Old New Year.

In a few days a New Year. My old year memories are kind of few. My daughter had a son so a new grandson for me. I went swimming at the YMCA and a little kid dropped a floater or two in the pool and it had to be closed. My friends dog got really hyper and ended up on puppy Prozac. I got a new radiator for my car. Had some great rides on my motorcycle and kept up my little blog for another year. All my friends remained healthy and so did my family. So it was a pretty good year. How was your year? If you have any interesting comments or stories feel free to leave them. Have a good and safe New Year and thanks for stopping by. What the heck, have a hug too!

Tis the Season!

There are a lot of holidays this time of year. I am a Christmas guy. What holiday are you? Just be sure to have a safe and happy one!!!!

How a pet chooses you.

I noticed a few people talking about getting a pet for Christmas. I was just wondering do we choose pets or do they choose us? A friend of mine was in her yard in the country. She noticed a bird that was near her. They made friends with each other and now the bird goes for drives with her in her car. Another friend of mine went outside one day and found a cat on her porch. Now the cat comes by every day and sometimes goes into her house checks it out. The cat stays until it gets bored goes back out and comes back around when it feels like. Sure many people go to pet stores and browse around until they find the pet that fancies them. I just wonder who sees who first and just what is it about the pet that makes the bond. I hear many stories that the pet does something that attracts the pet seekers attention and then bam, instant love and the pet is on the way to a new home. Do you have any pet stories?

Just wondering.

Why do you think what you think when you think it? I was lying in bed and my mind was like a rock skipping on the water of a pond. I kept switching from thought to thought and had no real reason why or how. I was just random thinking and letting my mind go freely where it wanted. I thought of my grandchildren, about a friend I just emailed, about animals and pets I encountered. I had ambient music playing while I was resting. I wonder if that had anything to do with it. My mind did feel like it was flowing with the music. Yet. I was very relaxed. Then at the height of my mental channel switching, I had an urge to relieve myself of some water that had gathered in my body and needed to be voided. I am getting older and that need to pee can get very irksome and frequent. So I had to stop my free flowing thoughts and let flow a body function. I then decided to turn on my computer, check my emails, surf a little and ended up writing this stuff down. I am looking forward to thinking of thinking what I was thinking and think about it some more. Have you ever had an enjoyable thought wandering experience?

Deck the Porch with burned out light bulbs.

I was hand picked to help my neighbor put up his Christmas lights. That wonderful idea that someone thought up years ago. We did all the traditional light hanging things. We had the traditional cursing of the tangled lights. The plugging in of the numerous extension cords. We had the falling out of decorations from the old box they were packed in. His wife participated in the, "It still looks crooked to me." chant." His dog was full of the, "lets chew on and drag around whatever I can get my teeth into festivities". It was fun playing the replacing the burned out light bulb game and the removing of old tape and tinsel tradition. The end result was, after the swapping of the bitch and bastard arguments, some heart warming gushing aaahhhhs and oooohhhs, and some hot chocolate and coffee. Plus the warmth of the Christmas spirit beginning to take shape. Do you get to enjoy this wonderful yearly event?

New Beginnings Again!

My daughter was looking for something to do on Saturday Nov. 22. so she decided to have a 9 lb. plus baby boy and name him Alexander. His two sisters and one brother were happy about the birth and so was the new dad. I also got an email from my sister stating that everyone was well and that, "Jane, not her real name, was in the shower and everything was A-OK down there". I thought that was some strange information and still cannot figure exactly what it is she was trying to say. It is important to recheck what you write in those emails before you hit that send button. Did you ever send an email and wish you had rechecked it first?

Its been awhile.

I have not been blogging for awhile. I have been a little lazy and was involved in the Presidential election. Now that it is over I can hopefully go back to a little blog once or so a week. I have had a little winter writers bock, to tell the truth. What has gotten my attention is that new babies are being born and are being named Barack or Obama or Barack Obama. Not too many went for the Hussane, Hussine, Hussyaine, Hussaine, or however you spell it part. I also learned that some women in their sixties, my sister, have gone and have had their hair done to look like Hillary Clinton. The Sarah Palin glasses are still big I hear and the Joe Biden hair plugs are big but not as big as I had originally thought. Nobody is mimicking McCain at all but that seems to be no surprise. It is amazing how things and people effect our country after an election. Has the election effected you at all?

Happy Halloween

This has been a bummer year in my neighborhood for Halloween. I talked to a few of my neighbors and they said that they only got one or two trick or treaters. Myself I got one knock on my door. It was a drunk person looking for the guy next door. He was so out of it he thought I was visiting his friend. There was not one trick played on my block. No toilet paper was strung and that was OK, but a little sad. The most action I saw were the grocery store guys collecting all the grocery baskets, that were stolen from the store, that were used by the older people to bring home their groceries. Is it because people are afraid to go to houses? I noticed a lot of parties on the local news where kids went. It just seems that this trick or treat thing is losing popularity. How about your area did you have a lot of little visitors in strange costumes?

