Codgers, Kids and Colds

I am sitting in my car, in the park.  I have a low grade headache that has been a frequent visitor since Monday.  My nose is running, which, with a nose like mine, is quite a sight (rim-shot, please).  Thursday, it was sneezing, Wednesday coughing, Tuesday upset stomach. Monday headache, All you happy children, I wish the best to you (another rim-shot, please). I am suffering though a cold, courtesy of my grandkids.  OK, I helped out in their classrooms two days last week in AZ, it could have been any of their germy little classmates.  But it seems to happen every time we go to visit them these days, and while once this cold subsides, I’ll likely say, A cold is a small price to pay for the joy they bring me, at the moment, I’d be fibbing.  Colds seen to hold on longer in my seventies than they did in my forties, too, so by the time I’m feeling better, it will be time to go back for Christmas.  Will my Christmas cold come gift wrapped?

Friday Favorites – 9/12/2014

It is almost 3:00 pm in the afternoon.   On Friday.   And once again, I’m having trouble coming up with a Friday Favorite.   Oh, I’ve come up with a few ideas but upon searching the Older Eyes – Bud’s Blog archives, they’ve been done before.  After almost four years … 201 posts … I think this well is dry.   It’s not that there aren’t things I like enough to post about, I just don’t like them enough to call them a Favorite.  So, I’m making an executive … maybe an executive editor … decision.  This will be the last Friday Favorite, leaving only one theme day on Bud’s Blog, that being Monday Smiles.  It’s one thing to run out of favorites … running out of smiles would be a sad day indeed.  So this will be a Friday Favorites retrospective.

Friday Favorites 9/5/2014

I am an incessant collector of mementos.   You might call them tchotchkes if you knew the Yiddish term (a knickknack or trinket, usually of little monetary value).  Isn’t it true that it’s memories that transform a tchotchke into a memento?  There are rocks and sea shells from various places we’ve visited.   There are glass birds that spend forty-something years on my Mom’s tier table.  There is a bullet casing from the 7-gun salute at my Dad’s funeral.  There’s a candle from the table at my daughter’s wedding and my old slide rule from college.   I bring this up because this week I had my office painted, which required moving all the furniture to the center of the room … and packing up all my mementos.  Now, I am reconstructing my office and discovering much working space my memento collection was costing me.  So, I’m trying to be judicious in deciding which … and how many … of them make there way back to my desk and bookcase and which make their way to our storage bin.  Some, I may conclude actually are tchotchkes that I can discard (I can’t bring myself to say, Throw in the Trash).

Friday Favorites 8/15/2014

Since my blogging break a few weeks ago, I’ve found it easier to take a day or two off from Older Eyes – Bud’s Blog. That’s a good thing because blogging was becoming a job … and these days, I have two real jobs to keep me busy, so I don’t need a hobby behaving like work. But I still find it hard to skip my Monday Post, Monday Smiles, and my Friday Post, Friday Favorites … and here it is, 11:15 on Thursday Night. After posting 197 consecutive Friday Favorites, I’ve learned to go back and look at my archives before starting in on a new Friday Favorite because often, my latest inspiration is an inspiration I’ve had before. Case(s) in point. Tonight I considered posting my favorite big band hit (done 9/3/2010, Begin the Beguine by Artie Shaw), my favorite doo-wop song (done 10/21/2011, Come Go with Me by the Del Vikings), my favorite painting (done 8/13/2010, Renoir’s Girl with a Watering Can) and my favorite artist (done 6/24/2011, Claude Monet).   I need to get a post done tonight because I have an important business call in the morning to prepare for.  I’ve already resorted to favorite number and favorite color.  Could it be I’m entirely out of favorites? Not quite.

Friday Favorites 8/8/2014

There are films I can watch again and again.  My wife, Muri, finds that a bit peculiar but I look at it this way: Don’t we listen to the same song, the same concerto, again and again, even though we know every lyric and every note by heart?  Just as we wait for the Ode to Joy as we listen to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, can’t we anticipate the moment when David and Margaret drive through the falling cherry blossoms to the tune of At Last in Pleasantville? (scene here).   Is reliving the look on the warden’s face when he realizes Andy has escaped in Shawshank Redemption (scene here) any less enjoyable than hearing again that You can check out any time you want but you can never leave from the Hotel California?

Friday Favorites 8/1/2014

Yes, it’s Friday.  To be more precise, 9:05 pm.  For almost 4 years, I have posted a favorite on Friday (hence, the clever title, Friday Favorites).   But today was a travel day from California for Arizona.   Tomorrow, we will celebrate my grandaughter, Savy’s birthday by taking her on a shopping date, then Sunday we will head to the beautiful Marriott Canyon Villas in Scottsdale with the grandkids (and their parents) for mini-vacation before they start back to school next week.   So my plan was to let this Friday go Favoriteless.  But on my way to the store to stock the refirgerator for our short stay, nature provided me with one of my favorite things about the little home we call our Little House in the Desert … the westward view from our patio of the San Tan Mountains at sunset.  And fortunately, I hadn’t unpacked my camera from the car.

