A little sympathy, maybe?

I’ve been reading a lot recently about Usama bin Laden, and strange as it sounds to say, I feel a bit of pity for him.

No really, think about it: The guy was 54 years old, had 3 wives at the same time and 23 kids. At that age it would be difficult for him to change careers. He was pretty much stuck in his current line of work. He lived in a million dollar house, but I think he got ripped off by a really sleazy Realtor. I mean, a million bucks for that dump?? That right there would send me over the edge.

And his home life must have been hell, too. I can hear it now.....

Wife #1: “Usama, honey.....does this burkha make my butt look big?”

Wife #2: “Sweetie...how come you bought #3 a new goat last week, but you didn’t get me one? Don’t you still love me? I mean, we never go out anymore....we need to talk.”

Wife #3: “Listen here, buster. I pick up after you, I cook all day, I try and keep our 23 kids in line....DO YOU HEAR ME...23 FOR ALLAH’S SAKE! And what do you do all day, Mr. Big Shot? You just sit there in the floor, wrapped up nice and cozy in your old army blanket, cleaning your gun, watching yourself on TV. Must be nice!” *snarl*

Wife #1: So have you decided which of us you’ll be taking to the Terrorist Ball next month?”

I can see why he might want to vent every once in a while. You know, pop off a few AK-47 rounds, maybe blow up a continent or something. Oh well, at least he now has his 72 Virginians.

S

Cottonwood Art Festival w/ photos

Saturday after my car show (see previous post) I picked up K and we went to the Cottonwood Art Festival. It was a perfect day with temps in the 80's and a cloudless blue sky. There were over 200 vendors selling their photos, paintings, jewelry, ceramics, etc, and the large crowd seemed to be having fun:

Before we started seeing the sights we hit the food court:

I had shrimp kabob over a bed of seasoned rice, and K had fish tacos over rice. We shared each others and agreed it was the best "event food" we've had anywhere.

One vendor selling ceramic cats got my vote (but not my money) for 'most original sales pitch':

We wound up buying one small print of a Greek island house/patio overlooking the Mediterranean at sunrise...or is it sunset?. The table is set with a bowl of fruit (sunrise?) but there is also a bottle of wine (sunset?). Whatever, it looks very relaxing. Unfortunately it didn't photograph well hanging on our wall (glare), so you'll just have to make do with my verbal description.

To end our day we walked over to a new restaurant that just opened in our neighborhood called The Twisted Root. It's a burger joint, but it serves all kinds of exotic meat. Sounds weird, but it's really very good. There I saw this bumper sticker on a patio chair that cracked me up:

A stop on our walk home to listen to our sidewalk band (again see previous post), and that was our Saturday. All considered, it was a great day. I wish every Saturday could be like that.

S

Car show and more, w/ photos

Saturday morning I met my friend Neil at our monthly Cars and Coffee event. The organizers said attendance exceeded last month's 936 cars, so I was not disappointed. When I first got there I saw this late 50's Metropolitan, a little English-built tin can of a car. It had significance to me only because this is what I learned to drive in:

I'm usually not a big BMW fan, but several, including this immaculate 3.0 CSi caught my eye:

This mid 50's (?) Ford Skyliner with a retractable hardtop (fairly common today, but in a class by itself back then) was an interesting old dinosaur in attendance:

This 30's BMW roadster (I don't know why I was all of a sudden smitten with BMW's) was also a standout:

The oddest car there had to be this old junker 50's VeeDub Beetle:

See that barrel thing hanging out the driver's side window? That appeared to be some kind of venturi that would compress air, cool it, and blow it into the passenger compartment. Crude, but I guess it beat the usual 55/2 air conditioning of the day. (That would be '55' mph, '2' windows down.)

This 50's vintage Ferrari 375 was my personal favorite for the day. WOW!

After the car show I picked up K and we went to a local art fest. I'll share photos of that some other time.

We finished the day in our neighborhood listening to a really good local group as they played on the street. It was quite a day. :)

S

Fun weekend ahead

To most people the weekend means Saturday and Sunday, but MY weekend starts today. Yes, I do have to work today, but the fun ahead is almost close enough to smell, so I'm just gonna whistle my way through Friday, too.

Tomorrow morning I'm meeting my friend Neil at the monthly Cars and Coffee get together. Last month there were nearly a thousand interesting cars there, a real petrolhead's nirvana:

After that I'll swing by home and pick up the lovely and talented K, and we're headed to the Cottonwood Arts Festival. It's close to home, free, and actually one of the better ones around. Somewhere along the way we'll have lunch, too. I'm thinking 'Junk Food on a Stick'.

Sunday is strickly for R&R, that is if I don't have to go to work for a few minutes. I think I'm going to conveniently "lose" my phone for the day. *wink*

I'll share car pics on Saturday and Art Fest pics on Sunday, if anyone is interested.

What do you have planned?

S

All alone today

Alone....that's my fate for today. Hopefully someone...anyone...will want to be near me tomorrow. Seems last night for dinner K served me a wonderful chicken/bow tie pasta dish, but it was also heavy with garlic. (She was trying to use up some left-overs, so she had something different.) As my olfactory sense has been out of whack for weeks now due to extremely high pollen in the air, I didn't smell a thing. Still don't.

When bedtime came we got into bed and K asked me, "Did you brush your teeth?" Well of course I did. "Well, uh, you might want to go brush again. And use some mouthwash, too. LOTS of mouthwash."

*brush, gargle, swish, spit*

Nope, no good. I was asked....no, INSTRUCTED....to sleep facing away from her. We slept back to back all night. Bummer.

How long does garlic linger in your system? How long am I going to be one of The Untouchables?

S

My lunchtime view

Today I scarfed down my lunch and ran over to the little lake across the street from one of the new homes we're building. There I sat for a while, basking in the warm sun and just relaxing, reading, and enjoying this view:

It was SO quiet. The temperature was in the mid-70's so there was no need for any air conditioners to be humming. All I could hear were the birds singing, the fountain spewing, and an occasional jet flying high overhead. *sigh*

This small community was designed and built around this small "lake". Actually it was once a rock quarry, but a bit of clean-up, a fountain, a few hundred thousand gallons of water, and wah-lah....a place for me to sit and read. Wasn't that nice of the developer to do that just for me? :)

S

Strengths & weaknesses

I've recently been challenged to list my strengths and weaknesses. Here's some of what I've come up with:

Strength: abundant common sense; Weakness: an unwillingness to gamble big

Strength: I react predictably; Weakness: I react predictably

Strength: dependable; Weakness: not adventurous

Strength: hard working; Weakness: too focused, can't relax

Strength: calm, collected, not a yeller; Weakness: not excitable, not passionate

Strength: neat and organized; Weakness: annoying to the "free sprirted" types

Strength: "old school" ways often work just fine for me (If it ain't broke, don't fix it); Weakness: slow to embrace change

Strength: think before I speak; Weakness: hard to read

Strength: not afraid to take a stand; Weakness: slow to compromise

Of course there are lots more. Now I'm afraid to Google "stick in the mud" for fear I'll find a picture of myself. It's hard to just throw caution to the wind and live on the edge when it goes against every DNA thingy floating around inside you. Is it possible to do a 180, or even a 90, to just chuck everything that feels so natural, and just "go for it"?

S