Car Door Handles...So Much Joy

Several years ago, I went to lunch with some friends from the FanX Planning Committee. I volunteered to drive. As we climbed inside the car, a friend opened the back door and, "pop"

Door handle broke.

It just snapped. 

I thought that strange. 

I don't know if I've ever had a door handle break. So, to "one-up" itself, a few months later, another door handle snapped off. Unbelievable...yet, believable. My daughter ended up inheriting the car and she drove it for a couple of years. Since it was her college commuter car, she didn't necessarily need all four door handles--as long as the drivers side handle worked.

Now, it's time for another driver to take the wheel. For kicks, I decided to do an internet search to see how much door handle replacements would be. Turns out, not as much as you'd think. I placed the order. It came last week.

I successfully installed one handle.

It made me so happy.

I can't testify to the quality of the new handles. I'm sure they're not up to the original standards and will most likely fail like those that went before. Then again, the original ones weren't too successful either. And, there's always the fact that since the car's almost twenty years old--it may expire before the new handles do.

I'm not thinking about that now. I'm thinking about how cool it is to be able to open the car door.

Anytime Is A Good Time...For A Pun War

 It began innocently enough...just a simple sharing of a meme, a meme containing a pun. For those of you who don't know me, I love puns. I love them in an almost inhuman way. Puns are a sign of higher intelligence...of this, I am certain. So, I found a fun little pun meme and texted it to my friend--you know, something to break the monotony of work.

Thus began the war.

Truth be told, it was a short war...consisting of three volleys. I sent one pun. He responded, hoping to inflict damage. His was good, no doubt. I felt, however, I had to finish him off. 

I sent yet another pun.

He did not respond.

I guess I won the war.

Of course, I could have continued the battle, lobbed yet another incredible pun to inflict further damage. Would he respond? Probably, unless he was paralyzed by the effects of the masterful puns I sent.

The next war may be fought in a day, a week, a month, or maybe never. If so it will most likely be instigated by me...I cannot resist. He may find one he knows I will enjoy. I will inevitably respond with a blinding pun of my own...rarely does he best me in this category. And if that happens, I may write about it, I might not.

We'll just have to wait and see.

The Nigh The Mosquitoes Swarmed...

 Before I went outside to play fetch and pick up puppy nuggets, I decided to put on a long-sleeve jacket and pants.

So glad I did.

I thought the mosquitos would be bad, but tonight they were extra bad, ferocious, just plain evil. 

I know, they're not evil, at least, they don't know they're evil. They're just bugs trying to survive, trying to suck the last drop of blood from whatever creature they can find, and because it's getting close to the time of year when they'll eliminated...not from exterminators or bug zappers, but from Mother Nature, once things freeze outside, that's the end of them, until they pop up to feast again next spring.

They were so bad, I wondered if I could capture the attack on video. I took out my phone and began filming. I warn you, the video is not pretty. You may want to put the kids to bed before watching. I only wish the poor quality of the video player here was better. 

It's the eternal struggle, man against beast, us against them. Thank goodness for winter. It's one of the advantages of living where we do.

Without doing any research, I understand mosquitos are important to the overall ecosystems that keep our planet alive. Just how important, I'm not exactly sure. It's human nature to put up with annoying things, as long as they're in someone else's yard. I'm guilty of that. Still...

I'll be glad when the snow flies.

Hoping It Snows In The Next Thirteen Days...Sort Of

 If you follow this blog (or my other social media accounts...), you know I post a daily picture and have done so for quite some time. When I started, Facebook would only allow 200 pictures in a photo album. I don't know when they increased the limit for their albums--I keep creating a new album when I reach 200 pictures (maybe I fear change...). Currently, I'm on Album #23.

That's almost 4,600 pictures posted.

I'm thirteen pictures away from Album #24.

On April 2nd of this year, I selected a photo of our dog in our backyard. As you can see from the above picture, it's snowing. I wanted to remember the winter we all lived through...it was a doozie. Maybe it's because we were hired to shovel eighteen driveways (including our own...) and it nearly killed us--it snowed so much. The winter never seemed to end.

The April 2nd picture was the second picture in my Album #23. On October 16th of this year, it will be Day 200 for the album and I'll begin another one. I thought it might be fun to have a picture of it snowing at our house before photo #200 is posted.

