sung to the tune of "johnny comes marching home". kelly has found a job at last-- huzzah, huzzah --- she'll be earning a wage again-- huzzah, huzzah ---and so on. there is most assuredly a sense of relief at the william's house. i'm sure each day during the time kelly was unemployed had to be filled with anxiety, dread and questioning. when? why? a myriad of questions, all without answers until thursday. a job at last. and with that momentous news i celebrate with her the end of the seemingly unending wait. it is with a degree of mixed emotions, that i receive her glad news. i am happy. at last she is again among the employed and proud that she has persevered through it all and without dissolving into despair. to a degree, i'm also sad. why? because with the happy announcement comes an end to my own hopes, admittedly wholly selfish and unrealistic, but hopes that through some twist of fate or fortune she might find her way back, that the two of them, might somehow return to amarillo. this journey they are on is not about my hopes, my wishes, or my needs. it's about the spreading of wings, the searching for a life different than all that is familiar, comfortable, boring. it's about the pursuit of a dream yet to be mined. with the most sincere of best wishes i say-- soar baby girl, soar. aio

i can't honestly tell you i agree with obama's politics on any front. that is, with the possible exception of the affordable health care for all thing. having had a family member "in the wind" for the last decade, the idea that some kind of coverage might be available for those who's places of employment are too small to offer health insurance, or the offered coverage is unaffordable, is immensely appealing to me. it is a nagging concern for a parent when one of your own goes years without coverage. not being a full time student, or if beyond the age of 26, or for a myriad of other reasons someone you love remains at risk and uncovered. why? because the system has yet to offer an appropriate option. that is unacceptable to me. sure there's arguments galore against implementing health care for all. who's going to pay for it, yada, yada, yada. i could give a rat's ass about all those arguments against it. what about all those people on welfare, who's going to pay for them, one might ask. who has paid for their health care in the past. joe taxpayer, you and i, that's who. the uninsured are without primary care physicians. where do they go when they get sick? the emergency rooms across this country are inundated with people whose sickness would be better handled by a pcp if only they had one. the cost of that routine care when provided in an emergency room setting is astronomically higher than it would be in a pcp setting. we could go on to argue about where we are going to get the needed physicians to cover the newly insured, etc., etc, etc., all are legitimate concerns whose solutions will not be easy ones. but, my main concern is that my family has coverage. if the rest of the country has coverage available too, all the better. whatever the cost in political blood, sweat and tears, there is no better time than now to implement a feasible system. washington, please cover my family. having them hanging 'in the wind" ad infinitum is giving me ulcers! aio

more doom and/or gloom

reading my daughter's fabulous blog today (monkeyheartdiscourses.blogspot.com) made me realize that my posts of late haven't been much "fun". she lives in "the big easy" aka new orleans, la. she's right, i seem to be obsessed with tornadoes of late. living in tornado country all my life, to the best of my recollection, i have never, not even once, seen a tornado with my own peepers. that's okay with me. i've never lived through a hurricane either. not that i particularly want to have that experience. for just a moment consider which storm is the badder of the two. in the case of a hurricane the storm is big, so big the radar reflects the "eye" of the storm. this allows the weather guys to keep the public up to date with a storm's latest pressures etc, mapping every zig and zag. technology is such that the weather guys can tell withing a few miles where the storm will make land fall. hurricanes even get a name. how cool is that. technology has advanced to the point that you can see with your own eyes whether you're in danger's way and have the time to prepare. there is time to prepare to ride it out or to make a run to safety. the folks on galveston island, back in the day, had no such luxury. in the case of the tornado, science has made some gains. the weather service can tell us when the conditions are ripe for a tornado to develop. radar can show us the progress of the storm providing an idea if the thunderstorm is headed toward you. radar can show a hook echo, it can indicate rotation in the storm but something is lacking in that return. i've never seen the "eye" of a tornado on radar. the weather guys can follow the progress of the storm on radar but without a "spotter" gluing their eyes on the skies the science cannot confirm a tornado on the ground. a twister can literally drop out of the sky at any moment but science can't really tell when that is going to happen. it takes a real live person, a "spotter" to verify there is a tornado on the ground. so you pick your poison-- hurricane or tornado. neither, for me, thank you. being in the path of either storm is not something one would choose. one of the national talking heads made the point recently that the number of spring tornadoes this year is 1/3 the average number seen this far into the season. that statistic should really make those folks in mississippi feel better, huh? hurricane season is just ahead, starting june 1st running until november. one good thing about living in the pothandle of texas is that i'm fairly sure i won't have to worry about a hurricane threatening us up here in a-town. and the weather fun just keeps on coming. aio

