Cold Season

The Bushism for February 6, 2007 - ok, I'm about an hour late in this:
"One of my hardest parts of my job is to console the family members who have lost their life." Washington, D. C.; April 13, 2004

And, now - for the rest of the drivel of the day ---
It's been cold - really, really cold here the past couple of days. So cold in fact that our school cancelled classes Monday and again today this week. Boy, what's this world coming to anyway? When I was a kid, if school closed for a day or two, it was because of very heavy snowfall and high winds that caused major drifting across the highways and the busses couldn't get through. But in all twelve years I attended the old school here in town (for six years), the school in Winburne (about five miles away) and old Cooper Township High School (about 2.5 miles away), we never had school cancelled simply because of LOW temperatures. And back then, in grades one through six, we had to walk almost a mile to get to that building - little kids, we were too. (And, it was uphill, both ways as well!) Kids today, get picked up at the bus stops which are spaced so as to be only maybe -at most - under a quarter of a mile's walk. In my stepgranddaughter's case, she can either walk a little over one tenth of a mile down the road to a bus stop or she can walk about one half of that distance up the road to yet another bus stop. And they say our kids today are out of shape for not having enough exercise in their lives! Small wonder there since they sure don't have any long walk to catch the bus in the morning. ARRGH - ye'll get no sympathy from me, me laddies and lassies! No Sirree, Bob, ye won't!

A little report today on my little Princess - Miss Maya - my granddaughter. She was sitting on the loveseat, chattering away and I really wasn't paying much attention to her sounds - probably because I was most likely busy surfing blogs, reading "my favorite blogs" or some such excellent activity - but then, something clicked in my mind. "What was that she was saying?" Hmmm. I stopped to listen and watch what she was doing and had to chuckle to myself.

She had a great big "Bratz" coloring book in her lap and was leafing through it, actually turning one page at a time, quite gently too, and with each new page, she would point to the picture and say "Loo at sat. Uh sat?" and she would repeat those sentences twice at each page. Translated, she was saying to herself "Look at that. What is that?" But the inflection in her voice matched that of her mother's or mine as we often sit with her and some of her books and as we turn each page, we point to the picture there and say to her - "Look at THAT! What is that?" It was really cute to see how engrossed she was in her exploring the pages of that book though - and to realize that she was imitating us in the process by the tones she incorporated into her voice.

I think I mentioned last Friday -when I posted about the scene Miss Maya made at the doctor's office - that both the little ones here have bad colds. I don't think I've wiped snotty noses this often ever before! Holy Rip! Judging by the copious amounts these two are putting out, they should have drained every sinus cavity known to man by now! Buckets and buckets - or so it seems - of the stuff. And to make things a tad more interesting, Kurtis despises having his nose wiped and fights us off like a little wrestler - the Japanese type - can't think of the name of them now though! Maya, on the other hand, will ask for a Kleenex, (actually, she says "a tissue, a tissue, peez?") But trying to get any cold medications into these two, then they reverse positions. Kurtis is a trifle more complacent about accepting a dropper full of baby cold meds. Maya though - takes at least two, sometimes even three of us to hold her down - one takes the arms, another the legs and the third person tries to hold her head in a vise grip so one of the three doing the holding manages to keep an arm free to insert the eye dropper in her mouth and force feed her the stuff. Where this sudden fear of taking medicine like that came from - just started up out of the blue last week - I don't have a clue! But she sure does fight it off, tooth and nail!

The bad news today though is that my new computer didn't arrive today as scheduled. I called the guy to inquire and he said there were a couple of parts he had to order which are on back order. But, he added, it should be here in a day or two, tops! Boy, I sure do hope so as I am really -did I say REALLY - excited about a new computer. Having oodles of space for my documents and photos and such, plus a DVD burner to copy all kinds of stuff over and save that way. I'm gonna be in 7th heaven for sure once it arrives and gets all set up!

