get outside, even away from the house, to experience life. I like our house and being in it in the winter and lousy weather is fine, but when the weather improves, it is beneficial to go out, to go to the ocean or the bay and see the rest of the world. Tomorrow is predicted by the weather gurus to be a nice day and I will go out in it and breathe in whatever it has to offer.

Just so you don't think I spent my day boozing and listening to mountain music all day, I did do some constructive things. This morning I went into the garage and rearranged the seasonal power equipment, the snow blower, wheel barrow, lawn mower, etc. I tried to run the gas out of the snow blower, but did not succeed. I guess there was more gas in it than I realized. I cleaned up the mower housing and pull cord mechanism which had been getting stuck and I swept a large portion of the garage. I also did my weight training. It takes some time to lift all those little dumbbells. Then we went for our walk, then I read some and then I listened to music. I try to get something productive done each day, usually in the morning, before I allow myself to relax or do something frivolous like playing the banjo. I've got myself curious now about what I will do tomorrow.

Depressing Days

Rain, rain go away. Today was another one of those dreary days when doing outside activities was not very enjoyable, so I didn't. I sometimes wish for a day like this so I can do things inside that I can't do because I am forced to do things outside. Actually, I am happy to be outside when there are nice days like we had this past weekend and it seems that spring should provide those days for us, having given us a foretaste. I decided to practice some music. (You'll have to amble on over to my other blog, Barrister Bill, to follow my musical career.) I could have gone down into the cellar and organized stuff, but that's always there to do. If, at some point, I don't take a break from household chores, I will never do any fun things.

I also took some time to read some more of my Gothic Tales. In addition to Jamaica Inn, I have also read Mission to Malaspiga, by Evelyn Anthony, The High Valley, by Jessica North, and Mistress of Mellyn, by Victoria Holt. I thought the last one was particularly good. Lots of twists and turns. I have just started Thunder Heights, by Phyllis A. Whitney. All of the stories, so far, have as the main character, a young woman who somehow goes to stay with a very wealthy family and then finds herself in a dangerous situation. I'm not going to tell you any more because I'm afraid I will give away some of the plots and that wouldn't be fair. I am enjoying all of these stories.

I mentioned to my daughter, Christine, that I wished I had some way to keep track of the books I read and what I thought of them. She recommended a free site called Goodreads where you can list books that you have read, comment on them and read comments that others have made on books that they have read. I joined up, but I haven't actually listed any books yet. I'll get around to it. I had better do it soon or I will have forgotten the names of the books I read, never mind what they were about.

What is it about Facebook? That is the most frustrating site. One minute something is on my wall, or whatever they call it, the next it is gone. Some friends' posts don't show up and I have to go looking for them. Very annoying.

Tomorrow the sun is supposed to come out. Maybe I'll be able to get outside and catch up with some chores.

The First Day of Spring

Yes, indeed. Spring arrived at 1:32 p.m. this afternoon and I have been busy greeting its arrival, although not in the manner that I had expected. When spring arrives, a young man's fancy turns to...to..., I forget to what a young man's fancy turns, but my fancy turns to thoughts of kayaking. However, we must first accomplish our garden tasks. My assigned task was to continue to rake out the flower beds, but first I decided to turn on the outdoor water faucets, which consists of simply turning on the outdoor water faucets, except the one by the garage. On that one I had installed a union (plumbing gizmo) so I could separate the pipes in the winter to avoid freezing and splitting of pipes and all sorts of mayhem. I put pipe dope on the connections and tightened them then went to turn on the water. Of course there was a drip, so I went back into the cellar to turn off the water, came back out, disassembled the whole thing, put on more pipe dope, reassembled the contraption, went back down the cellar to try again. Still a leak. I should add at this point that turning on the water to this particular line requires one (me) to climb on top of the clothes dryer and reach down behind it, almost to the floor to get at the valve. In addition to this exercise, I discovered that I had two bottles of pipe dope. On one, the in bottle brush had detached itself from the jar lid which serves as a handle. On the other, the brush had detached itself from the tube that holds it to the lid. It was interesting.

