DementedBlogger

My son called last night with the news! The newest member of the clan will arrive next September sometime!

There will be no post today due to construction needed right next to the computer….

Thomas H. Forthe

Some days I can write about anything and others nothing pops up, intruding it’s ugly head into my domain.

I can write about anything, something or nothing at all.

I can type up an essay or format a letter, It depends on the need and at the time which sounds better.

 It can be fiction or fact regardless of tact, a poem or sonnet, it depends on which words are put on it.

A short story or novel, with words I will grovel.

I’ll write you a story or spin you a tale, look into the future or delve into the past. If I come up with a line I’ll write it down fast.

Ideas are fodder for my typing I fear, some ideas, however noble turn out quit austere.

If I bore you with details, schematics and grins, you may not return to read once again.

So there you have it, a whole lot of nothing written about. Proving at last, my subject’s in doubt.

Thomas H. Forthe

If you have never had the pleasure of driving in a true Florida rain storm, count your blessings!

I grew up in Colorado, and it does occasionally rain there. I even thought it rained hard there once in awhile. But I realize now, that I had never experienced rain until we moved to Florida.

I had never seen a mass exodus from an Interstate highway until I made my first trip here. I would have got out of the truck and kissed the ground if I had only had gills.

Rooster tails of water from passing trucks reminded me of speed boats throwing walls of water and those wonderful mud gripping tires on my four wheel drive hydroplaned like I was in an ice rink.

There were a few hardy individuals still driving, no doubt they were late to an all night mass murdering or some such festive occasion.

That is also when I found out that you can pull off in the grass of the side of the road here and not need a tow truck to get you back out after a zillion inches of rain fall.

You cannot see the painted lines in the road, or the road for that matter, so be sure you are as far from it as possible when you stop, preferably in a rest area or another country.

Rain cannot come close to describing what happens here. Having the gulf turned upside down overhead would come much closer to the reality of it.

Back in western Colorado a “wet” yearly total could not fill a daily quota here and even without a hurricane to fuel it, raining for a single day can drop up to twelve inches at will.

Thomas H. Forthe

I wish I had kept track of all the hours I spend waiting for something or someone in my life. Then again, why waste more hours worrying about waiting….

I wait on prospective employers, that say they will get in touch without any hint about when.

I have waited on hold, holding a phone to my ear until the ear is numb and my patience unclear while the company looks through their employee files for their least competent help. An employee guaranteed to speak broken English and have no idea how to help me. Obviously those companies have worked out a way to get kickbacks on phone time.

I have waited in line to spend my hard earned cash only to be told to wait, “it’ll be right here!” Then I can wait some more from behind a door, unable to see that lonely employee watching TV instead of pulling my order.

I wait on doctors and dentists who invented the “waiting” room like it was a world changing invention.

I wait for traffic lights, people, pets, time and a myriad of incomprehensible things.

I have waited for daylight and waited for dark.

Waited on customers, waited on friends.

Waited in stairwells and waited on a bus. I’ve even waited to wait.

How many hours? I’m not sure I can wait to find out!

Thomas H. Forthe

I had the good fortune to have a real mother, one that worked hard to support us and worried about us constantly. I am constantly reminded of how lucky I was being born into the family I have by the plight of the far less fortunate.

We weren’t the Cleavers by any means, but we came out pretty good all things considered.

I could have been like a young lady I met, whose mother is a using and abusing alcoholic, trying to ruin the girls life with need and never letting go, trying to drag her down and destroy hope.

I could have been like so many other children, beaten and abused, and found as skeletal remains many years later.

I could have been cheap labor, used to fuel the family budget, and ignored at every opportunity.

I could have been a lot of things that I am not. I have my mother to thank for that, she never gives up on us even when she probably should have.

Mom fed and clothed five of us, tried her best to get us through school, and give us what we really needed even though the finances seldom allowed what we wanted.

Mom isn’t perfect, I have never met a perfect person in 51 years. But finding a better person would prove difficult by any standards.

She moved us clear across the country, to remove us from the hell of our poverty, she wore rags and holy shoes to make sure we had clothes for school.

She worked two and three jobs to feed us, cloth us and keep a roof over our heads.

She put our lives above her own so often that when I got older I often wondered what she could have been if it weren’t for us.

She could have been anything she pleased, she had the looks and brains to have it all, instead she chose to take care of her kids.

She taught me to read when I was four, she taught me about many things and listened to anything I had to say.

