Bless the Beasts and the Children

For in this world they have no voice,
They have no choice.

Bless the beasts and the children.
For the world can never be,
The world they see.
(The Carpenters, 1972)

Tina, “the tiny widdle tordle” died this week.
Nick is devastated.
He’s still one of those children the song talks about.
The cycle of life, at 11 years old, is a heartbreaking lesson.

Tina was a great pet.
Having two dogs in the house, Jordie and Mike favor Ziggy.
Nicholas, who is the family peacekeeper, divides his love equally, which leaves me to defend Tucker, (rhymes with…)
But we all adored Tina, she was fun.

This summer, we discovered a rather large box turtle living in our backyard.
He was usually in the flower garden, but occasionally we’d find him on the brick patio.
I remember one morning Nick noticed the turtle out there, and ran up and got Tina.
He put them face to face, and was convinced they became fast turtle friends. (Pun intended)

We’re going to bury Tina tomorrow morning.
We’ll do it in the flower garden.
That way, she will be close to her friend.

I told Nick, (in a moment of weakness while consoling him), that we could get him another pet.
He told me he didn’t want any more.
It’s too hard to say goodbye.

Welcome (back) to the 70’s.

Last week, as you may know, I “misplaced” my cell phone.
I finally got around to ordering a new one yesterday.
It was with, I might add, great trepidation!

Also last week, I blew out the hard drive in my laptop.
That proved, in the beginning at least, to be quite an inconvenience.
The ever present lure of instantaneous communication in this WiFi world is toxic.
But I’m over that now too!

I am now living in an almost “tech-free” world.
AND…I’m lovin it!

Oh, I’ve got a cell phone in my purse I can turn on if I choose to.
We have 5 of them after all, for 4 people in the family, not including Mike’s work cell; this is a truly sad commentary on consumerism, but that’s another blog!
The point is, only 3 people have my temporary number!
Love that.

And I’m holed up in our home office right now using the Desktop to write these words.
I only logged on for the first time yesterday, and already had to reacquaint myself with the simplest of commands.
Had I not been jonesin so badly to feed my writing chops, I’d probably not have set foot in the office at all.

It’s clear to me however, that I lack disaster preparedness skills.
Although Mike installed fancy software on my laptop to regularly prompt me to “Insert CD disc #4 and backup data”…I would tend to get annoyed by the intrusion and bypass the prompt for another day.
Oops!

The good news is that I never did back up my phone #’s in my cell phone to my computer, so at least I don’t have to kick myself for losing them twice.
Once did the trick just fine; I still can’t get hold of anyone.

Next week, when I re-enter the twenty first century, I’ll take the necessary precautions to protect my data.
I will also register a password this time with my carrier, so I can “retrieve” my email messages. (In my own defense though, really…Why do I need to “call” my cell phone for my messages? I just “listen” to them, ON my cell phone, duh!)
I understand now.


But until then, I’m just kicking back enjoying the simplicity of these long hot summer days.
The lady I spoke with at Sprint yesterday was nearly hyperventilating when I told her I lost the phone on August 14th.
Replying, “How can you survive?”, she nearly insisted that I pay the 15 bucks to have a new one delivered to my doorstep by 10am today!

“Nah”, I told her.
Snail mail is just fine with me.

In the 1979 words of Gloria Gaynor’s hit single…
“I Will Survive”.

Just fine thank you!

To Whom It May Concern:

I have lost my cell phone.
Yes…I have checked the recycling bin, thank you.

I am near positive I lost it in the house.
To make matters worse, the battery was dead.
Boner move, that I would rip my kids a new one for.

It seems every time we’ve lost a cell phone in this house, it’s been turned off, had a dead battery or was on vibrate.
Hence the rule…NEVER turn your phone off, let the battery die or put it on vibrate.
My bad.

But I digress.
Bottom line, if you’ve called me and I’ve not returned your call, it’s not because I don’t want to (which is my standard excuse),
Really, it’s because I don’t know that you “have” called, and if I did, I can’t call you back because I have NO ONE’S number!

It will no doubt be a few days before I rectify the situation.
It’s not as simple as calling Sprint for a new one.
We have 5 phones with them; 4 are out of contract.
If there was ever an opportunity to bail, this is it.

