DOGS MAKE LIFE BETTER

I saw these words in my son and daughter-in-laws house in Colorado.  My first thought was when and my second thought was how? When I stood outside in Colorado in sixteen degree temperatures cheering my dog on, "Go potty, go potty, potty, potty, potty," I realized the answer. There are only so many times you can do that with a straight face in freezing temperatures without starting to laugh.  I did not take a selfie at that moment, sorry.

The next day, an article popped up and gave me more answers and none of them had to do with laughter. So, when I got home I did some research and this is what I found out:

1.  Dogs keep you more active and healthier. People who regularly walk their dog actually live longer and you, "Improve muscle tone, increase mental clarity, control obesity, and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease." Why am I taking vitamins?

                                                 

2. Pet owners have lower blood pressure? Is that what happens when I can't get our dog Odin inside at night from the yard? I don't feel my blood pressure diving. The article said that people who don't have dogs have a 20% better chance of getting a heart attack. But I'm picking up gallons of poop, is that really a good deal? And then, I have to put the little bags in the garbage bag to go out to be picked up!

3. It said, "Dogs reduce stress and improve mood." When they are asleep they do?  I was just in Colorado and there were four dogs running around me, four!  Okay, they do say it increases levels of serotonin which is associated with feelings of happiness.  So, when I go into the bedroom in the morning and Odin just woke up and I sing to him,

"Good morning, good morning, and how are you today.  

Good morning, Good morning Odin, it's gonna be a great day.

I guess I'm feeling happy, but my wife is listening to me sing and that is just annoying and it's Odin's fault. They say that playing with your dog, "Changes your brain chemistry." (For the better??) Pictured below is Odin trying to wake my wife up while she hiding under the blankets.

4. I love this one: "Dogs boost immunity and fight allergies." Again, I'm taking vitamins for that, do I really need more? Do they know what vitamins cost?  They say that having a dog you get used to some dirt which helps you build up immunities. Isn't it easier to take vitamins?

5. "Dogs help detect disease." Why am I going for a check-up with my doctor when I have a dog?  The article really says that dogs can detect cancer and changes in their owner's body including abnormal blood levels. You have got to be kidding me!

                                       

I understand that they are great for companionship and affection and for some people it helps also with depression.  But, if having a dog is so great, shouldn't everyone have two of them? NO!

What Time Is It Really?

It all started this past month with The Beatles.  They put out a song that was written in 1977 and then it was worked on in 1995 and released in 2023.  That can be confusing enough, but going through daylight savings time and then driving out to Colorado and experiencing time changing on four different days? It was amusing and confusing and I'm not rhyming either.

On Sunday, November 5th, about a month ago, the clocks changed. My wife and I experience this very differently.  In my head, I'm thinking, spring forward and fall back.  All I want to do is make sure that when I wake up the next morning it's the right time and I know what devices have to be changed. My wife on the other hand, she spends the next week or so adjusting to the new time and I never give it a second thought. The next morning, I woke up and my phone and computer were right, but my car did not change-until hours after 2 am. I made things worse by changing my car time before it changed itself.

When we travel to Colorado from Myrtle Beach, we do it in three days.  The first day we stop in Tennessee and gain one hour in time, but on the second day to Kansas City, there is no time change.  I've confused the third day twice this year.  Heading to Colorado on the third day, we lose (really gain) only one hour while I expected to lose (really gain) two hours.  Once the time changes, it doesn't concern me.  My wife keeps saying things like, "It's really this time." Adjusting to the time change is no big deal to me, but my wife's sleeping and eating schedules are messed up.

When we turn around to head home of course, we lose an hour on two days. At one point my wife thought we were losing two hours and I said, "Really, it's just one hour. You trust me, right?" She said, "No." Time travel can be challenging and frustrating. The important thing to know is, what time is it really?

COSTCO IS SHORT ON ROTISSERIE CHICKENS!

I had to interrupt my endless vacation blogs with this shocking news: rotisserie chickens are missing at Costco! You have got to be kidding! If anyone is watching the news out there, I hope they are reporting on this.  How could Costco be short on chicken?

In 2022, they sold 117 million rotisserie chickens! Do you know how many that is a day? They sell over 320,000 a day, how could they be short? Where did it start? It started in Denver, Colorado and I was just in Colorado. I only ate one and I'm not sure if it was from Costco. The story I read listed New Jersey and Myrtle Beach as places that have shortages in their warehouses, but it's not a problem in all states.

What are people eating if there are no Costco rotisserie chickens for $4.99? I guess other people have rotisserie chicken that costs more, but it is chicken. There's still KFC, Bojangles, Zaxby's, and of course your local supermarkets.  In 2018, there were 900 million rotisserie chickens sold in this country, it's even more today.

Pictured below are some rotisserie chickens, I would gladly eat any one of them....now. Let's hope this shortage doesn't go into 2024.  What is the world coming to if there aren't enough rotisserie chickens?

December 8, 1980

Today is a good day to be a little sappy and sentimental. Last month I blogged about the final Beatle song coming out, "Now and Then." I wasn't going to blog about it again until I realized that December 8th was just around the corner. It was forty-three years ago today that John Lennon was killed.

The first time I heard the song, I liked it.  It was haunting. John's voice was so clear it sounded as if he was in my house singing.  I think it's an appropriate and beautiful ending and a tribute to The Beatles. You can interpret "Now and Then" in many ways.  You can think about Beatlemania and how it exploded across the country and the world in 1964 and you can think about how important their music still is today. 

