I thought it would look great in the yard but my wife insisted that he would fit well in our living room next to the tree. Of course, she is the idea person in the family. I agree with her now, and think this little snow guy will be a permanent addition to our meager Christmas decorations each year.

We have really cut down on decorating since all the kids are grown and gone. Grandchildren are just happy to see that we still put up a tree, even though it is only about three feet tall, artificial, and with the lights already attached so all we do is pull it out of the box and plug it in!

No more “stuff” sitting all over the house that needs to be put away after the holidays. In fact, we have a big box (five feet tall) FULL of Christmas decorations from years past. You know, the manger set, the mom and pop santas, the garlands, the figurines. All kinds of stuff. I think this next year I will take photos of all the stuff and then see what the kids would like to take off our hands. The remainder will go to Goodwill.

Most of the faces and names were familiar: Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga, Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Lopez, Janet Jackson, Keith Urban. There was even a special performance by Whitney Houston, which was a really tearful, heartfelt performance which I think everyone enjoyed.

But the teaser at each commercial break was a promised “spectacular” by newcomer and American Idol first runner-up, Adam Lambert.

Adam Lambert, the flamboyant and out-of-the-closet gay man, delivered what was either OVER THE TOP, OUTRAGEOUS AND FANTASTIC! or else was VULGAR, OBSCENE, OFF-KEY, SELF-INDULGENT, SADO-MASOCHISTIC TRASH. Trash.

The reviewers around the country on the morning after were just about evenly split between the two extremes. In other words, no one said it was just hum-drum, so-so, average or just okay.

NOPE. Feelings about the performance were strong on both sides. Why couldn’t he have been a little more subtle? Perhaps brushing his hand against the keyboard player’s cheek instead of laying a full open-mouth lip-lock on him? Why did he have to carry the bondage thing to the point of rubbing a man’s face into his own crotch in a gesture that was deemed “repulsive” enough to get the censor’s cut for the West Coast tape delay broadcast?

I don’t know the answers. I do know that he missed some notes, sounded flat, seemed to run out of energy. I think it will all take a toll on him. He might be fiercely defensive for the next few days, but I hope he realizes that he doesn’t have to go to such extremes to separate himself from the “pop” music of American Idol.

My wife was a big fan, but last night left her shaking her head and wondering if he will be someone she will bother to watch in the future. She did not pre-order his CD, which surprised me, and now I don’t know if she will even buy it.

I remember running my very first two-mile race, in 1986. When we finished we lit up our cigarettes and had a beer. What idiots.

All I can say is that quitting cigarettes was the most difficult thing I ever did. And I did it over and over and over again. It was like re-gaining all the weight I lost during a diet. Start all over again.

This is the Great Smokeout Day, but few people who stop today will be successful for very long. It is the most addictive habit there is. I think people on drugs have an easier time breaking their habit than tobacco smokers.

People in Alcoholics Anonymous take outside breaks in order to smoke.

People in prison head outside to the exercise yard in order to smoke.

I remember where I was at the moment I heard the news, of course: Sophomore year English Class. Mrs. Nelson, whom, up until the moment I saw her silently crying, standing in front of the class, was non-existent as a human being for me.

Bobby, Jackie and Ted in the funeral procession. The photo of Jackie Kennedy was taken at Arlington National Cemetery. The three Kennedy’s destined for greatness, Jack, Robert, Edward, at Kennedy retreat in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

Mrs. Kennedy and the children were icons as well. We followed their every activity during the three days following the assassination. There was no school, at least for me. Honestly, I was so upset, I could not imagine the World even continuing to exist, much less worry about high school. It is possible that schools were closed. I can’t even remember. It did not matter.

Below is a photo from 1982. I am the guy with the sneer on my face in the lower left corner. The guy in the upper right corner was already a Shellback, King Neptune’s Trusty Servant; and the rest of us were Pollywogs, (WOGS). We were crawling around on our hands and knees on non-skid surface of the aircraft carrier’s flight deck. We wrapped rags or foam rubber and duct tape around our knees and hands.

The “weapon” in the Shellback’s hand is called a shillaly*, and is made out of a short length of fire hose, with one end wrapped tightly with tape to make a rigid “handle.” The shillaly was used on our backsides to make us “move along smartly,” as he had us “wog dogs” on leashes. Believe me, this was just to be the beginning of a most “exhilarating experience.”