what a difference a day makes...

as the song sings, "twenty four little hours". wednesday and thursday the panhandle saw tornado action. friday and saturday the panhandle's straight winds were doing their worst, turning the horizons to a dusty brown. today, sunday, was totally different; mostly clear and sunny, temps into the mid 70's and the winds-- what winds? today, in contrast, there was hardly a breeze stirring. there's a lot of truth to the old saw "if you don't like the weather, wait five, a change is on the way". like the system that spawned the tornadoes we had around here on wednesday and thursday evenings. that system passed on through making it's way to to the east and the south. panhandle folks got off light, damage wise. folks over that way weren't so lucky. my heartfelt sympathies go out to those folks who lost family and to those who's homes and businesses were destroyed. their lives will never be the same. all in all, the panhandle winds aren't something we should complain about. ask the folks in yazoo county, mississippi about the winds that tore through their world saturday. those folks have a legitimate beef. aio

the wind is hardly ever still here on the plains. it's been working overtime these past two days. a peek at the weatherbug just now reveals the winds sustaining at 33 mph from the northwest, gusting to 46 mph at times. barry from work reported to me that there has been gusts to 58 mph today. as i've said before, any day like today is a good day not to be in lubbock and/or parts south of there. no matter how wet it has been down that way, the sand can find a way to blow on a windy day. here, or there, when the wind blows like these past two days, it can work on your mind. adding in the blowing sand only compounds the misery. it can wear you down. even if one stays inside, the wind somehow eats at the depths of your being setting teeth on edge.wind, wind go away... as a rule, the wind usually eases once the sun goes down. let's hope that's the case today. pssst... wind , if you're listening-- enough already. aio

tornado season 2010...

what started as a smallish thunderstorm turned nasty in a heartbeat last evening. if you've been following, you'll recall the f-3 twister near hammon, ok in late march. the little woman and i were finishing dinner when a tornado warning flashed across the tv screen. instantly the adrenaline levels spiked. that is least until we heard that the first tornado of the season in the texas panhandle had been spotted on the ground close to Bushland (8 miles west of our house). it was a tense evening with the weather alarmists repeating themselves over and over. what concerns me more than anything about yesterday's weather happenings is that there's been another confirmed tornado this early and the high temp yesterday was only in the mid 70's. i can only wonder what the instability in the atmosphere may foment when daytime highs get up into the 80's and 90's. keep an eye to the sky. it could get exciting around here. twister time in the texas panhandle is just getting started! and i'm out.

lilac time in-atown....

it seems there has always been lilacs in my life. growing up on that dry land cotton farm, my granny and granpa mc lived just beyond a clods throw to the west of us. not a day passed that i didn't stop in to see them at least for a minute or two. a front porch ran the length of the front of their house. at the end of the "walk" was a solitary lilac bush. it's blossoms each spring signaled that the worst of the cold was done for. winter 2009-10 is behind us now. among the snowiest in recent memory, the total snowfall for the winter was about 30 inches. what with a wet winter, and with the rains that blessed us these last days and weeks, the panhandle is a riot of green and growing things. in the side yard of our home here in a-town we have two lilac bushes. one has the traditional lilac colored blossoms, the other white blossoms. as scraggly as our bushes are, this spring they have brought forth an abundance of fragrant blossoms. lilacs are blooming all over even along the sides of I-40 at the underpasses. the lilac bushes TXDOT has planted there are awash in color, giving the locals and the passers through a splash of panhandle springtime color. mother nature is taking full advantage of all the moisture. as wet as the winter was and spring has been, one can only hope the rains will carry us through the dog days of august. in the mean time, keep your bumbleshoot handy and take some to smell the lilacs. a.i.o.

