How I Spent My Summer

I spent most of the summer working on this new bed of bushes. I planted over thirty of them. Betty helped with the first four. Now I'm moving rocks around on non-rainy days. I'll run out of yard and gardening projects in about fifteen years. Sammy is on the driveway walking toward me in the second picture. I think his sister, Penny, is hiding in the bushes.





Here is a recent pic of my babies. They turned two on September 30th.

The Reality of Dating After 40

A Recent New Yorker Cartoon:

A story from my cousin

NEWEST VERSION OF THE BIRDS & BEES

A little boy asks his father, "Daddy, how was I born?"

The father answers, "Well, son, I guess one day you will need to find out anyway. Your Mom and I first got together in a chat room on Yahool.

Then I set up a date via e-mail with your Mom and we met at a cyber cafe.

We sneaked into a secluded room where your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive.

As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had a firewall, and since it was too late to hit the delete button, nine months later, a blessed little Pop-UP appeared and said,

"You've got male!"

Betty made me do this

Geez, Betty... It's Steeler week!. But maybe I need to think about something else besides my Bengals.. so here goes:

What were you doing ten years ago?


1995... I was finally accepting that my macular degeneration couldn't be treated and I wouldn't be able to go back to teaching. I was focused on being a stay-at-home dad to my then 7yo daughter and 3yo son. I just looked at a pic taken of the three of us about that time. I teared up.... I could tell by their faces and how they had their arms drapped around me that they loved and appreciated me. I was listening to lots of good music, and reading for pleasure.


Where were you five years ago?


I was sleeping in the basement on a couch trying to accept that my marriage needed to be over. It was the worst year of my life. Then my beloved, first-born, nephew died at 29 from a liver problem which was misdiagnosed. He was sick for five years! They sent him to a psychiatrist at one point. He never complained. I'll miss him forever.


Where were you one year ago?


Ok... now I'm getting depressed...*S*. I was trying to adjust to having my kids fulltime. My ex- decided she didn't want to be a mother anymore. I went to a therapist for the first time in my life. She helped me see that I have much to be thankful for. .... my kids like living with me, and I no longer have to worry about them being unhappy with their mother (she's not a bad person).

ATTENTION! My life is pretty good.

What are your five favorite snacks?

1) Cookies... almost any kind.
2) more cookies... vanilla wafers
3) fruit... grapes, apples, plums
4) potato chips
5) Wheat thins.... seriously!


What are five songs to which you know all the words?

1) Sweet Baby James
2) You've Got a Friend (the Carole King original)
3) Afternoon Delight
4) Yesterday
5) Leggett's Serenade (a introspective song about a failing love on Kate Wolf's great 1980 album, Close to You).


What are five things you’d do with 100 million dollars?


1) Take care of my five sisters.
2) Try to defeat my idiot Congressman, Geoff Davis, next year.
3) Give 1 million each to many of the worthy causes I'm passionate about.
4) Give money to Betty so she can do good works
5) Hope that my children would not be harmed because they were suddenly rich.


What five places do you like to run away to?


1) The theater with Melanie
2) My rock garden (which is still a work in progress)... had fun when Betty helped me plant bushes.
3) My bedroom or screened porch with a good book and music.
4) Striding behind my lawn mower.
5) Backroads on my bike.


What are five things you would never wear?


1) A condem? I've had my tubes tied.
2) Hey! I'm a man. I'll wear anything. I'm skipping 3-5.


What are your five favorite TV shows?

1) Lost
2) 24
3) Charlie Rose on PBS
4) Hardball with Chris Matthews
5) Any show my 13yo son wants me to watch with him.... Survivor, South park, Futurama, Family Guy, Robot Chicken....


What are your five biggest joys?

1) My son, Kellen.
2) My daughter, Jocelyn (she's comes in second because she is self-absorbed to a fault).
3) Being in a relationship which is becoming more permanent and fulfilling with each passing day... It's good to express doubts.
4) My cats.
5) Watching the REDS at GABP or the Bengals at PBS.


What are your five favorite toys?


1) My yard, garden, and shop.... can't separate them.
2) My book collection.
3) My cd collection and the stereos in almost every room of my house.
4) My bicycles.
5) My life.


Five people to pass this on to:

1) Melanie
2) Kellen
3) Jocelyn ( I would be extremely interested in her answers.)
4) My ex-wife. We were married for twenty years, yet I have no clue who she is.
5) You

I Once Was in Love

I once was very much in love with a lovely, dark-eyed, seemingly even-tempered woman. We created a world of two that sustained us. We imagined our "perfect" future together. Knew the names of our children five years before the first was born. She insisted on having a girl, then a boy, and got it! She also insisted that they would be perfect in every way. That she didn't get, and it destroyed our marriage.

The woman I loved so much no longer exists except in my memories. I'm no longer sad over my loss. I accept that life's inevitable disappointments can change people; bring out the worst in them. The woman I loved became a screamer, and I became a referee. We divorced after 19 years, 364 days of marriage. That was four years ago.

I see the woman I once loved several times a week. I have no idea who she is now. Certainly not the woman I cocooned with during our first years together, and not even close to the woman I divorced. What I feel for her now is not love or hate, but something close to indiferrence.

I, of course, have custody of our not perfect kids. I live a not perfect life. I'm fairly content. I accept that life has a wicked curve ball that I mostly can't hit.

I hope that love strikes me again some day. I want to put into practice all that I've learned from my experiences.

Why Don't I Know This?

It's almost 5am. I'm reading a nice SF novel about AIs. I hope to get a bit more sleep sometime this morning.

I just had a disturbing thought. I am 49 years old and don't have a clue what Sherry is! After all, it WAS Albert Einstein's favorite spirit. I SHOULD know what it is. I DO know it's a wine, i.e., a drink fermented from grapes.

..... I'm going to look it up using the internet. Fifteen years ago I would have had to wait until the library opened. I should be back in few minutes with an answer.....

I'm back!

Sherry is simply wine fermented from grapes first believed cultivated near the Atlantic coast of southwestern Spain near the city of Seville. Seville is the hometown of that famous male archetype, Don Juan!... and some barber.

Now... off to read more and maybe to sleep... *S*

My Favorite Poem

Robert Frost
The Telephone
Poem lyrics of The Telephone by Robert Frost.

'When I was just as far as I could walk
From here today,
There was an hour
All still
When leaning with my head again a flower
I heard you talk.
Don't say I didn't, for I heard you say--
You spoke from that flower on the window sill-
Do you remember what it was you said?'

'First tell me what it was you thought you heard.'

'Having found the flower and driven a bee away,
I leaned on my head
And holding by the stalk,
I listened and I thought I caught the word--
What was it? Did you call me by my name?
Or did you say--
Someone said "Come" -- I heard it as I bowed.'

'I may have thought as much, but not aloud.'

"Well, so I came.'