Wow, haven't been updating this!

 Jeez, it's been two months since I updated this blog!  Well, getting old slows you down!  My hip is still hurting all the time; drugs help but don't fix things.  My wife is still using either the cane or the walker to get around.  She had been going to the gym for PT help twice a week but that has expired.  We'll see if she manages it on her own.  I usually just sat in one of the chairs and watched - lazy bugger that I am.  She did get a lovely plant from her son for Mother's Day and a phone call from her daughter.

She did get to drive this last week.  I was up about 01:30 and tripped on a blanket or something and probably broke my nose.  At any rate it was bleeding all over the place.  It took us until almost 10:00 a.m. to get to the ER and then it took them 4+ hours to deal with me.  I ended up with a plastic thing sticking up my nose to keep it from bleeding; the bad side was the metal thing on the end of the tube that had to be taped to my face.  Anyway, I wasn't going anywhere looking like that so I spent the week in my robe in my recliner going through three or four kleenex an hour!  Friday morning I went over and got the thing removed and I must say I haven't been bleeding from my nose since.  Exciting stuff!

We did hear from our daughter; she's planning on moving out here; at least until we decide to move.  She's quit her job:  "retiring" so that should be interesting.  She's going to visit us in early June to see if it is reasonable or not; our son was also planning a visit and he's saying June 2. However we got a call from him saying his dog had contracted something and he was going to have to postpone the visit.  It's a big bulldog and his wife sure couldn't take it to the vet so I see they both need to be there.  Besides, I think it was a $4,000 dog and you'd like to keep that around as long as you can!

Aside from all that it's been pretty quiet around here.  Gas is around $5 a gallon and diesel is well over $5.  At least it's not like CA prices!  The outside temp is 106 f so it's not that cool.  We did hire a guy to clean the weeds out of the yard.  He did a nice job in the front yard but didn't do the ditch next to the road.  Then his wife explained that they had to move and wanted their $400 before they finished the job.  Well, idiots that we are (at least me) I gave them the money and we haven't seen them since.  If they ever do clean up the back yard I'll be amazed!  We'll see.

22:40 and Judie is ready for bed; I'm headed that way too.  Managed to tear my left toenail at some point so there is some blood in the bathroom.  Have an appointment for Gus to get a bath in the a.m. at K9.  Otherwise it should be a quiet day.  We wamt to have a discussion about giving money to charity but that shouldn't be too tough.  We usually agree on what & to whom to give. Then there is the online donations - again not too tough.  And it's time for selecting people you want to run in the election:  another easy choice or three.  We are Republican at least partially because the Democrats don't have enough people in the county to win anything!  What a deal.

Well, that's it for the month.  Have a good one!

Life in the fast lane!

 I've got no idea what's going on but my left hip is just hurting like hell.  I haven't fallen; haven't bumped into anything; haven't overdone anything; it just hurts like crazy.  This getting old sucks!  Otherwise things are just fine.  We are hitting somewhere in the 90 F (32 C) area during the day and in the 50's (10 C) at night.  

We had a guy come in and take out our weeds back in Feburary and, to our surprise, he charged us $700 for something like half a day's work.  We've got more weeds now so called him up.  He came around and this time we asked what he would charge before he started the job.  He's from somewhere south of the border so he called his wife and had her talk with my wife on the phone.  They came up with $800!  Well, needless to say, we just sent him on his way.  We won't be bothering him again!

Every year we donate to various charities.  Generally it's a couple hundred of dollars except for our local VFW food bank that gets something like that in food every month or so.  I'm good with donating to the charities but, damn, they are really demanding once they have your name!  We get 2 or 3 requests a day for more money!  We probably get one bill a week for electricity or a magazine or something; then we get 8 or 10 requests for donations.  That's bad enough but then we get packages of birthday cards or calendars or who knows what.  And the really stupid thing is that we don't donate to any of those charities!  You'd think that they would figure it out after a year or so but, no, they just keep on asking for money and sending us crap.

Ok, enough bitching moaning and complaining.  I hope you are having a great week.  Keeping washing those hands and staying away from the sick folks.  Take care. 

Wow! The middle of March!

 Well, it's been a while but then again I'm a dull old fart so maybe that's a good thing.  We had a quiet start to the year then in the middle of February we got going.  Well, things started happening anyway.

The first thing was my wife falling and hurting herself on February 16.  She's not fat but I'm not the strong young guy I used to be so we called the EMTs to help her up.  Then it was my turn on the 17th; I fell by tripping on a dog toy and again we needed the EMTs.  We had a cruise planned and they wouldn't let my wife bring her wheelchair with out a note from her doctor; but they didn't mention that until the Saturday before the cruise was to leave.  We still wanted to go so we decided to go with the walker.  She's got one of those with a seat so you can sit and rest if you need it.  So on Saturday night I was shutting off the power to our water well in the dark and I fell again!  Yep, EMTs again.  But I felt ok so we headed off to Las Vegas; we had Saturday night, Sunday night and Monday night in a hotel.  It did give us some time to relax a bit and start the recovery process.  

Tuesday morning, February 24th, we headed for the airport.  First we flew to Phoenix then changed planes and off to Ft. Lauderdale, FL where we were to find our ship.  