it's sucks getting older...

what with the kids grown and gone, with no grands on the horizon, we are reduced to getting our chills, and or thrills, vicariously through other people's children. it's not that we aren't supportive of our kid's endeavours, we are. at least to the degree one can be when the closest of the three lives nine hours away by car. you can't just "pop in" to austin to catch chris playing with one of his bands. trying to catch bob way out in california, in whatever play he might be doing at the moment, is even more daunting. kelly, who's down in new orleans, is for the moment on the sidelines of the arts scene. nawlins' is a draw in it's own right. i suppose we could go down and watch her plants grow. we could we call them what-- grand-tomatoes? the precipitating event for this particular diatribe is our attending the symphony last night. it was the annual concert featuring the choirs from WTAMU and AC as well as a combined performance of ASO and the amarillo youth symphony. i truly enjoy this annual combined concert. the hall resonates with the play of the two orchestras together. our vicarious connection to the youth symphony is kevin veggeberg, son of drs. neal and lisa veggeberg. i saw dr. lisa at intermission. she informed me, "you can't miss him. he's right in the middle and his hair is down to here". i didn't see kevin come on stage and from where i sit he was unfortunately not in my line of sight. at the end of the performance i felt--well stupid. (she's right, you can't mistake him.) at concert's end, i saw i had been following the play of a different kid altogether. a viola player for pete's sake, quite accomplished from what i could gather from his bow strokes but whose hair is longish but not actually red. i knew, or at least i thought i remembered, that kevin plays cello. i very much enjoyed the performance. was i misty eyed with pride in a performance by the wrong youth symphony musician? or was i simply moved by the moment? sorry kevin! and i'm out.

surfing the net today i came across a video about adult children friending their parent on facebook. the gist of the piece is that a 26 year old man got a friend request from his dad. after some pressure from his dad to accept his friend request, he did so, but it was against his better judgement. the son had a sense that this might not be the wisest move. as it happened, he was right to be concerned, in my view. why? because the dad went on to post, on the son's facebook page, some mildly embarrassing pictures of the son growing up. pictures of the son at about age 5 making funny faces and one of him sitting on a pot at that potty training age. one might question the dad's motive for posting said pics. was it because he thought his son was a cutie growing up and wanted to share that with the world. or was it to cause his son some degree of embarassment. whatever the motivation, the son didn't appreciate his dad posting the pictures. the son un-friended his dad and doing so caused some further friction between the two. i can understand his irritation with his dad for posting personal photos on the son's page. the two were able to resolve the issue but they still are not friends on the facebook. consider this. you and your adult child are facebook friends. you read a posting on a mutual fbf''s page relating something momentous to this mutual friend that hasn't been shared with you. what would be your approach in that case. let's say for example your daughter share's with her bff that she thinks she might be pregnant. she hasn't shared that bit of news with you yet. do you wait for her to get around to telling you. or would you be like me? i would be prone to say to her "so, why is it that i have to read on facebook that you think you might be pregnant. don't you think it would have been nice to share that news with me before posting it for the world to see?". i guess i've not put a lot of thought into the whole facebook friend phenomenon. now this piece about the troubles between a dad and his son has me wondering if this kidsdonegone blog thing i've got going on, which i share on my facebook page, is perhaps causing some embarrassment to one or all of my kids. if so, i hope they would tell me. i hope it's not a problem for them, but i don't intend to stop. tendering my thoughts and frustrations via the blog is a therapeutic outlet for me. and there is always a choice open to them-- they can simply not read the drivel i have posted there if it bothers. and i'm out.

