Socializing

I haven't been going to the grocery as often lately and I've missed out on a lot of my socializing. The trip to Krogers quite often is the highlight of my social life. Almost always I have encounters with friends, neighbors, parents of children I've taught and various other people that I know. Occasionally, I interact with people I don't know.
You'd be surprised at how many words of wisdom, words of derision,words of sympathy and words of advise are dealt out in the produce aisle, prescription counter, and other areas of the food mecca.
Profound statements and useless information, medical advise, marital advise, parenting advice are all handed out with sublime equanimity.
I have frequent encounters with Rita who enjoys passing on all of the bad news that she has heard lately about mutual friends and neighbors. "Mary, you remember her,broke her leg a few days before her wedding and had to go down the aisle in a wheel chair. One of her neighbor, Jim, backed his car out of the garage and ran over his wife's walker. Fortunately, she wasn't using it at the time; however she 's not getting around too well lately.
Joe keeps me updated on his PSA test results and his golf scores. He gets pretty fired up about the latest goings on in Washington and bemoans the fact that there are so many ill informed people in this country that vote these "baboons" into office.
Danny, that I taught for a few years is now grown up, married and has two boys. Do I think they should be tested for learning differences? I advised him to give it serious thought. They surely are cute boys.
Inga keeps me up to date on what her tall dark handsome son is doing and how many jobs he has had. She is thinking of taking the test to see if she can become a citizen of the U.S. She has lived here for thirty or forty years and has never been able to vote!
Kitty moved here from the North and has had a hard time adjusting to the accents of some of her new friends. She called to congratulate Sue on the birth of her new baby and when told that the baby is "blond" she made a fuss about that and remarked about how cute blond babies are. She teared up when she told me that she had misunderstood. Actually the baby is blind.
Dorothy is ninety and she is shopping for potatoes because she is bringing potato salad to a party she is attending. "Can you believe the price of potatoes?" Anyway, the party giver is even older than Dorothy and when Dorothy called her to check and see if anyone else was bringing potato salad her friend said, "Am I having a party tonight?" Dorothy called the daughter of the friend and confirmed that the party was in fact going to happen, her friend just forgot that she had sent out
invitations.
Jack has a terrible time with his wife. She is unable to do anything around the house. She can't cook any more, nor do house work and he has to do everything! The only respite he gets is going to the grocery and to church on Sunday. He would like to visit Doc but he would not be able to leave her unattended for that long. They had no children, he had one brother but he died and her only sister died so they are completely and totally alone. I can remember when we were all younger and they were free to go where they wanted, Bahamas, California, etc. etc. and had plenty of money to do all those things. They had no tuition bills, pediatrician bills, large grocery bills,they seemed so foot loose and fancy free. Now, they have no sons or daughters that care for them, no grandkids or great grandkids, no neices or nephews or anyone that really cares for them. What a lonesome life. I always walk away from him thanking God for our blessings.
Advise is asked for and given on things like how do you know if a chicken is fresh, do you think this melon is ripe enough, what's that stuff called, (rhubarb) what do you do with it? How do you cook asperagus? Is this cabbage or lettuce? What is mush? How do you cook it? Is it good? Why did you open all the egg cartons before you chose one? Teachable moments happen on a regular basis.
Happy shopping most of the time except for Senior Citizen Day! That's a whole new ballgame!

Pokemon is alive and well.

Gregg and I went to Florida last week. Seamless trip down and back. non-stop flights are definitely the way to travel. The twins are super role players. I don't think we ever see the "real" twins. They take on the persona of whatever their latest interest is and go from there. In their short life time they have been squirrels, dogs,cardinals,cats,mice etc.etc. At the preset time they are Pokemons. They have videos, pokemon cards, stuffed Pokemons and access to the computer game of Pokemon. They map out strategies, they speak of evolving, they have all of the names down pat and Bridget can draw most of the figures. Whew!

We went to Myakka for the express purpose of taking an air boat trip through the lake to see all of the aligators. I've done that before and thought it was a facinating thing to do but they are having a serious drought in
FL and the water was too low to sail the air boats. There are usually canoe trips available also. I'm too chicken to sail in the alligator infested waters to go on a canoe trip but Angela and Keith have done it and I'm sure Gregg would have done it but once again the water level was too low. We did climb a beautiful, well made tower to see the "jungle" from above and that was a neat thing to do but neverthe less I was dissapointed that we did not get to get up close and personal with the alligators.

