Sumtimes it just rains on a Sat'iday no matter what....

“You pray for rain, y’gotta deal with the mud too.” Denzel Washington

I don’t recall the first time I heard sumone say, “If you want a thing done right, you should do it yourself.”

I think children take that kind of stuff to heart ‘n grow up believing the things that old people tell ‘em..

Problem is, over the years, I’ve learned that things get done no matter what my imput wuz...(‘course, whether they get done right or not is a matter always open for discourse)...

I ‘uz looking out the window at the south forty all green ‘n overgrown with the Spring rains ‘n wuz thinking that if the sun wuz shining ‘n if I felt a little more energetic ‘n if I had all the proper tools, why I c’d just go out there ‘n mow ‘n chop ‘n dig ‘n plant ‘n maybe shift some stones around from here to there ‘n maybe put in a couple little gnomes ‘n garden benches...ah but then I got tired ‘n dawned on my that Mother Nature is a far better gardener than I’ll ever be ‘n what I should ackshully do is stay out of Her way...

maybe put on a raincoat ‘n walk the dogs down the street...a simple task for the simple-minded (sighhhhhh)...

My good buddy Vic just turned 75 t’other day...if he wuz one ‘a the seven dwarves, he’d be Grouchy or wuzzat Grumpy...’course, he’s one of them believers in doing stuff hisownself ‘cuz he likes it done to his own personal specifications while I’m just as comfortable with factory specs...I dunno ~ if I wuz one ‘a them seven dwarves if I’d be Happy or Dopey but seems like no matter what, I’d still only get t’be one a’ the Indians ‘n never a Chief...

And while it’s the Chiefs that go down in hist’ry, seems like an awful lot of ‘em come to the end of the road sudden-like ‘n it’s the common folk that hist’ry is really about even if they can’t get all the names straight...

And if they sumhow did manage to get all the names in the book, there wudn’t be space for anything else...be sort’a like reading a telephone book (which is rapidly reaching dodo bird status anyways)...

“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, y’gotta put up with the rain.” Dolly Parton

Justin Other rainy day.....

“Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” Oscar Wilde

Ah, t'is ‘a fine soft day’ as the Irish are reputed to say about their weather...

I don’t know m’self, never having been to Ireland but the ‘wee touch o’ Heaven’ as it’s celebrated in song ‘n story owes the name ‘Emerald Isle’ to a super abundance of rain...’n it’s certainly emerald around Ol Fair Oaks these daze as our driest winter on record has become a forgotten weather issue...

‘Course, it’s a really nice rain, soft ‘n gentle, none of those wind-driven storms that shake the windows of the olde manor house ‘n the streets ain’t full of palm fronds that like to go sailing when the wind is up...Ol Fair Oaks sits on sumthin’ of a ridge but the rain water is pooling in the soggy bottoms around us ‘n we ain’t likely t’see any more snooze-nooze stories featuring a dry ‘n dusty Folsom Lake...at least for awhile anyways...what we’ll get now is overflowing creeks ‘n flooded roads ‘n wanna-be Anchors in rain gear ‘n ev’ry station that c’n afford it’ll have sumbody up at Blue Canyon marvelling at the height, depth ‘n breadth of the snow...Ah well! As ye olde farmers are wont t’say, “We need the rain.”

I expect Al Goracle’ud blame it all on climate change...

“Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.” Mark Twain

Justin Other Rainy Day.....

"Spring makes everything young again except man."

- Richter

The weatheer can’t seem to make up its mind this year...we had a tee-shirt winter ‘n now that it’s Spring, it’s rainy ‘n cold ‘n a good day for soup..

Well, according to Millyrose, that is ‘n I’m certainly okay with it...

Came out of Trader Joes with a bag full of groceries...I ‘uz all bundled up, cap pulled down ‘n collar turned up on the mac but an errant raindrop rolled down the back of my neck...

Ah well, it ain’t rainin’ rain, y’know, it’s raining tall grass ‘n weeds ‘n when the sun comes out ‘n dries ever’thing up, we’ll be set for a prime fire season...price we pay, I s’poze for living in Paradise...

"It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!"

- Mark Twain

Justin Other Sunday....

”Y’know, we humans are the only critters able to behave irrationally in the name of reason.”

We (the royal we) overloaded the Maytag which ain’t unheard of...I expect it prob’ly happens in the best of fam’lies...anyways, it came to a sudden halt with a THUMP ‘n the smell of burning rubber...