To hear John singing, "I miss you," is how we feel about him.  Was he talking about his fellow bandmates or his wife and son who he was re-starting his life with?  It's a simple love song and simplicity and love are common themes throughout their music. As far as I can tell, the song has hit number one in England, Austria, Japan and Germany and reached number two in The United States.  Not too shabby for a group that broke up fifty-three years ago.

On the night of December, 8, 1980, John returned home with his wife Yoko to the Dakota Apartments in New York City where they owned several units.  He signed an autograph for a fan and walked away.  The troubled fan shot John in the back four times at close range.

Thirty-four miles away, I sat in my college room in Madison, New Jersey. My roommate and I were watching the news.  They said, "A man reported to be John Lennon has been shot outside the Dakota apartments." Thirty minutes later, the news was over and John was gone. I remember they ended the news with a large picture of John and I'm pretty sure they played the song, "Yesterday."  Although it was clearly a "Paul" song, the words, "I believe in yesterday," seemed to fit the moment.

John, 

We missed you then, 

We miss you now,

And the world will always miss you.

And yet, your voice will be with us forever.

Too Much Meat?

When you take a long road trip with your spouse there are always a bunch of things to talk about.  One subject we discussed on our 27 hours of driving over three days from Myrtle Beach to Colorado, was our diet.  On the nine hour trip from Tennessee to Kansas City, my wife said that we eat, "Too much meat." She's probably right as she is usually, but it was funny hearing this since we were driving again to Joe's Barbecue. 

I think it's the only place we've eaten on the four stops in Kansas City the past 18 months and we were looking forward to this visit.  We had a light brunch and we figured we would eat well at Joe's.  When we arrived around 4 pm., I was hungry and I ordered more than I expected to get.  This slab of ribs was for 2-4 people and I ordered it for myself since I didn't eat a lot that day.

I could have finished the ribs, but the last three were the biggest ones in the middle and I figured it would make for a great breakfast the next day.  It was about 9:30 am and I had something to eat around 4 am, so it was close to lunch time for me.  We pulled into a McDonald's in Illinois and there wasn't really a place to go to eat it.  I knew the McRib had returned, but this was real ribs.

I was going to stand under the McDonald's sign and eat them, but instead settled for eating out of my trunk.  This was not the first time I've eaten ribs out of my trunk, but they were incredible.  I enjoyed every bite and it was messy.  

That would have been a great ending, however, you should know this: on the way home we stopped to eat in Kansas City and we did not go to Joe's Barbecue.  I knew I had enough ribs for the trip and somehow I didn't gain any weight.  They were good ribs, but I probably won't order as many next time.

Odin and I Enjoy The Snow in Colorado

Last summer, we were invited by two of our kids to spend Thanksgiving in Colorado.  After saying yes I immediately thought, "I just want a couple inches of snow." I love watching the snow fall and I hadn't shoveled snow in over six years when we were in New Jersey.  I brought a shovel to South Carolina, but who knows how long I'll have to wait until I use it.

When we arrived a few weeks ago in Colorado, I was constantly checking the forecast-and there it was! A possibility of snow on Black Friday and the temperature was going to be low enough.  I was excited to see it happen so I could shovel, but I also knew that our almost three-year old dog, Odin, had never seen snow. We knew he was going to enjoy it almost as much as I would. Here's how the forecast looked looked on that day:

Odin had a ball in the snow, he thought it was food.  I don't know how much he ate, but all the time he was outside he had a white beard.  This picture shows how much snow he had on him every time he went outside to play.  He ate for days.

We only got a couple inches, once in the morning and once a little later.  This is how it looked as I watched the snow fall.  It's very difficult to take a picture of snow, but you can see it here.  It was a very easy shoveling job, but still a lot of fun.

The above picture shows snow on our car which is right in front.  It is not as much fun brushing snow off the car, because you have to push it on to the driveway that you're shoveling.  Last winter or the winter before, we had snow flurries in Myrtle Beach, maybe this is the winter we get a couple of inches here? I'll be ready with my shovel.

Have You Ever Woke Up Looking Like an Alien?(spelling correction in title)

Have you ever woken up in the morning and looked in the mirror and you scared yourself? Did you look so bad or scary that you looked like an alien? Did you ever give it a thought that something was really wrong with you?

After our first day of driving nine hours to Tennessee, we went to sleep pretty exhausted.  The next morning I got up without an alarm and went into the bathroom.  Throwing some water on my face and stretching a little I did not notice who was in the mirror.

Of course I knew who it was, but when I looked in the mirror I was shocked. No, I didn't look like the alien pictured below, that would have been a bit much.  When I looked at my eyes, they looked odd.  My eyes were square, both of them.  I threw more water on my face and took another look-my eyes were square.

I'm not the most observant person, but even I would have noticed that my eyes were square. Did I eat something yesterday? Am I having a reaction to the medicine I'm taking? Am I imagining it? I'm not one to start listing negative answers, but I was 600 miles from home with 1,200 miles to go to Colorado.

About thirty minutes later my wife woke up and I broke the news to her gently, "I look like an alien. I looked in the mirror in the bathroom and my eyes are square."  Very calmly and casually she said, "Your eyes are fine, it's the lights reflecting in the mirror, the lights are square." When I looked into the living room mirror, I knew she was right again.  The next night our bathroom mirror had two rows and that's how my eyes looked.  No problem, I knew I was fine. 

If I looked like the alien below, I'm sure my wife would not have responded so calmly.  The next time you look in the mirror after just getting up, remember, it could be much worse.