Category Archives: Mrs. Charm

Social Security in decline

Posted on August 25, 2009 | Comments Off on Social Security in decline

Unlike millions of other seniors, I can live without the cost-of-living increases in Social Security payments. For one thing, I won’t have to face concomitant rising Medicare premiums so long as Mrs. Charm is able to keep me on her employer-supplied health insurance. But the implicit threat of SS’s impending demise really is angering.

Some of those who are too young to get the checks seem to think it’s free money, a kind of welfare payment for being old. It’s actually reimbursement, of sorts, for all those years the government merrily deleted social security taxes from my paycheck. I’m convinced that it would not be in the red if the pols hadn’t been stealing money from it all these years for their pork and lobby payoffs.

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Posted in Mrs. Charm, Obamalot

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Mr. Boy’s MRI

Posted on August 20, 2009 | Comments Off on Mr. Boy’s MRI

He had one this morning, at the Dell Children’s Hospital, in search of something that might, or might not, be wrong. They put him under anesthetic so he could hold still inside the hole of the big donut for thirty minutes to an hour. He came out of it okay, just groggy and dehydrated. They gave him a popsicle and let him sleep a while. At home he lay on the couch and watched cartoons all afternoon.

The worst part, for us, was waiting in the outpatient-surgery waiting room. There were several other couples, presumably waiting out something more serious than an MRI. One couple I remember especially. The woman looked stunned. The man looked angry, which I took to be anger at fate. Another man was crying. He had his head down by his knees, trying to hide the fact. The woman was stroking his back. Tough morning. Tougher for them. We got off easy. This time.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Mrs. Charm, Rancho Roly Poly, Scribbles

The immortal Miss Ellie

Posted on August 2, 2009 | Comments Off on The immortal Miss Ellie

ImmortalMissEl.JPG

Mr. Boy’s spirit animal, this stuffed elephant, recently had her first bath in nine years. Followed by a tumble dry. It was Mrs. Charm’s idea. Get rid of her familiar smell, the thinking went, and Mr. B. would be less inclined to carry her about and sleep with her. Not that we mind that, especially, but he still sucks his fingers, despite our best efforts to stop it, and her comfortin presence seems to play a role in it. Anyhow, it didn’t work. The precocious pachyderm, Miss El, remains immortal. And the rising fourth grader’s finger sucking, alas, continues.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Mrs. Charm, Rancho Roly Poly

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Vanities

Posted on June 29, 2009 | Comments Off on Vanities

Mr. Boy went off to four weeks of day camp at the JCC this morning. He rebuffed Mrs. Charm’s offer to help him find his group at the flag raising. Being a rising fourth grader he’s too big for nanny stuff. He was looking forward to a hot game of Ga-ga, an Israeli form of dodge ball. With a forecast high of 102, it definitely will be hot.

Meanwhile, I was honored to have two posts linked in the new Haveil Havalim, a carnival of Jewish blog posts founded way back when by Soccer Dad. It is, appropriately, the Hot and Humid Edition. Haveil Havalim means Vanity of Vanities, a reference to King Solomon’s discovery that materialism for its own sake is a dead end. Or something like that.

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Posted in Israel, Mr. Boy, Mrs. Charm, Weather/Climate

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Map reading

Posted on May 22, 2009 | Comments Off on Map reading

If the Air Force isn’t telling the truth and the GPS system does go down, it would mean chaos for the aviation industry. Me, I could always go back to map and compass. I taught both as a counselor in Boy Scouts many moons ago. But I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the sat system isn’t really in jeopardy.

Cause we like our TomTom. We use the Jane voice, which is British. You have to remember to update the memory every so often. But even when the route she suggests is more circuitous than we like, she picks up on where we’re going and adjusts her guidance. Lots easier than when Mrs. Charm navigates.

Via The Fat Guy.

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Posted in Mrs. Charm, Rancho Roly Poly, Science/Engineering, Scribbles

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Domestic joys

Posted on May 18, 2009 | Comments Off on Domestic joys

Mrs. Charm needed to move some bags of mulch and potting soil around to the back forty and didn’t want to bother me, apparently, so she went and got the wheel barrow out of the tool shed. She noticed it was a little hard to push but only when she got to the driveway did she notice that its tire was flat.

Now this is one of those fat tires that could, possibly, support half of a Piper Cub. We thought about using Mr. B.’s basketball pump to inflate it, but no, it has a real tire valve. So she thought why not take it off the barrow and take it up to the gas station to inflate it? Could not get the bolts off the barrow that keep the tire on it. She suggested putting the barrow in the CRV, but it wouldn’t fit. She suggested putting the seat down so it would fit, but that’s where I drew the line. I carried the bags.

Then I put the barrow back in the shed. What else? I need a torque wrench to get those bolts off. But I don’t want to buy one. Maybe a little WD-40 and more elbow grease? Why did I ever buy such a complicated wheel barrow? I was moving sand to build Mr. B. a sandbox back in ’03. Which reminds me, I need to dismantle the sandbox one of these years. It’s only a haven for ant colonies, now.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Mrs. Charm, Rancho Roly Poly

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Happy Easter

Posted on April 12, 2009 | Comments Off on Happy Easter

Mr. B. is getting almost too old to help Mrs. Charm dye eggs anymore. But he nevertheless rallied to their old effort yesterday. Expect he will still enjoy the jelly beans and other candy today. Eschewing potential diabetes, I will stick to eating the eggs–throughout the coming week.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Mrs. Charm, Rancho Roly Poly

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