The horrors to come

Posted on September 26, 2019 | Comments Off on The horrors to come

“The enemy we have been fighting all this time is only the most brutal, radical and impatient, relentless and daring part of the horde that is breaking across Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and America. This is a clash of civilizations. The thousands dead on 9/11 and the thousands more dead since then, are only a small down payment on the horrors to come…While we spend fortunes to build nations, the horde is building its own nations in the cities of Europe and in the old manufacturing centers of America…”

Hence anti-Semites like Congresswoman Illan Omar are on the rise.

Via Sultan Knish

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Posted in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, The War

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Moving on…

Posted on September 25, 2019 | Comments Off on Moving on…

…to marble bathroom counter tops and drop-in porcelain sinks. Which includes getting rid of the wall mirrors above the existing fiberglass tops and sinks. When that’s done, in a week or so, we’ll start painting the bathrooms sunshine yellow and hanging six-panel natural pine doors.

So far at the mini-rancho we’ve replaced the microwave, the dishwasher, the electric range, the AC system, and tiled the bathroom floors. Future work includes a new hot water heater to head off a potential flood from an old, leaking one. We bought the place “as-is” for a slight savings and it’s slowly becoming “as-was”.

On Friday we finally close on the sale of Rancho Roly Poly and get back some of the money we’ve spent. And say goodbye to the house we shared with Mrs Charm for twelve years and where Mr. Boy grew up.

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

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Rule 5: Aliss Bonython

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Posted on September 24, 2019 in Plus-sized models, Rule 5

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Kissing Wrens

Posted on September 23, 2019 | Comments Off on Kissing Wrens

Mrs. Charm has been sending us lots of interesting birds, but especially wrens, which we used to call our wren buddies. They are the king of all birds.

The other day at Rancho Roly Poly, where I went to run the irrigation system to keep the lawn green in case our buyer bailed before closing and we had to start selling all over again, I hung a new bird feeder.

I asked Mrs. Charm to send a wren to inaugurate the feeder. Then the doorbell rang and I went to answer it. I looked back over my shoulder at the feeder outside and saw a wren perched on it chowing down.

That was cool but what’s even cooler are the wrens Bar saw a day or so afterwards on our porch at the mini-rancho. These wrens were standing on the cushion of the chair I usually sit in, which was odd enough. But these two were going at it like we sometimes see cardinals do. Kissing. By rubbing the tops of their longish beaks together. Ah, love, ain’t it grand.

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Posted in Barbara Ellen, Birds Watching, Mini-Rancho, Mrs. Charm, Rancho Roly Poly

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Hospice II

Posted on September 20, 2019 | 1 comment

Hospice volunteer training ends tomorrow with a six-hour marathon of listening to older volunteers relating their experiences with dying patients. The evening training got better than my previous report and ended last night.

Most exciting thing was when my car battery died late Tuesday after class and I had to call Triple A. After tomorrow begins our criminal background checks and if that goes well, in a month or two, issuance of ID badges and joining the roster.

UPDATE: Wrongo, the checks are underway, some done, some not, and I got the badge and joined the roster. Assignments to come. A bit daunting but I think I can do it.

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Posted in Aging

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Hospice

Posted on September 13, 2019 | Comments Off on Hospice

Hospice volunteer training is pretty redundant, excessively bureaucratic, and unnecessarily long. Six hours so far on two nights. Six hours on Saturday tomorrow alone. Rinse. Repeat next week.

Includes a TB test and a Hep B vaccine. Then a long hiatus while they do our criminal background checks, to see if we have any criminals in our backgrounds. Or are one. A month or two.

Bottom line could be easily found if not for all the cooks spoiling the broth. How’s that for mixing metaphors? I’ve taken away two things: We don’t have to say much of anything to the patient or family.

Just showing up, being present, helping out, is enough. And listening. You can’t say much of anything when you’re listening.

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Posted in Aging, Cancer

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The angry postal worker

Posted on September 11, 2019 | Comments Off on The angry postal worker

I had to do this morning what I try to avoid: go to the post office. Long lines, irritable employees. But I had to pick up a new mezuzah Mr. Goon was kind enough to send to replace our stolen one. His was small enough that it could have fit in my mailbox but the postman held it back for pickup anyway at the P.O. which is miles away from the mini-rancho.

Not that I’m paranoid or anything but ISRAEL in big bold letters on the front of the mailer makes some people peevish these days. The clerk at the P.O. certainly was. Short-tempered when I had a momentary lapse in thinking (common to we seventy-five-year-olds) while trying to decipher their credit card machine to buy some stamps. While I was there, you know. Figures a fed machine would be different from all commercial ones I have seen.

But the postal fellow? He was black, middle-aged and irritable, especially after he retrieved the package (from ISRAEL) for me. Looked downright angry. Some people forget, if they ever knew, how hard the Jews worked to get African Americans their civil rights. Some even died for it.

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Posted in Aging, Bureaucracy, Israel, Mini-Rancho

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