Rest In Peace and Home For Easter

Yesterday I met a friend for a morning walk. I hadn’t seen her for about a week and knew she was out of town caring for her seriously ill sister. Sadly, I found out her sister had died. The funeral was Monday and was carried out according to her sister’s wishes. After the service, the body was lovingly transported to the cemetery by a wagon drawn by the deceased’s own horse. I had seen a picture in the paper recently about a Wisconsin farmer’s funeral with his casket carried by wagon drawn by his horses and understood what she meant. As Judy was describing this to me and searching for the right name for this conveyance, two other friends of hers caught up with us. She backtracked to explain to them the funeral arrangements and tell them about the horse drawn wagon. One friend offered the word “catafalque”. For a brief moment my mind heard “catapult”. Not respectful, I thought. Some gray matter must have made the correction, because I quickly realized what she had said. Catafalque: Think state funeral with the body lying in state on a platform that may or may not be moveable. This is definitely more dignified than the Gonzo type catapult.

City To Experience Wildlife Shortage

Front page news today in the Pioneer Press, “Project Pigeon Purge”. I am glad nothing really bad happened in the world yesterday, (or did it?) so our only scary thought is of ridding ourselves of public nuisance pigeons. The GOP national convention is headed to St. Paul in 2008, and city fathers are busy sprucing up the place. Time to deal with messy birds. They have come up with a novel solution. They are going to build them nice, rooftop condos. When they have made themselves at home and built nests, these guys plan to steal their eggs! They hope they slowly die off.

Didn't Chinese officials get rid of birds who were eating too much grain? That hasn't worked out so well for them.

When the Olympics were held in Seoul, Korea a few years ago, I remember reading officials there forbad local restaurants from serving dishes with dog meat. That might offend visitors. Now, I will wait to see a directive from “officials” to hamper local chefs from serving pickled pigeon eggs at brunch during the convention. It might be okay to serve this to a delegation from California. I won’t tell if you won’t tell.

PS. We experienced this feeding frenzy of birds when we were in St. Mark's Square in Venice last year. I gave my crackers to a group of young ladies. Guess I come with too much baggage, remembering my Alfred Hitchcock movies about birds.

Yesterday's Journal

It's spring break and I have our granddaughter Mina staying with us. She is a delight and agreeable to do almost anything, eat almost anything. Since I walk every morning and it was cold and blustery yesterday, she agreed to walk with me at the fieldhouse. We met my new walking partner, who is about my age. When I asked Mina if we were walking too fast for her she took off running. My friend just laughed and reminded me she has way more energy than a couple of retired women. Mina did two miles and we called it quits. After lunch I took her to an indoor swimming pool where she played and swam for two hours. By 6:00pm she was asleep on the couch. Tuckered out. This old broad made it to 9:30 but sure slept well last night. Maybe there is hope for me. I have kicked up the exercise a bit and now try to do five workouts a week at the advanced level and walk four miles/day if I can.
In last evenings email check I found a strange coincidence. Two emails I checked consecutively quoted the line, "Growing old is not for sissies". Both had had an encounter with medical tests such as stress tests and a stroke work-up and things had turned out well I am glad to say.
My husband frequently quotes the line "Growing old is not.." and it made me wonder if there are any old sissies?? This cartoon is all I could find when I went to my usual source, Google.

http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/s/sissies.asp

Welch Rabbit Anyone? Or is it Rarebit?

The son just spent the weekend in Wales and posted these pictures of interesting signs on his Picasa website.
Recipe: http://forums.justsaywow.com/messageview.cfm?catid=53&threadid=116686

The Picnic Tool

Laughter is good for the soul and body. Click on this link and read the first column. If you have a background in the medical field you may laugh twice as hard.
http://www.twincities.com/bulletinboard/ci_5579185

Years ago, when I was night supervisor at a community hospital, I would read charts when I had time to appraise the nurses' charting. These were nurses whose performance reviews I needed to write. One nurse was a young mom who worked nights and got less than optimum sleep. One night she charted something close to this: "The patient ambulated well and went outside and urinated on the bushes." When I asked her why her patients were wandering outside at night to relieve themselves (likely himself) , she was horrified and had absolutely no recall of charting it. No one had left the hospital. This nurse was not a screw-up, but a great nurse who went on to become manager of a busy unit. You can't underestimate the importance of a good night's rest.

OLDIES BUT GOODIES

I’m probably not alone in this, but I don’t always hear the lyrics of a song the way they were sung. Being a long time fan of Johnny Rivers, I know the song is “Secret Agent Man”, but swear he says “Secret Asian Man”. That is a common misperception. Today I suddenly “heard the light” when they played Hall & Oates, “Your Kiss Is On My List”. For years I have been singing along, “Your kiss, your kiss, is on my lips!” That motivated me to Google the lyrics to “Blinded By the Light”. I never thought “wrapped up like a douche” made much sense. All these years they have been singing, “Revved up like a deuce”. I like that better.

Shaggy Dog Story

On our way to church today we spotted an unusual white dog walking its owner. My husband remarked it looked like a “scruffy” dog. I told him it might be one of those designer dogs that are a hybrid. I had heard that a Standard Poodle/ Golden Retriever is a desirable combination that doesn’t shed and has a nice temperament. I could not remember what they were called, but my husband suggested “ Go-Poo” was a possibility. That doesn’t sound like a dog I would want. Later it came to me that they are Goldendoodles.

PS, This weekend I went to two parties and ate out today for lunch and still behaved. Pat on the back for Jane.