The big drawback to this whole computer deal now though is that I am going to HAVE TO break down and clean off the top of this desk as well as the cabinet section below it. YUCK! I have my own little "filing" system on the top of the desk where I stash bills - in hopes they will somehow get in there and just evaporate. Apparently my method isn't working though as the pile keeps getting bigger and BIGGER. I've got a stack of copies of the West Branch Review on a side compartment of my desk - a copy of every issue that has been published in the past 3.5 years - for reference purposes - or for posterity. Whatever. But I want to make sure I keep those things any way.

And tonight, I am also just plain tired! Not that I was overworked today - because I wasn't, but I didnt find any time at all to take any little catnaps so maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to go to bed and fall asleep and STAY asleep for oh, let's say five hours to be generous to my system. Six would be wonderful but I'm not looking for miracles in my sleep patterns here. Five would be one more than I normally sleep (if I am lucky) at a clip - before one little spot in my back that is still an irritant and reminder of the shingles will fire up and awaken me. It is getting better. I am up from 2-3 hours of straight sleep to four hours now. Progress at its finest!

So, pray for the best there will ya please? Sleep, sweet, sweet sleep!
Nite now.

Big Pow-Wow - well sort of!

Got a call this afternoon from Teresa - my editor/publisher of my favorite little newsletter. She was on her way over for coffee and to bring me a copy of the latest issue of the West Branch Review! Terrific! Mandy stopped yesterday to try to get me a copy at the nearest distributor spot and they had been sold out since two days after this issue hit the stands! Yippee!

Over coffee, we discussed many things - some even dealing with plans for when the next issue will surface and ideas for topics to go in that one too! Gonna have to do some research on New Years type celebrations, history of that, anything pertaining to New Years. So.... if any of you have any suggestions on that topic, feel free to bombard me with ideas! (Guess who is gonna try to do an article about that?)

Mandy picked up the Christmas photos she had taken about two weeks ago at K-Mart of the two little ones together - all decked out in the "holiday" finery. Gosh, they are beautiful! The pictures and the kids!!!! Still can't believe they are actually related to me!

Since no disc was given along with the photos - rats - I will have to scan these in then but would love to be able to figure out how to post photos here then so I could put their picture up here and anyone reading this then could see I am not bragging about how terrific they are for nothing that way!

I see by the "table of contents" thing Teresa puts on the front page of the Review that yes, she has my article titled "Small World" in this issue. Hmmm - leaves me wondering there how my cousin missed seeing that. She lives in Alabama but has a subscription to the REview and had e-mailed me on Tuesday that she had just received the latest copy but hadn't seen anything in it by me! Gonna have to write and tell her where it is - what page it is on - whole nine yards, I guess! Or, maybe if she is reading this posting, she will find it herself located on PAGE 7, Ruth Ann! Go read it now, please!

This issue also contains two articles that pertain a lot to Peale - the recent fire there, the old railroads in that village at one time, plus more about Peter Karthaus - who founded a little local town down river from me and a Christmas story, written by Teresa - the editor. Oh, and there are a few other pieces of good interest for those readers of this neat little newsletter!

Other topics Teresa and I discussed for potential stories in upcoming issues: The Philipsburg HIstoric Association; Underground Railroad in Philipsburg; the "Screw Factory" of early Philipsburg, a soda bottling place that used to be located in the township where I live along with hopefully getting a piece done about a 14-year-old in our school district who plans someday to run for President of the old U.S.A. That boy - just happens to be my cousin's grandson - has his platform all worked out, along with a game plan he has too about college, major in school, future employment and then how he will eventually pull all this together and run for President! This kid absolutely amazes me and really is neat that he is also my cousin! Good genes there, maybe?

So there's a little bit of what those who subscribe to (or purchase individual copies as they hit the stands now) The WBR (West Branch Review) and what we will be trying to write about in coming months.

The topics outlined all sound really interesting to me. How about you? Let me know your thoughts about this, please.