“Prob’ly a belt” I says a heckuva lot more confidently than I ackshully felt...”I’ll take care of it while you’re off to the big city t’morra...(Herself ‘n son Dave headed off to Oakland for a 5 ‘n a half hour silent movie ~ hobnobbing with the literati)...

I walked past the durn thing a couple times...I’da circled it but it’s nestled safely in a nook...I got on the ‘net ‘n tried to research the cussed thing but no luch atall...finally, I wrestled it out of it’s nook, cussed at it ‘n gave it a good shaking ‘n talking to (got that talking to thing from Mom Smith ‘n it always worked really well for her...heck! I’da much rather took a whuppin’..)

Anyways, I dunno if it wuz the talking to or the shaking or the cussing or maybe even the couple little kicks I gave it but when I plugged it back in, it worked...

Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I Tebowed the incident, washed a couple loads of wash ‘n walked da boyz down the street...God’s in his Heaven ‘n all’s right with the world!

I heard on the telly that Tiger Woods finally won a tournament...use’ta be when men cussed ‘n beat the ground with sticks, it called witchcraft...Today, it’s called golf.

Insomniac musings....

"I wonder if insomnia is just an excuse for afternoon naps."

Ever’bodys talking about the high price of gasoline but nobodys doing anything about it...might s’well be talking about the weather...

Mostly, people are blaming speculators for driving up the price of gasoline but blaming gamblers for betting on anything is like counting flies in a Georgia barbershop on a hot summers day...it helps to pass the time but it don’t do anything about the flies...

I reckon if the New York Stock Exchange could’a made a profit in the futures market by speculating on the weather, it’d been a done deal long ago...

I woke up about an hour ago thinking about Santorum 'n wond'ring if maybe he ain't been a Chicago Machine operative all along...an out of office politician is an awful lot like an out of work actor, they'll pretty much take any job that comes along...'n wudn't it be a funny thing if the 'Dirty Tricks Democrats' had hired him to drive a wedge between Romney 'n Gingrich only to find out that he somehow had managed to become a viable candidate on his own...talk about win-win...'course, Bob Beckel 'ud say that they ain't that smart but since it popped up in my ibuprofen dreams, it can't be that smart even if it almost worked...

That's sort'a like the scenario my Bro John came up with for McCains loss in the last election...he thinks McCain deliberately threw the election 'cuz he didn't want t'be in the hotbird seat when the economy went south...I don't think McCain is that smart but if you've been reading my blogs, you should have a pretty good idea that I ain't ever been the brightest bulb on the tree...

An ephiphaninous state....

Have you ever had an ephiphany while sleeping that left you wide awake with the feeling that you just had to immediately get out'a bed 'n write it down so that you c'd share it with the world....

You can't really control your dreams ~ that wuz one 'a the problems with LSD, if you'll recall...the 'bad trips' dominated the news while the controlled 'n monitored 'trips' went mostly unheraldefd (what a word ~ means untrumpeted)...anywaze, LSD for all the fanfare turned out t'be basically a dead-end trip (occasionally literally but that's another story as Moustache wuz fond'a saying)...('n if you don't get my obscure asides from old movies, tuff! shrugggg)

But getting back to those uncontrollable dreams, I had a really, really deep 'n insightful dream about the Obama/Clinton/Chicago Machine that wuz terrifying (sort'a like Orwell's 'Animal Farm' which is basically a gothic horror story ~ makes you wonder about his dreams)...

I blame the current state of my dreams on the lingering effects of my recent cold (an upper respitory infection graciously provided me by my choice of bed partners)...anywaze, the combination of low-grade fever, assorted pain medications, etcetera led to a semi-somnambulant state of self-inflicted near comatosity on my part that allowed my brain to wander Enterprise-like thru the infinite universe that constitutes our imagination; to wit, I dreamt!

And, of course, having dreamt throughout my minor hibernation, I have awakened 'n now find m'self in my more normal state of insomnia which brought me to this somewhat Kerouacian outpouring regarding the dreamscape of an aging mind...

And if you've actually bothered to read this far, welcome to the asylum...

God save the Queen, flush the damn toilet 'n go back to bed!

Izzit feed a cold 'n starve a fever of vice versa????

When I wuz younger, I wanted t'be sumbody...now I know I should'a been more specific...

Be'n sleepin' the last couple daze...whatever it wuz that Millyrose had, she passed it along t'me....

