I was having a conversation with granddaughter Emily one day a while back.
"Do you know what I want for Christmas, Papa?"
"It's something you could give me."
Carefully, I urged her to continue.
"I want you to grow your mustache back. That is what I want for Christmas."
How is an old guy to deal with that one?

anger and abuse

It is both amazing and scary how this disease affects different people.

Some wonderful grandmothers (and grandfathers too) turn into total monsters as this disease has it’s way.

At a support group the other day one person was talking about how her sweet, kind mother had turned abusive and mean, particularly to her only grandchild. The grandchild is an adult woman, but still it is hard for the mother/daughter to see.

The abuse gets worse when mother/daughter is not around, or grandma thinks she is not.

Miriam has always been very even tempered. I would argue that a bit more temperament swing might have been good for her and for us, but that is not how she was.

Sometimes when we go camping and I forget to take her meds (oops), and she does not take her anti depressant for a few days, her mood begins to change, so I try to not do that very often.

The grandmother I talked about first is on all sorts of very heavy duty medications, a bunch of them, and no one in the world knows exactly how all of these work together or against each other, there are just too many variables.

I am glad our lives are a bit smoother. Right now I like smooth!

There is something to be said about boring even.

Ahh, the secret of a healthful life.
I like it!

I repair my own computers (with help from these guys), but i am not smart enough to fix my own cars.
When I had a VW years ago, I fixed them, but I had to fix them.
In spite of the legend, they did not stay together too long.
But that VW sure was fun to drive!

passed

The car passed inspection!

Between the time I took the car from the repair shop to the inspection shop and back, the owners wife (who is the office manager) had an appendicitis attack and was taken to the hospital, so I did not see either of them.

I left the car and got a ride home.

Next day the Mike, the shop owner, called. There was nothing wrong with my car. Apparently I did not get it warmed up enough to get the cat converter working right. Mike sent his son out to drive the car for a few miles to warm it up. Back at the shop, checked on their machine, it passed easily.

So Mike had his son take the car right then to the inspection shop and it passed easily.

We will take it on our trip next week, and save about $150 on gas!

Mrs. Mike will have surgery this week and she will be as sweet as ever in a bit!

I never did own a Chevy of this vintage, but on Fords, we would exchange the door handles, left to right etc, to hide the wear on the handles and keep them at the horizontal position.
My memories of these old cars is confused on a good day.
They might have been romantic, but I don't remember any of them running terribly long or well.

a 25 hour day

Ahh, a 25 hour day!

What to do with that extra hour?

I did not change the bedside clock so Miriam thought it was an hour earlier than it was, which is OK for today.

Her brother is coming for his monthly visit, and if she is slow getting going in the morning, he is here before she is ready.

He is not a patient soul. He will arrive pretty promptly at 8:30. He will talk loud and continuously for about 30 minutes then he will say he has to "press on" and he will drive 25 miles back to his apartment in a Lutheran retirement home. (He is not remotely Lutheran).

So it is not like he uses up a lot of that extra hour we have today.

I slept almost 7 hours last night, which is a lot for me, and it will get dark about 5:30, so maybe the day is not so long after all.

It is that time between dark and bedtime (about 6 1/2 hours in my life) that is the challenge.

Ketchikan Alaska.
It rains about 200 inches each year!
Not good for desert rats.

concert

We went to a concert tonight. Classical music.

All were amateur musicians. Maybe 60 or 70 of them.

They played well (though not without flaw), but for what they were being paid (zero) they were amazing. There were some young musicians, in their late 20 or 30’s, but there was a few who looked to be in their 80’s. Lots of gray hair.

As I listened I got to thinking: How many years of practice is represented in this group? Of course there is no way for me to know, but it could be a thousand or two.

Often I will talk to an amateur musician and thank them for taking the time to get good enough to perform in public. It is not easy nor quick.

I like high church with big organs and good choirs. I always feel lucky and blessed when I hear music well performed.

Thank you each for taking the time to get proficient at this thing called music.

In an orchestra like this not every one plays all the time. The strings play most, but the brass section spends has long breaks. Some may only play a few measures the whole evening.

Tonight the tuba player looked to be mid 80’s. He had a lead part for a few measures and he played flawlessly. Then he sat there for the rest of the symphony trying to not look bored!

We will go again.

prophecy

Once upon a time there was a man who thought that business could not do anything really right.

He had been told that, he had observed the fact, so that he really truly believed it.

The irony of the situation was that the man was a medium level manager of that company he was sure could do nothing wrong.

And, since the company could do nothing right, there was no point in him even trying to prove the statement wrong, so he did his job as badly as he could, since, as I said, he was sure there really was nothing wrong with his logic. He did not get fired, and he did not get advanced, he got by, year after year.

The problem was that the company had a lot of employees that thought the same thing, and worked and acted accordingly.

When the company failed, it was the sales department, or the computer guys or someone that caused the failure.

Now that I think about it, I remember that the guy actually worked for the government and not for a business.

Hmm.

I bought the car for Miriam's 55th birthday. The most expensive present I ever gave!
If I sell it, I had better have a good reason, I mean a really good reason.
Even with AD that is true!
She need not worry. Both Miriam and Cavalier are keepers!

car testing

This fall our county began requiring vehicles to get emission tested.

That is not a bad idea, get those clunkers off the road.

So I took my car in to be tested (the pickup goes in next year). I had just gone through a bunch of work on it, and I was quite confident.

Fail. Fail. Fail. I don’t even understand the words they used! So I took it back to the shop where it has been for most of the last month.

Yesterday I paid for their work ($775) and with confidence I went back to get it tested. Failed again, but not so badly, so back to the shop.

I don’t argue at all with the concept of inspections. And, I know that a car that will meet the requirements will run better and more efficiently, but curing the problem is sort of a fishing trip.

It could be this or it could be that, but more than likely it is partially this and partially that and it can involve a lot of spendy parts.

The shop owner tells me that some inexpensive cars (to buy), are not doing well in these tests, and the parts can be horribly spendy, so I will be glad it is a model with a few less spendy parts.

It is a solid little car (though 19 years old), so I will pay to get it up to snuff, only this time I will have to make payments on the bill, I fear. But it will be done, it will pass inspection and we will all be happy!

The sign says it all.
BTW, I swiped the image from someone!

low price

Once I did a built a display cabinet for a grocery store.

The owner was a good friend and I was perplexed about what to charge him.

"Charge me enough so you can make a profit and enough to stay in business when I need you again."

We always want the lowest price. Most of that is OK, but I once was forced into a good price for the customer (it is a long story). I worked for months on the job for about $3 an hour (this was not that long ago), and when it was over I quit the business. My working capital had been exhausted.

The customer got a wonderful price, but at a huge cost to me.

I think of this often.