The Gift was in the Mail?

Sure looks new for a
 55 year old smoker !)

Having dealt with repair people that tell me that "the part is in the mail" I do know how that works. Only last week we were waiting on that mysterious part for our refrigerator.

I suppose that is where I got the idea for my husbands Father's Day gift. See, almost 55 years ago I promised him a smoker...a real honest to goodness, big smoker for meat and other stuff. Then life happened and I forgot about the smoker...sorta. Honestly, my conscience has bothered me a little ever since.

So when our grandson turned up with one, I knew the game was on. I could not have our grandson with a smoker and my disappointed husband without. My husband agreed.

As soon as we arrived home from our dinner with that child, my husband was on the internet shopping. Next thing we both knew, the smoker was ordered, delivered and in  the garage...in 100 pieces.

There were no complaints about the assembly required and just 10 days later, we are putting salmon in the smoker along with some potatoes. (Have you ever tasted smoked potato salad? Yum)

The gift has finally arrive! I feel better now.

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Did I Really Say that?

This is an updated post from 2014. It keeps getting better and better! 

I have to admit it. I can swear but I try to keep it a secret. I am a total fraud and Google knows it. I found that out after I wrote this article. Now I find out that Dame Judith Dench thinks my choice of words shows courage. Plus Rubber Shoes in Hell is not setting a good example for me. Wow!

I know, the word cussing is old fashioned but just work with me here. Cussing is what we called it back in the day. In fact, cussed (cuss-said) was a swear word back then. We would call mean old men those cussed old guys or a dog that bit that cussed dog.

I didn't hear many really bad words in my day. My mother said dang once in a while. But I must have heard some bad words somewhere. My mother claimed I said dammit over and over while I jumped up and down on the bed. I was in trouble for jumping and cussing. It was not a good day in my world. Then I claimed that my Auntie Ardella said it all the time. My Auntie was a saint and I am sure she never used a bad word in her entire life. I probably was guilty of lying too. I don't remember doing any of that very clearly.

Cover of Phooey!

My father always cussed in the basement when he hit his thumb with a hammer or cut a board too short twice. However, he was out of earshot at least as far as understanding the words were concerned. I did hear him call his bosses SOBs a time or two but since I could not spell it didn't matter.  That was as bad as it got. I don't think he would have been a "real man" back in those days if he had  not done that.

I was a teacher and the "f" word was never allowed. Student would be surprised when the parents were called but still, they did get a call. I can understand why they needed to spout off occasionally. But still.

I discovered that sometime things went wrong, I was frustrated. That was when I learned a few bad words...fiddlesticks, dog-gone-it, shoot, phooey and later what in the Sam Hill? 

I always felt a little guilty when I lost control but lose control I did! And my vocabulary became more colorful as time passed. I have spent a lifetime trying to overcome this very bad habit.  But, a bad word or phrase will slip out in normal everyday conversation. I am generally on the golf course. Dear me, I sound like a sailor or a person that was raised by wolves.

Now Dame Judith Dench, age 80+ says that maturity gives us the courage to say what is on our mind. Interesting I think. I'm not sure if it is courage or lack of self control. Sigh!

Rubber Shoes in Hell, one of my favorite blogs, uses phrases like,  "Oh dear god. Fucking hell."  the same way I say "Oh my. Darn". Same meaning, different generations.

As I age I want to become more of a lady not less. I really do. I think that dignity and modeling of good manners never goes out of style.  Oh My (smile) how I wish it were easy. But it is not.

I tell myself often that I do NOT suffer from a disorder that leaves me unable to control my language. I cannot decide if I should fight it or just embrace it. After all, if Judith says it is okay, who am I to disagree.

Unfortunately Google sees right through me. I was a little taken aback when I saw that they suggested f*__k as a label option.

Any thoughts

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What Do Your Keys Tell About You?

My husband bought a new diesel truck many years ago. It was one of the few of that model around at that time and people...mostly men...were very interested in how a "power stroke" diesel truck worked. I am not a truck expert so I have no idea what that means but evidently it was pretty impressive.

The truck was a salmon color and had all the upgrades so it seemed very luxurious to me. It did whistle a little around the windows when you drove over 70 but that was a minor issue. I didn't like going over 70 anyway,

My husband was in heaven. My grandsons thought grandpas truck was very cool and owning the truck meant we could buy a fifth wheel RV. Life was a lot of fun.

But what impressed me more than anything about owning that truck was how many keys guys that do "truck talk" in front of the hardware store have. I stayed inside the cab of the truck as they emerged from the store and asked my husband about his new truck. We watched as they kicked the tires and asked to see under the hood. Their keys jingled as they inspected the underside and dropped the tailgate to get a better look. Having that many keys gives a person a aura of importance I think.