Got a nice tortoise cat livin' in the south forty 'er maybe she just hunts there 'n sleeps in the basement (sumtimes in the rocking chair on the front porch) but she eats up the street at nabor Dougs manse...he named her Jasper at first but after the catladies picked her up 'n had her spayed, he changed her name to Jassy...

I'm thinkin' that it works out real well for us as we have a cat that patrols our property 'n we don't have to feed her...

The lady next door has two or three cats, not sure perzackly...she has a large blue cat 'n a young striped cat fer sure....she also got a Chow dog that since moving to the neighborhood has managed to dispatch three chickens...not a lot of chickens hangin' out in her backyard anymore...(sighhh) guess they've all moved into our south forty...

Ah well, live 'n let live, I al'lus say...well, maybe not always but often enuff..

The reason I talk to m'self so much is my answers are the only ones I pretty much agree with......

"The best way to find out if you c'n trust somebody is to trust them..."

At least it ain't raining at the moment ~ walking da boyz thru a wet landscape ain't quite as bad as walking 'em in the rain ~ they get muddy feet that have t'be wiped off 'cuz dogs're like little boyz 'n they simply won't learn to wipe their feet but since they don't get wet all over, they don't have that wet-dog smell that seems to permeate their surroundings...

Ronald Reagan said, "Trust, but verify!" Seems t'me that Barack Obama's kind'a failed on that verify part.....

Obama sez now that the high gas prices ain't his fault but I seem to recall 'way back when he said, "Energy costs will skyrocket!" I personally don't understand why you can't have wind 'n solar power right along with all those nasty fossil fuels that wuz such a big part of making this country a world power but those progressive liberals put a lot of emphasis on 'their way or the highway'...trubble is, their way don't seem t'be any highway ~ guess we're all s'pozed to ride those high-speed trains from coast to coast without ever stopping to smell the roses in the middle of the country...the Obama economic plan seems t'be, if two wrongs don't make a right, try three...

It's my belief that the only promise Obama has kept is his promise to raise the price of gas but then he said that it didn't make any sense that a sitting President 'ud raise the price of gasoline while running for re-election...I guess those evil republicans who are already conspiring to disenfranchise women 'n minority voters while accusing our first black President of class warfare have also rigged the gas prices just to make Obama look bad....

To paraphrase an old riverboat pilot on gettin' older ~ "I been thru sum turrible things in my life, sum of which ackshully happened."

Relativity in politics....

"If you walk the dogs in the rain, you end up with wet feet 'n stinky dogs..."

Da boyz don't really care what the weather is like when they want'a go for a stroll but old men like me do...t'is raining here in Ol Fair Oaks...a steady, soaking rain tho it ain't too cold...so I bundled up in my hat 'n new raincoat that has been hanging in the hall closet all winter 'n ambled down the street t'see what's happening in the world here on Crestline Ave...

Santorum won in Alabama 'n Mississippi...cudn't happened in them 'golden oldies'....a yankee 'N a Catholic at that ~ durn near blasphemous in the Olde South...'course, even with Santorum winning those two states of mind, Romney still sumhow got more delegates...just proved that Mae West gave good advice...she said that between two evils she always picked the one she hadn't tried before...

In American politics, it seems like superflous is the only real necessity 'n Republicans got a real superfluity goin' for them this year as recent polls show ev'erbody vying for the Republican nomination c'd beat Obama...tain't really true, y'know...he's doing a wunnerful job of beating hisownself at the moment...y'gotta hope he keeps up the good work...

'Course, all things are relative 'n if nobody has ever explained the theory of relativity to you....when you're making out with a really hot girl, an hour seems like seconds; when you sit on a hot stove, a second seems like an hour.

'n the rains came......

It is no use to grumble and complain; It's just as cheap and easy to rejoice; When God sorts out the weather and sends rain - Why, rain's my choice.
James Whitcomb Riley


Well, the rain got here after all...when I struggled out'a bed this A.M. (at the behest of Willie who, when he has t'go, has t'go)...we walked out the door 'n I took shelter under the orange tree 'cuz the raindrops were coooooold...'n just begining...

