1st year, the man speaks, his bride listens. 2nd year, the wife speaks and the man listens. 3rd year, they both speak (loudly) and the neighbors listen.

Hello again and it is mighty good to see you on this Thursday, June 2, 2011. June is the wedding month or it used to be. There are some who say it may not be that any longer but there are still many who get married in June. We do know there was a historical goddess of marriage named Juno and that is one of the traditional explanations for why people marry in June. Another makes sense from a male domination viewpoint. It is said that people would marry in June in ancient times so they could time the conception of their first child and have it born at a time that did not conflict with mommy being able to do her harvesting chores. That sounds pretty practical even if it's not so romantic. A final thought would have June chosen because of May being the designated month for the annual bath. Taking that once a year bath in May would have everyone smelling just a wee bit fresher for a June wedding. In case you wondered what month is thought to be moving in on June's matrimonal territory, it is August, and I do not have a clue as to why. All of these little worthless nuggets of trivia came from the AskYahoo forum. The last year I found statistics for was 2005 where some 2.2 million marriages were performed here in our country. By my calculation, that's 4.4 million people and when you add in all those involved, the dollars spent, and all the rest, we can easily see that this is a big business. Tragically, coming out on the other side, the divorce rate remains stubbornly somewhere around 50% and that doesn't give good odds for those starting out together each year, regardless of what month they tie the knot. From my way of looking at it, the only remedy to this national  tragedy is to advise folks to get God involved before, during, and after, if they have any hope in being able to keep those 'until death do us part' vows.

Okay. Enough about June weddings and those dreadful statistics that really should be of great concern to us all. How's everything been going over in your neck of the woods? Y'all surviving this early heat wave? Guess you've noticed that raindrops around here are just about as scarce as hen's teeth. We can always talk about the weather and most folks do and based on my experience over the past nearly 65 years, most people have always talked about the weather. Too much rain. Not enough rain. Too hot. Unseasonably cooler. We all must agree that it is a conversation starter. Did I mention that we are closing in on 100 degrees already for this summer session? Hello hot! Those A/C repairman guys did warn us that this is supposed to be a really hot summer. Of course they were trumpeting the sale of a new system to replace my old one that is currently on life support. I'm kind of glad we have one of those new digital electrical meters on our house now. That old one had that spinning wheel on it and when everything was cranked up, it just sat there and whirred and whined. The new unit is much too sophisticated for that. It just sits there and changes those numbers faster than a speeding bullet without even a whimper. Maybe I should be thankful for the noise reduction but that is pretty well offset by the loud outcry I make when I receive the bill each month. Technology. You just have to love it. Right? Right. That's what I thought as well.

Have you ever found yourself getting ready to get ready to be ready when that time comes? I am currently on somewhat of a crash course to be ready for my doctor's appointment coming later this month. I need to lose a few pounds and work a little harder on maintaining my blood sugar control. Have you heard of anything so silly? Not lately? Me either. It's like this next 2-1/2 weeks are going to somehow make up for my slipping and sliding around over the past six months since my last visit. I'm even already thinking up some excuses that might work. No. Not the one about the dog eating my homework. They weren't impressed at all the first time I tried that one. I'm thinking of much more technical kinds of things than that. Give me some credit here. Like maybe the controller that talks to my metabalism system may have sprung a leak or something. If I were a doctor that might make sense to me. You don't think so? And how many years of medical school do you have? Sadly, this will likely be the last time I meet and greet my doctor because of that Medicare card which will dictate new options beginning this August. Sad because we've had a good run and even though we have had our moments, he has done what you expect a doctor to do, worked with me to help manage my diabetes. Having thus far not been able to defeat it, I owe much to him and his trial and error approach in getting me to where I am today. I like him but not his weighing scales. His nurse agrees with me that they tend to add a few. See what I am up against here? Pray for me because I do need all the help I can get. May God bless each one. Amen. See you next time.    ....More later.