I visit someone who is 95 and is very hard of hearing. We have discovered that if she removes her hearing aids and puts the type of earphones that have little, soft, round rubber balls that snuggle in her ear, she can once again enjoy music.

And I’m happy about that. Yesterday was Glenn Miller. I’m lining up Benny Goodman. We’ll probably stay away from heavy metal . . .

I’ve been bombarding Rose with so many needs for counseling and comforting that she has just been run ragged (Oh, sorry) with trying to help me. Last night, she broke down during a call to Der Bingle, sobbing out, “Nothing’s ever going to be all right again.”

So, Rose is going to rest herself and Sophie will shoulder the workload for a while. Remember, however, Sophie is the one with the high top sneakers and her therapy is a swift kick to the head and/or butt.

We are hoping Rose feels better soon. Real better, real soon.

I wanted to distract myself; I wanted to focus my mind on something not connected to me. I downloaded a free Kindle book  –  a mystery –  and it was not bad at first for my purpose. But at the end, I found myself looking inward  because I had spent a few hours reading a story that wound up 200 miles east of the recently torn-down Berlin Wall and concerned a 50-year-old Nazi scheme to recreate the “missing link” by  mixing the genes of a human an ape.

I actually read this. Why? It is not like watching a horrible movie in which you look for zippers in the monster suit! Sometime “free” costs you.

Shane, our dear dog who came to us from Quentin in Houston, had a habit of digging holes. Occasionally, he relapses and I have filled the holes with top soil, at one point wondering if eventually we would have to climb steps to get to the backyard.  Der  Bingle was out at Rural King and saw that shrubs and trees were 20% off; he decided to plant blue run junipers in each hole. We did. I don’t know where it will end . . . or disaster will occur when Shane, an Australian Shepherd, decides he must herd them – blue-green sheep, don’tcha know – and winds up pulling the stubborn little guys into a definite grouping.

That is the type of situation in which you open the door, assess what you see, close the door and turn away. Ah, you see, I have steered you away from dwelling on the fact that two people put shrubs in holes randomly dug by a dog.

I carry gas in the trunk when I go to LaGrange to mow; well, a couple of days ago,  a wee bit spilled.  This is bad because Der Bingle is always remarking about how my car smells like gasoline. Except it hasn’t since last summer, but now the dratted cycle resumes. The really unfortunate consequence is that I had a full pack of Diet Coke in my trunk, and, yes, maybe some gas got on the cardboard container and wicked its way to the cans.

I discovered this circumstance this morning when I went out to get the virgin pack, put it in the back vestibule and then raised a can to my face.  Do I want to wash the 23 remaining cans or put a sign up that advises consumers to wash their own cans?

Sigh. I believe I am going to have to do the wash option. I get myself in the most unusual predicaments; it has got to be a curse.

I can’t put this off . . . so see you later.

I decided to work on my sagging jowls, which I have not done for some time because the suggested exercise is to purse your lips as if you were going to give someone a kiss and then try to touch the tip of your nose with them.
That makes my upper lip really wrinkle.

So I experimented and pressed my lips together very tightly and try to reach the tip of my nose with the center of them. It’s kind of a unique look, dontcha know?

What?? Do I hear screams of “I’m blind; I’m blind.”

Oh, a little UPDATE: Warning – Clicking on the picture makes it get very big.