At last.

Tomorrow, God willin' and the Creek don't rise (you have to be in or around or from Georgia to completely understand that saying) Janet and I are going to go on the cruise that we scheduled in honor of our Golden Wedding Anniversary almost two years ago. Assuming that we make it to the ship on time, we will leave Seattle for a cruise to Alaska on the Holland America Line.

I don't want to hex this, but everytime we have gotten our lives together enough to make this trip something has jumped up and bit us on the butt. (It is scary to see how long ago we paid for this trip, and this seemed our last chance before expiration.)

If the ship has wireless internet, or if the last of the family laptops doesn't collapse into a pile, you may get a report now and then.

Wish us luck.

Lovely scenery

I'm in Washington and just had to report on a silly little incident. My son took us out north of Vancouver to a donut shop and to look around. As we were coming home, the traffic stopped on our lanes, and then on the approaching lanes of the five lane road (near a road called fourth plain). As we sat there, a mother duck with seven ducklings came waddling our from our lane into the next. The ducklings followed mama except for one that stopped to peck at the road for a moment. After that moment, he (or she, its hard to tell when they are barely fledged) turned, noticed that the rest of the family was already across the road and rushed to keep up. After the whole family were into the grass at the road side, traffic picked up and went on its way. There must have been forty or fifty cars hold place for a duck family. It was marvelous. The only bad thing was that by the time I got my camera up they were all long gone and traffic was moving as usual. There wasn't even a sign of anyone honking in the rear. It was if everyone had a feeling of something unique and precious.

Vacation??

My laptop died the other day, I decided to use Janet's laptop for awhile and it died too. 

We are going on vacation.  We are going out to Washington State, which is one of the places I have grandchildren, and we will visit with them, then, the last week in May we are going on the cruise that we paid for two years ago but couldn't go because of Janet's health.  We had to use the tickets this year or they expired, so we are going to Alaska.  Janet's orthopedist said it was okay to go, but not to walk on any glaciers.  The cardiologist said okay, but don't have any exciting adventures that would make her bloodpressure go up. Janet said that we better go while I am still young enough to try to keep up with her.

Once we leave, it is possible that posts to Facebook and the blog will continue if I can get hold of a computer, but it is also possible that no one will hear from us till the last week in June.  We HAVEN"T died, we are just loafing.  It seems to be a much needed thing.  Goodbye for awhile, MAYBE.  Who knows I may post more than I have lately (I could hardly do less.)

More Meditations on Change or Whatever

I guess that some  of the first things that come to mind relate to ecology or maybe just to nature.  I was wandering through the plant section of Lowes today and found, for sale, sweet gum trees. We all know that there are plants to avoid like poison ivy and poison oak, and there are plants that we shouldn’t eat like rhododendron, 

Now I am sure that somewhere in the great scheme of nature there is a place for the sweet gum tree, as there must be for poison ivy, but anyone who would sell a sweet gum tree to an innocent customer or any customer who knows anything about  the tree and buys one anyway should be placed together, barefoot and fenced in on a piece of property shaded by a sweet gum tree.  Hidden among the leaves that fall from a sweet gum are one and one half inch diameter porcupines that, no matter how careful one might be, will attack the bare foot, and sometimes even the shod foot viscously, oftimes drawing blood.  Evil tree that must have been created to punish the guilty in the “place down there”, and the name “sweet gum” is not accurate as is “poison oak.

Another non-nature observation:  Note if you will the number of times when an on screen TV anchor or reporter will bring in an on scene reporter who, regardless whether a question was asked, or was asked for a description, or for that matter anything else will give, as his first statement, the word “Absolutely”, usually as a total non sequitur.  “Now to Norman Numbut with the Governor/  Norman.”       Norman, “Absolutely!”

“Norman, what do we know about the accident on I 16?”  Norman “Absolutely”

Not related in any real way to nature or to the darn privet hedge (May privet be located in the same place to which I would like to locate sweet gum) I have been trimming all day, I came in the house just after dark and popped on the TV.  I found  a rerun of a Friday broadcast by Glen Beck designed as a rejoinder to the main stream media coverage of the “Tea Parties” on April 15.  My friend Patrick the “Redneck” has ranted a bit about Beck, but after listening to this program I have got to say that Glen Beck has a knack for asking the right questions and if he gets a bit emotional, he has none of the ranting arrogant jingoistic absolute generalizations of Sean Hannity (Did anyone watch him trying to shout down Geraldo –who is gradually turning into a real reporter and analyst- the other night) or the aggression of  O Reilly, he just has the right questions, and I think he may turn into one of the really formidable media forces.

I had some other things to say, but exhaustion has taken over, and I will try to put my mind back in gear tomorrow or the next day.  I was sad to hear of the passing of Jack Kemp who was an interesting and passionate advocate of some good stuff.