Focused at Fifty

I was up way before the crack of dawn this morning at 3:30 AM.  John and I were on our way to a favorite flea market where we buy and sell at called Jake's  in Barto, PA. Both our vehicles were laden down with our antiques, flea market items, and bottom of the barrel crap not to mention bags, labels, tags and tables! Jake's Flea Market is a huge flea market with several hundred vendors on Route 100 just north of Boyertown, PA. As with any large flea market, if you are looking for something, chances are it can be found at Jake's We arrived at Jake's at around 5:15 AM and were relieved that we were able to get a couple of pretty good spaces. The threat of rain held everyone at bay so it wasn't as crowded as it normally is on a summer Sunday. After walking around shopping for treasures for 45 minutes, we set up our stuff in the couple of spaces we rented and started selling our wares. We always bring a mixture of ...

Sunday was a pretty productive day. I ended up at Lowe's and bought a smattering of impatiens, other assorted flowers, creeping plants like sweet pea and English ivy, hanging pots, and soil to begin finally finishing off this deck for the summer. I always plot what to do each week so that by end of June I will have everything completed. The list gets chucked by mid June with a muttered "Eff it" under my breath. I then play catch up until the Fall. By that time, all the plants that were planted in May have either died or become overgrown and it is time to start thinking about mums, pumpkins, and dried corn stalks.   I had a bunch of dirt left over and needed to repot some house plants so I figured I would complete that task as I already had the blackened fingernails of a seasoned day-gardener. I grabbed four houseplants and carried them out to my staging area in the driveway. By staging area, I mean cracked open cans of beer, a cassette player playing Fleetwood Mac...

As I navigated the dead crunchy corpses of the male cicadas, I came to the realization, I am over them big time. The 17 year cicadas arrived about 3 or 4 weeks ago. They struggled through the soil where they lay buried and hidden for the last decade and a half patiently waiting until that internal alarm commanded them to dig upwards! I was so excited at the sight of their thousands of holes across the yard and just amazed that there they lay buried without us having any knowledge of them.  Cicada on leaf John was not so excited. We first thought it was an insect invasion of another sort, maybe some mass invasion of mud wasps or bees which had suddenly come forth to reek havoc on the end of Spring! I had thought it might by cicadas but had not heard anything in the news about a new brood. After the news began reporting that Brood II, the 17 year cicadas, were coming forth, I remembered back to when the 13 year cicadas came forth several years ago....

Sheryl and I have some pretty daffy conversations sometimes. As I have mentioned before, they usually occur when we are both driving to work. They run the gamut from the everyday mundane such as “How is the weather in Philly? It is raining in Schuylkill County.” to the completely ridiculous “I think I would be much happier if I were a cat..“ To which the response is appropriately enough, “What about a dolphin?”  I will let you figure out who said what. One morning Sheryl offered up to me that she wanted to raise pachyderms upon her retirement. “Pachyderms.” I said. “Yes, pachyderms,” she replied. It was later found out that my sister was talking about alpacas. She wanted to raise them for their wool. Pachyderms don’t have wool. That is the scientific name for the elephant family. My sister had stated she wanted to raise elephants. Love her dearly, I got a chuckle out of that one. I think we have all been there with the honest misuse of words. The other day while d...

Some people dress up to travel and some don’t. There used to be a time when people would get dressed up to the nines. Traveling on planes was considered a status symbol. Now people travel in the most comfortable clothes possible. Your leopard print chef’s pants with ripped t-shirt falls into that category. I will give a pass to the kid who sat next to me in the tie dye and cargo shorts. I was also happy to help you cheat on you math homework although I probably gave you all wrong answers. Sorry. There is a point in every plane flight where people all start farting. You start smelling it. It is natural due to the air pressure in the cabin and  I guess all that bouncing around. People need to do what I do. If you have to let a big one rip, get your ass up and fart in the airplane bathroom. To the 60 year old woman in front of me, you are not fooling anyone. I know it is coming from you. You were exuding multiple farts. To the older gentlemen on my puddle jumper flight from...