We went to Lido Beach after dinner and while I sat on the beach, Keith,Angela, twins and Gregg swam. It was a perfect evening. The water was warm, the air cool and the sunset was beautiful. The moonlight was pretty bright and very visible before the sun had fully set.

Keith was quite busy while we were there. He is enjoying his job as legislator and is appropriately involved in the business of legislating.

Back home, Doc is doing well at Klondike and Jane is making incremental gains every day. Sign off time. Ciao

Shoot-out at the Stony Brook Kroger

Even though it is still early in June, we are already in those hazy, lazy days of summer.It's when the livin' is easy, kick back and relax with an iced tea or cold drink of choice. Listen to the katy-dids and buzzing bees and find a place in the shade to doze off and let the rest of the world roll by. Or,go up to Krogers and roll up to a four way stop and pull out your gun and blaze away at the Hummer dude that had shown his gun to you when the two of you disagreed on whose turn it was to go first. Have we seriously regressed or what? Whatever happened to civility? The news reported that the two men exchanged words before firing and waving a gun about. How do you suppose that went? "You first." "No,no, you first." "No, that's OK, I am not in any hurry." Hummer dude pulls gun and is about to say, "I insist." His words were drowned out by the hail of bullets piercing his door and his arm and his head. I always thought of Hummers as being as impenetrable as a Brink's truck! Not so! Of
course, I may have it all wrong, it may just be an unfortunate misunderstanding. Maybe it was Hummerdude's birthday and he just got his fully legal 40 caliber,simi-automatic gun for his birthday and he was just showing it to the ex-cop with no ill intent. Ex-cop wants to show him that he too has a fully legal 40 caliber simi-automatic gun, forgetting that he has a hair trigger and so he got shooting and didn't quit till he had shot up the Hummer, the Hummerdude and the National City Bank. He also shot the lazy day of summer all to heck and back. I'm trying to be understanding about this incident but...

There's a Song in My Head

In a conversation that I was having the other day I was reminded of an incident that took place in Greece a few years back when Linda and I traveled there. I decided
to share some of those experiences once in awhile.
We were in Athens one evening and were walking around visiting the various shops in the Platka and a street vendor came along pushing a huge wooden cart filled with dark red Bing cherries. Those cherries looked so delicious and were not at all expensive. The vendor was a very old Greek man with a slouch hat and baggy pants, as he put the scoops of cherries in a bag for me, one cherry fell to the street. Using the five second rule, I reached down and scooped it up, rubbed it on my skirt and popped it into my mouth. One of the people with our group was horrified.She rushed over and put her arm around my shoulder and chastised me for eating a cherry off the dirty Athens street. The temperature that day had been 105 degrees and I didn't think germs could survive the heat. We all bought cherries and then decided to go up to our room and eat them. One of the women had asked me to teach her some of the songs that I used to sing to my children when they were little. She has two young children and wanted suggestions. I agreed to teach her but had not yet found the time or place to begin.

Hollywood continued

This was the first Derby ever for Paul Duryea and so I told him early on what to expect. When we first got there the whole area was still wet and muddy from the overnight rains, the track was one sloppy mess. Our location is right on the fence and then there is about 10 feet of grass and then the track, so we are well aware of the condition of the track throughout the day. When those horses roar around that bend and head on full speed ahead for that finish line they could well say, "Here's mud in your eye". "Not to worry," I told Paul. It was only about noon and I assured him that in a few races and a few draggings of the track by the draggin machines,all would be well and when the horses came around that bend they'd be kicking up dust. It was quite grey and gloomy also but there again I told him that just before the Derby when he could hear the first strains of "My Old Kentucky Home" the sun would burst through the clouds and shine bright on our Old Ky. Home. He was very amused at my senario, he did't believe me! He muttered, "Yeah, right"! The track became dryer and dryer and looked more and more loamy as we watched from race 1 through 9 but the skies were still cloudy and gray till, Hark! just as the strains of MOKH began what to our wondering eyes should appear but the beautiful sun bursting through the clouds and we all knew that the DERBY was near. I explained to Paul that we would all be expected to sing and when we get to the part where we sing, "Weep no more ,my Lady, weep no more today, we will sing one song for my OLD KENTUCKY HOME" (the obligatory tear should be rolling down your cheek) " for My Old Kentucky Home far away." He protested loudly at that. " No way," he jeered, "no way". He claimed that he did not know the words so he could not sing." HA" my turn to jeer. "I'll teach you the words. Just watch my lips." I sang as loud as I could and lead the onlookers behind us to join in and as advertised, right on cue, Karen burst into tears! This totally, absolutely, wiped Paul out. He shouted, "I can't believe this!" I saw what I thought was a tear in his eye but he insisted it was a drop of beer that had splashed into his eye! Aw, come on.! I told the crowd, "He just doesn't get it. He JUST doesn't get it." Paul,you've got one year to learn the words, when you come next year we will expect you to join us. Stephen Foster will be honored. Bring extra kleenex for the onslaught of tears!