Water was leaking from two spots that I could see, so I decided that I needed a new thingy that joins the pipes together, but I didn't want to go to le depot de la home, because I don't like to do that on weekends. I have often told our children that they should never buy anything until they first check with me to see if we might have a spare one here to give to them. It has frequently proved true that they could go down into my parts department/supply room/museum and come up with what they needed. Even one of our neighbors, also not wanting to go to the Home Depot, came and asked if I had a piece of 1/2 inch conduit. Of course I did, so I gave him a piece. So, I went down there myself and, not surprisingly, I came up with just what I needed, a 3/4 inch nip (that's what it says on the plastic wrapper that it was in). Getting the old nip off wasn't as easy as finding the new one, but I succeeded, thanks to my renewed weight training. I then reassembled the whole mess, went down into the cellar, climbed on the dryer, reached down behind it and turned on the water. I have to say that I was fairly pessimistic by this time, but voila, no leak. My next step was to get out all of the hoses and attach them, which I did without incident.

Spring comes upon us quickly every year it seems. Only last week we were dealing with rain and floods and a few short weeks before that, a major snow storm. Then, all of a sudden, here comes spring. I like spring, but it brings with it a plethora of chores that must be done now. Not in a couple of weeks or months, but right now. Most of those chores have to do with gardening and outside maintenance. There are also the other handy person things to do that were saved until spring. What happens to me is that I don't to the spring things because of other things, so I say I will do them in the fall, which, of course, I don't do, but there's always next spring. Happy spring.

St. Patrick's Day

I was busy working on the porch today in preparation for the painting thereof. Trying to get some of the dirt off of the soffits is proving challenging. I scrubbed with washing soda without any noticeable effect, although the water in the bucket got dirty.


This afternoon, in honor of Anne's birthday tomorrow, we went to see Alice in Wonderland in 3-D. It was so-so, but it only cost us $4.50 each as seniors. Avatar cost $4.00 apiece, so even the movies are getting expensive. Next thing you know, they'll be charging us $5.00 to see a movie. At least on Tuesdays we can get in free, but our theater doesn't have 3-D. Tomorrow, we will go down to Point Pleasant to walk on the boardwalk and have lunch. On Friday, still in honor of Anne's birthday, we will see Children of Eden by the Spotlight Players at a church within walking distance. In another couple of weeks, still in honor of Anne's birthday, we will see Nunsense in Atlantic Highlands. Next week is my birthday, but I have nothing planned except lunch with some friends. That will probably be equal to a week's worth of entertainment.

Windshield Wipers

I just changed the windshield wipers on the minivan. That's basically Anne's car and she has noticed a deterioration in the wiping ability. There are people out there somewhere whose job it is to design all sorts of connection types for windshield wipers. If you change them frequently, you probably remember how it was done the last time and it's a snap. But, most people don't change their wipers more than twice a year, if that and, up to now, I almost always had them changed when I was getting the car serviced. Now that I'm retired, that's one luxury that has to end. So, I'm confronted with not so clear instructions and tiny pictures showing me what to do. I got them changed and I hope I did it correctly because the last thing I want is for Anne to tell me that a wiper fell off while she was driving in a rain storm. Since I have now been successful with the Pontiac, I will move on to the Chevy. I have a different brand of replacement blades for it and, I'm sure, a different connection gizmo. I wonder how people get jobs like that. Do you apply to be a windshield wiper designer? Are there courses for that? Can you get a job doing that after you retire from something else, or do you have to start young? Do they have contests and award prizes for the most convoluted design? I wonder about all of this.

Rain, Rain, Rain / Splitting Firewood

There's a song about raining, raining, raining. I think it may be by the Dillards. Whether there is or not, there ought to be. I don't remember this much rain and wind together since we lived in this house (about 11 years). Now, I could be wrong. I have been wrong once or twice before, so this could be the third time in my life. It's supposed to subside by midnight. This afternoon we went to the Matawan library to hear Heather Mulvey sing Celtic songs in honor of St. Patrick's Day. This is the third time we have heard her and she really is good. She has a beautiful voice.

My back and shoulders have been slightly sore since Wednesday when I split some firewood. We were running low and with the forecast for a wet weekend, I thought it might be nice to have a fire in the wood stove on Sunday. When we had two large trees removed a year or so ago, I asked the tree service to cut fire place size logs for me which they did. I then carried a number of unsplit ones down into the cellar to let them dry. I pulled them out now for splitting. However, I learned that you are supposed to split firewood when it is still wet. Letting it dry only makes it harder. I don't know how to do anything easy, but, now I have a small supply of split wood and a couple of sore shoulders.

