If you think it's cold where you are...

It's a fascinating article. Attention, oh Writer of Fascinating Article: you had me at "walrus dicks". It's kind of long, and kind of depressing, but if you ever wondered what life is like out on the far, desolate reaches of America, it's explained here. I envision a similar article with its subject being Suburbia. "The average person in Suburbia knows how to use every part of the suburbs in order to survive." And so forth. It'd make for more fascinating stuff, but I'm too busy for all that.

On the other hand, only four short days to tropical paradise! (Okay, my sister's guest room in Hawaii.) The housesitter has been prepped to handle the menagerie we have here on Eastview Court. The livestock should be fine without us for a few. It's been real busy around here, what with trying to make the bills and wrap up the business for the year. I've got one job this week, small one, and a large job after Hawaii and before Christmas, so it doesn't look like it's going to let up any time soon. After the marathon I will sit on the beach and forget the phone somewhere, have a beer. Then again, the weather forecast shows rain in Hawaii all week, so I may be drinking that beer on the veranda, picking at the blisters on my toes. As long as it stays above 80, fine.

Christmas seems to have been nudged by the wayside, here. Just no time to get the lights up, and what are we decorating the tree for? The housesitter? As much as she would appreciate it, I'm not sure I can pass muster. Yesterday I had a few hours to myself and just decided to scan old photographs into the computer as part of the Great Archiving Project. Mrs. Ditchman caught me, "What are you doing that for?!" I had no good answer. Obviously, there were more important things to be done. When I get overwhelmed, I just start a new project. (How's that pond coming?!)


The picture above is one of the recent inductees into the family record. Scrawled in pencil on the back it reads: "Dick out in the road". I have no idea when the picture was taken, who "Dick" is, or where that road is, but the snapshot must have been important enough to have been kept for 75 years. From surrounding photos I gathered that Dick was a mailman and that he had a dog named "Suzie" and that that year the snow bank was higher than the cars. I assume this is Iowa, land of my forebears. Evidently, there is a road there and one year Dick, that crazy bastard, got out in it. Looks cold there, too, but not Alaska cold. My family was smart enough to get out of the winterlands and move to California, and since one of my sisters moved to Las Vegas and another moved to Hawaii, it seems the family is still in the midst of migrating to warmer climates. Another generation and we'll be in Polynesia, which would be fine with my wife. It dips below 70 here in Oceanside, and she hugs her elbows, shivers and exhales, and goes looking for fuzzy socks.