NEVER BORROW ANYTHING FROM YOUR OLDEST BUDDY

    Never borrow anything from your oldest buddy or you may find that it's so old you wouldn't know what it is. 

    This summer I've had to renovate some of my fence because the city has gone to a cart system to pick up garbage and I didn't have a place to put the carts. It required making four new post holes. I didn't want to rent a post hole digger so I started to think about who might have a post hole digger. Yes our city is small enough that some of us know each other well enough to borrow things. 

   I thought for a while and then it hit me. Mike might have a post hole augur. He has a farm although he never farmed it. So I phoned Mike and yes he had a post hole auger and I was welcome to borrow it.

    So I went over to get the auger and it wasn't what I thought I might be borrowing. I have seen these devices but never used one. I was expecting something that you turn and it bites in the ground and fills up the center . When the center is full you empty it. This process is repeated until you're finished digging the hole. What I saw was something with a lever on the side. The lever operated a cup which was used to get the dirt out of the hole. There was a special shovel to do the digging. So Mike's about ten years older than I am. I should have known that most things he has are from his Dad. Mike's Dad worked on railroad maintenance and also had a farm. Anytime something wasn't needed for maintaining the rail bed it was disposed of. Mike's Dad picked up much of this stuff. So I couldn't very well say I don't want this. 

    I took it home and learned how to use it. So now I have my fence changed and have learned how to dig holes with an antique post hole digger.

I WON! I WON! I WON!

    Okay here's the story. One our local Casinos has Wednesday as seniors day. One thing they have is lunch on a two for one. Both people have to have the same dish. It's always Chinese , but you get a big plateful of Chicken chop suey or whatever  else. It changes every week. So we go every Wednesday and for 12 bucks have lunch.

     There's also a draw each day for seniors. I rarely filled out a ticket. I had no idea what the draw was about. I thought it was some kind of gimmick. The Micro Manager would sometimes enter. This Wednesday she asked me to enter but I said no I wouldn't bother. However, she entered my name. 

    The next day the Casino called and asked for me. I wasn't home so the Micro manager asked if she could take the call . Well, yes. She said , "Red won the senior's draw yesterday." The skeptical micro manager thought it was a joke. Well they got the Micro manager cooled down and she found out that I won the Wednesday draw for 500 bucks!!! How  about that folks! I won $500.00!

   Now I started to think if I'd won much before. I know I've won some things but the only thing I can remember is a 2 oz bottle of whiskey! The other things I won were probably small too.

    So it was a fun day.

I USUALLY DON'T WRITE ABOUT THIS TOPIC

    I usually don't write about personal health issues. It's a topic that can deteriorate into a never ending list of aches and pains.

   Well, this one's different. Oh ya! That's what they all say. 

   Since last September I've been living with a torn rotator cuff.  It hasn't been funny. It just kept getting worse. The pain was acute. Night was the worst. December to April were brutal. Things improved from May and June. I kept getting stiffer to the point that I had difficulty putting on a coat.

    I saw my doc in Nov and he said go to the Internet and find stretching exercises. He also ordered an ultrasound. The ultra sound showed  bursitis, tendinitis, arthritis and a tear. 

    I went to physio in Jan.,  Feb and didn't get any results.

    Finally, my doc suggested  a cortisone shot.

    Well yesterday I had that shot. What a difference! I didn't realize that the pain had taken so much energy away. Energy had been stolen.  I was back to my normal self. Normal energy. I was beginning to think that I had become a very old man!!!

    Now I'm hoping that I'm not speaking too soon. I hope that this lasts for a while. At least until I get my fence built.

INAPPROPRIATE

    The Micro Manager had a medical appointment the other day. She takes medical appointments seriously so she wears some better clothes. Now since it is summer she wore sandals...nice gold sandals. 

    The micro manager also likes to combine trips so that she can be more efficient.

    The second call was to a metal recycling business . In other words a junk yard that buys metal. She had some copper pipe and other metal that she wanted to sell. 

   I think you can see now a recipe for trouble. 

  She had phoned ahead to find the address of the place and what metals they would take and what money would be paid for them. 

   The area we went to is industrial . We had to park on the road. There were big semis idling on both sides. We couldn't get to the business parking area. She had her stuff out of the car and was going to tip toe through the semis when somebody stopped her and told here that she was at the wrong place . With the crummy location and to find out it was wrong she lost it. The poor kid who stopped her in order to help her caught it. 

    Well the Micro Manage had to get back in the car with her pipe and drive 300 m to another site which had the same address. This site was dirtier and messier. There was all kinds of mud. So the micro manager is tip toeing around in the junk yard. I had runners and I wasn't too happy being in the place with runners. There were wet spots with unidentified liquid. There were all kinds of metal shards. 

   Well she sold her pipe, got $11.00 and got out. 

   I imagine that some of the people there had a smile when they saw somebody in her gold sandals bringing in metal to sell.

    Maybe next time she will think about what her next call would be like! Or maybe next time she will let me throw it in the garbage.

    Maybe next time I'll take my camera to document her distress.

SOMETIMES WE REMEMBER EVENTS FOR SOMETHING ELSE.