My husband was a high school principal for many years. He carried a key for every door in his school. Students figured out right away that there was nowhere to hide inside that school when he would show up unlocking closets and janitor rooms. No one had ever done that before. Those keys carried a lot of power. The jig was up and they headed back to class.

It turns out that you can tell a lot about a person based on how many keys they carry on their belt. My friend met a couple the other day. They both worked in the hospital. One worked in personnel but she wasn't sure about the other. However, the fact that he had a lot of keys on his belt led her to believe that he wasn't a nurse. Nurses didn't get to have that many keys she told me.

See what I mean.

We have carried keys around for years not knowing what they unlocked but remaining hopeful that a forgotten lock would be found for every mystery key. Right now I don't have a set of keys at all. Ours were stolen from our car and it turns out that it will cost several hundred dollars to replace the car keys so I just do without. We share what keys we do have. Someone out there has a set of keys with no car and a whole bunch of mystery keys. I hope that works out for them!

When my parents died, there were keys to important locks that I never found. I suspect that everyone has a junk drawer where spare keys to forgotten padlocks are stored. The mystery of all those keys will never be solved.

So, how many keys do you carry? I am just curious.

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What's In Your Wallet (Bra)?

The original patent for a bra didn't have room for much, not even the boobs! USpatent494397a1893 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I had always wondered how my friends walked in tights with a yoga top and still have earbuds in their ears. In the Tucson where we spend the winter I see this all the time. They would merrily bob along to a tuney tune without any evidence of a device connected or anything. How did they do that?

Others always had their keys at the drop of a hat or even money. No purse, no wallet, no shopping bags!

Where was their invisible container that held all those important things? I wanted one of those. So one day I worked up my courage and I asked. What was going on?

It turned out that it was all about their underwear. I learned that not all size D are containers for boobs. Some women have bras with room for other stuff.

This morning when we were heading out for a walk we ran into my daughter and her friends returning for their Saturday morning walk. One is a "wallet" wearer and had just returned from a trip to Mexico. She told us she was patted down by the security because she forgot to take her chapstick out with all the other things she carries there! When the guard found it they didn't even take the cap off. I guess she didn't look like a drug user.

So, ladies, my question today is "What's In Your Wallet?" :)

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Can You Hear Me Now?

2004 Ad  

I think it was Verizon that aired the commercial using the catchphrase "Can you hear me now?" It was very popular back in the day. 

I remember trying to call Tucson, AZ from a spot in southwest AZ called Why. I was standing outside so I could get a better signal. The traffic was bad at the corner and my reception was little to none. I needed to reserve a spot in a RV park for the night. The conversation was centered around "Can you hear me now?" as I moved from one location next to the road. We did finally find a connection and a place for the night but it was not easy. That was back in 2004.

We are back to using that phrase here in my house once again. My husband has just gotten his new hearing devices and it includes a microphone that I wear clipped to my collar. I ask him several times a day if he can hear me. And he can. He can hear what I am saying clearly even when I wish he couldn't. No more mumbling my rants out loud!

Hearing loss is one of the most frustrating and disabling things that can happen to a person. Social interaction is very hard and tasks like buying at the store or talking to the stockbroker can require help from someone else. This device even has a bluetooth connection to his iPhone because talking on the phone is a problem. Before, I was my husband's walking, talking, phone calling microphone.

I think the worst thing of all is the hit to the ego. Most of us don't want to admit that we simply cannot hear what another person is saying. After a while, asking to have everything repeated gets very old. I know I cannot hear when people are "low talkers". I have begun wearing my hearing aids all of the time.

I admire my husband for having the courage to admit his need for help. It was not easy.

So, watch out everybody because we can hear you now!

Verizon...eat your heart out.

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Greeting Card Lessons...bad things happen because LIFE SUCKS!

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don't know about you but the glamor of creating my own greeting cards has lost it's luster. I like to go to the store and buy something, sign it and mail it. I had forgotten how simple it really was. And, everytime I go down that card aisle, I learn something new about aging or being a teen or what a woman wants or life in general.

We are in that graduation season now and our little grandson broke his arm. We also have a few birthdays in June/July, all of which we will never remember until it is over with. Needless to say we are on the hunt for the perfect cards. As a result I know stuff about greeting cards.

