New Place to Go

Well, we are at Hilton Head Island at a new time  share.  I have written several times (some years ago) about the benefits and problems with time shares.  We have been coming to Hilton Head Island using time shares for about thirty years.  For quite awhile we had two units at a very nice time share called Waterside, but we got tired of paying two maintenance fees every year so we traded them for one big beautiful elaborate unit at a place called Blue Water.  It is certainly the most elaborate place we have had to do with, and we are enjoying ourselves doing almost nothing except shopping and doing water aerobics in the indoor pool (with sauna and hot-tub)   They have a nice outdoor pool as well, but it is not heated, and probably will be comfortable for old coots in a month or so, but it isn’t yet.  

It seems silly for the two of us to rattle around in a big three bedroom place with monster king size beds in all bedrooms and 42 inch flat panel TV’s almost everywhere one looks, and three free rounds of golf each day when we are both so crippled up that neither of us has played golf for six or eight years, but we hope that in the future we can bring family as guests to use the bedrooms and the golf.

It is beautiful though, right on the intracoastal waterway  with a view out of the bedroom window of docks, a golf course, and beautiful little lagoons around the property.  Unlike some of the places we have owned and visited, this place has free Wi Fi, so they at least have all the conveniences of the average MacDonalds.  I am vegging so thoroughly that I haven’t much else to say today, but topics will arise as the news comes on the (I don’t think one can literally call flat panel TVs the boob tube any more, and the boob panel  doesn’t hold much appeal.  Oh Well,!!!!

Stuff and Nonsense

The title is a phrase I used to hear often from my Grandmother Shurtleff, and less  often from my mother.  I mentioned it once to my mother who tried to explain that stuff was nonsense.  She liked nice things and enjoyed being comfortable, but, she said that when stuff becomes an objective it then equates with nonsense.  It then becomes a distraction from the things that give meaning to life.  I feel this way in my mind, theoretically and even mention it to my dear wife occasionally as she passes shoe stores, etc.

Having said that, I have to admit that “some” stuff gives me great pleasure.  I have made a lot of dolls and puppets, and I get great pleasure from the things I have made.  In fact, “making” has in some ways been the focus of most of the things that give me pleasure.  Sometime in the future (soon, but I have to scan some of the stuff I would use) I will post some of the “stuff” I have created, puppets, dolls, pictures of plays, “stuff” like that, but today I want to show you just some of the stuff that I didn’t give away when we downsizes our house.  This first series is pictures showing what my grandchildren (and their mother) did to one of the bathrooms in our house because they thought it was boring.

They had a ball doing this.  They spent a couple of days on it.

Next I will show a little wall art.  I was planning to make this an album, but my computer is arguing with me.  this is a framed Wayang rod puppet from Indonesia. It is not big in this picture (dammit), but it is framed above by a couple nice leather masks.  Shown below:

and finally for this session of Stuff, a glycee (sp?) print by James Christenson called THE RESPONSIBLE MAN, and an oil called NIGHT IN THE MOUNTAINS.  I have mislaid the name of the painter but this was a prize winner in a national contest in Finland in 1967.  I will stick a few pictures of stuff that I like in the blog every week or so.  I will try to get my computer to cooperate in making them albums.

Other information later.  sorry they are all so small but band space is band space.

BACK AGAIN

I just returned from a week long visit with my daughter in Columbia S.C.   It was a wonderful week.  We went to the road company of Mama Mia, which was a delight.  We shopped (Janet does that for fun), played with Roscoe (the basset hound) and I managed to get her gas grill hooked up (with old fashioned hook up), repaired her garden tiller, went to church and sang with the choir as if I had practiced for it, read three books,  and generally had  a wonderful time.  (even without internet access).

I came home to find that the new pump I installed on the pool is still working and the water is now devoid of copulating frogs, pine pollen and most of the crud on the bottom of the pool. (for this I thank my son who raked the pool and put the proper chemicals in place)   It was a good week.

I sat at the computer and decided that I have got to revert to previous style and mix personal situations (the blog has become a litany of my and Janet’s aches and pains) with memories of the past and  other stuff that will result in at least two or three posts a week, or I have got to quit the whole dang thing.  I decided on the first procedure and we will see how successful I am.

A comment on politics.  Just before I left the government announce that it was going to penalize Toyota 16.4 million bucks for the rash of sticky gas pedals that have been so publicized,   Did any one notice that this decision was made on the day following the announcement that Toyota’s sales were up over ninety percent compared to G.M. which improved sales last month about twenty percent.  Is this a coincidence.  I can just see the new owners of G.M.  (the Federal Bureaucrats who also made the decision about Toyota) screaming “THey can’t do that!  We’ll fix them!   How dare they do better than GM when we have been publicizing all their problems through our suck up media for months.”

“We’ll penalize them all those profits”  (ask them how much GM was penalized for the Vega, or Ford for the Pinto [the only out door grill that seated four people]

I am still hoping that the Health Program (or whatever it is called) will prove an improvement over the status quo, but the evidence so far doesn’t support that hope. 

For what it’s worth

I am as healthy as I was before.  My head CTscan doesn’ t show any blockages, and though I have a carotid artery that is partially blocked, they tell me that I will have to have it checked in a year.  IN the mean time I am almost ready to start moving furniture, saws and sewing machines into my studio.  (Janet will be so pleased when I get the back porch cleaned out.)  I was going to send some pics of creative work, but my photo catalog program is arguing with me.