Nothing but ashes now!

Hello Monday that showed up on a Tuesday. You have to love that kind of substitution. Right? But I am back and it's good to say hello to one and all on this Tuesday, May 29, 2012. I was finally able to incinerate all those boxes of personal papers we had accumulated over the past 45 plus years. Seeing all that stuff makes one aware of just how much paperwork it takes to get life done here in our land. I felt like the average tax payer seeing all those 1040's go up in smoke. You should hope we didn't throw away anything we will be looking for later? That's a great question but it is also the rationale that has kept this aging material around for so many years. It mostly was old bills. Insurance policies. Tax returns. Related correspondence. Old checks. Just think. Much of these types of documents are now electronic and we should feel safer. Right? Not always. I was reviewing and deleting old emails the other day and I ran across the one from our bank a couple of years ago. A third party company they do business with had an employee who lost their briefcase in Italy and they had reason to believe our banking information may have been on a media disk in that briefcase. Hello? Could you run that by me, one more time. We had to notify all the credit reporting agencies and I believe that's when I subscribed to an identity protection service. But, paperless is so much better. We'll see about that!

One thing about clutter. There's typically always more where that came from. We are firmly in the 90's each day for temperature highs and summer is upon us. Those random pop up showers are about all that has any promise in terms of precipitation. I am trying to stay calm but I really do think I've seen this movie before and we still have evidence in our yard to remind us of how it ends. Yes, I am aware that summers come each year but I also remember my fire chief buddy who said their internal long range predictions indicate dry conditions for an extended period of time. I can't do much about that prediction. But, I can do what I can. Therefore, I have put up this photo as the background on my computer. When I look at this photo it helps me to think cooler thoughts as we engage these long hot days. Silly? Maybe, but I know from experience that it seems to help, ever so slightly. A figment of my imagination? That works for me. Please don't send me your trapped in the snow stories or how that if I had grown up shoveling the stuff I would not be celebrating it. I hear that and there is a part of me that acknowledges it as being true. But, the other part says it helps a little so I will go on my delusional way and perhaps feel ever so slightly a little cooler as a result.

From 1907.

The cruise craze continues. Nearly everyone we know has been, is soon going, or they just got back off a cruise. We tried a sampler 3 day weekend deal one time and the wife stayed very ill most of the outing. I heard some fellows debating exactly what part of the world they had visited that produced the most beautiful oceans. It was one of those "You haven't seen a deeper aqua blue unless you have been to........" These were just ordinary blokes, so to speak,  but I was impressed by how many different cruises they were mentioning, some half way round the world. The other day I saw a reproduction of a 1905 advertisement for a cruise. It featured a two week excursion on the S.S. Oceana leaving New York City on April 3rd. The stops included Bermuda, St. Thomas, San Juan, and Havana, Cuba. Two weeks with prices starting at $90 which included meals and accommodations. I would have loved to have shared that ad but it was copyrighted and protected. (I did, however, find a copy of an ad for one for a cruise to the Orient, from 1907). That $90 sounds like a great bargain but I'm not sure how many folks back in 1905 would have been able to afford that type of vacation. My grandfather was born in 1900 and I know for a fact his logging and farming family would never have even thought about something like that. In fact, I rather doubt they would have even dreamed about it. But today its pretty much available to a wide range of folks, and, maybe one day we will try it again. We did find out that the wife did much better after she started wearing one of those wristband bracelet thingies that did something to help with the sea sickness. I suppose this means you no longer have to join to Navy to see the world. Have a blessed back to work Monday on this Tuesday and Lord willing I'll catch up with you again tomorrow. Amen. ......More later.