We had such a perfect day. Alex and his young cousin Thomas were delightful. They wanted to see everything and wanted everything explained. Furlongs, tri-fectas, boxed bets,out riders, etc. they went home with an extended vocabulary. All of Pat's friends and family that accompanied him were enthralled. Nathan's ump friend and his girl friend had a great time too. I understand that Scott, (I think that was his name) wanted to ask his girl friend to marry him while they were here but I'm not sure that that happened. Once again I'm very tired and will be in bed soon. Having fun can be tiring. I love having Cynthia come and glad she brought Paul this year, now she'll have to work on other family members. Even Doc asks why Mart doesn't come. Mart, come on down! IRISH BLESSING, May the dust of your carriage wheels blind the eyes of your foes. "Slainthe is saul agat" (Health and life to you!!)

We all thank Brian for giving us the opportunity to have such a magnificent day. I thank him for carting me around in the Gator. Queen Eliz. couldn't be treated any better than I am. Linda held down the fort and provided my glass or two of wine and Karen provided the wine glasses and sang a duet with me to keep me centered. "What's round on the ends and hi in the middle?" (Reminds us of our roots). Gregg, too, he provided the tarp, the gazebo and the smoked turkey that once again was so delicious. Let's hear it for my family! See the pictures on the Web Site.

Hollywood Ending of another Derby

No blog for Saturday because I was too busy having another great day, another trip to the track, another day of fun and laughs. I started off Derby day by going to see Doc at Klondike and by the time I got home from there, Cynthis and Paul Duryea were already at our house. They were out in back being entertained by our watch dog extrodinair, Fergus.I finished packing up the food that I had spent part of Sat. purchasing and we waited a few minutes for Gregg to get there. Linda had gone out early (7AM) to watch our established space and protect it from any late coming squatters. We claim the front row site right in front of the media building that houses the betting windoes and the rest rooms,there is also a pool table in there but so far we've never felt the urge to shoot pool during the races.

Our tarp was down our gazebo up, our chairs lined up and the coolers situated and with racing forms, and programs in hand, we were ready for some heavy duty thinking. At first I was slightly miffed by the fact that there were so many tents and gazebos but once we were in our spot I forgot about the other people and settled in for the fun.

Alex Dolwick was the youngest member and I was the oldest. Everyone else was in between. Alex, Pat,(dad of Alex,) and the before mentioned entourage of Pat's, Thomas and his mon and dad, his mom being Pat's sister-in-law, Pat's father in-law,Chuck, Pat's neighbor and his wife,and Pat's fellow worker,and his wife drove up from North Carolina on Thursday. Some of them along with Paul Dolwick attended the Oaks race in the Infield and were very soggy by the end of the day. It rained most of the day.

The rest of our group, Nathan and his former umpire friend, Scott and Scott's fiance, from Denver, Cynthia Sullivan, and Paul Duryea, my niece and grand nephew, from Cincinnati, Karen,Linda and I plus Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip from London,Eng. were all there. (Q Liz didn't sit with us.)(Her loss)

To be continued tomorrow because I am still tired from the outing and I'm going to bed. As they say in Jolly Old Eng. Tata.

Getting Closer

According to the countdown clock on the home page, we are 15hours and 30 minutes away from Derby Day. I haven't checked with the Dolwicks to see if all arrived safe and sound. I'm assuming that they did. Brian was out for a minute last evening and he said he is working the first race (DerbyDay) and will be working the Derby race itself for one of Pletcher's horses. He is not sure which one yet.

For today's Oaks race, if I get an opportunity to send some bets out, I think I would bet on High Heels,Cotton Blossum and I forget the other one I was thinking about.

The events leading up to the Derby have been spectacular. Thunder over Louisville was attending by an estimated 800,000 people, the Balloon Glow was good, the Mini Marathon was huge and the weather perfect for running, the Steam Boat race was again won by Louisville under a cloud of doubt (they cheated) They said they were cut off by the River Queen, Yeah, right! The Pegasus Parade went off without a hitch. Doc and I watched it on TV, He loves a Parade! We saw Kristin with the Girl Scouts. Very exciting.

It's early in the day, no school so i'm off to get ready for the races. More later.