1. You can learn about misfortune from greeting cards. I saw the card today that explains why bad things happen...it's because life sucks. It must be true because I saw it in the greeting card section of a big box store. 
2. There are very few belated birthday cards and if you do find them they are on the bottom of the rack. I am a little older, have bad eyes and cannot get down on the floor to see the bottom row of cards. Besides who mails birthday cards on time? If you are doing that please quit. That may be why there are so few cards for people like me. You are messing with my world.
3. Cards can be the gift. They talk, smell, come apart so you can reassemble them and try to be funny. The normal cards are not nearly as much fun even when you are old. I like those smelly puzzles with a Yoyo and Hoops celebrating in the background. All I want for my birthday is a smile anyway.
4. If you break your arm and you are five, don't count on a card. Hallmark does not make a card for you.
5. Greeting cards are expensive...or at least it seem like it to me. You can pay the price or read #6 to find a solution.
6. You can use those cards over and over. Think of the savings. My friends and I do it all the time. The signatures mount up over the years and eventually they become a collectors item. I do laugh a lot when I get an old card with new writing. It is fun to get a card back that I sent originally...kind of like regifting to the wrong person but in a nice way.

So as Father's Day approaches I urge you to find the perfect card, sign it in pencil so the recipient can erase your signature and message if they want and they can send it back to you on your birthday with a little editing. 

Have a wonderful day!

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The Rugrats Cartoon, Responsible TV Viewing and Bitchy Barbara

I remember watching TV with my granddaughter back when The Rugrats were very popular. You remember...that was the TV show with the darling babies that lived in a playpen, a self-centered girl named Angelica that messed with their life and a dozing oblivious grandpa that was in charge a lot of time. I thought at the time that Angelica was seen by my granddaughter as a bad little girl that made life miserable for everyone around her. But as I watched my granddaughter more, I came to realize that Angelica was becoming a heroine of sorts. Angelica always got her own way and never took any sas from anyone. We quit watching The Rugrats and my granddaughter moved on.

Flash forward 13 years to 2014. Now it is me that needs to be careful what I watch on TV. One of my friends was describing a show she liked that had a very strong woman lead...a little edgy and very in your face kind of show. I had to stop and think about whether that was a good idea for me...probably not. The spill over from watching certain shows will inspire me to be more opinionated that I already am. I am not even a good TV news viewer. My inner feminist will emerge immediately.

See being an angry feminist is not a good thing and when I watch a show that stars a woman that is being challenged because she is female or hear about a women's issue on the news, I get very ticked at the world. Where is the justice in that? The feeling will take a while to go away and in the mean time, the people in my world have to put up with a Bitchy Barbara.

So I try to be a responsible TV viewer. The world does not need another Angelica of any age. Especially mine.

Just a thought.

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The Google Man Rode in on a Beautiful White Horse!

English: Google Logo officially released on May 2010 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am like most bloggers...I have this love/hate relationship with Google. I do know that without them I would be nothing...not saying I am something now...but still they do help me think I am something.

I have been a blog writer for many years and have owned 4 different domains at different times. I suppose that is all good on me but don't ask me how I did it, where I bought them or even how to pay for them. My attitude from the beginning of blogging has been the same as the one I brought to my Apple computer when the very first one ever produced sat on my kitchen counter and Steve Jobs held Apple user group meetings here in Portland Oregon. I just point and click...ask me to join and I was interested. I am not afraid of anything. There you have it.

So getting back to the domains and how to pay for them I need to tell you about the guy and his beautiful white horse. I know his name but I won't put it here because I don't want to embarrass him with too much praise. OK...I give...his name is Ivaylo.

I owned a blog called The Left Side of  My Brain. I wrote on it when Sarah Palin ran for vice-president alongside that guy from Arizona...his name escapes me. She drove me nuts enough to prompt me to buy a domain just so I could rant a little with hardly anyone noticing. Then we moved on and I abandoned the blog. Once a year bills would come for the domain and I could never figure out how to turn off the automatic payment. Finally, this last week I found a place where I could ask Google the question and it would be sent to someone that knew the answer. I was asked to leave my phone number.

Imagine my surprise when the phone rang a couple of days later and a real, live talking Google guy said my name and offered to help me! Oh my goodness and here I thought that there were no real people at Google. I pictured this warehouse full of servers where a small man wearing glasses made sure that the backup generator came on when the electricity went off. I thought it was probably located in Christmas Valley, Oregon. Boy was I wrong. I could just see the man's beautiful white horse.

So the Google Guru and I spent the morning talking on the phone. We used an app that allowed him to see my screen called Join Me.  I was guided through deleting that old blog, paying for a lapsed blog. The big problem occurred in both cases because I was unable to access my Google Administrator account.  I took notes so I may not have to go through this process again in a year or so. No guarantees though.

Today I love Google and Google guy, who ever you really are. Thank you again. My life is very, very good! Oh and by the way, the Google guy said I was very tech savy for a woman my age. I think that was a compliment!

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Note: My new/old blog address is It Crossed My Mind Blog. I plan on writing stories there.

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