Fall is my favorite time of the year

 I like watching the season's change.  Fall has so much to offer. A summer time daisy flower becomes a fluffy wad of puffs that brown and disappear leaving the sepals to form a brown daisy. Still lovely in monochrome. Spring is pretty wondrous. But it is the animals migrating in fall that affect me.

I live next to a hunting area. The deer come up on my property during deer season and the turkeys come during turkey season. For some reason they know they are safe in this area.

I like the huge flocks of black birds. I have looked at them up close. They are mostly red winged blackbirds. There are brown sparrows mixed in. They drape themselves over fields and decorate trees with the intensity of their large flocks. In the beginning of fall, the flocks are small. By December they are quite large and coincide with the last of the Pecan harvest. One time I stood out on my driveway about three tenths of a mile from the road as a flock flew over. It was a loud roar like the ocean and took over five minutes. They obviously keep joining until the whole family gathers.

There are some Canadian geese that still migrate. We have year round flocks at small ponds built in the area. There is a millionaire down the road with a large pond. We never see any geese there. I wonder what he does to keep the ducks and geese from coming.

As I entered the house today, I couldn't see them but I could hear Canadian geese flying overhead. They can fly so high you can barely see them. Calling back and forth as if there was a perpetual echo in the heavens. I saw one small flock of about 9 birds. I kept looking toward the sound, there were several maybe eight V formations. A smaller V merged with a large V. In another V, the birds were changing position.

Louise is mousing in the front pasture in the first picture. Waiting to take a ride in the second picture. Louise loves to be on a leash and going someplace.

Rolling roulette of ideas

I spend a good bit of my day driving. At least 3 hours shuttling my brother to the workshop he goes to. The gas is more expensive than the paycheck he gets. What is the benefit? There is someone there who gives a damn if he shows up. If by some sort of catastrophe befalls me, someone will come get him.

I live a spoiled life. I'm not rich, not poor. I have a car that works, social skills that people will help me, enough money to make my bills, relatively good health, judgement, a retirement check. Its not the life I dreamed of when young. I never was motivated by money. Thrills would be my passion. I like having a good time. Money is just a tool for getting what you want.

When you ride by yourself in a car, you have time to think. I have a pit bull terrier that rides back and forth with me. I stop and buy her a sausage biscuit at Hardee's in the morning. The biscuits are good but I'm burnt out. As far as I can tell Louise still enjoys her biscuit. I thought about getting one for myself this morning. However, I am picky about sausage. I lean toward the plain, bacon or steak biscuits. I wondered whether she had a preference.


Louise is in my car because of the horse farm next door. She has had a bone broken by a horse. A horse kicked one of my elderly dogs and she made it home to die on her blanket on the front walk. Being a pit bull, the horse farm owners are scared she will hurt one of their horses. So Louise stays on a leash or with me. I agree people should not breed powerful dogs for family pets. However, my chihuahua mixes can do damage with their jaws. Louise cracks pecans and the chihuahua mixes eat out of her mouth in the process. A dog is a lot like people. They have the habits of the company they keep. I don't allow her to run with the chihuahuas

Dogs have always been part of my life. We had a member of the family that happened to be a dog when I grew up. Winky disappeared one rainy night between Thanksgiving and Christmas when I was in Seventh Grade. Neighbors suggested that he went off to die. Dogs were in heat and Winky had been injured in a fight the last time we saw him. He ran off that night again to do what a dog has to do.

The next dog was Bruno. My mom had said she wanted another dog like Winky but one that would not climb the fence. Bruno was brown but he eventually turned red and looked a lot like Winky with short legs. He only weighed about 20 pounds but he had a big dog voice. He would get under the house and bark and people were scared to come in our yard.

Bruno was the big pet of my younger siblings. My older brother was taking a guided tour of Vietnam courtesy of Uncle Sam. I wrote him a letter about Bruno when we got him. I just didn't tell him it was a dog until the end. I went to college when Bruno was three. He would greet me like a small child when I came home. My affection for Bruno faded into family stories of his escapades.


Bruno was also trained to stay in his fence. If a dog went in heat, my dad would open the gate and let him out. I was old enough to joke that maybe we should take Bruno to a doggie cathouse.


On one of Bruno's days out with the neighborhood male dogs wooing a fetching neighbor, a friend of my dad saw the dogcatcher and tipped my dad off.  My mom and dad got in their automobile. They saw the dogcatcher in front of the house.  Dad drove through the alley behind the house and opened the back door. Bruno ran and jumped in the backseat like a gangster. My parents drove to a corner store and drank a soda to hide their deeds. You do tend to help a family member when you can.

