Hi ya! Hey ya! Hope all's well with ya. All is well with us. I've been reaching into my archives the last several days so I can play catch up around the house. "I'll do it tomorrow." has finally reared itself into today.  Such is retirement. :-) Have fun out there. I'll be back with a new post tomorrow. Today's post was first published on April 26, 2014. ============ I knew the pet store was to the left, so I turned left.  "I think it's to the right," said the Husband, sitting in the passenger seat. "No, it's this way," I said, firm in my belief. "I think it's back that way," the Husband said, firm in his belief. "No." "Yes." "I'll bet you it's this way," I said. "I don't want to bet money," he said. "Jumping jacks," I said. "When you lose, you do 10 jumping jacks." "Okay," he said. Here, dear readers,

Hi ya! Hey ya! Hope all's well with ya. All is well with us. I'm reaching into my archives for the next several days so I can play catch up around the house. "I'll do it tomorrow." has finally reared itself into today.  Such is retirement. :-) Have fun out there. Today's post (edited) was first published on May 13, 2010.  Yes,  this really did happen. ============ Ding dong. "Who can that be?" asked the husband, not getting up from his desk. I scrambled up from mine and down the stairs.  Not another salesperson from the carpet cleaning or bug zapping service, I hoped. I also didn't want to find someone clutching slick campaign material. Most likely no religious people; they rarely show up around dinner time. Aw, gee. What if it was a friend? The husband and I bought hot dogs at the Farmers Market for dinner, only enough for the Mama and us. Our front door was open, but the security door was locked. "Hello," I called f

I'm reaching into my archives for today's post. It was originally published on April 24, 2015. See ya tomorrow. Earlier this month, the Husband and I entertained ourselves while he washed dishes and I dried them. The result was a rundown of the utensil choir. This is the make up of the choir, according to the Husband, a musician at heart. The soup spoon sings bass.   The special spoon, which is a Korean soup spoon, sings baritone.   Teaspoons sing soprano, while tablespoons sing alto or tenor.   Forks sing four-part harmony, of course. Salad forks? Three-part harmony! Knives are tone deaf. When they sing, the sound cuts to the heart. I didn't want the knives to feel left out, so I let them hold the music sheet for everyone.

  This was in 1996 (or 1997) in our backyard at our first home together. We had an awesome view of San Francisco Bay and, behind the Husband and all that greenery, of San Francisco. It had been about 20 years since either of us lived in a house. What a luxury that was. No flights of stairs to carry groceries, packages, or laundry. Open the front door and sit on an actual porch. Until sound walls were built by the freeway a few miles below us, we heard no traffic. And, we had a huge backyard with nothing in it so we could transform it into anything we wanted. Yes, definitely a wonderful first home for us to get used to each other. Doesn't the Husband look cute? In college, he was given the nickname "Farmer Dick" by his friends. Not because he was a farmer, but because he wore overalls a lot.  (That's another thing the Husband and I had in common when we were young.)  He makes a handsome farmer, the Husband does, so I say. I'm linking up with All Season

"Here comes another oh-nay lah-nay bridge," said the Husband. We were driving on a windy road somewhere on the island of Hawaii a long time ago. "Oh-nay lah-nay?" "See, oh-nay lah-nay," the Husband said, gesturing towards the yellow sign we were passing. "Oh." That's one of the infinite reasons I'm with the Husband. A few hours ago, we drove over two, maybe three oh-nay lah-nay bridges while we meandered the country roads a few miles from home.

Life is good. Yesterday my retirement check got deposited and our health insurance and car insurance premiums got paid. Today we went to Costco and splurged on beer, potato chips, pesto sauce, potstickers, toilet paper, and Brita filters. Oh my goodness, we even bought a carpet runner for the hallway. Am I being sarcastic? Facetious? I don't know anymore. The Husband and I are now in the category of retired seniors on limited income, so buying groceries at Costco today felt like a luxury. Going home, I found myself justifying the purchases by figuring how much we saved by buying in bulk.   Going through life with the responsible happy-a-go-lucky Husband makes living less scary. I truly believe him when I ask him to tell me "Everything will be all right." The Husband thinks that people ought to eat well because it helps maintain good health. Why should we deprive ourselves of good health, regardless of our income, right? Yup. Life is good. At the moment the Husb

I got to wondering: Are we so healthy that the doctors have nothing to do but administer medication for the flu? I find it curious that when we get the flu, our tendency is to see the doctor or go to the emergency room for an antidote to the virus. It used to be when we got the flu and saw the doctor, he would try not to scoff at us. "It's just the flu," he'd say. "Go home, get plenty of rest, drink lots of fluids, and cover your mouth, for gosh sake, when you cough or sneeze." Well, the doctor wouldn't forsake the gosh, or, if he did, at least not say it out loud." Same thing with the cold. I think the doctor would actually look at us with disdain, but he would've covered his scowl by puffing out cigarette smoke, if those old movies are to be believed that doctors smoked cigarettes while seeing their patients. The difference between having a cold and the flu? To me, the Husband is quite a lot more miserable when he has the flu. Over th

I've heard the Husband say at least twice how much he enjoyed his roast beef sandwich for breakfast this morning. I generally figure every morning that I'll be having a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast. Easy-peasy, you know. Some mornings I surprise the Husband and me by making a hot breakfast. I hadn't planned on it today but I started flipping through a cookbook  because I decided to weed out the cookbook collection. After all how many cookbooks do I need when I'm not one to follow a recipe the way it's written? I didn't know I had a Costco cookbook (I wonder if I got it for free). It has lots of cool photos illustrating short and delicious-sounding recipes from big-time chefs such as Mary Esposito and Jamie Oliver. I found a recipe towards the end of the cookbook that inspired today's breakfast. Coincidentally, the Husband walked into the kitchen as the oven light bulb lit over my head. The poor Husband. I often, if not nearly almost, don't c

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