    July 20 will be a very important anniversary date. It's the day man first landed on the moon.

    So sometimes we remember and event because of another event. I remember where I was when I was told that John Kennedy was shot.

    Now I have only a mild interest in space. At the beginning of the space age I did pay attention as it was very new. It seemed to happen without announcement that Sputnik took it's first flight.

    I was paying more attention than usually with the first moon landing. I was trapped in a car.

    I was driving from Montreal Que. to Saskatoon Sask. On July 20 , 1969.  I was driving  through northern Ontario and listening to the car radio. Of course , I was listening to the moon landing. The closer they  got to the moon the more excited I became. It was a thrilling story with lots of tension and it was live. I turned the radio up louder. About the time they were ready to touch down radio reception went out. Damn!

    Being in a remote part of northern Ontario on the north side of Lake Superior, radio reception was poor because it is  far from any broadcasting station.

   I had to wait until I picked up the station again to find out if they landed safely.

   So my memory of the lunar landing is a non memory.

   I imagine most people were glued to their television set to watch the landing. 

   It seems like only yesterday that they landed on the moon.

HAILSTORM ALLEY

   I live in an area that is known as hailstorm alley. That is we get a higher than average number of hailstorms in a summer.

   Thunder storms come off the Rockies and hail is formed along the way so that by the time it gets to a rough line between Calgary and Red Deer , hail has formed in the cloud.

    Hail damage is so severe in this area that hail suppression projects have been developed. Airplanes fly into the tops of the storms before the get too big and spread silver iodide into the tops of the clouds at a rate of 10 grams per minute and dangerous hail doesn't form quite so often. Hail insurance companies pay for this project as it prevents some of the huge losses that insurance companies have to pay because of hail damage.

    This afternoon when I was out I saw a number of thunderstorms form. I also heard the airplanes flying from the top of one cloud to the top of the other. The planes and pilots are suited for flying on top of thunderstorms. You hear airplanes but don't see them except for today as I saw them.

    So this afternoon I watched thunderstorms form. It was difficult to photograph and it was very bright. I did get some cloud photos.

    Now I did get a couple of aircraft photos. This is the first time I've ever seen the planes.

    So no cropping on these photos. These shots were taken blind . I just pointed and hoped I'd get something.

FRAZZLED

     Do you ever get frazzled? What frazzles you? How do you manage being frazzled?

     Well today was a frazzling good day around here.

     I must note that some people handle these stresses much differently than others.

     The Micro Manager had very carefully arranged to have her new dishwasher delivered today. They were to phone her before they delivered. She got up at 6:00 AM to prepare the house for this delivery. She really thought she'd get a phone call a few minutes after 8. Well, no call at 8. No call at 9. What should she do. Finally she phoned the store at 9:30 AM only to find out that somehow or other her dishwasher had been taken off the delivery list. Well, that would make anybody mad. The store said they'd see what could be done.

    About the same time the hearing aide place called and wanted to change my appointment for tomorrow just after we told the appliance store that we had an appointment tomorrow and couldn't take delivery of the dishwasher tomorrow.

    The Micro Manager decided to phone our Credit Union as I'd read in the paper that it was closing. They were very unimpressive. We were supposed to get a letter and a phone call about the closing and we had received nothing. To top it all of the two people she talked to were underwhelming. They didn't seem to get it that this was an important matter to us.

    Just before lunch the appliance store phoned and said they could deliver about 1:00 PM. By this time the Micro manager was right off her game. She had reasons to be upset. 

     Needless to say , the Micro Manager was frazzled. 

    Tomorrow is anther day. Nothing is on the agenda here. I wonder what could sail in from way out there?

NEVER FORGET TO...

     Never forget to put the coffee pot on the coffee maker. I know it's happened to many people but when it happens to me it's a disaster.

    When I get breakfast I tend to be on automatic pilot of on a strict routine. I like to have my mind cleared to think about other things rather than making breakfast. So if the routine breaks down it can be a problem.

   In my breakfast routine the first thing I do is put the coffee on. The coffee is ready by the time I'm ready for toast and coffee. If you're not careful water spills on the counter when you're filling the coffee maker. So you wipe up the water before turning on the coffee maker. 

    Well some how or other I put the coffee pot on the counter instead of in the coffee maker. 

     I made my breakfast and was nearly finished eating when I noticed a big brown puddle on the counter. Oh yes. I got up quickly. I turned off the coffee maker and started frantically wiping up coffee. It seems like everything I did things got worse. When the pot isn't in the machine, the little valve that lets the coffee go to the pot isn't open. The filter basket fills with water. The coffee grounds float to the top and then coffee starts to overflow from the basket. The coffee slowly and silently spills onto the counter before you notice it. I thought I'd move the coffee maker to the sink. I didn't know what was going on so things really started to flow and I had a big mess on the way to the sink as well as on the counter.

     Well, after many paper towels and dish cloths I finally got things wiped up. It seems like coffee grounds are left all over the place. 

    So it's time to check my routine to see that the coffee pot gets to where it's supposed to go.

    Hey, no damage to the coffee pot!