DementedBlogger

How did we ever survive without the cell phone? What happened to the days of blissfully wandering off without a care in the world or ties to it?

I once caused my mother a conniption fit, traveling around the country, at the ripe old age of seventeen, looking for a job, seeing the world, and generally driving her crazy with worry.

I traveled Colorado and Wyoming. I saw people lighting fires under the oil pans of their vehicles to get them to start. (Not a great idea by the way.) I don’t remember the exact temperature, but forty below zero seems to stick out for some reason… Wyoming has no sense of decency when it comes to temperature.

The ol’ car gave up the ghost in Wyoming and I was forced to leave it and many of my earthly possessions behind and hitch hike home. Riding with a very drunk couple in a blizzard will give you a whole new outlook on walking long distances let me tell you.

Now to a teenager a month is not a long time, but to the mother of said teenager it is a whole other story! I walked up to the house, happy to be home, and got to see a whole new side to my mom… right after she made sure all my fingers and toes were still there.

If only cell phones were around then, she could have spread that shredding out over the entire time I was gone, instead of having to wait for me to show up to vent it all away!

Thomas H. Forthe

Ouch! Yes that is right, I need my head examined… I became a roofer today. Well maybe not became one… more like became a learnee, or a trainee of sorts.

Mostly what I learned was that I really got out of shape since I have been unemployed! Right now I’m hoping the adage that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger is true, but I might consider cremation….

I had forgotten about certain body parts being attached. Don’t worry though, they reminded me that they are still attached today, and I am sure they will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

I have to get up at 3:30 am to make it to the job site by 5:30 am, so I may be posting late if at all until I acclimatize myself to this torture. Did I say torture? I thunk that compared to what I did today the detainees at Guantanamo should all face the rising sun and be very thankful that they aren’t eligible for training….

Tom

I spent the last two days playing contortionist under the sink cabinet, and the adjoining cabinet, changing out another genius’s wonderful plumbing disaster from many years ago.

Funny how a small thing, like changing out a faucet, can change from an hour long job to several days of hair pulling, name calling, and multiple trips to the hardware store! I bet his ears are still burning.

Trying to pry 6′6″ of body into two square foot of cabinet space and still be able to see what I was doing, and use my arms has left me with an appreciation for those poor souls that make their living as human pretzels on a regular basis. It has also left me with an intimate relationship with a heating pad and a bottle of Ibuprofen.

Laying half inside a cabinet raised off the floor with the other half sprawled across a concrete floor does wonders for the human body and I am thinking that five gallons of gas and a match might have been the best method of plumbing by far….

Thomas H. Forthe

After seeing Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman perform their version of the list, I had little choice, but to add a few items of my own….

Killing all of the weeds in my yard, especially those nasty vines full of thorns would rank high on my list. Releasing a biological nuke on them would give me a euphoria that is difficult to transform into the written language.

Eradicating fleas, a sure fire get into heaven free pass if there ever was one!

Write a Television commercial that didn’t make people want to use the tube for target practice.

See Congress make a guest appearance on Jack Ass. Oh wait, that has already been done.

Watch the first episode of the hot new reality show, “Welcome to our World” where politicians are forced to lose all of their benefits and live like the rest of us. Wanna bet they could fix our economic woes faster than a speeding bullet?

See the Arctic by dog sled, pulled by a team of Cabinet members.

See something majestic… an honest politician.

Find Pelosi’s missing mind.

I am going to be very busy!

Thomas H. Forthe

How many times can one edit a 3,500 word story? Apparently, for me, 3,500 times is nearing the sweet spot….

How many times can I read and re-write a short story and still find errors? After the first couple of edits the errors switch from glaringly obvious to the ninja mode.

Missing punctuation, over punctuation, and incorrect punctuation check! Past tense, present tense, wrong tense got ya! Oh darn, wrong word, run on sentence, or debilitating extra words snuck into the fray.

Few things spell, like a spell checker, and one of life’s truly interesting pastimes is getting it to realize that too separate words don’t make one write. Argument is futile, you will be assimilated.

Formatting is another gifted entity that often assumes it has the only correct answer. Typing merrily along only to find it auto corrected after 3,500 words is a joy you have to experience firsthand. Tag lines on dialogue that it capitalized are lots of fun, and the find function useless, unless of course you care to re-edit to look for all the uncapitalized he’s and she’s that it will unerringly switch to lower case in its quest for perfection, again.

Few things say I love you like having someone point out another simple error after the fifth edit… One thing is for sure, a monitor is really hard to light on fire in a fit of anger.

Thomas H. Forthe

Raccoon

He is visiting in full daylight, not very Raccoonish if you ask me. Nearly all of his relatives see fit to visit after dark as all good Raccoons should.

Char loves to chase them, and watching a hundred pounds of pure wishful thinking explode into motion is a sight let me tell you.

The trouble is she’s not as nimble as she used to be and is limping on the return trip.

The masked bandit will look at us and continue eating only as long as we have the good common sense not to open the door… if we have the audacity to move the door he is off and running.

As long as we just watch, he digs out another paw full without taking his eyes off of us, and chows down.

The cats don’t bother his feast in the least, and can lay within two feet and watch him eat without him even seeming to notice.

Thomas H. Forthe

A few Pictures of Bear and Char in better days. Bear is the beautiful black dog and Char is the beautiful brown one.

Bear, as near as we can figure, was around ten years old when she died.

Bear had ear tufts and fetlocks back in Colorado, but was too hot in Florida and had to be trimmed. The young man with the puppies many years ago is Robert.

She was a good friend and my wife’s faithful companion.

A sad occasion today, Bear passed away at around 5:30 am today laying at the feet of her favorite person, Jo.

She will be missed. Those left behind have a long day ahead.

I know that a dog is a man’s best friend, but sometimes they carry things just a little too far!

Char is the silent but deadly type… and does not like to be alone when the time comes to relieve the pressure.

She finds me, lays at my feet, and causes the paint to peel off the ceiling… she should come with a toxic waste placard.

If only I had trained her to do that outside… but then she probably would cause the squirrels to fall from the trees, and the hapless little fur balls couldn’t defend themselves from the cats.

Of course the cats would be busy gagging, so the squirrels might still have a chance, but still it would be tough to climb a tree while holding your nose with both front paws….

I wonder, is it possible they make an odor eater collar?

Thomas H. Forthe

If you can’t take embarrassing pictures of your pets, who can you do it too?

Char and the dog sledding championships!

I will have to find a way to make a video of this!

Leo thinks he can catch a squirrel! The squirrel is on the tree…

Think again Leo… Leo=0, squirrels=1,000 at least.

Thomas H. Forthe