no more buzzards...

enough about buzzards already! the occasional coincidence tends to amaze me. something like, you're sitting around with your buds when someone asks, "whatever happened to ole what's his name. i dunno, i haven't seen him in like forever" then in the next little while, a matter of days or weeks perhaps, ole' what's his name pops back onto the scene. when things like that happen, i just go--whoah! and the hair on the back of my neck kind of stands up. hey, ole what's his name, where have you been, man? is it kismet, or some other force that brings people, and things, in and out of our lives. the circle of life perhaps? hard to say, but along this line of thought, i fairly laughed out loud monday night when the musical guest for the night on "jimmy kimmel live" was announced. so, what was the group you ask. "them crooked vultures" that's who. and i'm out

turkey vulture, turkey buzzard, buzzard

i never know what might pique my interest. on sunday, it was the train of buzzards soaring above the amarillo skyline, working their way north. looking for a picture to go with yesterday's piece i stumbled upon some interesting information about the turkey vulture, aka turkey buzzard or just buzzard. one of the pieces i scanned, was from the 1930's. it recorded observing vultures "migrating" in march, at times into the hundreds of birds, each riding the thermals, all in a line much as i described yesterday. the perkins observatory in delaware, ohio has recorded similar flights of vultures each spring. perhaps more widely known are the buzzards of hinckley, ohio. each year on march 15, the residents of hinckley await the vultures return to "buzzards roost". somewhere in the back of my memory, i knew about the buzzards returning to hinckley, ohio but i had no idea from where and i had no idea that the turkey vulture can travel as far as south amercia to spend the winter. in spring they begin their journey back to the north, some traveling into canada to spend the breeding season. who knew that vultures have migratory routes and habits. but they do, some return to hinckley, ohio on each march 15th; not unlike the swallows returning to san juan capistrano on march 19th each year. little cute birds, big ugly birds; all are part of the grand scheme of things. each of us, whether it be swallow, buzzard or human holds a place in this world... all dependent, to a degree, on the other to maintain nature's balance. and i'm out

sunday morning coffee...

sitting in the donut stop with the guys on sunday morning, drinking coffee and dissecting the events of the past week, there was lull in the course of the usual, good natured trading of verbal jabs. sitting in the booth and facing to the north, i was staring out the window. into view from my right glided a couple of vultures. not such an unusual sight, even in the city, but then along came a third and a fourth. definitely odd at that point, but over the next minute, another and then another, until nine vultures trained along, one behind the other. riding the same thermal, nine (turkey?) vultures trailing along from southeast to northwest, floating along towards who knows where. likely each had eyes to the ground, scouting for signs of the equivalent of buzzard soup du joure. the point of this posting is what? it's hard to say, unless it would be that we never know what a day's time will reveal to us. let us revel in joyful anticipation of what the next tick of the clock holds for each of us. be ever ready to take it in, whatever it might be. enjoy the moment for what it is. after all, it's not every day that one gets to see not one or two, but nine vultures playing follow the leader in the skies over amarillo. and i'm out.

the sun has risen on a better day...

for the first time in a while, i woke this morning with a smile, with a lifted spirit i've not felt for some time. life is never without an occasional storm. the roads we take will not always be free of potholes. in our lives we may often be asked to weather restive times. it is these challenges that should serve to make us more appreciative of the times when we are without crisis. the value of days on end marked by nothing more than boring ennui can better be appreciated after the resolution of the strife sometimes visited upon us. i intend to put the latest of my life's speed bumps forever behind me. i'm choosing to concentrate instead on brighter days just a little further on down the road. and i'm out.

and the sun also rises...