My computer is not behaving itself properly. It is taking a long time to play YouTube videos. I like to listen to various artists who have folk music videos, but lately, it is taking forever to load them. I tried Anne's new computer and found no problem loading them on it. As a bonus, I discovered that my ear buds produce a much fuller sound on Anne's computer. I had always thought they were fine on mine. What to do. What to do. I'm not ready to get a new computer yet. When I do get one, I believe I will get a PC laptop instead of a Mac this time. Apples are nice, but they are very expensive. I really don't want to think about that now, but I may be forced into it.

Gothic Tales, Pictures, Spanish

The title to this post is ambitious so I'd better get busy. Previously, I wrote about starting Jamaica Inn by Lady Baldwin (D.B.E.) better known as Daphne de Maurier. I had read it before, but it is a very well written tale of murder and mayhem. I shouldn't tell about the story as I think it will detract from the excitement of reading it. It is told from a young woman's point of view, written by a woman, of course, and will be enjoyed by any man who likes a good adventure story and by any woman who might fancy putting herself in the place of Mary Yellan, who, upon the death of her mother goes to live with her aunt Patience and her uncle, the landlord of the infamous Jamaica Inn. Twists, turns and surprises along the way. Get thee to the library, or wait until I'm finished with the book that it's in and you can borrow it from me.

Speaking of the book that it's in, it is a Reader's Digest book called Six Gothic Tales. All of the authors are women and all of the tales are condensed versions. I usually abhor condensed versions of books, but I found this book lying around and the stories looked interesting. The next story (book) which I have just started is Mission to Malaspiga by Evelyn Anthony. Once again, the central character is a young woman who has just lost her brother in what appears to be murder orchestrated by aristocratic members of her own family to whom she is distantly related. It involves drugs, international intrigue and affairs of the heart.

Pictures - I am now through 2007 and am ready to start on 2008 which appears to be the last year of the mysterious numbered files. I can't wait to see what other surprises are in store for me there.

I decided, again, that I want to learn Spanish. I have a series of eight CDs by Michel Thomas which I listened to three times and was no better off for my efforts than when I first began. I thought I would buy the Rosetta Stone program and went on the internet to find out that I could pay $699. for the whole five series course or $263. for the same thing at another site. Huh? I mentioned my intention to Anne who said that Katie had used that in school and was very disappointed in it. Now, Katie is 13 years old, but I trust her judgment and do so especially in matters of learning in which she is currently specializing, whereas I am not. Therefore, I will not get the Rosetta Stone program. Looking at my book shelves, I discovered that I had another Spanish language program called Learn to Speak Spanish Deluxe. The box has never been opened and I don't recall where it came from, but it is titled in the very thing I want to do: learn to speak Spanish. I have now opened the box and will proceed to load the CDs onto a computer. I guess I'll have to do something else with it as well before I can actually speak Spanish. I also discovered Learn to Speak French Deluxe in another unopened box. I will perhaps need that as one of my Facebook friends, Esther, from Haiti thinks I speak French and wants me to learn Creole. This is why my days are flying by.

More Pictures and a Reading List

In the continuing saga of the many family pictures, I have struggled through 2005 and have now entered the year 2006 and have taken a break. I think we have way too many pictures. Years from now, will anyone care to look at several pictures of the same person from different angles? Do I, now, care to look at pictures of scenery? By and large, the answer is no. When you are actually visiting a place, you somehow think that you can capture the beauty or grandeur of the place in a photograph, but you can't. It is only a rare photo that evokes the same emotions of actually being someplace. So, as the result of this carefully thought out philosophy, I don't take many pictures of just scenery. I want someone, hopefully someone recognizable, to be in the picture. People pictures are more interesting to me, again, pictures of people who I know so that they have some meaning.

We have too many pictures. We have a walk-in closet in our house in which I installed steel shelving on both sides to hold pictures. Anne's father was a serious amateur photographer, took thousands of slides, made his own pictures from negatives and kept a photographic history of his family. I have many pictures from when I was growing up too. We have many pictures of our family as it grew, matured and multiplied, many before the advent of the digital camera. The idea was that Anne would digitize all of her father's old photographs and slides and have copies for her brothers and sister. That's a nice idea, but it is somewhat overwhelming to actually scan thousands of slides and photos. Well, we'll see.

