Ah Folks,

I just did one of these a few weeks ago. And already the Redhead is demanding another. She got back a few days ago from an 11 day trip touring the national parks out West. While she was gone, we had a medical emergency in the family and much of my time was either spent in the hospital or searching to find a decent nursing home. Shirl would call me at night to tell me that she had been to the location where John Ford had filmed the classic western, The Searchers. I told her I was living that story right now. She called another time to tell me that she had visited the very cliff that Thelma and Louise had driven off in the movie. I told her to take a photo of the site and get a map so that I would be able to find it when I drove down there.

She was gone over Father's Day. But it wasn't so bad since she told me that she had left for me in the freezer what she assured me was my favorite dinner...night crawlers lightly sauced with carp juice. If that wasn't bad enough, I don't sleep well when she's gone and this time my sleep problems were compounded by anxiety. One doctor was telling the family one thing and another doctor was saying something else. So my old stress nightmares started up again. You would think that my subconscious would take pity on me, but oh no. I spent my nightmares killing people. Now, in these dreams I can't do the mayhem with a scoped rifle, with which I am very good. You know, even a shotgun, say, at 20 or 25 yards, would be clean. But for me, it's knives and axes. Close up and violent and messy. The two cats had taken to sleeping with me while "mom" was gone. One night, I must have had a beaut of a nightmare. I woke just as poor Pewter, the blue boy, at my feet went flying off the bed. I guess I kicked him as I was thrashing. Just as I was drifting back to sleep, Sooty, the black boy, who was on "mom's" side of the bed came up and tapped my face, whining. I thought he was comforting me until I saw that I had pulled the sheets off the other side of the bed. He likes to sleep under the sheets and probably wanted them back. One-way little turd!

With Shirl back, we had a belated Father's Day last Sunday. Shirl handed me 2 big sacks of bird seed. I thought for a minute that it was my dinner. But she just laughed and said those were for the bird feeder--when you put it back up. (It came down in a storm a year ago, but to put the feeder back up, I have to borrow the neighbor's 20 foot stepladder. Shirl knows I am afraid of heights.) One of Matt's offerings was a St. Louis Cardinals ball cap. He wanted me to put it on. I told him that I had just showered, shampooed and brushed my hair. "Hey, Dad, get serious. With a haircut like that what could it hurt? It looks like it was cut with a weed whip." Shirl chimed in. "You know, honey, since I haven't been going along to supervise, Kim hasn't been doing as good a job as she used to."

Let me close on these cheering thoughts, more or less from Macbeth:
     I have lived long enough; my way of life,
     Has fallen into the sere and yellow leaf.
     And that which should accompany old age,
     Such as reverence, honor, and respect,
     I must not look to have.
     But in their stead snarky jibes about rotten haircuts,
     And plates of carp-drenched night crawlers.

Come to think of it, Macbeth had bad dreams too

Jim,
Oh yes, please remember--an ebook needs reviews like a garden needs rain. Nothing blooms without them.