if i may be so bold, let me paraphrase the words of a song by lubbock's own mac davis. happiness is mcgavock nissan in my side view mirror. the anxious anticipation working on my mind of late has been set aside. the delivery of my frontier from the truck hospital on the 45th day of it's extended stay there was, in a word-- anticlimactic. after all the angst, the hand wringing, the snot slinging and tears, there was nothing. there was no band to play a fanfare, no fireworks arcing toward explosion in the clear blue sky, no tinsel or streamers--nothing. no celebration at all was in evidence in the bsa parking lot. nothing but a quickening in the pulse of my eeky-leaky heart marked my frontier's return. the driver collected the p.o.s. dodge intrepid and was gone without a word. with his leaving, the frontier and i were alone together for the first time in many days. with st. christopher resting close to my heart, i placed my right hand on the frontier and in prayer asked

our patron, st. christopher to begin his watching over us-- me and my truck. after so many days apart the truck seems a stranger to me. is it because the new, good and true heart has not connected with mine? stranger or no, i am elated to be seated behind the wheel at last. listening to the calm purr of the recently resuscitated engine, working my way through the gears on a quick tour of the parking lot, brought a warmth to my innards and plastered a sh** eatin' grin on my ugly country mug. as this sad saga draws to a close, as i walk west toward the frontier, i look over my shoulder at mcgavock's and think out loud, "you can kiss my rosy red ass". as for us, the frontier and i are looking for better days. and with that, i'm out.

a growing hint of light, like the sun's first rays peeping up in the east, appeared on the eastern truck horizon late friday. as the clock ticked it's way toward 6 p.m., and not having any word from the truck hospital, my resolve to not call, dissolved. i called ann at the dealership hoping to hear something more positive than the string of empty, broken promises made over these past weeks. i was on hold for what seemed to be forever before ann came on the line to speak the words i've been waiting, wanting to hear. "the good news is the engine is back together, it started and the mechanic has driven it to "set the head". "all we have left to do is to change the oil and get it cleaned up for you." but-- "it will be tomorrow morning before we can get those things completed for you". those words, as beautiful as any i've heard in a while, were music to my ears. at long last the frontier is alive again. i get to check it out of the truck hospital and drive it home in only a matter of hours. it seems this awful nightmare is at last drawing to a close. mark the date-- saturday, april 10, 2010-- the day the frontier is to be returned to me and the day it will be given over to the beneficent portection of our patron, st. christopher. it is my great hope that all will go as planned tomorrow. if so, my next post will put the lid on the frontier fiasco. smiles for everyone. and i'm out.

uncle, i say. mr. murphy and all your laws, i surrender. you win, you've proven that as law #7 says, "left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse" you are the master. i bow to you. are you getting the idea that, as i predicted in the last entry, something else did happen and the truck was not ready as it has been promised for today, and for so many times before. about 4:30, i got a call from rex, the main service manager, explaining that my truck would be "ready tomorrow". me--oh?, what happened to today? rex-- "nissan cancelled the order for the head gasket". can you effing believe it! i can just see the scenario at mcgavock when ann learned of this latest snafu. ann- "WHAT!!! i am not calling kenmac47 to tell him that. rex, you have to call him. i refuse".. so rex called. and i just had to laugh because at this point you might as well laugh about it as cry about it, right. out of curiosity, i asked-- so, rex-- how long does a job like this usually take. ready for this? "about 2 days", he replied. tomorrow is day 44. and i repeat, i'll believe my truck is fixed when i can get in it and drive away, laughing my a** off, or crying my eyes out, from the relief of it all. stay tuned and say a little prayer that we find sweet release soon. and i'm out.

pray for sweet deliverance...