Yep.  Friday Favorite.

Friday Favorites 7/25/2014

I try to be scrupulously honest here on Bud’s Blog … except, of course, for those times where my tongue is firmly in cheek or my Inner Curmudgeon has taken control of the keyboard.  So I have to admit that when I decided to post my favorite duet, I knew exactly where I was headed.   That’s probably a bit surprising since I’ve been listening to pop music for close to sixty years during which I suspect hundreds … if not thousands … of duets have made it to the charts.  And thousands more have appeared on duets album by artists like Frank Sinatra and Kenny G that featured an assortment of vocal stars singing with the top-billed artist.    There were duet groups like Sonny and Cher or Peaches and Herb, and one-time duet hits like Endless Love by Diana Ross and Lionel Ritchie or We’ve Got Tonight by Kenny Rogers and Kim Carnes.   One of the most famous duets, You Don’t Bring Me Flowers by Barbara Streisand and Neil Diamond was manufactured from solo performances by an enterprising program manager before it was released as a duet by 1978 … and performed live a the Grammy Awards Show in 1980.  Online there are dozens of greatest duets list:  there’s a Top Forty from Billboard Magazine (with Endless Love as number one) and a Top Fifty from the UK’s Telegraph. (with Lee Hazelwood’s and Nancy Sinatra’s Some Velvet Morning as the winner.  Those Brits.  Go figure.). Rolling Stone’s 20 Best Dramatic Duets of All Time selects Kenny Rogers’ and Dolly Parton’s Island in the Stream as number one.

Friday Favorites 7/18/2014

One of my favorite posts here on Older Eyes – Bud’s Blog is The Grandfather Gene, in which I describe how my apathy about having grandchildren turned to love at first sight the day I held my first grandson, Reed, in my arms nine years ago.  The arrival of a second grandson, Maddux, a little more than a year later only made me more of a doting grandfather … or Papa, as my grandkids call me.   Believe me, I never thought I’d like being called anything that made me sound so ancient but from their lips, it’s music to my ears.   When Maddux was born, we thought he would be the last grandchild.  My daughter’s pregnancies were incredibly difficult … she was sick almost continually and needed a PICC line to prevent dehydration.   Then we received an unexpected call that she was pregnant again.  In spite of how much we enjoyed our grandsons, we had mixed feelings.  We weren’t anxious to watch Amy suffer through another pregnancy and they seemed to have their hands full with two kids.   We managed to soud excited and, of course, as Amy’s tummy swelled, the excitement became more genuine.   Then came the news that it was to be a girl. The excitement was 24-carat genuine.

Friday Favorites 7/11/2014

I was talking to a friend last night at my Thursday Night Men’s Meeting.  He’s about my age, and like mine, his career has taken an upturn at an age when many are retiring.  Our circumstances are different but we are both happy to be working.  When I asked him how he was doing, he said, Business is going really well but I’m tired a lot.   And there it is … that seventy-something fatigue that nearly all males my age seem to deal with.   It’s particularly frustrating because my mind is as active as ever, if not more so, but my body can’t quite keep up with my brain’s machinations.   My brain says, We should finish up this months financial report, to which my body replies, I need a nap.  My brain says, Let’s clean my office so we can get started on that new project.  Nah.  Let’s go sit in the park, my body replies.  Yeah, I know.  Vitamins.  More sleep.  Low T.  Blah, blah, blah.  Part of getting old(er) gracefully is adjusting to being old(er).

Friday Favorites 7/4/2014

courtesy wikipedia

Yesterday, I noticed a headline on Yahoo Sports – War Hero, Olympian Zamperini, Dies at 97.   I would guess that it’s a good chance that you don’t know of Zamperini … unless you are serious student of Olympic history or a fan of author, Laura Hillenbrand.  Louis Zamperini was a world class distance runner who outgrew a rebellious childhood through running, first at Torrance High then on the track team at the University of Southern California.  He ran the 5,000 meters for the U.S. in the 1936 Olympics where he earned some fame not for winning but for stealing Hitler’s personal Nazi flag.  In 1944, as a lieutenant in the Army Air Corps, his Liberator bomber went down at sea with only three survivors.  One died at sea, while Zamperini and another man, Russell Phillips, survived 47 days before coming ashore on the Marshall Islands, where they were captured by Japanese forces.  He was brutally tortured for two years until the end of the war and returned home struggling with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and alcoholism.  After attending a rally by Billy Graham, he became a born-again Christian and inspirational speaker, often focusing on the importance of forgiveness. He was to be the grand marshal of the 2015 Rose Parade in keeping with this year’s theme, Inspiring Stories.