Ah, 2006! Good times.

Since the link yesterday didn't work, and I  couldn't make it work, here is the picture that was on the front page of the Kansas City Times the day after my mom and I met Pat Boone's plane.  The lady in the lower, left-hand corner is my mother.  You can see my forehead, but her head covers my face.  She is holding my Kodak Brownie camera in case I get close enough to Pat to actually be in the picture with him.  Fat chance!  People from church were calling the next day to tell us they saw us on the front page, so I guess the backs of our heads were very recognizable.  At least you can see Pat Boone up front!

I believe we bought our blue Gold Wing in November, 2005.  So we hadn't had a lot of chances to ride it.  But March must have come in like a lamb, because we rode about 60 miles to Knobnoster State Park and had a picnic.  We had a picnic almost every time we went for a ride, and enjoyed it.  Never anything special:  peanut butter sandwiches or tuna salad.  Sometimes we had crackers and sardines.  Almost always took carrot sticks along, and a thermos of coffee.  I had fun setting the timer on the camera to take pictures of us.  We were having fun that day, but little did we know Cliff would be having a four-way heart bypass two months later, then wouldn't be riding it again until July.  I miss our rides and picnic, although I do NOT miss that feeling of thinking we might die any moment, because we had some close calls.  It's like some people in cars can't see a motorcycle even if it's ten feet in front of them.  I'll just post the pictures; they may not do much for you, but they make me happy, just looking at them.  I see we also had yellow sweet pepper strips.  Once in awhile we'd get a footlong Subway sandwich to split for our picnic.  For quite a while back then, Subway had a two-for-five-dollar deal on Wednesdays only.  We'd get a footlong meatball sub for lunch and a footlong cold-cut-combo for supper later.  Five bucks paid for two meals, and gave us a few winter rides to Subway in Odessa, which is only about 15 miles away.  Hmmm, I recall videoing part of a ride to Odessa.  I wonder if I could find that... 

I did NOT find the video of going to Odessa, but I found one that's a series of pictures I took during an Arkansas visit.  At the end of it, you'll see us ready to turn into the Hub motel, which catered to bikers.  They were originally part of Dogpatch.  I understand someone has bought the place now, with intentions of doing something new with the property.

That's Iris DeMent singing.  She was raised in Arkansas, and wrote this song.

I've been lazy

I spent some time adding pictures to my Harlem entry that were lost when the old blog moved away from AOL, including the one of my mom and me meeting Pat Boone at the airport.  You might want to go back and see those pictures.  If so, it's right HERE.

But lazy is nothing new to me.   We are still not doing much of anything that would make an interesting blog entry.  I did make it to both churches yesterday morning; it's always nice to get with some other people for awhile, say hello, and share concerns.  I got a good reminder from my Bible reading this morning in Proverbs:  "Too much talk leads to sin.  Be sensible and keep your mouth shut."  Proverbs 10:19.  

Of course, I've never been known for keeping my mouth shut.  I've almost decided the taste of my foot in my mouth is rather enjoyable.   Uh... no, it isn't.  Usually foot-in-mouth means someone got their feelings hurt, and I was the source.  That's never a good feeling.  

I have no words of wisdom to share other than that proverb.  Anything else you see here today will likely be drivel.  I told Cliff I'd like to go to some warm beach for a couple of days and stroll barefoot in the sand and maybe wade in the water that is too shallow for sharks to inhabit, feeling the sun almost too warm on my shoulders.  Maybe the Georgia Gulf.  It would be pretty cheap to fly to Atlanta, rent a car, and drive south to the gulf.  Just two days, that's all I'd need.  Pretty soon I'll surf the 'Net for affordable places to stay down there, check to see how many southern mansions we could tour and where to eat... and then I'll make dinner at noon, knowing we aren't going anywhere for awhile.  

There's more than one way to travel, and sometimes it's just as much fun reading about a place, pretending you're going to go, as it would be to spend a fortune actually going.  I've planned many Colorado trips I knew we wouldn't be making!

I've decided the world has gone crazy.  It's broken and I see no way of fixing it.  So I must just accept the things I cannot change and enjoy my little small-town-and-country world.  I doubt if I'll ever vote again, except perhaps for local issues.

I'll see how I fare at raising a garden this year, maybe a little larger one.  I don't want to can anything, though.  I would love to buy a couple of Araucana pullets to lay some colored eggs for me, but there I'd be with chicks in the house again.  And believe it or not, two hens lay all the eggs we can use, most of the time.  Corona and her sister give me around a dozen eggs weekly.  I wish you could see Corona when I go outside to encourage them to go on into the chicken house after they've had two or three hours of freedom.  The rooster and the other hen can be driven, because they're not so tame.  But instead of going to the chicken house, Corona turns and runs toward me, and squats in front of me so I'll pick her up and carry her to the henhouse!  She only does this at twilight, never the rest of the day.  I have a hunch it's because when they were about half-grown, I would take them in a box to a pen in the morning and carry them back to the henhouse at night in the box... at twilight.  

What would I do without animals?  I can't even imagine.

I hope it's as  bright and sunny a day for all my readers as it is here.  Unless, of course, you're needing rain.  You know, even sunshine hurts if you get too much of it; into each life some rain must fall.  

Sincerely,

Donna