The Thirteen Year-Old in My Life

My friend Cathy has a nephew for whom she has become the legal guardian. His name is Chris, he's been in her care for about a year and a half now.

Chris and I have spent a lot of time together, we fly kites, play mini-golf, go to the driving range, shoot pool, fish, ride scooters, hike, go to the movies, have movie night at my house, play video games, drive around singing songs in the car, you get the idea. He goes away to school now, and I don't get to see him as much as I'd like. When I do, he's taller and older and it's always amazing to me how quickly he's changing and growing

The other day, I got a call from Cathy explaining she had something planned all day and into the evening, that she couldn't take him to. She told me that when she asked Chris who he'd like her to call, he requested me. She said, "He thinks you're just the coolest." I said, "Of all your friends, I am!"

I picked Chris up at 5 and we kicked around what we'd like to do for fun. He wanted to watch a movie. He'd grown, and I think his voice is starting to change. We went to the grocery store and picked up stuff to make root beer floats, and frozen pizza. While talking to Chris I noticed his speech has become so lazy and sloppy I could hardly understand him. Okay became OA, if you say it real fast. He talks in the typical droning way, with little or no inflection. He was telling me a baseball story, and when he stopped talking, I realized he'd reached the end of the story and it was my turn. Panicked I said, "And when was this?" We picked it up from there.

We hung out, made dinner, I showed him the bird nest and the babies. When the sun was setting we watched the bats circle in the back yard. He jumped up and easily touched a beam in my kitchen he used to have to take a running start to try to touch. We made our root beer floats and watched his requested movie, Semi-Pro with Will Farrell which was funny in that Will Farrell way, but the content was a tad mature for a thirteen year old at points. Chris did his level best to not make me feel uncomfortable about that. He's a good boy. When we said goodbye he wanted his hug as always, and I picked him up off the ground when I hugged him, as always. "I can still pick you up. " I declared, and smiled, wondering how much longer that will be possible.

Identity Established...More Baby Footage

I have determined these are definitely robins. I got a good look at mom when I made this video. You can see them expecting her any minute, they must hear her calling, but the fact that I was there may have prevented her from delivering the food, so I left pretty quickly. I also placed a thick soft dog bed below the nest so if one should fall out, it doesn't land on my hard rocky driveway below.

A Tribute to George

George Carlin has been a favorite of mine for as long as I have been able to stand still long enough to watch stand up, and before, when people bought comedy LPs and George did the "Hippy Dippy Weather Man". I have always enjoyed his unique insights and word play. There is a lot of stuff flying around on the Internet now that he has passed. I chose this one, short and sweet to post here in tribute to a life well lived. Somewhere there is a dealer with way too much pot on his hands.

George Carlin's Views on Aging :

Do you realise that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids? If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about ageing that you think in fractions.

'How old are you?' 'I'm four and a half!' You're never thirty-six and a half. You're four and a half, going on five! That's the key

You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead.

'How old are you?' 'I'm gonna be 16!' You could be 13, but hey, you're gonna be 16! And then the greatest day of your life. . You become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony. YOU BECOME 21. YESSSS!!!

But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk! He TURNED; we had to throw him out. There's no fun now, you're Just a sour-dumpling. What's wrong? What's changed?

You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50 and your dreams are gone.

But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would!

So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60.

You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it's a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday!

You get into your 80's and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30 ; you REACH bedtime. And it doesn't end there. Into the 90s, you start going backwards; 'I Was JUST 92.'

Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. 'I'm 100 and a half!'

May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!

Ooooh the babies...

I have no idea what kind of birds these are. I see the mom fly away every time I come home, or in or out the door. This nest is just below my deck floor, I couldn't see in, but the camera could. That's how I found out there are four babies in there! Wow. I hope to identify these little guys eventually.

Backyard Birds In Grainy Glory (Three Reds)

Male Cardinal

I took these pictures of birds through the windows in the kitchen, dirty windows, one with a screen on it, so it's really bad. I don't have the patience that Bird Anonymous has to go out and sit there until the birds decide I'm not a threat and start coming around despite my presence, and I'm not sure the cardinal ever would. They are very nervous, so here they are. If you don't enjoy them, take your own damn pics!

Robin Red Breast

Rose Breasted Gross Beak

The Frizz Index

Click on the Frizz Warning Chart to open in a seperate window and enlarge. I did not make this up folks, I found it on a weather page, it's for real. WTF! It is important to know if you're going to have a bad hair day! Maybe it will help you decide whether to wear a hat or not! On a day when there's an amber alert for a missing child, an orange alert for terrorism, and a red alert for frizz, shouldn't you just call it in, and stay home?

Gopher Dad

Yesterday morning I went to my parent's house to remove the cabinets from their old kitchen. A friend wanted them for her house, so they had to be taken out carefully, so as not to damage them. Usually a sawzall and a sledge hammer would make short work of this project, but this was all putty knives, screwdrivers and wonder bars. It was a bit like a puzzle, once you take out the obvious support, you have to find the hidden support, and then realize you need to get that out to get to this, but before that can come out that other thing needs come off, and you can't get that off without removing those...pretty soon the entire house has been disassembled and is stacked in piles with nails sticking out everywhere, and the f---ing cabinets are still hanging there laughing at you.

I had four hours to donate before I had to run off to another commitment, so I was all business, HA! When I arrived my Dad was already entrenched and frustrated.

"Can you tell how those cabinets are still up?" He asked, indicating some uppers he had removed all visible screws from. I looked up and said...it's the soffit, the soffit was painted but it was wood and came down over the cabinet face and was nailed in about a hundred times. I began to pull it apart, but it was behind the crown on the door molding, hmmm, this is behind that! I found myself up on a ladder requesting this tool, then that, sweating and swearing, and Dad was scrambling to get me what I needed when he looked at me and said, "The tables have turned haven't they?"

We worked and worked on the hottest stickiest day so far this year and after removing the soffit from all around the cabinets discovered many dead and long dead, and long long dead mice up there. The odor was about as foul as it gets. Mom was grossed out, but relieved that she hadn't been imagining the terrible smell she couldn't seem to get out of the cabinets no matter what she washed them with. She'd even hung one of those pine tree car fresheners in there.

We had lunch and talked about social injustices, a high school student who was suspended for saying her teacher was a scumbag, in an email to some rat-fink friend of hers. Another girl who was suspended for taking control of the school bus when the driver passed out behind the wheel and safely pulling it over and stopping, because she was not a licensed driver. Then the woman who is taking the cabinets home with her, brought up a high school senior who was in jail for sexually abusing his dog, and posting video of it on the Internet. I didn't quite see the injustice there, but she claimed it was that he would be unable to graduate with his class. I couldn't help breaking out into a chorus of: "And they called it...puppy love". Then I went home and spent about an hour trying to get the smell of decaying mouse off me which seemed to be not unlike an odor tattoo.