Monday's Missives

A joke is to say as you float the Brazos, Around this next bend is a place where you can get a haircut and a shave. OK, so maybe you would have to be there and regardless- I didn't say it was a funny joke.

• At work voicemails often are stored as saved when I have not listened to my messages or even touched the phone. It will do this when my email inbox to which the voicemail is tied is not nearly full and when there is only the one  message in question saved and no others. Also, my phone rings- I can hear it coming from my phone- right in front of me but an incoming call does not appear on the screen and if I pick up no one will be there. Good luck trying to convince anybody of all that weirdness when I miss an important call or fail to return an important voicemail.
• My dividend from REI is worth over 100 bucks.

  

  Somebody at work has someone in her family that believes in a all that essential oils nonsense. Consequently I ended up with some for my back. Did it help? No don't be ridiculous- but it was nice of her. I won't say what the contents made me think of when I first saw it.
• Today (12/18/2015) was the office Xmas party. I would have rather taken a beating. 

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  As a subtle form of rebellion I sometimes wear this t shirt under my scrubs at work.

  
  

  

  When I feel tired and/or beat down I sometimes wear these underwear. Yes, I have power panties- don't all the ladies?

• It seems as though my most recent attempt at a relationship is over. Of course the relatively expensive Xmas gift I ordered her online is on the way as I write this and gifts for both myself and my children are under the tree- at her place.
• A bad supervisor story: Once, after a patient left my office I hosed everything down with some air freshener. As I sprayed some in the door frame said supervisor (who was literally sneaking up to try and bust me goofing off) suddenly appeared in front of me. Needless to say the supervisor took a full face blast of industrial strength freshness. I felt awful and told my nursing buddies about it in what was I suppose a more or less confessional act?  During the telling and retellings 100% of the time  there was laughter and I was literally applauded.
• One hundred percent.
• When I put myself in that supervisor's shoes if nothing else I think, I would hate to know anybody would ever think or feel that way about me.

  

  Weird: the female grackle in the foreground chased a bunch of other birds away from another female. She then picked up  a piece of bread and gave it to the second.

  
  

  

  Here, she chases another group of birds away from a water puddle to allow the other bird to get a drink. I have never seen behavior like that before and would have thought a person telling of seeing it happen ridiculously anthropomorphic.

Monday's Missives

Piece of plastic found in my Panda Express teriyaki chicken, Mmmm... plastic-ie.

There is a lot going there for a sticker I found on a banana. It looks vaguely comminist. I don't trust it.

My patients love me.

• Recently through an odd, and tortuous route I was reminded of an old girlfriend. She is a very gifted salesperson. A component to the story is I was reminded of a  product she marketed by seeing part of a dumb unrelated infomercial and using that as a basis for a little online stalking got back in touch with her by Email.
• She was glad to hear from me ( she even mentioned recently trying to contact me by an old cel number) but isn't it a little weird you can randomly stalk people like that these days?
• A connected thought: I haven't had that cel number in years- how could it not have been taken by somebody else by now?
• Another connected thought: I hadn't spoken to that woman in a few years and hadn't even thought of her in a long time and within 2 weeks of thinking of her and attempting a contact she did the same for me?!

  

  Green mamba some idiot collector released or rough green snake?!

  
  

  

  Hmmmm...

  
  

  

  Still smiling 5 minutes after being bitten- probably rough green snake.

  
  
  
  
  

  

  Baby eagle found on the ground after a storm. I call him Popeye as apparently fire ants found him before I did and ate his eyeball. He keeps the rat and squirrel population down around my place.

• PS the above child was not bitten by the snake and that is not an eagle named Popeye who feasts on rats and squirrels around my house.
• I call him Murica!
• Normally I have my children on Wednesday nights but won't tonight as their mother and I traded some days around. I am simultaneously relieved I don't have them and ashamed for feeling that way.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  My kids are good fishers

  
  
  
  
• A black friendly acquaintance is aware that my children are pretty widely separated by age and has heard me during the course of conversations mention my adopted child's mother (without mentioning said child is adopted). Consequently, she has gotten it in her head that they all have different mothers and says things to me that start with, Do any of you baby mamas ever...?

  

  My children have played chess against John Malkovich

• As of this writing (09/09/2015) I recently was asked by a woman with whom I have been spending time (WWWIHBST) the number of sex partners I have  had throughout my young life. When I told her the number she reacted with shock that bordered on disgust. Some things are none of your business and if you don't get the answer you were looking for- why did you ask in the first place?

  

  Aside from being a bowling ball with glass baubles glued to it I don't know what this is but yeah- we live in  world where a bowling ball with glass baubles glued to it would absolutely be stolen from the Botanic Gardens in Fort Worth were it not chained and padlocked to the ground.

• So exactly who are, Richard Stoltzman, Bob Acri and Mr. Scruff anyway?

Monday's Missives

Persimmons. I take a lot of pics of persimmons don't I? They capture my attention for some reason.

Mmmmm, let me see here- about some nice fish or a crawdad this morning...

Creepy cactus bugs being all creepy and buggie.

Turd roller be rollin'.

• Those skinny leg suits with the 2 sizes too small jackets models are wearing look about as ridiculous as the black NFL football players hair weaves. In 20 years will people make fun of them both or be too terrified of looking like they hate black and gay people?
• FG and her dumb cat were lying by and on me on the couch earlier- wallowing all over me as we say. As I was thinking about how dumb he is and how much I hated his guts he looked at me and said, Meow! He then reached his paw out at me and touched my belly and laid his head against my arm and dozed off. FG then hugged my other arm and said, You are soooo snuggly. This is nice.
• Will I miss all that when it is over?
• Built To Kill: what we're watching (01/11/2015).

  

  What The?! What hit that car- a boat?