Norman Rockwell what have you done?

I was watching the "Daily Show" and found out that if you are from a small town then that is the only way you can be considered American. "Real America" is a Norman Rockwell painting and larger cities like NY, Los Angeles or even Philadelphia are too big to be considered American. Which is pretty sad because most of these larger cities have baseball and football teams that I enjoy watching. Philadelphia for example will even be in the World Series which may now be considered as a Communist thing. Things change. Before this presidential election we had Republicans and Democrats. Now our country is divided into American and Un-American parts. Maybe we should not have these elections if it tears the country so apart. I think we should just have the Republicans have a president for four years then the Democrats have their four years the next term. Keep doing that and everybody should be happy. Of course there are the other political parties and to make it fairer they could be the vice-presidents. I just do not like all this negative stuff that goes on during these elections. What about you? Any ideas?

Just another day

It was my birthday on the 11th. I could not get excited on becoming 56. I like the every ten year birthdays. My friends and family remembered and I got cards and presents and stuff. It just was not an exciting day. What was special was having coffee with my friends and having a visit and sharing some laughs. That was the best present. My daughter lives in NC so having her so far away way was kind of sad but she is expecting a baby in November and that has me pretty excited. Grandchild number 4. That is something to celebrate. My favorite College football team, Penn State won their game on my birthday. That was pretty neat. I like it when my grandchildren and daughter have their birthdays. I seem to enjoy that more. It must have something to do with age. Becoming 18 then 21 was something to celebrate. As I become older I still enjoy the cake and ice cream but the actual aging just is not as much fun. What birthdays do you look forward to?

Spinning Pennies.

When I was young I use to spin pennies. I liked they way they moved around and looked orb and planet like when they spun. Sometimes they would stay in one place and other times they would travel away and make erratic journeys as they spun. Today pennies are not worth much but still spin pretty good. Rich people spin bigger things like quarters, half dollars, dollars, stocks and bonds and now billions and billions of dollars all at once. Trouble is when they stop spinning and fall down, they fall down pretty hard. I don't mind spinning my own pennies but I am a little skeptical when other people spin my money. How about you?

No Trespassing without permission.

Sometimes things are not what they seem and what they seem is far from what they really are. I am reading a book on how to improve my thinking. It is called. "The Feeling Good Handbook," by David D. Burns MD. The book kind of reminds me of a Rodney Dangerfield story. Rodney went to a psychiatrist and told him, "Doc everybody hates me." The doctor in turn told Rodney that that was impossible because not everybody had met Rodney. What I am learning is that I have a lot of those all or nothing thoughts too. I also found out that I procrastinate because I put things off. The book says to write down why you put things off and write down specific examples like, cleaning my apartment. So I did. My apartment is still not clean but I have a great list written down why it isn't. Changing one's thinking from negative to positive thoughts is harder than it sounds. I once was a positive person but as I am older I became more negative. This book did help and I do feel better and my bad moods do not last as long. It amazes me that with a little common sense life can be good. How is your thinking? How has it changed as you became older and what experiences changed it?

Books for all!

My friends granddaughter came home from school and was very excited. She went to the library for the first time in her life and was all happy that she got "free" books to take home. My friend tried to explain to her that she would have to "return" the books after she read them. "But they just gave them to me for free," she insisted. "They came up in a big bus and we got on it and got to pick out these free books," she explained. I like the way children think sometimes. Why can't we keep books from the library? Why do we have to have money at all? Why aren't things just free? How come Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny give out free stuff? What is wrong with those Librarians that they can't? That is all I got. It is just one of those precious moments that I experienced which brought a little smile and wonderment into my life. If you have children I am sure you have many stories like this. Feel free to share if you have them.

Oh that day again.

It's the end of the world as we know it. Rain upon my window pane. The little white cloud that cried. The beat goes on. It's a small world. Where have all the flowers gone. Sometimes there are those days that come around that remind me of sadness. Reaching out my arms and pulling in great hugs help. Listening to the Grateful Dead and remembering there really is still lots of love in the world. Breathing my next breath slowly. Letting breezes softly caress me then pass me by. It is all there still living. Music. Laughing. Some people swim in tears. I was not going to write about this day again. I did. Ghosts of dead relatives, friends and strangers swirl about and linger for awhile. They do not stay as long as they once did. I lost no one but died with many. Some days skipping rocks on the water can be soothing. What do you do on these sad days?