It's hard to dream more than the wonder of life. Spider webs like dewy flags of fairy tale realms gleaming in the sun.

Exercise Plans

It's hard to get anything done when you are pulled every sort of way. My tactic of approaching whatever comes my way willy nilly is more miss than hit. However, the few hits I get are worth my efforts.

I attempted nanowrimo this month and have failed. I only have about 30,000 words done with a total of 50,000 to win. I hate not making the mark. The story I am writing really says something I believe in although it is definitely a fantasy story.

Picking yourself up when you fail is no easy feat. I should know. I have done it so many times. I had a boss that would rip you to shreds. It took two weeks to get it together on the inside. The irony is he was incompetent. He would give everyone this story of how he really screwed up when he was a young adult and his parents wouldn't help him and he was 29.

Being female and working class and in my 40s, I disliked his story. Screwing up for a young woman means having a baby and not being able to support themselves or have a stable relationship to help raise the child. Screwing up as a working class person means poverty. He was one of those people who stood on third base when they were born. Making the home run in life was easier for him. I stood on second base.

There is a humbleness you feel when you realize how much others have to struggle. I had an evening school student who was incredibly slippery and lied for no reason. As I got to know him, he worked two jobs to help support his mom and younger siblings. When he graduated, I knew his older brother who was reported to be a drug dealer. He was a kid who had no respect for authority or adults. He was a kid that stood up to his father who was sexually abusing him because he was not going to tolerate him doing it to the baby. The power of the internet allowed me to see what he was doing. He owns a small business repairing air conditioners.

This is not a funny blog today. I'll rewrite it tomorrow with a funny bend. Give me feedback when I hit the mark.

Living in the fast lane.

I have such an exciting life. Today is senior citizen day at the grocery store and today is also mystery coupon day at the grocery store my mother likes the most. So, when I get home after taking my brother to his job, my mom will be dressed and ready. We will be grocery shopping whether we need groceries or not.

We have enough groceries bought to last awhile.

It's 6 am and I've got a 5 pound lap piranha wrapped around my neck as I type this. She looks to be mostly chihuahua. I know she is at least 1/4 jack russell on her mother's side. I hope she doesn't get too much bigger. She'll eventually wake the house up early if she can't have her coveted position.

As soon as I finish this post, I plan to run my mop over as much of the house as possible before everyone gets up. I retired early to take care of these people I love. I remember the last year my father was alive. It's like I would hear a little voice that said these are the good times. I made time to spend a day with my parents once a week. I broke the rule the weekend before his death. I was coming the following Tuesday. I did come home the following Tuesday. Too late to see him one more time.

I regret not being able to do things with the enthusiasm as I did in the past. Working full-time, I got behind with staving off the clutter and organization of my house. There is an awareness you get when you stop work and slowdown. You realize first of all, you ain't got as much money anymore which is fearsome. You also see all the problems you were too busy to notice.

I've got too many animals. The mother of this little neck warmer peed on my office rug. I paid $5 at the dollar store for it but I did want to keep it clean and longer. I adopted a small pregnant dog. We kept all the pups. Living in the country, they are great mousers. Plus they have done much for the mental health of us all.

This post is as exciting as my life. It doesn't sound like much but it describes what this blog will be about. Dogs, love, care-taking, grocery shopping, exercising, reminiscing about the good old days when I had a job, taking care of my mother, brother and sister. These are the good times. I promise to make it funny.

Ce la vie.

Be yourself

I got a solicitation from Chesty friends today.  I've had men and a few women look at my breasts as they talked to me. Imagine your boobs get asked out on a date. I guess you can eat whatever you want and not have to worry about making good conversation.  Luckily, if they use your email, they send your password to your profile so you can leave their lovely dating service.

I'm interested in meeting someone. Just not someone that shallow at my age. Looks matter and I know that is  true.  I have never been the hot chick. After a bout of a co-worker hassling me for sex one time, I realized I was lucky not to be incredibly good looking with the logic that I would have had to deal with it more. I don't know. I'm also overweight and we are supposed to have terrible self esteem.

I worked out in an effort to lose weight and feel better. One of the water aerobic instructors kept after me about getting a bust reduction. What I couldn't get over was didn't these women look in the mirror. How attractive can you be when you get a certain age. Most overweight women are busty.

What made me dislike the woman was not her constant harping over a pretty serious surgery. It was the way I shut her up. I said I had never met a man who had a problem with my big breasts. Actually, I lied. I have never discussed them with almost all men. The idea that I did not want to have surgery and they didn't bother me I guess was not reason enough for her. Yes I do resist the urge to suggest a face lift to her.

I think I will work on changing my email password. Ce la vie.