*NOTE: we pronounced the word as “shill-LAY-lee”

After lung cancer, breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in women.

The American National Cancer Institute estimates that 1 in 8 women in the United States will develop breast cancer during her lifetime and studies show that the risk of breast cancer increases as a woman gets older. Most breast cancers occur in women over the age of 50, and the risk is especially high for women over age 60. Also, breast cancer occurs more often in white women than African American or Asian women. Breast cancer is uncommon in women under the age of 35, but it does occur, so women of ALL AGES should become aware of risk factors, symptoms and preventative measures, including self-examination.

Besides age, risk factors include family history and obesity. A woman whose mother (or sister) had breast cancer before age 40 is at greater risk. A family history of breast cancer on either the mother or the father’s side of the family can also increase risk.

Here is a link to the Federal Citizen Information Center web page on National Breast Cancer Awareness month.

Here is a link to the American National Cancer Institute webpage on Breast Cancer.

Breast cancer killed two of my co-workers, one in her forties, the other in her fifties. Breast Cancer is in my family and in my in-law’s family. Cysts and lumpectomies have proven benign in two women that I dated years ago, when they were in their thirties, and provided a scare and a wake up call to both of them.

I urge all women, young and old, to become informed; to teach their daughters how to protect themselves; and to protect those they love. Men too, owe it to their ladies to become knowledgeable and supportive, and encourage preventative measures and tests.

Someone commented that my post on Labor Day camping made me sound like a grumpy old man. Yup.

I am, in many ways, old-fashioned, with habits and dislikes fairly common to people in their sixties, particularly men, I think. We seem less tolerant of other people’s quirks and habits than do women.

Women seem more compassionate, compromising and cooperative.

Men seem more confrontational, combative, and other “C” words, like crass and crabby.

And WHY bring Off-road, four-wheeler ALL TERRAIN VEHICLES to a campground?

I hope these party people are all exhausted from their weekend of drinking, smoking, listening to loud music, rip-roaring around on the ATV’s and generally being a pain in the butt to those of us who were hoping for a little peace and quiet. Perhaps we should stay home on three-day weekends.

Now I understand why retirees enjoy the OFF-SEASON so much!

All I can say is how much I appreciate enforced Quiet Hours in a campground where the Host is actually On-Duty!

Another thing that made this past weekend endurable was the rain. Lots of rain tends to calm things down and confine the noisy kids to their own tents and campers.

There is one item that usually tests the mettle of even the most experienced World Traveler. If you think you have “global” taste buds, try BALUT, the Filipino treat that they present to tourists with great fanfare and much drinking and laughter.

Balut is a “not quite ready to hatch” embryo of duck (or chicken) that is hard-boiled in the egg shell casing and then consumed WITH BEER! (I just threw in the beer part.)

U.S. Marines and U.S. Navy sailors have long tested each other with initiation ceremonies that included eating balut, as though it were a rite of passage into the mysteries of the Far East.

(If you click on the photo at left it will open a much larger view of the balut.)

What does it really taste like? Someone once described it as tasting like the way air smells after a big fireworks demonstration. The duck embryo contains phosphorus. But to describe it thus is not doing it justice; one has to try it.

There are Filipino restaurants in the U.S.A. that serve balut. Some Asian food stores also sell balut.

There was a pause….I had to think….what the hell? I know what year I was born–1947, that never changes. But my age in years is something I can hardly keep up with.

Is it because my memory is going…going…? Or do the years just speed by so fast that I can’t keep track any longer. Or don’t I really care?

Ah, maybe that’s it! Who does it matter to anyway? Not me. Not my spouse (who HATES to be reminded of MY age because that…ah yes…reminds her of her own).

My kids are now ages 24 through 40. Five of them. They have various ideas of how old I am, ranging from 45 or so…to over 70! Oh, to have such perspective!

I wonder if my Mother has to think for a moment to recall her exact age. It is 82. I remember her age as well as my own….but again, it is because I remember her YEAR of birth….and that has never changed…not since she reached age 39. (Oh, she loved Jack Benny!)

A couple of years ago, the IRS would not accept my federal tax return because my DATE of birth, (the day, not the month or year) that the IRS had on file did not agree with the Social Security Administration. One had the 7th, the other had the 9th. Social Security had it WRONG! I had to make a trip down there with my original birth certificate to get it corrected. THEN I could file my taxes.