I am far from perfect, I was a wild child who exceeded at finding trouble. I caused my mom a whole lot of trouble that I wish I could return in time and change. I am by far the worst problem she had.

She had to throw me out at seventeen for my trouble, only to take me back and prop me up when I failed. I quit school and plunged head first into a world of drugs and rebellion. I think my mother is the only thing that pulled me back before it was too late

She never gave up, never gave in and eventually I turned around and straightened out, most of the people I called friend from that time are gone. The human body can only take so much and it will quit if continually abused.

Mine isn’t doing so hot now, but it’s from working hard, not from smoking dope and drinking.

How many parents put their children first? How many will forfeit their own lives for the sake of a kids future? How many parents refuse to have a social life so that their ungrateful brats might have a chance? Read the papers or watch the news, there are an awful lot who don’t!

Thank you mom, without you I never would have had a chance.

Thomas H. Forthe

Kathy is still revising the web site and has enlisted some help in sharpening the images of her paintings to better resemble the detail she puts into her art!

http://data.fineartstudioonline.com/dataviewer.asp?keyvalue=9658

The contest is free to enter, and has a fantastic painting as a prize! You can see it on her web site and also view the entry specifics on her blog, which is accessed from the side bar of her site.

There is still plenty of time to join in since the contest runs until March 1st! So sharpen those pencils!

Thomas H. Forthe

Have you filled out an application on line lately? You should try it if you haven’t, it’s a wonderful experience and one guaranteed to get a rise in your blood pressure!

I’m justifiably happy that I don’t have to deal with the  stunning speed of dial-up as well since they are normally very lengthy.

The last one I filled out had to have been over 30 pages, including a “test” and personal questions. Be sure to have a resume stored while you are at it, yes they also want one of those.

The last application was at least gracious enough to reply, automatically and let me know they were interested and would contact me. I love the waiting game.

I pray for your sake you aren’t like me and have more jobs to list than they have pages for… most of them refuse to let you add on, thus the resume one can only hope they bother to read.

30 pages with only a hope for your trouble, what a concept! I love wasting hours each day on things that I have no idea whether anyone will ever look at, don’t you?

Many companies will only take on-line applications, and around here that means wading through 20 pages of cyber want ads just to get the local impertinence. After cycling through the ads for scientists, nurses, PT’s, OT’s, CPA’s, and a billion other jobs I have no qualifications for I can find the two or three that might allow someone with my lack of social breeding to fit in.

Frustrating does not begin to cover it!

Thomas H. Forthe

How is your memory? I could forget my car keys if it were possible to drive off without them….

I can go to the store to buy three things and come home with two, out of those two, one may or may not be correct. On other days I do better and both will be the right items….

As funny as this may sound, I don’t remember if this problem was as prevalent when I was younger. But I would like to believe it was not!

I forget birthdays and remembering dates of things in the past is beyond me.

How can memory be so fickle? To leave me just when I need it the most? What was I saying? Luckily I am not that bad.

Have you ever “lost” a word? I frequently do, especially when speaking, I can lose the right word at just the right time, only to find it hours later when I no longer require its presence!

Memory, it’s a selective beast, and usually it has escaped its cage!

Thomas H. Forthe

That is what Misty the youngest member of the family thinks anyway. If you attempt to use only one, she will go after and retrieve the other, using any means necessary to achieve her intended level of “petedness”.

She will get on the keyboard to catch the offending hand, and if all else fails she relies on pulling herself into your face and rubbing her chin to yours for the simple reason that it does take both hands to get her down….

This routine is played out any time she decides it’s time, day or night with no regard to what we humans may be doing at the time. We have even have to resort to locking her up at times, resorting to bedroom time out when other chores require two handed attention.

Sometimes, like now, she will settle down and lay in the lap calmly purring and playing lap warmer, but it has to be on her terms not mine.

Petting, it’s a two handed job according to Misty and she will never think any different!

Thomas H. Forthe

Teaching a teenager to drive is not for the faint of heart, just ask me, I’ll tell you!

If running stop signs and pulling out in front of oncoming traffic a little later than is really healthy excites you, then maybe it is the job for you! Near crashes and being in the wrong lane at the wrong time is not my idea of a good time.

My oldest thought he’d take out a guardrail while learning, but dad caught him just in time. He did manage to “take out” the transmission on my truck though, before he was finished.

So far Robert has had no close calls and is becoming a better driver along the way. Now if only his father can endure it will all be good.

Thomas H. Forthe