READING LIST

I like to read, but, in the past, I have found that I didn't have much time to do that. Now that I'm retired, I think I have some more time, although the time seems to be fleeting even now. I recently read some James Joyce: The Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Chamber Music. Now I have taken up Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier, which is a gothic tale and one ideal for a winter's night with the wind blowing and snow or rain swirling outside. I think I read this before, but, so far, I don't remember much of it. That's one advantage of getting more mature and getting oldtimer's disease. You only have to have a very few books, because as soon as you read one, you forget what you read and can then read the story anew. This story is well written and draws the reader into it from the very first. What will happen to the young girl who, on the death of her mother, has gone to stay with her aunt and creepy uncle who is the landlord of the Jamaica Inn where guests no longer stay, but people come and go and there is a brisk tavern business, on the foreboding Bodmin Moor.

I thought that renewing my blog postings would act as a sort of journal for me and for anyone of my friends or family who cares to stop on by here, but I realize that there is no index for it, so how do I find anything I wrote in the past. I suppose I should be assigning descriptive words somewhere, but I haven't. I also find that I don't read older posts that I have made, so I am sometimes unsure if I already said something. What to do? Do I try to go back and see if I did, or just write about it all over again? Well, dear reader, consider that, like reading, writing is a new experience for me each time.

The heading "Reading List" might be misleading since I haven't given a list or anything, but the idea is that I should probably write a precis [that's a word that hasn't come to mind for a while] of the story. At least I would then know if I had read it and what it is about, in case I want to read it again voluntarily. Maybe someone else who is a reader of this blog might also benefit from such a thing. The seed has been planted and we will now have to stay tuned  to see if I do that.

No Pictures / Root Canal

Don't worry, there are still pictures (movies too), but I just didn't feel like dealing with them today because I had my first ever root canal. I went to the same doctor that Anne had used a couple of times and she is really nice. She made me feel as comfortable as she could and worked very efficiently for over an hour on me. There was no pain and the worst part was not knowing how long it was all going to last. When I have had a cavity filled, I have a pretty good idea of how things are progressing by what's going on in my mouth. Never having had a root canal, I was clueless as to how long things would take. I am not feeling any residual pain, except for a slight headache, so I'd say that things went very well. Although the doctor and her staff couldn't have been any nicer or more professional, I hope I never see her again, in that setting at least.

Pictures / Root Canal

I'll start with the root canal first. I have to go to the endodontist on Friday for that exciting procedure. Needless to say, I'm not looking forward to it, but, I ask you, what are my choices? I was to see the dermatologist last Wednesday, the Cardiologist yesterday (Tuesday) and the endodontist is Friday. When does it end? Okay, I know when it ends. Then I go see the mortician, but hopefully, that won't be for another 50 years or so. It will take me that long to get the pictures on the new computer organized.

I have been working every day on those darn pictures and I hardly feel that I'm making any progress. Right now I'm trying to get groups of pictures in categories. I haven't even started to label each of the thousands of photos and now the computer wants me to identify each individual person in every picture so it can show off and tell me who they are when they appear in any picture. There's one good thing that comes of all this. With new computers coming with cameras, GPS and face recognition built it, I think I will simply take the laptop along and when a picture opportunity presents itself, I'll just point the computer at it and say, take the picture, label it with the names of the people in it and the place where it was taken and refer to my calendar and also put down the event taking place. Why should I have to do all of this stuff?

I'm Not in Trouble

I went to the cardiologist's office today to see Mary the Nurse Practitioner and I didn't get in trouble. She didn't like the idea that I was shoveling snow, but didn't give any guidance on how I could remove it without shoveling. My blood pressure is good, my blood work was good, so I'm allowed to keep going for the time being, but I should be very careful shoveling snow. Hopefully, that won't be a concern for too much longer.

I have been spending my time trying to organize pictures on Anne's new computer. We transferred a lot of files from her old one and somehow, there were a lot of duplicate pictures. There were over 2,800 of them and I had to delete each one individually. Not a fun job. I think I have things in some order and now I am setting about to organize them so that they are easier to find.