Jolly: happy and cheerful. "he was a jolly man full of jokes" synonyms: cheerful, happy, cheery, good-humored, jovial, merry, sunny, joyful, joyous, lighthearted, in high spirits, bubbly, exuberant, ebullient, gleeful, mirthful, genial, affable, fun-loving.

Great and Grand Madi girl at her mom's birthday celebration.

That would be correct. It is Friday and the birds are even making a sweeter song because of it. You do know I'm just pulling your leg on this April 7, 2017, don't you? Believe it or not, the origin of the 'pulling the leg' figure of speech is hard to nail down. It is going out of style in today's usage but it has been around since the 1800's. We all know it typically means to be misled or teased in a mild and benign manner. The theory favored by many etymologists connects it to a time when thieves would pull at the leg of a target to trip them up, but, there is no hard proof for this being how it began. The limbs do have their fair share of colloquialisms, like 'an arm and a leg', 'shake a leg', and the ever-popular 'break a leg'. I think I had better move on down the road before I get bogged down. The other evening when I drove across the way to have dinner with our eldest and his family to celebrate our Tiffany's birthday, I had an interesting exchange with one of the wait staff at the Olive Garden Restaurant. I was waiting out on the porch for the others to arrive and he stopped, looked me over, and told me he really liked my cap. I said thank you. He walked away but stopped and turned around and then he said, I actually like your entire outfit. I thanked him for the compliment. My outfit? Outfit? A cap and suspenders and it's an outfit? I guess it's good that I can be jolly about it. Surely, I can pull off at least one of those identified traits of what it means to be jolly. I hope I can.

We hit a low of 43 degrees yesterday morning. That felt really good but I must confess that it was trending towards the chilly side. That's just four degrees from being in the 30's. I did wear a long sleeve shirt. I also drove into work with my window partially down but I did have the defrost heat blowing on the windshield. The combination made it just about right. I'm not so sure the construction guys got the memo that while it was projected to be cooler, there was really no need to dress like Eskimos engaged in breaking ice to get their jobs done. That was one of my observations about the enjoyable cooldown. And, in that case, it truly was a drive-by assessment. Our great grand is an observer as well. She noticed the other evening that I was sporting a different cell phone. "Oh look, Poppy has MiMi's old phone." I'm sure she has played a few games on her MiMi's phone. And, she pointed out the pink color. She's not the only one. I get that a lot. I finally started telling people to please not make fun of my phone that reminds us of breast cancer awareness. That typically brings any further discussion to a halt. I've been offered a camo cover for it. That would be nice. You know. Duck Dynasty. I would think about it but I've already forgotten who offered it to me. Some days are like that.

There's quite a lot of favorable research on the benefits of forgetfulness, from a neurological viewpoint. I'll not go into those since I don't begin to think I understand them. Here's what the online version of NEWSMAX deemed as the top five most famous quotes concerning forgetfulness. ~ 1. "The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time." — 19th Century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. ~ 2. "As you get older three things happen. The first is your memory goes, and I can't remember the other two." — 20th Century British comedian Sir Norman Wisdom. ~ 3. "Yes, forgetting can be a curse, especially as we age. But forgetting is also one of the more important things healthy brains do, almost as important as remembering. Think how quickly the sheer volume and multiplicity of sensory information we receive every waking minute would overwhelm our consciousness if we couldn’t quickly forget a great deal more of it than we remember." — U.S. author Michael Pollan in his 2001 book, "The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World." ~ 4."A man must get a thing before he can forget it." — 19th Century U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. ~ 5. "Forgetfulness is necessary to remembrance. Ideas are retained by renovation of that impression which time is always wearing away, and which new images are striving to obliterate. If useless thoughts could be expelled from the mind, all the valuable parts of our knowledge would more frequently recur, and every recurrence would reinstate them in their former place." — 18th Century English author Samuel Johnson. ~ I can't remember if I've seen these lately but that number 5 is a doozy. Remember this: Don't feel bad if you forget these as soon as you read them. Enjoy your Saturday and Lord's Day Sunday. See you next time and may God bless. Amen. ....More later.