“Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.”
Gracie and I are on the deck despite the tenants from hell. Right now one of them is singing, I think, and his voice is loud enough and bad enough to scare away small animals and children. Their younger kids are riding bikes down the middle of the street. I’m sorry I missed small children hunting season.
The day is perfect with sun and a breeze and no humidity. It is the first day this week I have nothing on my dance card. I’ll fill the bird feeders and Gracie and I will go to the dump later. I have two new books, and I have yet to start either of them as I have been so busy. I’m thinking I won’t get dressed, even to go to the dump. I’ll shower and brush my teeth and I’ll wear clean underwear just as my mother always demanded.
I don’t remember when a stain on my shirt or dirt on my pants became a catastrophe. It was probably around the same time boys became far more than just a nuisance. That does present a problem as I am prone to food falling off my fork to my shirt. My sisters are also prone to food falling off their forks. It is genetic. One Christmas, my mother gave my sister, as a joke, an adult bib in her stocking. I carry a Tide pen and have one in the car and in the den where I spend most of my time. They get lots of use. One or even two will travel to Africa with me.
I think that stains and dirt come full circle. Your life reaches a point when stains don’t matter. A 90 year old friend of mine always wears a shirt with at least one stain. I don’t care and I doubt anyone else does. I believe other people’s expectations of you change the older you get. Faulty memory, of course; falling asleep in the middle of a conversation, why not? Stains on your shirts; at least you got dressed.
I’m not there yet; in fact, I think I’m a long way from there. I still have an obsessive need to hold on to my Tide pen, sort of like a toddler and her binky.
Explore posts in the same categories: MusingsTags: hunting children, old age, stains, tenants from hell, Tide pen
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
August 11, 2011 at 12:47 pm
I think that you can guess what today’s weather is like here in North Texas. HOT, DRY and HOT! The forecast is for 104 degrees F. It sounds better when you write 40 degrees.
This is a perfect day to stay inside and enjoy the air conditioning while reading a good book. I took off a couple of days to use up some vacation time and there are a couple of books that I have not finished. Hopefully I can complete one.
Old people always have stains on their shirts because they usually suffer from “donlop” disease. That’s when your gut don lops over your belt.
Eating is one of the few pleasures left to a man when he turns 60 years old. Everything I used to like in life was either illegal, immoral or fattening. I gave up illegal because I became a pilot (mandatory drug testing), I gave up immoral because I got married. Therefore, what else is left except fattening.
Old is always ten years older than you are right now. That way you can always stay young in your own mind.
August 11, 2011 at 6:33 pm
Bob,
I didn’t even have to venture a guess. Is there no end in sight?
I don’t have that particular disease. I just have the dropsy, and I swear gravity is against me!
I’m with you on illegal and fattening, but I don’t remember anything immoral though I’m sure there might have been something. Like you, I indulge myself-it’s one of the pleasures remaining!
I do feel young in my mind. I used to wonder how old people felt-now I know no one ever feels old. The body is what gives out!
August 11, 2011 at 9:14 pm
Today the forecasters were wrong. Clouds rolled in and I even saw a couple of rain drops on the windshield of my car today. I think the high temperature was only 97 degrees. If we had reached 100 today and tomorrow we would have tied the 42 day record. The streak ends at 40. However, the record for the most 100 degree or more days in the summer is 62. Maybe tomorrow we can go for that one.
August 11, 2011 at 12:54 pm
Hi Kat,
If I have underwear on under my “lounge attire”, that’s about as dressed as I’m going to be most days. In fact, if my dog sees me putting on jeans instead of sweats, he knows I’m leaving the house and parks himself by the door lest I forget him.
Tide pens are a gift from the convenience gods. I go through a lot.
I have the same kind of weather as you. Love it. I may celebrate with an ice cream run. That’s how I control my ice cream intake. I don’t keep ice cream in the house. If I am unwilling to drive 25 minutes up the highway to get it then I don’t really want it. And, yes, there is a Tide pen in the car. 😀
Enjoy your day.
August 11, 2011 at 6:35 pm
Hi Caryne,
I only put half my complement of underwear on when I went to the dump as I was out of the car only a couple of minutes. Gracie is the same if I put on my sandals-she sits by the door expecting me to go out. We used to ask my other where she was going if she put on lipstick.
Tide pens are on my shopping list. I have only the one I’m using.
I buy ice cream for dessert with company and pray they don’t eat it all!
Hope that ice cream was tasty!
