Muddle on..........

Another rainy nite in soggy Ol Fair Oaks.....actually, pretty much all over the central valley.....and snow in the sierra
At least, it’s a fairly gentle rain with no wind, what they call a ‘soaking’ rain....and that’s good. If we get this kind of weather for......O say, the next couple months, that’s good for California....gets us out of that nasty drought situation.....We still won’t have enuff water for all the people & fish & farming....not to mention El Lay.......
Tomorrow morn is the last Chemo treatment.....couple or 3 weeks to recover...then diet & exercise therapy & hair growth (hopefully)......there is this gnawing back of the mind fear that it won’t come back no matter what the experts say........
As our Brit cousins say (or used to say)....”Keep a stiff upper lip and muddle on...........”
G’nite......Justin Other Smith

Sactown Chic.......

Rainy days are here again, we’re all socked in with fog again, chains required on the mountain again.....t’is the weather we don’t brag about to our friends in the east...
it’s the time of year when Sactown emulates Seattle & San Francisco weatherwise..... ponchos & bumbershoots required.....I’d say that’s the reason Starbucks & Peet’s (and their clones) are popping up all over the area but that’d be a lie ‘cuz our summer weather is still hot hot hot.....
Nuthin’ changes overnite but......We’ve had an influx of emmigrants from the Bay area...lower living costs here....and they’re bringing their ideas of culture & sophistication with ‘em. sighhhhhh!
Coffee shoppes, high-rent lofts for movers & shakers, with it nite clubs where they can go to gaze haughtily down their noses at slack-jawed locals.....sighhhhhhh!
O for the days when Sactown was the roadblock of the central valley....the place ya had to get thru to go to the ocean or the mountains ...for all the bush league lads & lasses.....when Sactown was a one-horse town (whenever ya c’ud find the horse)....
Nuthin’ changes overnite but somehow Sactown has evolved into Sacramento the city. Not the cityinbetween as those snooty bayareafolk used to moan but a city nevertheless & the horse that wandered ain’t ever comin’ back.....the skyline keeps growin’....the traffic certainly keeps growin’.......& the ‘burbs are...well, citified. There, I said it. Millyrose & I passed a boarded up grange hall this morning & I remarked, “I c’n remember when it was open.” That was in Rancho Cordova. But, I c’n also remember when Carmichael, Fair Oaks, & O’vale, all had thriving grange halls....
Nuthin’ changes overnite......it changes moment by moment, so slowly that we don’t see it. We humans are busy, busy beavers...doing what we do, fighting the fight, living the life......& then one day we raise our heads & look around & wonder at how our world has changed.....
I quoted Barney Miller before & it seems apt to do it again.....”That’s the way it is & there ain’t anything you can do about it.” Justin Other Smith

Holi-Dazed.........

It’s Tuesday but it feels like a Monday. Maybe ‘cause yesterday was a holiday. Well, officially a holiday. MLK gave some great speeches and I c’n understand why black Americans might want to deify him but, try as I might, it just don’t work for me. ‘Course, when I was a kid, I tho’t Washington & Lincoln were really great men deserving of celebratory b’days...I don’t much feel that way anymore. I don’t mind President’s Day but it’s a kind of madeup holiday that’s more about paid time off than anything else....don’t misunderstand me, I’m in favor of holidays. The more the merrier. But they just don’t seem to have the flavor that I remember.
Much of the joy of the really great holidays comes in the anticipation, the waiting, like the recess bell that signifies freedom......the 4th of July, Hallowe’en, Christmas........if you don’t have that longing to exhale, it just ain’t that great of a day.
It’s a rainy Tuesday....chilly....I made a pot & a half of coffee this morn & drank it all.....this layoff has been good for me, I think. My blood sugars are staying closer to normal, my appetite has improved ( I c’n taste things w/out wanting to vomit)....my energy level has risen tho’ I’m still not ready to go out in the rain to walk the dogs. I’m almost looking forward to this upcoming treatment....well, heck! I am looking fwd to it. It ‘s the last one ‘n I want it over & done. Like this p’ticklar blog.
Justin Other Smith

Sunday, Sunday........