We were on another Viking cruise; this time from Ft. Lauderdale to  Barcelona, Spain.  There were two island stops along the way but we'd been to both so didn't feel the need to get off the ship.  Mostly we just relaxed in our room in between going to the various dining areas.  It would have been a really relaxing trip but we ran into a lot of 20 mph breezes and that made the ship move a lot and that made walking dangerous!  It turns out that our cabin was quite far forward in the ship and most of the dining places are in the aft part so it was a good walk to go eat.  It turns out that my wife would sit in her walker and I would push it most of the way then she would get up to take the elevator to the restaurant and within it.  And I got to push her back to our room. 

The cruise lasted from February 24 until March 9th and we only got off the ship when we landed in Barcelona.  Then we got in for more flying.  First a short flight to London (not quite 2 hours) then a 10 hour flight from London to Las Vegas!  I was walking fairly well by the time we made it to Vegas but my wife still needed that walker.  We had another night at the hotel in Vegas then got home about 10:00 on the 10th and went to get the dog from the kennel shortly thereafter.  So that's the big news from us so far.  

Next week we start seeing doctors again.  I have a 'regular' visit with mine; my wife gets to visit with her two Las Vegas surgeons to find out what they can do to help her.  We'll see how that goes.   So far she's had two major surgeries on her ankle and one smaller one on her toes.  All we can do at this point is hope for a miracle.

So I hope you have all had at least a safer time this year than we have.  So keep washing those hands, don't fall and stay away from sick people! 

OMG - 2026!

 We had a guy come and clean up some weeds in our yard and we wrote him a check.  The amount was scary enough but writing 1/6/26 for the date was even worse!  Wow!  That thing about time flying is real!

Of course the news is pretty scary these days too.  Invading another country?  Talking about taking an area from another NATO country?  Having American citizen shot and killed by ICE?   What the hell is the world coming to?  And, of course, there is the President's health that is clearly not great.  Every day brings some new weirdness in the news.  

On the good side, this was our sunset last night.

 We did get some rain last night but today it is 50ish and clear.  Of course the wind is between 15 and 25 mph so that keeps us filling the bird feeders.  We have a RING video camera in our front yard and the alert just went off.  It was a big dead bush being blowing across the yard!  Talk about fun times!  Sometimes a hawk or other pretty large bird will fly by and set it off.  The snow level on the mountains has come way down so that will get our water level up a bit.  Out here in Nevada that's a wonderful thing!  It's important too because there are lots of new houses being built.  My wife and I are blaming the cost of living in California for all the people moving here but who knows.  They might just be gamblers who like the casinos and we've got 7 or 8 of those; plus every grocery, gas station or whatever has 8 or 10 machines you can dump your money into.  I don't think any comes back out to you.  It just amazes me to see people at them; I'm just not that kind of gambler.  Now buying Nvidia or AT&T or Pepsi - yeah, I do gamble on them.  I've had some stinkers but some pretty good results too.  It's just a fun part of life.

My wife is doing ok.  She broke her ankle over 2 years ago and has had two surgeries to get it repaired.    She's got a cane, a walker and a wheelchair.  Which one she uses depends on how her foot is doing.  She is hitting the gym twice a week for a workout with one of the PT guys.  He's trying to help her build up her strength but she's got a way to go.  Having the surgeon tell you to stay off your foot for 2 months means those muscles don't get any exercise and they just fade away.  It's also known as life in the 75 lane!

Gotta go.  I hope everyone is having a great start to the new year and that 2026 will actually turn out to be great.  Take care and keep washing those hands! 

 

 

Merry Christmas!

 I hope everyone is having a lovely Christmas.  We are having a very quiet day.  Doing nothing fancy, eating nothing fancy, not even dressing up!  Well, that's old age and no relatives around.  The weather forecast was for a flood warning; it's bright and sunny with a few clouds over the mountains:  works for me!  Yes, we do live in a flood zone.  The houses across the street aren't in the flood zone so you can guess what kind of idiot came up with the flood zone idea.  

We've been having our usual fun:  mostly visiting Physical Therapy folks.  They are all nice people and try to help my wife but there really isn't much that can be done.  They want her to move and it hurts.  Needless to say walking around or swinging your leg around when it hurts is hard to do.  And not something you are likely to do.   Otherwise we are doing just fine.

Needless to say the President is constantly aggravating me.  I mean, destroying parts of the White House, sending military people (ICE) to act as police in our cities, renaming buildings in his own honor; the list goes on and on.  The people in his cabinet are just as stupid!  They are all kissing his ass.  And I still see idiots wandering around with Trump hats!  Trump signs on their lawns!  How completely stupid are these people?  Oh, and just to make matters worse, my step-son is one of them!  Trump is a convicted felon, a molester of young women, a draft dodger and what else?  Wow, our leader!  Our President!  Is that the way we want our country to go?  

Sorry.  I just can't ignore the direction in which we are going.  

Have a good one.  Try not to think about those idiots.  Take care! 

Did I mention rain?

 We decided to take a little drive this afternoon; I decided I wanted to go around to check out our new neighbors with 4 horses.  Well, that didn't work very well!  We drove up the unfinished road and got stuck in the mud.  Need proof?  Check out my shoes as I was walking home to get the pickup.

Yeah, I gained about 5 pounds on each foot!  Some neighbors came around to help us get going but that wasn't happening.  I'll try getting the car out tomorrow or the next day.  The local tow truck was suggesting almost $300!  No!  I can do without the car for a couple days.  More fun later!

Take care & keep away from the sick dummies.
 

Rain!

 Yep, out here in the middle of the desert we've been getting rain.  I haven't had to add water to the birdbath all week!  And, we got a rainbow!

 Not bad at all!  It didn't last long but they don't do they.  Have a good one.  Keep washing those hands and stay away from the sickos.