It could happen.

Right now because of recent storms, I'm seeing snow on the mountain range to the east of us. Ski resorts are posting pictures and videos of newly-fallen snow on their slops. Yes, they are thousands of feet higher than us in elevation, but we have experienced snowstorms on the valley floor in October before. Without looking at official records, it's probably more often than not that we get at least one snowing before the month ends.

I'm most likely in the minority to want it to snow so soon, but if it hits before the 16th of this month, then I'll have photos of snow bookending the album with summer in between.

For me, that's pretty cool.

Does Anyone Really Know How Cold It Is...?

We are entering the transition time of year when the warm days turn to cooler days. It's one of those weird in between seasons where you put on a sweater in the morning and need (sometimes...) to wear shorts during the day.

It's also a strange time for your thermostat. 

I passed ours in the hallway this morning and noticed the temperature. Sixty-nine degrees. It struck me that some people (not us...) set their inside temperature in the mid to high sixties in the summer. We haven't switched over to our heater so it would now take a severe heat wave to hit seventy-six degrees.

So, if in the middle of the summer sixty-nine degrees is heaven, why was it chilly in my hallway this morning?

Isn't sixty-nine degrees the same temperature in the summer as in the winter? If it were summer and we had our a/c at sixty-nine degrees, I'd probably be in a t-shirt and shorts. But this morning, no way. Also, if I switched on the heat and bumped the inside temperature to mid to high seventies during the winter months, would it feel warm? Would I dress in sweats? If so, why am I not wearing sweats when it's seventy-six degrees in the summer?

I've never thought about this before. Maybe the insulation on our home isn't has efficient as I thought. I'm sure those who have studied such things can explain all of this (or, if I did a little research, I'd know...). It might be that our bodies get used to the heat in the summer so a house set at seventy degrees inside still may feel warm, and a house set a seventy degrees inside in the winter may feel cool.

It made me wonder...do I really now what temperature it is?

I Hate Getting Scammed...But I HATE More Involving Others

 I saw the post and I should have known it wasn't real. Should have followed my gut.

But, alas, I didn't.

When I first joined Facebook, I caught the "friends" bug. I tried to get Facebook friends left and right. I succeeded, too. I've got more Facebook friends than some, much fewer than others. It helped that I became part of several communities, communities that like to add Facebook friends, namely writing communities, and especially theater communities. Every time I did a show, I'd Facebook friend dozens of people.

Fast forward ten or so years and the memory of many of those Facebook friends have faded. And with writer friends, there's many I've never actually met in person. I've also friended several high school acquaintances. Some I've kept kept in touch with, some not so much (and it's my 40th high school reunion next year, so that's a lot of years...). 

I saw a post from a high school friend. She said she had four Yorkie puppies that needed homes. A few months back, we thought our dog needed a friend. Turns out, he's more of a solo act. But, I saw my friend's post and since we weren't looking, I thought I'd share the post for other to see, others who might be looking for a puppy.

It was a scam.

After I shared the post, I got several messages from friends asking for help in contacting my friend. I messaged her and she said she'd contact them. A few hours passed and they'd contact me again saying they hadn't heard from her. Finally, I deleted my shared post. The next day my friend posted that she had been hacked.

What I hate is involving others. If you go to this website: HERE, you'll see these puppies are not cheap. No one is just "giving them away." I'm sorry I shared that post. I'm sorry they got their hopes up. Just crappy all the way around. Should have followed my gut.

Give Thanks...For Sleeping In

 Remember when you were young and busy doing all the things young people do and you get tired and you know that the next morning you have nothing to do and you can sleep in, and...

You actually sleep in?

Those were the days.

Sadly, as I get older and older, the days of sleeping in when you want to are fading forever in the distance. Sleep is no longer a given, something you know your body will be able to do. You can add "sleep" to a long list of things your body is no longer able to do, a list that gets longer and longer with each passing year.

This morning, however, it seemed those old days returned. We slept in until after 8:30am. And because if was Conference weekend, I did not have to hurry, get dressed and go to church that begins at 9am. No, it was a wonderful convergence of available weekend and actually sleeping in.

It doesn't happen often, but I'm thankful for those rare times when it does. It's a small thing, when comparing big things like poverty and the national debt, but when I woke up and saw the time on the clock...man, it felt great.