"like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives". another wednesday has come and gone. with it's passing, chalk up yet another day without mcgavock finishing my truck. the tubes referenced in the post previous to this one did apparently come in overnight. in actuality, they are "sleeves". whatever! as the overnight items are not delivered until "10:30--12:30" the truck could not be ready today, the 6th wednesday, and 42nd day since mcgavock took the frontier into their shop. perhaps it was st. christopher working his magic to make sure the sleeves came today. as he has not been formally introduce to the frontier, i somehow doubt that. anywhooo... the truck should be ready "in the morning". as badly as things have gone for the past six weeks, i would not be surprised in the least to hear something on the order of "we have the engine back together, but-- there's a problem". what just that problem might be, i am not prepared to say. what i am prepared to say is, i'll believe my truck is fixed the moment i can get in it, turn the ignition key and hear the engine roar to life again. what a moment, as we drive away from that awful place. what a beautiful sight, seeing the mcgavock sign grow smaller and smaller in the rear view. and i'm out.

black couds lifting?

wonder of wonders, ann called to let me know that the "head is in". me-- great! she--"but there's a problem. "they (meaning the folks at the music box head shop, i would assume) lost some of the tubes that go in there. i've ordered replacements to be delivered overnight. the parts man is supposed to call to see if they are available in dallas. if they are, they should be here in the morning, then all we have to do is put it together ". about this time a fella' named murphy, and his laws popped into my head. like murphy seems to be , i am something of a pessimist. several of his laws seem to be applicable to our (me and the truck's) situation. for instance, probably the best known of his laws is #3 most assuredly applies--, "anything that can go wrong, will go wrong". but he, murphy, has any number of other laws and corollaries, several of which seem to apply to my truck's not being fixed yet. #1 might apply--"nothing is as easy as it looks, and #2 as well, "everything takes longer than you think". how about #7---"left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse". I like # 11-- "it is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious", and # 13 "every solution breeds new problems". one of his philosophies, i'm thinking i tempted to adopt-- "smile...tomorrow will be worse". at least his quantization revision has not applied. that being..."everything goes wrong all at once". mcgavock has parceled out the pain over the course of the 6 weeks of this trial. to borrow a phrase from my son-in-law, mr. murphy is a "negative nancy". murphy's laws or no, i have hope, and choose to believe, that st. christopher will trump murphy and his laws. time will tell. root for all us will you, my truck, st. christopher and me. the way things have gone thus far, st. christopher is gonna' have his work cut out for him. and i'm out.

life as viewed through a purple haze...

as i said i would, i paid a visit to the catholic superstore this afternoon bringing onto my team a defensive specialist. the selection there is great. i think the medallion i picked is the right st. christopher for our needs. before i pulled away from the css, st. christopher was settled into place around my neck. imagination or not, i felt a mantle of calm settle over me. i can't say what the dodge intrepid felt. i've not spent a lot of time developing even a short term relationship with the car that's marking time as i wait for my truck to come home. on another note, i paid a personal visit to the nissan place this morning in order to better express, face to face, my frustration with this whole effing truck fiasco. i asked ann if she had a "boss". she took me to meet her supervisor, rex. i asked him if he was familiar with my situation. he replied "yes sir i am, and there's no one more frustrated than i am with this whole thing". me-- really? you oughta be standing in my thom mccann's buddy!". to their credit the two of them let me vent my spleen without once saying, "but it's not our fault. if only they'd get the head back to us we could have your truck done in no time". i do realize that part is beyond mcgavock's control. but i had to listen to another empty pledge, "if they get it finished today..." and how many times over the past six weeks have i heard that old saw. then it hit me. it makes perfect sense! the head shop they sent my truck's part to has to be "the music box" over on tenth. you locals will recall they are long time purveyors of bongs, pipes and other innocent paraphenalia which might be associated with smoking of the "wacky weed". work performed in a purple haze most assuredly lacks the sense of urgency i expect from the head banger working on my truck part. could it be? naaahh, surely not. or could it? and i'm out.

from little seeds, fertile gardens grow...