The Bender Boy told us last nite that we were gonna have at least a week of winter 'n that it was gonna begin at 2:00 A.M. with the wind rattling the windows prior to the rain that wuz gonna be at least a couple inches over the course of the week (that's a lot of rain for this area) 'n feet of snow on the mountain (I'm completely alright with snow on the mountain 'cuz I tend to stay off the mountain this time of year anyways)...well, I wuz awake at 2:00 in the A.M. 'n the wind didn't blow...it didn't blow at 3:00 or 4:00 or 5:00 but then I fell asleep until Willie woke me a little after 8:00 (still haven't seen any sign of heavy winds but t'is raining ~ off 'n on, here 'n there)...

'n becuz I just can't let such a gloomy day go by without a p'litical comment:

Winston Churchill defined a fanatic as one who can't change his mind 'n won't change the subject....

Still waitin' for the rain...

Just read an interesting statistic: 3/4 of the people make up 75% of the population...

The clouds rolled in yest'iday 'n you c'd smell that we wuz gonna have rain...'course, here in northern California that don't necessary signify...sumtimes it looks like rain but it just jumps right over us 'n goes on to the rest of the country...happens all the time no matter what the forecasters say 'n s'long as we get snow in the Sierra, it don't matter all that much except maybe if we get a little moisture here, we get that Spring green that looks so good 'n grows so fast 'n turns so brown when it dries up 'n turns into that extreme fire hazard that costs so much money 'n provides jobs for all the firefighters...specially when we always, several times a year anyway, get sumbody who makes sure that we get fires along the American River Parkway...

When I wuz a boy, there wuz a certain sumbody (even after all these years, I ain't gonna say who) who use'ta set fires to the hills becuz he believed that burning out the underbrush improved the squirrel hunting...

Anyways, I think that leaving weather control to God is prob'ly a good move even if we do get some pretty nasty storms now 'n then...'course, in this secular world we're living in t'day, there's a lot of people who think the guv'mint should take control...with the guv'mint in charge they c'ud make it a lot more 'fair'...that seems t'be Obama's fav'rit catch phrase anyways...makin' thing 'more fair'...ain't sure how he'd go about it but I figger those blue Democrat states 'ud get that southern California weather 'n them red Republican states 'ud all get t'be more like North Dakota...

I b'leeve it wuz Mark Twain 'n Will Rogers who famously stated several times that "everybody complains about the weather but nobody ever does anything about it."

Waiting for God....

"The trouble with weather forecasting is that it's right too often for us to ignore 'n wrong too often to rely on."

So...first day of DST 'n it's looked like rain all day...well, it's s'pozed to rain here 'n snow on the mountain but I ain't seen a drop all day...'course, if I wuz to get in the car 'n go to the store, it'ud prob'ly rain on me...or if I wuz to wash the car, it'ud most definitely rain but since I ain't done neither of those things, it's staying dry...I'm thinkin' it's a personal thing between the weather 'n me...

After a little prodding from Millyrose (who is enjoying a sick day) I did go out in the side yard 'n finish digging the holes for the nine lavender plants 'n stuck 'em all in the ground...

Just waiting for the rain now so's I don't have to water them but the durn rain ain't coming yet...sure as sin, if I wuz to water them plants, it'ud pour down rain...

The DST has the dogs confused...it's really past time for their evening walk but they don't know it so I'm still sitting here...I c'd be watching the snooze-nooze but that's even more boring than waiting for the rain...

Ackshully, a little rain here ain't a bad thing but what we really need is a lot of snow up on the mountain. A lot of people really like snow but far's I'm concerned, it's just an unnecessary freezing of water...

"Be miserable or not, it's your choice."

Spring ahead....for the times, they are a-changing...(a little Bob Zimmerman for the golden oldies)...One of them talking heads on teevee said that we should stay up tonite until 2:00 A.M. so that we could set our clocks ahead an hour because Daylight Savings Time is upon us once't ag'in...a governmental solution to a non-existent problem 'cuz sumbody long, long ago decided that we needed more daylight hours in the evenings than what we needed in the mornings...makes for them long summer evenings that people so love to reminisce about...but, y'know, nostalgia ain't what it use'ta be....

I wuz s'pozed t'be working in the yard, clipping 'n raking 'n such 'n planting sum fl'ars (Ky speak for flowers) but I filled up both my green waste containers plus one of my neighbors 'n I still got stuff left over 'n I ain't hardly begun on Hell's half-acre yet...so what I did wuz take da boyz for a walk again...for the fourth time t'day...

