Thursday, 19 July 2012

Family

I had a strange day today. The weather wasn't all that wonderful, so we decided to stay at home. Billy and Sandra kept themselves busy, working out, cutting the grass and getting on with other exciting chores while I scanned dozens of old photos for a private Facebook group (family only) created by one of my nieces. The family is very large and we live all over the world: Brazil, Spain, France, the States, England and Australia. Everybody has been very busy posting their photos, which made us miss our dear departed relatives and also sparked some lively discussions about the identity of one particular baby. After a lot of detective work, we decided it was a photo of my eldest niece. That was fun!

One particular picture brought back very fond memories of a remarkable man, my proudly Spanish grandfather:


Needless to say, I'm incredibly homesick, but the word is not quite accurate, what I miss right now is not a place, it's a different time, a time when the people I still love very dearly were still around... which brings me to a paradox: If I were to go back in time, quite a number of people who are here now wouldn't exist! If only we could merge the past and the present (only for a while), we could all have a big family party. That would be something!

Wednesday, 18 July 2012

Tuesday, 17 July 2012

Having fun


The posts will be patchy, as I expected. We had a nice day at our lake beach. The weather should be nice for the next few days, so we have to make the most of it.

Chat away, my friends.

[No, Pallottine, you can't carry over a "first" from the last post...]

Monday, 16 July 2012

The power of positive thinking

We'll have a guest for the next couple of weeks, so the posts may get a bit patchy. Actually, we'll have two guests, as Billy is already here. His on-off-on-off girlfriend arrives tomorrow.

We're great believers in the powers of positive thinking, aren't we? The next task is to concentrate our powers into helping Billy see that this gorgeous girl is definitely ON!


Sunday, 15 July 2012

Ouch!

Mrsgunka sent me this funny (yet painful) story. Thank you, Mrsgunka.

We've all had trouble with our animals, but I don't think anyone can top this one:

Calling in sick to work makes me uncomfortable. No matter how legitimate my excuse, I always get the feeling that my boss thinks I'm lying.

On one recent occasion, I had a valid reason but lied anyway, because the truth was just too darned humiliating. I simply mentioned that I had sustained a head injury, and I hoped I would feel up to coming in the next day. By then, I reasoned, I could think up a doozy to explain the bandage on the top of my head. The accident occurred mainly because I had given in to my wife's wishes to adopt a cute little kitty.


Initially, the new acquisition was no problem.

Then one morning, I was taking my shower after breakfast when I heard my wife, Deb, call out to me from the kitchen.

'Honey! The garbage disposal is dead again. Please come reset it.'

'You know where the button is,' I protested through the shower pitter-patter and steam. 'Reset it yourself!'

'But I'm scared!' she persisted. 'What if it starts going and sucks me in?'

There was a meaningful pause and then, 'C'mon, it'll only take you a second.'

So out I came, dripping wet and butt naked, hoping that my silent outraged nudity would make a statement about how I perceived her behavior as extremely cowardly.

Sighing loudly, I squatted down and stuck my head under the sink to find the button. It is the last action I remember performing.

It struck without warning, and without any respect to my circumstances. No, it wasn't the hexed disposal, drawing me into its gnashing metal teeth. It was our new kitty, who discovered the fascinating dangling objects she spied hanging between my legs. She had been poised around the corner and stalked me as I reached under the sink. And, at the precise moment when I was most vulnerable, she leapt at the toys I unwittingly offered and snagged them with her needle-like claws. I lost all rational thought to control orderly bodily movements, blindly rising at a violent rate of speed, with the full weight of a kitten hanging from my masculine region.

Wild animals are sometimes faced with a 'fight or flight' syndrome. Men, in this predicament, choose only the 'flight' option. I know this from experience. I was fleeing straight up into the air when the sink and cabinet bluntly and forcefully impeded my ascent.

The impact knocked me out cold.

When I awoke, my wife and the paramedics stood over me.

Now there are not many things in this life worse than finding oneself lying on the kitchen floor butt naked in front of a group of 'been-there, done-that' paramedics.

Even worse, having been fully briefed by my wife, the paramedics were all snorting loudly as they tried to conduct their work, all the while trying to suppress their hysterical laughter......and not succeeding.

Somehow I lived through it all. A few days later I finally made it back in to the office, where colleagues tried to coax an explanation out of me about my head injury. I kept silent, claiming it was too painful to talk about, which it was.

'What's the matter?' They all asked, 'Cat got your tongue?'