The logistics of that endeavor makes me want to stay in bed tomorrow.
First choose a carrier, which any seasoned user knows, will have no less issues than the one I’m quitting now in disgust, it will just have a different logo on its invoice.

Next, get everyone “the” phone they want.
Nicholas actually thinks he’s getting a Crackberry!
He must be on crack.
Jordan wants something conducive for “texting”.
My mom? Honey is a nightmare with cell phones; she actually has 3 of them, this is really going to throw her for a loop!

As for me…
I just want my old red Motorola flip phone to find its way back to me.
It wasn’t fancy, although it could be if I’d bothered to learn all that it had to offer.
But instead, I took it for granted, believing it would always be there for me.
But I set it down (somewhere), and it snuck off and took all of you with it.

So please call back in a few days when (surely) I’ll have this settled.
Or call the home # if you have it.
867-5309.
Oh…that’s Jenny’s!

And you can always email me your number.
That way I’ll have a backup.
Now there’s a good idea!!!

Never put off until August…

What you can do in early June!

It is One Thousand degrees here in Kansas today.
Guess where I’m taking the kiddos?

“Oceans of Friggin Fun”!!!
Szzzzzzzzzzzzzz…can you hear the sizzle?

School starts next week.
I've promised the little darlin's all summer that we would go.
Now I'm paying the price for my procrastination.

According to Gary Fleezak, the local weather-freak, the mercury isn’t coming down anytime soon.
The Dog Days of summer are here.

This weekend isn’t an option, (Swim with the working class? Oh my!)
I’m out of time.
I have no other options.
We-Are-Going-To-FRY!!!

If you're looking for me,
I’ll be in the Adult Pool (with a tiny little umbrella coming out of my drink!)

Pass the SPF 10,000.

Shin Guards and Jock Straps

Mike’s Dad (Pop), married a magnificent lady (Dee), 10 years ago this summer.
We are also within weeks of celebrating Pop’s 80th birthday.
This weekend, we chose to celebrate both occasions.

Dee’s son Shane lives here in Overland Park and made most of the arrangements for the weekend…Yay Shane!
Son Randy, and Dee’s grandkids Anna and Ryan, are up from Lubbock Texas.
And Eric and Steff introduced us to their new bundle of joy Parker, born just six months ago in Minneapolis where they call home.

We were having a great time this evening eating and visiting at a Kansas City Sports bar that also touts itself as a sports museum.
Chappelles is its name and lives up to its own hype.

Pop, being an old college level Coach, was diggin on all the memorabilia surrounding us.
In fact, Jim Chappelle came by to visit with us and we found out he and Pop knew some of the same people from both of their old coaching days.
Jim actually pointed out a picture on the wall of a Coach who Pop had coached as a young athlete.
Small world indeed.

Later in the evening, after we were through with our meals, Pop started telling old stories about sports when he was a boy.
As usual, we were all gathered around and listened intently; Pop can tell a good story.

He was telling us how they used to play “Shinny” when he was a kid.
“Shinny? What’s Shinny?” Tony asked.
“Well it’s just like Cocky but we called it Shinny”, Pop said.

Apparently, Shinny was played on the ice and they used an old can as a puck.
You had to have your stick on the right side of the puck.
You could not shoot the puck from your left side.
If you did, the other players would hit you in the “shin”.

Well Pop is left handed.
“I was always getting whacked in the shins” he told us.

Without missing a beat and in all seriousness I said,
“Well I can certainly understand why you didn’t play Cocky”!!!

After the hysteria quieted down, they explained to me that I had misunderstood Pop earlier.
He said that Shinny was like Hockey, not Cocky!

Whew, that’s good to know.
I thought they were getting whacked in the…
Well, you know.

We had a lot of laughs tonight,
Got to know our “extended family” a little bit better,
And made one old fart feel young again.
It was indeed, a banner night.

God Bless ya Pop.

My Eyes, My Eyes!!!

Well I pulled a boner move last night.
In my haste to gather up the morning’s newspaper and place it in the recycling bin for today’s pickup, I apparently “scooped up” my (Ralph Lauren) glasses which were sitting on top.

They were hauled off to the dump early this morning.
I know this because the truck woke me up at the crack of dawn!

Now I’m trying to read the paper but my arms are too short.
Like my Mom says, “This gettin old ain’t for pussies”!!!