Greetings from Justinland

I don't want to admit to being a little stressed lately, but this AM, I tired to make a pot of coffee ,but only ended up making a pot of hot water....and stood there in the kitchen for 5 minutes trying to figure out what went wrong.

Hey!

Very quiet 4^th of July this year…should have been an anniversary celebration, but that just ain’t happening.

 I turned on the teevee early on the 4^th to HGTV, and first thing I see is a Home (Homo) Depot ad.  “It’s a 3day weekend and you could get a lot done around the house.”  True dat, so I painted the bedroom furniture.    Upside was that since I was home alone, I could paint naked. 

 

How was your holiday?

Boys Will Be Boys

A Tale of 2 Nephews

 

Ok, nephew #1 is a gorgeous, beefy, blue eyed blond 17year old jock .  He’s a 3 sport letterman, has an appreciation for Led Zep and I totally love him.  But Da-yum, I worry about the child because 2 weekends ago, he went on a ‘camping trip’ with the seniors on his football team.  (Nephew is an offensive tackle) and the boys, being boys, decided to do a little ritual branding around the old campfire.  Apparently that involved heating up sticks in the fire and placing the glowing end on that tender area of your forearm.  4 freaking times!

Yeah, that will make a man out of you.  Next thing you know, I get a late night phone call about the care and treatment of 3^rd degree burns.

Freakin’ Kids. 

Nephew #2 (I only have the two) is a gorgeous, blue eyed blond 7 year old with an appreciation for Sponge Bob.  I also totally love him.  He was recently caught playing ‘I’ll show you mind if you show me yours’ with the neighbor boy.  (Been there, done that…as a matter of fact, I saw that neighbor boy over Memorial Day weekend; He is now fat and bald)

 Now rather than dismissing the ‘show and tell’ incident as boys will be boys and healthy, normal exploration, the parents of the neighbor boy flipped out and call the division of family services for full possible sexual abuse investigation. That included an interview with the ‘gay uncle’ you know, the one that works in the children’s hospital.

 Yeah, that was embarrassing.  3 weeks and much red tape later, the verdict was that nephew was a charming, intelligent child and that the neighbors over reacted. 

 Your tax dollars at work.

One Man's Ceiling...

Is another man's floor

Hurrah!  After only 6 freakin' weeks, I finally have a ceiling in my bedroom.

Meanwhile, I am seriously considering an offer from the VA system to work with returning veterans. It would involve a move to San Antonio.  Good to have options.

I saw that hot and talented David Cook being interviewed someplace yesterday and he was asked, James Lipton style, about his favorite word.   Cookie, a self professed word nerd thought for a moment and replied ‘plethora’.  Now plethora is a damn good word and the boy appears to be intelligent and articulate.  Midwest Boys Represent!

Yeah, but at 3am when I was still awake and alone and asking myself the tough questions, James Lipton popped into my head and asked about my favorite word.
 

I used to like the word still a lot.   Not only is it peaceful, as in 3am stillness, but used at the end of a sentence, it keeps the door open to other possibilities.  For example, “JJ probably needs to score some Lunesta for his insomnia; still, the middle of the night is so peaceful.”

 

Another word I really like is morphine, derived from the Greek God of dreams, Morpheus. Morphine invokes images of fields of poppies and Edgar Allen Poe.   OxyContin, which is basically the same thing, makes me think of 2 white tablets in a plastic cup…not the god of dreams. 

 

Meanwhile, back on the rez, Ramon is building a house, all cedar and glass with a view of a lake. I am allergic to cedar, which may explain why I am awake at 3am, thinking about words like plethora, still and morphine.  

3 Day Weekend

So, I cashed in my retirement so that I could put gas ($3.79/gallon!) in the PTCruiser and I am driving to South Dakota this weekend...and it is not to visit Mount Rushmore. 

I used to know this man who lives in South Dakota.  We will see how it goes.

Momento Mori

Roof is finished, now the interior work starts. Contractor Kevin says he wants to wait until after 'a good hard rain' to start any inside work, it case the roof still leaks.   Pray for rain, I am tired of living like this.

A carpet sample was sent off for analysis to some lab to see what it was worth and the results were 'We don't know what the hell this is, it is so old'    These things happen when you take over the old family  homestead .  However, under the ancient mint green wall to wall was beautiful oak hardwood.  Who knew?

I ventured into the attic this weekend looking for traces of those rabid raccoons.  Damn there is a lot of junk up there. These things happen when you take over the old family homestead .  Hey look!  An aluminum Christmas tree.

I dipped into this old cedar chest that belonged to a great grandmother, filled with old bibles, photos, wills, insurance policies, deeds to burial plots in Coffeyville, Ks and assorted junk.  I really know very little about these people except that they were Irish, farmers and lived in the Rio Grande Valley.  I did find a sad little box filled with mementos of a son (who would have been a great uncle to me) who died in 1925 at the age of 8 of Diphtheria.   This happened a lot before the development of immunizations.  Inside the box were report cards, spelling tests where Great Uncle Ralph scored 100% and an essay he wrote on how he spent his summer vacation.  (They went to the Gulf of Mexico!)   Some toys, photos,a  crayon (damn, no baseball cards) a lock of hair and a yellowing brittle newspaper that contained his obit.

Unbearable grief inside of that sad little box and yet, realistically, it is just junk in the attic and should probably be thrown out,  Hard to know what to do with stuff like that.

Merry Month of May

Hmmm, Let’s See. 

The weatherperson says that today should be ‘a perfect day’ here in the Heartland. So, of course, I am stuck in the office for the next 10 hours.

I still have no ceiling in my bedroom, but I am less afraid of attacking rabid raccoons because I have a new roof. Getting a new roof is quite an ordeal; at one point I was trapped in the house because of flying, falling old shingles.  The hammering made the house shake so badly that water was sloshing out of the fish tank. The kitties all took off for parts unknown. “Call me on my cell when all that damn noise has stopped.” They said.  On the other hand, shirtless brown-eyed Mexican roofer boys, I am just saying.

|Tyler keeps causing David Cook hysteria wherever he goes. I think it is funny. Ty does not find it amusing. 

We went to see The Police Tuesday night. No one mistakenly thought I was Sting. 

What color should I paint the bedroom? Raindrop? Dried Thyme? You vote and I will have the painters paint your favorite.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day
Originally uploaded by My Blue Dragon.

The Hollywood Signs