Today is shameless promoting of us, the Husband and me, and our art work at Happy_Macs , a Zazzle.com store. When you click on that link, you'll find our first products for sale—two 2018 calendars featuring the cartoons of the Husband, a.k.a Arrmac. For those who didn't know or had forgotten about Arrmac, he was in a cartooning frame of mind from 1998 to 2007. I pulled them out of the archives to produce two calendars of his awesome work. Said Arrmac in words similar to these: I created these cartoons years ago, but the Wife continues to promote me. Well, yeah.

"Just from the gate to the grate," I said unsurely to the Husband yesterday, as he swung the car around to park on the other side of the rutted lane. We were at the eastern end of the Juan Bautista de Anza national Historic Trail in San Juan Bautista. It's been almost two years since we've walked here. The last time we got as far as we did today because the Husband's heart couldn't take it. We didn't know then what was going on with his heart. I'm happy to say that the Husband and his friend, Gerry Andy Pacemaker, felt g-r-e-a-t . They had no problem going that short distance. This time round it was me that we were being careful about. I discovered that my knees can handle walking on uneven, forgiving dirt with the help of a cane. I woke up yesterday morning determined to walk a bit up one of our favorite trails.  Looking at the trail from the car, I wondered if I really could walk between the gate and cattle grate. The Husband thought the distance

Until yesterday, that is what the Husband, Molly the Cat, and I saw when we looked out the patio door. Sitting behind the shed was a small chicken coop. Molly loved to climb up the chicken coop, along a plank, and onto the shed's southern eaves to take her nap between breakfast and lunch. For the past year,  the Husband and I have talked about taking down the structures because they were useless. No chickens for the coop (never were!) and if we did have chickens I would rather see them strutting freely (kind of) around the yard. As for the shed, only hobbits would be short enough to stand in it. If, even then. So, why was it built? I don't know, and I don't care to speculate about how it came to be built. When I heard a crow and saw a butterfly as we dismantled the structures, I knew that the Mama liked our decision. It felt good swinging the hammer and being constructively destructive. Pound! Pound! Grunt! Pound! GRUNT! Pound! Pound! The most physical activity

Today the sweet Husband turns a young 6 times 11. One, two, three, everyone— For he's a jolly good fellow. Happy Birthday to the Husband!! We're at the letter Y on ABC Wednesday , which means this round is nearly over. Wowza! Click here to check out other participants this week. Thank you, ABCW team!

Summer is time  for sunflowers to grow over our heads. Summer is for less time on the computer. Summer is time for the Husband to get his hair cut.  Summer is for playing outside—pretending to be  all sorts of things, including a super muscle man with his terry cloth cape. Today is time to hook up with All Seasons , a weekly meme hosted by Jesh of Artworks from Jesh StG. To check out other participants, please click here . Thank you, Jesh. 

"Tell me everything will be all right," I said to the Husband. "Everything will be all right," he said. I like to be reassured now and then. Molly the Cat looked over at me. "Everything will be Okay, Lady." Purrrrrrrrrrr. It's a day late for ABC Wednesday . Better late than never. Click here to check out the participants. Thanks, ABCW team!  Oh, the theme this week is the letter O.  

It's chaos. I'm not talking about what's going on in our country. My chaos is personal and oh so mundane, but real: The chaos I create when I want to move one thing. Just one lousy thing. Doesn't matter what it is, a lamp, a table, a bookcase, or a box of research. To move one thing requires moving a lot of other stuff—before, during, and after moving that one thing. This morning I wanted to move a short, almost empty bookcase from its temporary spot against the wall to a permanent place alongside my desk. A matter of three feet, if that. Step One: Move the bookcase and various piles of paper files, books, and boxes from beneath my desk and the other side of it to whatever surface is available and not in the path of moving objects. Step Two: Remove the floor lamp from the side of the desk to wherever it's not in the way. Step Three: Nudge little by little the desk (a sturdy pine kitchen table, so somewhat nudgable) more towards the wall. Step Four: Re

I like the ss-sss sound that comes by saying narcissuses. If only you could smell the fragrance of these narcissuses.  Mmmmmmmmm. The Husband bought them for me at the farmers market in Santa Cruz yesterday. Yes, it was sweet of him.  What was most sweet of the Husband was that he held my hand as he helped me hobble across the street to the parking lot.  