Cold and gloomy Sunday morning........grey & overcast......
Can’t think of any good reason for getting dressed t’day, the dogs certainly don’t care what I’m wearing....I’d bet, however, that at some point t’day, Millyrose will want to go somewhere & do something.....
Actually, I’ve been feeling pretty good the last few days, better than in a long time.....yesterday, the sun was shining, we went to a movie & out to lunch...took Cary w/us.....it was a good day.
Saw ‘The Bucket List’.....a Nicholson/Freeman mutual admiration society.....certainly not a movie for the young, it’s about two old men dying. Ain’t what you’d call ROFL but it has it’s moments.....a little dark, almost black in spots, especially if you c’n relate to chemo & radiation.
After, we went to Carmelita’s for lunch...I passed on the beer but I did have my first diet Coke of the year. Chemo does funny things to the palate....won’t even try to s’plain that...can’t.
I’ll have my last chemo treatment on Thursday. Not looking forward to it but, I’ll be glad to get it over with..
Looking forward to feeling good, swimming, & hair...
Especially hair........Justin Other Smith

For the record......

Lotta stress these days.....not talking about me now, but the rest of y’all.....I haven’t been driving for awhile. Too many chemicals. Thursday afternoon, I drove out to O’vale and back. Same on Friday.....Traffic doesn’t seem to be any heavier than normal but faster....jerkier..... More impatient. People are using their horns more. And certainly more hand gestures....
I expect it’s the economy stupid thing that we keep hearing on all the media shows.....and that’s a pretty good reason to feel stressed. I remember feeling depressed years ago and going to a psychologist. I recited my litany of troubles and recall him saying that I “had a right to feel depressed.” I don’t remember that actually being of any help to me and I don’t think that being told over and over that our economy is tanking is going to make anyone feel better....
For the record, I’m optimistic about the economy. That may be unrealistic but, what the Heck? I’m an American. Everyone knows that Americans are cockeyed optimists. “so they called me a cockeyed optimist, immature and incurably green.” sang Nellie Forbush in South Pacific.
And again for the record, I’ve been called worse.
Justin Other Smith

Friday morning ramble.......

G’morning.......the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the leafblowers are blowing.....God’s in his Heaven and all’s right with the world.....NOT!.....The economy is a mess, politicians are politicking, Israeli’s are retaliating against Arabs....in other words, SNAFU! Situation is normal, the world is still on a collision course with itself.
Which is pre-zackly where it’s been as long as I’ve been here....and where it was long before I got here.......so, its’ not my fault. And contrary to popular belief, it ain’t really George’s fault either. ‘Course, you’d think that he might have been able to alleviate the situation at least a little bit but you’d be wrong.
There have been men in history that have had great impact on the world. And women, too. Always, glass ceilings or no. The world has had a number of visionaries but George ain’t one of them. George is a politician. As all of our Presidents have been. As are the leaders of all the countries on this ever-spinning world of ours.
Politics can begin and end wars; can be responsible for inflicting misery & pain on the populace; can move mountains, create deserts, and float boats in the air. But, the earth will continue to spin, the sun will continue to shine, and the human condition will endure.
No matter what the ‘great’ men of the world do or say, and no matter what you and I do or say, the human condition will endure.
To quote Barney Miller, “that’s the way it is and there ain’t anything you can do about it.”
Enjoy the show, vote for whoever you damn well please and keep in mind that a moving target is harder to hit.
Justin Other Smith

Falling sideways........

The Chemo-fog may actually be making the Democan/Republicrat shenanigans seem more innarestin’ than they are.......I never smoked pot but I saw my share of dreamers who did.....I don’t have any problems with dreaming, having done at least my share of it but, my dreams were never drug induced....well, at least they weren’t until this Chemo party began......
So Mitt promised the auto workers of Michigan that he’d bring the jobs back...that if he was President of the ‘hull darn US of A, he’d ignore the other 49 states and coerce the Auto Mfgs of the world that they must abso build cars in Michigan.....(Hey Michiganders, McCain told the truth for all the good it did him...those jobs are never coming back)...Huckkaberry offered God and came in 3rd....at least, I think he did.....Rudy’s in Margaritaville which ain’t a bad place to be in January.....Anyway, the Republicrat race is still a toss-up....which brings me to the Democan debate (?)....NBC should be ashamed of themselves for hooking up the top 3 Dems for a lovey-dovey 3-way on a faux M the P with the ‘oh so professional ‘ Tim Russert & Brian Williams, the BIGTIME ANCHOR that Michael Douglas intros every eve..... anyway, the future Prez, the alternate Prez & the 3rd runner-up Prez were indistinguishable, one from the other. And they all had a plan. All their plans sounded alike to me but, I’m in a chemo fog, what do I know? Pete Seeger sang, “They’re all made out of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same.....” My Momma said she was taught to “Get a plan, Fritzi” by her 8th grade teacher. And Connie Brean said, “A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.” (Rob’t de Niro as Conrad Brean)
Talk about bread & circuses...Y’know, this whole show seems to have taken on an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ quality.
Maybe when NBC works out which is which, the Republicrats will be able to come to an agreement which top-ranked Idiot of the moment’ will be the token opponent.