  
  

  

  At a local business. The funny thing is- this is the second time I've seen a vehicle stuck up on that rock.
• I just (01/12/2015) got back from visiting a friend in a physical therapy rehab facility. If I'm lying- I'm dying, she is in the same room- same bed that one of my last hospice patients croaked in. She is across the hall from a famous person's relative I cared for and when we turned down that hall I was sure we were going to take a right and be in that room. Nope- we took a left into the room of death (the famous person's relative didn't die while under my care).
• Just don't tell her please- it would freak her out.

  

  Have I shown you this pic before? Murica!

  
  

  

  A pen I carried during The War.

• One of those weird things that I can't forget: Some people with lymphoma will experience pain at the site(s) of their affected lymph nodes. The number of patients is low (probably less than 30%) but of those, the pain may be excruciating and exquisite (meaning it will be bad,  happen every time and with as little as one drink). A funny thing about the way those little tidbits work is, it would be worthless [and ridiculous] to use a shot of tequila for a part of a battery of tests but if a patient tells a doctor or nurse their armpit hurts after a random shot or glass of wine- that ought to get some attention.

  

  Found in the bottom of a box in my storage. Murica!

• Things I learned about my self and others during a long period of abstinence: In regards to the opposite sex- if you want more sex than you ever had in your life apparently let it be known you don't want to have sex until you're married. Not that it happened every day but multiple women begged me to have the seks with them. When it came to my understanding of myself one woman was good with no sex although we spent lots of time together. Thoughtlessly, I would walk out of a restroom in my underwear to change to go swimming or go out. There was a mutual attraction so it isn't like I totally disrespected her and looked at her as if she had the perceived sex appeal of a houseplant or whatever but I didn't think anybody could get that worked up over me. She said to the effect, No sex is fine- for now if that is what you want but you can't keep strolling around here in your underwear- it drives me nuts and I get all worked up and you know it and it isn't right.
  
• Today (01/19/2015) as I drove down 183 toward Mineral Wells I saw a  goober from from Roger Williams check traffic to his left and right with his hand shading his eyes from the glare of the sun. He did this apparently without realizing his having to do this meant drivers would be similarly affected.  He stepped in front of me right when the glare hit me the worst and I only caught him out of the corner of my eye- and I mean barely. I slammed on my brakes and steered away from him while honking the horn. He waved with a goofy passive-aggressive grin and kept walking. 
• Keep it cute homes. 
• You are literally only alive because I'm such a good driver and you were nearly dead because you are oblivious.
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  In front of an antique store in Mineral Wells.

• Once you know somebody with a dementia such as Alzheimer's you can pick others out of a crowd similarly affected- even by looking at a picture. They just have that look.

Wednesday's Digressions

• It appears we are going to normalize relations with Cuba. My respect for President Obama just went up a notch with that news. Aside from our failed drug war I cannot imagine a more outdated  and counterproductive (much less counter intuitive) policy than our prior isolation Cuba. It was motivated by politics- to keep from offending voters who haven't lived in Cuba for 20-50 years and an odd vengeance toward Cuba for our own failed policies and misadventures there. If we're interested in human rights- let them get more of a taste for free enterprise and at least help more Cubans have more US travel and trade dollars.
• A related thought: The Castros can't live forever.
• Another related thought: President Obama sticking to his guns and thawing our relations with Cuba will be seen as a great accomplishment that will help more Cubans in every way than our past 50 years of fail ever did.
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  From brother in laws garage

• An interesting video from ANNA news of a Syrian Arab Army armored unit maneuvering in urban terrain. Those guys are good. They must have a decent institutional memory and way of disseminating lessons learned and/or there are a lot of guys who have been on the front waaaaay too long.
• The world lost one of my favorite historical figures in 2014- Hiroo Onada. Among my favorite things about him is when he came home he refused to cash his back paychecks and run for political office (although he was insanely popular). My maybe least favorite thing about him is in his memoir of his time fighting a war that was 30 years over he neglects to mention the dozens of people he killed from the time the war ended until he was repatriated. Norio Suzuki figures in his story and is also a favorite character from world history. He set out as he said to," find Lieutenant Onada, a panda and the abominable snowman- in that order." After finding Hiroo he quickly followed that up by finding a panda. He would be killed in an avalanche in the Himalayas in 1986 looking for the elusive Yeti and that is why I love him.
• A couple of different articles I have read have wondered aloud if the US government is responsible for North Korea's internet outage. My guess is you would have more likelihood catching the culprit if you rounded up all the 14 year olds in San Mateo County California.
• Israel has been catching flak for treating wounded jihadis coming out of Syria. The same people would be be calling Israel out for being monsters if they stood idly by and refused to treat them.

  

  No matter

  
  

  

  what

  
  

  

  we just need people to know.

Notes From The Road

My new titanium spork has a bottle opener attached. I don't know when I would use it as such but it made a good tent stake puller

• Roswell cop cars are ugly.
• There weren't as many Mexican radio stations out that way as I thought there would be.
• A lot of the towns had a concert venue and/or performing arts center of some type. We just missed Clint Black and Don Edwards was coming some time after we left.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  Inside Artesia's visitors center. I couldn't get an answer why a safe needed a press attached to it.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Academically I knew NM was a big state for agriculture but I had to see it to believe it- cotton and grain fields that went on for mile after mile and stretched to the horizon in every direction.
• There weren't as many people there as I thought there would be from Texas.
• We didn't see any javelinas except in a zoo. There were plenty of animals though. I saw one rattlesnake and more lizards than I have seen in my entire life.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The little zoo in Roswell is free and well worth it. Prairie dogs burrow right along the walking paths.
• We didn't make it to Lincoln National Park or the attractions in Lincoln County- there was just too much to see and do. We flat ran out of time.