Up Up to the Sky

My friend is learning to fly and she asked me if I wanted to come along for the ride. I said sure. We went to the airport and before we took off I noticed an airplane I saw on the news the day before. This plane had crashed and was sitting there all bent; looking crashed and next to the plane we were to fly in. I kept looking at it as we passed it when we were taking off. We flew around for an hour and it seemed fine to me. I found out later there was a headset I was suppose to wear but I did not put it on. I did notice that she was talking quite a bit to the co-pilot on the headsets they were wearing but did not think much of it. We landed and on the way home she turned to me and said, "Boy did you see how close we came to that mountain?" I drank a lot of coffee when I got home which is a bad thing to do to try to calm oneself down. So now I am sitting here drinking a big milkshake. I feel better and am not shaking as much.

Ice Creamed

It is the end of summer and my favorite ice cream places are closing for the season. I love getting on my motorcycle and going riding with my friends. What we always end up doing is going to get some ice cream before the ride ends. As I was sitting here I began to think, "If I were an ice cream flavor what flavor would I be?" That opened a lot of doors for me because I love a lot of flavors. I decided that I would be a berry ice cream because I like strawberry, rasberry or any kind of berry ice cream. If I went with my personality I would make sure there would be lots and lots of nuts with my ice cream because people say that I am a little nuts in real life. What flavor ice cream would you be?

Big Stuff

I belong to Sam's Club. What that means is I can buy large quantities of food stuff all in one shopping trip. I live alone and this is not a good thing for me to do because I have been watching my waistline. Grow. I was going to the YMCA to swim, but the day before a little child decided to potty in the pool. I have not been able to bring myself to get back into the pool. So, off I went to Sam's. I think I did pretty good. I bought a bunch of steaks and took them home and wrapped the 24 of them up individually and put them in the freezer. The 3 for one pizza, not so good; because it added up to a dozen. The cookies, well 12 out of 36 of them were oatmeal and I think oatmeal is good. The Hot Pockets should be good for breakfast from now until October. Then I ended this little shopping spree by getting Gatorade. That was OK but it was a little tight putting all 52 bottles in my refrigerator. Do you belong to one of those wholesale food clubs? I guess they are good for a large family but for me, well I may have to rethink my membership.

Insight to incite

How much insight is one suppose to have? I know if a woman has a handsome man in her sights or a man has a beautiful woman in his sight sex can happen. Or take a hunter for instance. He is out hunting and gets an animal in his sights. Death can be pretty insightful for the unlucky animal or the lucky hunter. Then there is the insight that can incite. An athlete has a gold medal in his or her sight and this could incite a race that breaks a record. A politician or just any Ole person has an idea and incites the people with that insight and a law is made or a riot can occur. Now if you are reading this and you sit back and say to yourself, " Oh! I see". That is some kind of insight that incited your imagination, brain, synapses or just gave you a headache. Science has a lot of insight and changes occur. An artist has an insight and a picture or an artsy thing is birthed. Religion has insight and we usually end up with prayer or a war. Insight to incite or incite to insight what is it? So here I sit at the insight crossroad. Do I keep on thinking or do I have an alcoholic beverage and just call it a day? Have you had any insightful insights that incited you lately?

Onward memories!

Where do memories go after one dies? I guess they go to the living. When someone dies we remember them and the things they did when they were alive. I guess the deceased have memories because ghosts are reported being all over the place doing all kind of dead things. History is a bunch of memories that people remember and write down. Blogs and stuff on the Internet are written down and if someone reads them they become memories and add to the history of the Internet. Then there are the memories we just cannot get rid of. Like the time I walked into my 80 year old aunts house and she was standing in the kitchen topless with nothing on but her apron. I got sick on the tree outside her home. That memory still haunts me in a different historical way. That is one memory that can die with me, no problem. I am watching the Olympics on television. I was enjoying it until that memory of my aunt popped up. So I decided to write this blog but that did not help either. Ever have a haunting historical memory in your life?

Old Song Memories

What is in a song? Words, music, a beat. Memories also come to mind. Do you have a favorite song? I seem to have many of them. Love songs that remind me of past relationships. Songs that remind me of certain events in my life like a graduation, or a friendship song or just a tune that mellows me and brings good memories of past stuff. Sometimes I make up songs and sing them to myself. They will never be top ten hits or make the charts but; I have fun singing them. Do you ever make up songs and sing to yourself or is this just a Chumly thing? If you are a song writer then I can understand that. Just to be a person walking around singing to yourself and being happy that is something different. Now if you are on medication and do this what kind of medication are you on and can I buy some? Then there are those songs that remain in my head for days and I keep singing them over and over. We all have music in us it seems. It is a good thing I think. Life is good with music in it. What do you think?