"We can't store the persimmons in the garage," I said to the Mama and the Husband at the lunch table one day. "There's an uh-toot ." The Mama laughed. "What's that?" the Husband asked. "A mouse," I said. Most likely I shuddered. Rodents give me the creeps.  " Uh-toot in Ilocano means mouse. Right, Mama?" " Uh-taut ," said Mama. "You have a funny pronunciation." " Uh-toot ," I said. " Uh-taut ." " Uh-toot ," said the Husband. "She's saying the same thing." The Mama smiled. " Uh-toot ," I said. "Be careful. If you say Ah-toot , you're talking about a fart." That conversation happened a few years back. Recently, I learned that the Ilocano word for mouse is bau , which I never heard the Mama or the Daddy use. I also found out that the spelling for fart is o-t-o-t.  The Mama considered mice as farts. Giggle. Toda

"You're a sweet cat," the Husband said. "I am not," said Molly the Cat. "Yes, you are." "I am not." "A very sweet kitty cat." "I am not! I'm a lion!"     "I'm a tiger!" "I'm a panther!"   "M-m-m-o-w-w-w-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!" "So there, Mister the Husband." Missy Molly by Golly and I are performing the letter P for ABC Wednesday . Giggle. Purrrrrrr.  Click here to visit more ABCW participants. Thank you, ABCW team!

This week's prompts are:  1) Starts with P   2) Week's favorite   3) Whole My knees have been a hindrance this week, which means I haven't taken any photos. So I've chosen a photo I took a few weeks ago when the Husband and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. Our present to each other was a soaring adventure! We each experienced a whole ride to ourselves in the glider plane.  It was a spectacular ride lasting about 35 or so minutes. In case it's not clear, P is for plane — the towing plane (the one at the bottom in the photo) and glider plane.  Heading into the sky is the Husband. It was a whole lot of fun!  Wheeeeeeeeeee! Friday's Hunt is a weekly meme hosted by Teresa of Eden Hills . Click here to check out other participants. Or, to join the fun.

London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. London Bridge is falling down. My Fair Lady. In first grade, we sang this Mother Goose rhyme as we marched under an arch formed by the joined hands of two kids. The hands came down on "My Fair Lady" and the two kids would then rock the captured kid between their locked hands, as we sang a verse about taking the key and locking the kid up. When that verse was over, either the captured kid chose a side and stood behind that kid or took that kid's place, after which, we marched and sang the rhyme again. I don't remember what the point of the game was. For that matter, what the rhyme was all about. After three or four rounds, I would look longingly at the playground, even willing to climb up the jungle gym. And, that I disliked to do. I didn't become curious about the London Bridge until 1975 when I learned that a rich American had bought the bridge and reconstructed it brick by brick on Lake Havasu i

The cues for this week are: 1) Starts with M  2) Week's Favorite  3) Work M is for marriage . The Husband and I celebrated 20 years of marriage on Friday by taking a glider ride.  M is also for more than a mile up into the sky, which is how high up we went.  The Husband and I each soared individually with Pilot Bill. The Husband flew to the west, while I flew to the east. I took lots and lots of photos. One of my favorite photos is the one of the little plane hard at work towing us in the sailplane towards the mountain ridge. When we got just above the ridge, Pilot Bill pressed a button to release the rope. Voila! We were sailing on the air at the greatest of ease. I loved it! Friday's Hunt is a weekly meme hosted by Teresa at Eden Hills . To check out other participants, please click here .

The cues for this week are: 1) Starts with J   2) Week's Favorite   3) Surprise J is for jaunt, which is what the Husband and I took last Saturday. We went over hills and down dales, around curves and straightways, and along creeks and through forests. Our goal was to purchase tomatoes at the u-pick-your-own organic farm in Santa Cruz County. It took longer to get there than to pick the nearly 50 pounds of tomatoes, of which most are now in the freezer waiting their turn to be part of some delicious recipe in the winter and spring. I simply wash the tomatoes, let them dry, pack them in bags, and freeze them. When it's time to use them, I put them straight in the pot to melt into the other ingredients. No fuss, no muss. That said, you would think my favorite photo this week would be of the tomatoes, the tomato fields, or the Husband frolicking through the fields picking tomatoes. Nope. I was to busy plucking the juicy fruit myself to think of clicking away. My favorit

The cues for Friday's Hunt this week are: 1. Starts with I   2. Week's favorite   3. Pink So, here's my week's favorite picture: The pink-faced Husband quickly inserting himself into the photo I was taking of the apples and lemons that I harvested from our trees.  I love that silly guy. Friday's Hunt is a weekly meme hosted by Teresa at Eden Hills. To check out the other participants, please click here .

