Let me start out by saying that this is being posted early because I will not be able to do it on the usual day.  So if you have not read last week’s post yet, you will have to go to the archive.  But by reading this now you will be ahead of the game for this week.  Anyway, I am writing this as if it is being done on Sunday, so please forgive any confusion this has caused you.  I know it had me for a minute there.

It is Sunday, August 4 and there are only 143 days until Christmas.  Time to start planning the menu and guest list for the big day.  It is the birthday of Knut Hamsun, Louis Armstrong and Dallas Green.  In 1693, on this day, Dom Perignon invented champagne; the plans for the city of Chicago were laid out in 1830 and in 1984 Prince’s album “Purple Rain” hit #1 and stayed there for 24 weeks.  In Norway it is the beginning of Peer Gynt Festival Days, in Italy it is the Joust of the Quintana and it is American Family Day in Arizona and Michigan.

This has been another one of those weeks that was unusual in that there was not much going on for me to rail at.  I find it interesting that every once in awhile, I can actually get through a week without something getting me going.  I know I am not mellowing out so either people are not as annoying toward the end of the month or I need to get out and around more.  I am going to guess that I need to get out more.  The lovely Elaine and I do get out, but it is usually with our grandsons or just running boring errands.  When I am with my grandsons, nothing bothers me.  I just enjoy being with them and I don’t pay much attention to anyone else.

We take care of them several days a week.  My daughter-in-law drops them off in the morning and we take them to her in the afternoon.  The days with the boys are always fun.  Sometimes they just want to sit around and sometimes we go play mini-golf or go on some other adventure.  Michael, the younger grandson, aka Pip, loves to play mini-golf, but he plays it as if it were hockey and the ball never actually stops until he gets it in the hole.  He doesn’t care about the score, he just likes playing.  The older grandson, Nick, tries to play the game properly.  Each time we go out, he gets better.  What bothers him and I most of all is that the lovely Elaine usually wins.  What makes that especially amazing is that I am the one keeping score.  I have always felt that it is a bad score keeper who can’t win at mini-golf, but there you have it. 

Near where my daughter-in-law Marianne works is a park and they like to run around while they wait for her.  Recently we had some time and Pip wanted to engage in one of his favorite pastimes, throwing rocks in the lake.  He wandered around picking up rocks and then came over, put the rocks down and started to throw them.  I looked at the pile and said, “That rock looks nice and flat.  Let me see if I can skim it.”  He gave me a look of anger and disbelief and said, “These are mine.  Get your own rocks.” 

 I could, I suppose, complain about the usual stuff like bad drivers, idiots in stores and things like that, but that becomes too repetitive.  I will work at having some new experiences so that I can be more interesting in the weeks to come.  I appreciate your reading each week and try to be as entertaining as possible.  I am sure next week will be better.

 

This week’s fact – 23% of all photocopier faults worldwide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their butts.  I have never actually seen that being done, but would love to watch someone try to do it sometime.  I would like to see it just to see what they go through to get it done, but also to see what they do that causes the damage.  

Have a good week.