it amuses me, and amazes me to a degree, that the need to see things grow has been, somewhat magically, passed down to my kids. last year c and c tried their hand at raising some peppers and other things. this year, k and k have a number of different vegetables growing; some tomatoes, cucumbers and other things that they're trying. planted in good soil, with waterering, the warmth of the sun and faith, from seeds little plants have sprung. and so it was, in my growing up years. at the beginning of the summer each year we planted a vegetable garden. usually we would plant green beans, black eyed peas, okra, a variety of squash, watermelon, cantaloupe (aka musk melons), corn, cucumbers and such. sometimes we planted peanuts and turnips. when you live on a farm you're dependent on nature's fickle ways to either bless or deny the rains needed to make a crop thus there is no guarantee just how much cash the cotton and grain sorghum crops might bring. a bountiful garden was often the difference between plenty to eat and not quite enough. as the garden began to bear it's gifts there was fresh fruits and vegetables on the table every day. good stuff i tell ya'. the garden usually bore more rewards than could possibly be consumed at the time. in view of that, preserving the excess was the means to an end. there was many a late summer evening spent on my granny mc's front porch snapping string beans and shelling black eyed peas. idle chatter and the comforting familiarity of family helped to pass the time as we worked toward a common end. putting away the garden's excess served to load dinner tables over the cold unproductive months of winter. those were the good old days, born of a simpler time and perhaps better left as a fond memory of days long gone. and i'm out.

calling all protectors...

"out of desperation is born a sense of determination and creativity". --unknown surely someone famous penned a variation of the phrase above as i feel it was not first hatched in the fallow fields of this mind. i have reached a point in my truck saga that approaches desperation. i've jokingly spoken out loud to some, the idea of seeking an exorcism for the frontier. not being truly serious about that idea, i wondered if there is a patron saint of automobiles. a far-fetched idea perhaps, but as our family has had a positive, personal experience with the st. joseph's statue, house selling kit, i thought it worth a bit of investigation. gotta love the catholic's, they have a patron saint for just about any situation or dilemma one might find themselves facing. my search revealed st. christopher as the patron saint of drivers and automobiles. who knew? a further search revealed there are prayers to st. christopher. and so on easter sunday a plan was hatched to reverse all previous, and belay any further, negative truck related experiences for me and my truck. the plan is to obtain a st. christopher medal to take with me when i go to check the truck out of the hospital. thus armed with his medal and prayers to his spirit, i would invoke st. chrisopher's blessing on the truck and myself. it is my sincere hope that, with the new and true heart at it's core, and under the newly invoked aegis of our patron saint, our troubled past will be--well, a thing of the past. am i serious, you might ask. yes, i am! as serious as a heart transplant! and i'm out.

never ending doses of joe...

what is the human limit for absorbing disappointment? how many times can a person be in anticipation of fulfillment, only to have completion withheld once again? how many before the psyche begins to crumble? are the fates determined to test the limits of character, to bring completion to the brink of fulfillment over and over and yet again, only to snatch said completion away once more? is it to make reward all the sweeter, or are the fates playing some mind altering game ? and if so, to what end? question after question, disappointment after disappointment, all without answer. and no truck. just how much do the fates believe one truckless soul can absorb? apparently those fates intend to find out. and i'm out.

snatches from a poem of yore...

"anxious anticipation,constant aggravation, working on my mind". why those bits of a poem i wrote in high school would come flitting through my head this morning, i can't say. but those few words accurately sum up the whole of what these last weeks have been for me. and just now "torture" floated by. i've heard the often repeated wednesday platitude "it won't be ready today. it'll be monday or tuesday of next week before it's ready" about four too many times. when i took the truck in all those weeks ago, on a wednesday, i was told then it would be the next week before they could get on it and it "should be ready by wednesday". well, guess what yet another wednesday has come and gone and my truck is still there. ann told me yesterday, "it will be ready in the morning (today,thursday april 1, 2010). let's hope it's not mcgavock's idea of an april fool's joke. and i'm out.