August 11, 2011 at 6:43 pm
That would be Caryn!
August 11, 2011 at 1:34 pm
Yesterday was rainy and rather nasty cold and I had to start the radiator in my bedroom. Today was much nicer but I still wanted to start a fire in the stove and like always the first fires in the autumn I got a back draft in the chimney 🙂 🙂 🙂 If I had any vermin in my cottage before I doubt anything survived this. My home smells like a forest fire now 🙂 🙂 🙂
I´ve already given up. Stains is a part of who I am now days 🙂 🙂 I really try to keep the food on the fork and the coffee in the cup but I always fail 🙂 🙂 🙂 Now days I never wear light colored clothes, I think I only will use spotted clothes from now on 🙂 🙂 🙂
Have a great day!
Christer.
August 11, 2011 at 1:41 pm
It’s not autumn here until the middle of November. That’s when the leaves begin to change and usually that’s when we get our first freeze. Our house has two fireplaces but we have never used them. The heat just goes up the flue and they are a pain to clean.
August 11, 2011 at 3:20 pm
Even though I don´t want it as warm as You have it now, it would be nice to get autumn in November 🙂 We get our first frost where I live around the first week in September. The first snow usually in early November,
Christer.
August 11, 2011 at 6:52 pm
Bob,
We don’t usually get a frost until November either.
I love the smell of the wood burning in the fireplace. It doesn’t heat the house, but I love it anyway.
August 11, 2011 at 6:51 pm
Christer,
August is our hottest month then we have the beauty of the fall. September and October are our prettiest months. It gets down to the 60’s at night now, but that’s as cold as it gets.
I am usually out when I get stains that need the Tide pen. If I’m home, I don’t really care all that much. I think wearing pre-stained clothes is the smart thing!
August 11, 2011 at 1:57 pm
Kat,
I’d love to read the blog written by the tenants from hell!
“The cranky lady next door with the stained t-shirt was throwing stones at the squirrels again this morning. Yesterday she locked herself out after chasing her dog down the street that escaped out of her yard. Last night she and her friends were watching some God-awful sci-fi movie on the deck again! The shrill cries of bad “B-Actresses” could be heard for two blocks.”
🙂
Love,
Erin
August 11, 2011 at 2:12 pm
My Dear Cousin,
Luckily none of the above has happened of late. Gracie doesn’t escape unless someone lets her, like two weeks ago and the pizza delivery man. I don’t throw rocks at the spawns of Satan, but I do run at them at top speed and shake the branches they’re on so that, I admit, is a bit crazed. We didn’t have a movie this week and come Saturday evening when we do, they’ll be gone.
I have all the windows closed on the side of the house facing them, and I have to run the air conditioner in my bedroom despite the temperature as one window faces that house, and they are still at it midnight and beyond. My friends, just back from vacation, heard them last night, and their house is at the other end of the street.
I had the front door part changed which kept locking me out of the house and had the fence across the drive way made into a gate so I could get to the back door (always opened). This was after I had been locked out for the third time.
I guess last week’s tenants who swore and verbally fought with each other in the street and on the deck were really pleasant, and I didn’t realize it!
August 11, 2011 at 2:52 pm
I guess I feel left out. My wife says there’s a stain on your . . . . put it in the laundry and that’s that. Done! I wouldn’t know a Tide pen if it hit me in the face. But I also missed small children season. hehehe.
August 11, 2011 at 6:54 pm
Z&Me,
I’m usually out when I need the Tide pen. I can’t easily put anything in the laundry when I’m at a restaurant. At home is different-in the laundry it goes unless it is a stain which could become permanent.
We’ll have to pay more attention next year so we can get a license!
August 11, 2011 at 7:44 pm
1. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_-pGkeGjJTvs/TD84SWH4j-I/AAAAAAAAKRg/nqsFiqJccO4/s320/tide-to-go.jpg
2. http://www.amazon.com/Tide-Instant-Remover-338-Ounce-Sticks/dp/B000E66RQQ/ref=pd_sim_hpc_6
Cheers
August 11, 2011 at 8:44 pm
Minicapt,
There they are, my heroes!
August 11, 2011 at 8:56 pm
I’ve never heard of a Tide Pen. Hunting season… ha! It’s a beautiful day, I just wish my car would start.
August 11, 2011 at 11:51 pm
Lori,
It’s a stain stick which is about the size of a pen, very easy to carry.
What’s wrong with your car?