The other day, the Husband and I drove around Pajaro Valley in Santa Cruz County (next door to our county) just because we felt like it. The fertile Pajaro Valley has fields full of strawberries, cages full of raspberries and blackberries, and still a few orchards full of apples. We stopped at Gizdich Ranch , which is well-known for its apple juice and homemade apple and berry pies. You can also pick your own apples and various types of berries, if you want.  Our mission. My mission (the Husband was a captive audience) was to purchase hollyhock seeds. Unfortunately none were to be had yet. But, we did come away with four cobs of corn for a dollar and a look at a bunch of fancy buggy-looking Bugatti's that one of the guys said were each worth $2 million+. The Bugatti guys (5 or 6 of them) caused a traffic jam at the ranch. Not because they couldn't find parking spots, from what I saw, but because the drivers and passengers stood in the path of us, drivers, trying to fin

The cues for this week's Friday's Hunt , hosted by Teresa of Eden Hills , are: 1) Starts with F  2) Week's Favorite  3) Shiny It's been a busy week—high school class reunion stuff (45 years! Tonight is our dinner-dance.)—so I'm doing a stretch with my entry by using a photo I've posted last year. This morning I was looking at the print of it on our kitchen wall and thinking this is one of my favorite photos. Light bulb! I have my week's favorite photo. Some of you are familiar with the Husband, and maybe even this photo. There you go: Familiar . Shiny —the sunlight reflecting on the creek. To check out other entries for Friday's Hunt , click here .  Gotta run. See ya.

  Snort. Hahahahaha. I doubt that I'll ever not laugh when I look at this photo. Two years ago, the Husband and I were doing a self-guided greenhouse tour. I'd barely parked the car and turned off the engine when the Husband jumped out, saying, "Take a photo of me." "Be sure to get the sign," he said.  Hahahahahahaha.   The Husband let me enter the photo in the humor photo category at our county fair that year.  My caption was: "Deranged— U pon arriving at yet another tour, the husband became deranged."  Yup. I won a blue ribbon for it. My first ever.  I love the Husband! Time to hook up with  ABC Wednesday . Today is all about the letter D. Click here to join in and/or to read what other bloggers from around the world are posting today. 

I thought today is Friday. I'm a few chapters into The Coincidence of Coconut Cake by Amy E. Reichert.  I'm enjoying it and it's so easy to read because the writing is seamless. The surgeon removed the week-old bandage covering the incision that marks the spot where the Husband's pacemaker was inserted last week. "You're good to go," said the surgeon. Hurrah! Why are some people okay about their neighbors being able to hear their music, conversation, and screaming grandkids clear as a bell from their backyard? I found three bags full of the brother's children's clothes in the Mama's closet. They've been there for at least 25 years, when the brother's wife put them in the bags to throw out. Somehow the Mama got her hands on them before she could. 

"The surgeon will make an incision in my chest." "Do you think it will be an X?" I asked. The Husband laughed. I think he laughed. I'll say he laughed. I want him to have laughed. Tomorrow morning, a surgeon will make an incision in the Husband's chest and install a pacemaker. Yup. A pacemaker.  The results of the remote heart-monitor the Husband wore for two weeks showed that every now and then his heart flat-lines for several seconds. Not good at all. Thank goodness this problem was caught now rather than much later and that there is a ready solution. And, thank goodness we have a proactive doctor who cares for his patients and is willing to make insurance companies authorize things immediately. The Husband is ready as ready can be for this procedure. I cut his hair and trimmed his beard so the surgeon and his team wouldn't get annoyed at all that hair, especially his beard. How much hair? It filled the vacuum cleaner's canister