Down on the main drag, on the corner of our one 'n only real intersection in our little village, there wuz a little girl (10 or 12 or thereabouts) standing on a bench with a music box at her feet 'n a karaoke mike in her hand singin' her heart out...me 'n da boyz walked down t'other side of the street 'n around the block 'n she wuz still there singing when we came back....far's I know, she's still there but my feet hurt 'n the dogs are hungry....

"There's a 'hull lot'a definitions for stupid; One is believing that what you already know is enuff!"

A little north wind.....

"The older you get, the stronger the wind gets ~ 'n it's always in your face." Jack Nicklaus

Well, the wind blew 'n stuff flew...stray pieces of paper (mostly used coffee cups 'n fast food sandwich wrappers) 'n plastic baggies (the ones not yet in our landfills)...palm fronds, branches, etcetera...I kept lookin' t'see if there wuz any flying anoretics but if they wuz, I missed 'em...the dogs, howsumever, loved it...'course, both of 'em're built purty close to the ground...I kept a tight hand on their leashes which wuz kind'a tricky 'cuz I also had t'keep a tight hand on my baseball cap which showed a distinct inclination to go flying...funny thing tho' but the Village chickens didn't seem to like the wind 'cuz they all huddled t'gether in little groups in the lee of the park structures...(I let Willie scatter 'em a couple times figuring that he 'n they needed the exercise)...I picked up my garbage can a couple times but gave up on worrying about the lid which flopped back 'n forth ev'ry time the wind changed (one 'a my neighbors weighted the top of his can with a stone which he replaced twice with larger ones)...

"The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of old people 'n greatly assists the circulation of the blood." Logan Smith

Can we call 'free money' from the gov't a Fluke????

'n I don't haf'ta 'pologize cuz I ain't got no sponsors anyway...

"It's better to offer no excuse than a bad one." G. Washington

It’s a breezy sooper toosday here in Ol Fair Oaks, cool enuff for a windbreaker anyways...

Got a letter from our new Supervisor inviting us to a ‘special’ meeting to discuss the streetscape project (neospeak) for a ride on that progressive liberal gravy train...a half-million dollar ‘grant’ (more neospeak meaning free money with only a few strings) practically guaranteed to make Ol Fair Oaks Village a destination spot for the region...they intend to turn the main drag (Fair Oaks Blvd) into a ‘complete street’ with sidewalks, new pedestrian curb extensions (?)...a mid-block crossing, enhanced bike routes, added decorative street lighting and landscape amenities...my guess is, the sidewalks ‘n street lights we currently have ain’t ‘decorative’ enuff...

Well, I’m sure most, if not all, of the business operators in the Village are in favor of anything that might bring a little more business but I also think that is sumthing that would be true for business owners anywhere...I just hope to hell they stay off my little street ‘cuz I don’t want sidewalks ‘n street lights altho’ I wudn’t be adverse to a couple speed bumps to slow down those lost souls looking for a shortcut around Sunrise traffic...’course, we seldom get the same ones twice’t ‘cuz we definitely ain’t much good as a shortcut...

"Congressmen should wear uniforms like NASCAR drivers so's we c'd identify their corporate sponsors." Anon.

Tee shirt winter....

"If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have anything to laugh at when you're old."

Me ‘n da boyz wuz strollin’ down the street when Nabor Doug comes out of his abode declaiming that it’s another beautiful day in paradise...I agree with him but add the caveat that it’s a progressive liberal Spring ‘n that we’re gonna have to pay for it come the long, hot summer...

In this world wherein we dwell, we got more grasshoppers than we do ants...’n for those of you not up on your basic moralistic fairy tales, a little more p’litically incorrect way of stating it is that we have more Chiefs than Indians...

So I been lookin’ around for an old pick ‘em up truck for me ‘n da boyz...I tho’t maybe an old Toyota ‘til I ackshully looked at one...they’re kind’a popular ‘n way overpriced ‘n worse than that, they’re small...a little snug for an old fat man ‘n two little dogs...what I need is an old Ford or Chevy, sumthin’ that I’ll be able to get into ‘n out of without turning m’self into a pretzel...

It wuz mentioned t’me that I’m lookin’ at about 8 miles to the gallon but if I don’t really go anywhere, I’m thinkin’ that miles per gallon don’t matter a whole lot...’course, with the price of gasoline going up day by day, the little Toyota in my driveway may turn into the same kind of coatrack as the treadmill in the basement...

"Money can't buy happiness but it sure makes misery easier to live with."