Oh, my goodness. I am going to go and vote in May at some precinct place I haven’t figured out because they consolidated voting places and the Methodist Church is no longer an option.  That is the least of my concerns when it comes to the primary, however.  It seems surreal, this political year. Somehow, I need to figure out a plan before this fateful Tuesday . . . and it’s looking unlikely that I will reach a decision with which I am comfortable. Too bad Rose is not running.

I think I had snow on my mulch pile about a week ago, and yesterday I mowed the front yard – with my mother’s electric mower. It does all right, but the cord business can get a little tricky. We had a hedge trimming accident with one of my really long cords and the other was wound up so neatly, I was loathe to mess it up.

I thought to myself that I would just be trying the mower out for this summer’s use and opted for a short cord. After figuring out that the breaker in the garage for the plug I was using needed to be reset, I gave the mower a try. It started,  which was good, but then committed me to a test mow strip. And then I thought I’d do another and so on. Soon I needed another cord and attached a short one. This happened twice more and the last time around I was in the position of the plug ends  not being compatible, so I wound up unwinding my neatly wound cord. A little ironic, dontcha know.

It turned out the dandelions were really short and the mower whirled above them; it was frustrating, but at least the yard did not look like an expanse of bumps. I am planning on doing the back yard today and maybe even starting a fire when it gets toward evening. And I will be mulching more – strange how that hovers around the back of my memory and every now and then pokes my mind with a maniacal laugh.

LZP sent pictures of spring in Iowa: I sent back a picture of dandelions. Maybe I will be able to make wine, at least.

I have to get out there and start mulching and sweating and mowing and sweating before I take a shower – or maybe I could just spend the next few days greasy,  grimy and gritty. Sometimes I wish I had an “AmeliaJake Wash” – not unlike a car wash. I could just stand there and be wet, soaped, rinsed and dried. I don’t know about the buffing option.

The Sam Vance smile, which is featured below (and has got to be a movie star friendly caliber smile) got me thinking about other smiles. Here are a few

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And, of course, Shane smiling at Quentin:

Every now and then I click through some of the pages of the younger generation. This is Sam Vance; isn’t that a good, strong name?

Now, I’d like to say “my nephew” but I feel guilty about pretending to have any of the genes that came together to make this great smile and cheerful face.

Sam is a musician who plays with a Band Dividing the Masses – I think it’s Christian rock and for a while I believe Sam was interested in the ministry. I guess he’s got a fan club of female admirers; I can see why.

It must have rained last night because the driveway was wet this morning; the air damp. All day long you could smell the rain in the air, but it was capricious, a little now, a little later. Finally, a weather alert came up, but it was for the northern central part of the county and we are the northern eastern. That does not mean that we get Nor’easters, however. This time we got a bit of thunder and a darkened sky and a squall of rain. No lightning.

I was a typhoon on the porch, however, unending furniture and vacuuming spaces that had not seen the light of day in ages. I emptied travel totes out on the floor and then vacuumed up what I did not retrieve; that got a little tiresome. I would find things and put them on one end of the table, shoving them over as I found more things, until they fell off the other end. Sigh.

I have wet mulch outside and it will be heavy tomorrow.

Now for an important activity: I set my phone alarm for 8:53 pm in case I doze off and am not awake to get a Kroger worker. I think that earns another sigh.

I’ve said it. A lot – sometimes with a tear-stained face and sometimes with freshly stepped in manure my shoe. Yes, I pretty much run the range of self pity; I would guess I’m above average on the amount I do that, but I know there are tons of people who succumb to the same foible.

Yesterday, while standing in line in Wal-Mart with stuff for Robert’s birthday, including brown eggs from chickens that had been fed a vegetarian diet (You can find a little humor in the smallest places), I saw a wee boy in the cart in front of me, blond, blue-eyed and a usual baby look. His grandfather or dad, and I’m guessing it was his grandfather shopping with his daughter, the baby’s mother, told me the boy had a medical list of issues a mile long and there would be countless trips to Riley Hospital in Indianapolis. He said they had had a garage sale for a fundraiser and had netted $17. Seventeen dollars, sigh. I unfortunately can see people quibbling about price at a fundraiser for a little boy. “Hey, there’s a scratch here, will you knock off a dollar?”

Just two days before I had heard about a young nursing student whose mother died of cancer this past summer and then was diagnosed with it herself. She is trying to keep going in school and, I was told, trying to maintain the family home for her younger brother. I don’t know if her father has already passed away or has skipped out, but, my goodness, a young woman with a teen-aged brother, alone with cancer. If anyone has a right to put her head against the wall, and scream Why me?, I would think she would. (That was another story from Wal-Mart – I’m almost afraid to go again.)

Well, when I look in the mirror today and see another chin hair, I think I’ll just forget the Why me, Lord? question. Human nature being what it is, however, a full beard might trigger it.

I believe there are no pictures of birthday cakes below. I suppose I could tell you that the empty space is because they were all eaten soooooo fast, there was nothing left to photograph. Alas, that is not the truth. I screwed up and forgot to include them.

Here they are:
FACE

DOGFACE

Today was Robert’s birthday and we had a small family gathering and Summer made two cakes. It was, I suppose, a watershed birthday in some ways. Summer made two cakes and I over-rotissoried a pork tenderloin. I won’t show a picture of the pork, but here are the cakes:

We watched some episodes of Games of Thrones because I’d promised Cameron. Exciting, huh?

The constant new technological world  has people not realizing that you had to go to a library and, if smart, “let your fingers do the walking” (Yellow Pages – old phone book lingo) in the old days. I am not using the new phrase, in the day, because I am talking old here. Got it? Now, of course, it may be at your fingertips, but you can just “swipe” or ask Siri. Until the smart phone gives up the ghost.

As I wrote yesterday, my phone developed a quirk – it would not call and not message, although I was able to text to Ohio. Don’t try to go figure – the tech guy at the Sprint store couldn’t figure it out. He tried everything to get my phone to snap out of its snit. Well, it would not.

And so, I now have a new phone. I have long been eligible for upgrade, but did not want to go big and the iphone  5se wasn’t included in the upgrade plan. I was happy with my iphone 5 and well-satisfied to be offered a 5s.

They were very nice at the store and offered to transfer my data to the new phone. Ack. They did not realize how many pictures I had and Heaven Knows Whatelse, Mr. Alison (another classic movie reference) It took a long time and they babysat my phone while I ran errands.

Later that afternoon/early evening I was texting when all of a sudden the phone told me I had no SIM card; yeah, right. I got in the car and went back and the fellows gave an ooh and ah look of disbelief and opened it up, reset the card and sent me on my way, with the invitation to come back if I anything came up.

We will see. Actually, I suppose I will go back if nothing comes up . . . on the screen.

Fingers crossed, pleased.

Oh, and by the way, technological glitches can be very tiring and you get nothing else done. I could have gotten tired in the old-fashioned way – mulching and putting the downstairs in some sort of order, following the great dryer installation miracle. I’ll think about doing that today.

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