I suppose this was good. I wouldn’t want to get into a big brouha with Social Security when the day comes that I want to Draw it. I will have no problem remembering my age THEN, you can be damn sure.

My wife thinks I should just throw out stuff when it gets old, but if I like a shirt, I will keep it and wear it until the collar frays.

Cuffs can fray and I will just roll up the sleeves, but when the collar threads start to show, I will give it up.

Once I am finished with a shirt, it can’t really go to Goodwill, as you may have guessed. I use them for paint rags. I don’t usually have a lot of old shirts to use as paint rags.

My Mother says she is just like me. She keeps stuff FOREVER! I know it was really (REALLY!) hard for her to downsize from a big house to a little apartment. Frankly, I am surprised she doesn’t still have stuff in a storage rental somewhere. (Maybe she does; I know I would)

I think my oldest shirt is 39 years old. I wore it in college, back in 1970 and ‘71. There is a lot of sentimental attachment to some of my old shirts. I can remember (vaguely) getting extremely drunk in one of my oldest shirts. I’m fairly certain that I made a fool of myself in my oldest shirts; something that I did with fair regularity back in 1970 and ‘71. Those were great years.

I have a feeling that I could wait “until the cows come home” (which is every night), but never have that “AH HA!” moment that will enable me to find the story and angle to publish a best-seller. I have Writer’s Block and, when I am stuck–I am really stuck.

Posting to a blog is a good excuse NOT to work on my novel or memoirs. I used to put out a new post on this blog every day. I was brimming over with ideas, and once I got going I could write five to seven posts at one sitting, and would frequently stop to write down additional ideas on a note pad. I’ve had “Blogger’s Block” for about three months now.

Note pads can be good or “good and useless.” I just counted 12 separate yellow notepads in my desk drawer that each have three or four pages of notes and ideas. Most of the ideas are not much good. I think it is like the “brilliant” observations a person makes when drunk; they never sound as “profound” when sober.

I notice that I write with a lot of “quotation marks.” That can be annoying. It’s sort of like speaking “tongue-in-cheek.” (There I go again with the quote marks.)

Making lists of stuff “to do” has also become a habit. As I have gotten older I haven’t gotten any wiser, just forgetful. If I think of some chore that needs doing, I have to write it down or it will slip my mind. It’s awfully frustrating. I find myself walking into the kitchen and forgetting what I am there for. As the joke goes: “I believe in the hereafter. Whenever I walk into a room, I ask myself, ‘what am I here after?’”

Perhaps some day I will make a list of all the stuff I have forgotten.

Forward about 43 years. My wife and I decided to purchase a used motor home to see if we would enjoy the “RV lifestyle.” Crawling around inside a tent had become just a bit too confining for a 60-year-old with back and knee problems. We got a pretty good deal on a 1991 Fleetwood Flair 25Y.

The 17-year-old motor home proved to be pretty cramped and confining. Why would we not expect that? Two people can barely move past each other. There are all sorts of overhangs and sharp corners to bump my head. I hope I have found them all.

Cooking in the motor home makes the entire place smell like food. For hours. And it heats up the entire place too. Summer camping in 95 degree temperatures is unbearable without air conditioning. We ended up cooking outside on a campstove half the time. And we set up a tent so we could sit outside in the shade without BUGS! So here we are, a tent and a campstove, sitting alongside a big ol’ motorhome.

We tried dry camping, which means there is no electrical service, water service, sewer service, or cable tv hookups. What an eye-opener! Unless we run the generator we have no air conditioning. Batteries can run down and leave you stranded. When the vehicle is 17 years old, refrigerators don’t always work well, nor do generators. Holding tanks fill up WAY too fast, too.

I now understand why MOST motor homes and 5th wheel RV’s seem to be crowded into RV Parks WITH all the services. I don’t much care for that. Too confining, too crowded, too noisy, too many people. What’s the point of “getting away” if all you manage is to sit around in an air conditioned coach, watching tv and eating junk food and drinking beer? I can do that at home, with a whole lot more privacy.

So, the jury is still out on the “joys” of RV camping, but I DO know that cross-country traveling and/or being an RV “full-timer” will NOT come to pass. Ever.

I love how they look and I love the idea of growing our own food, but I haven’t had the energy to plow, plant, fertilize, weed, nurse, coddle, and curse a garden since the 1970’s.

This year we put ONE tomato plant in a pot and set it out on the deck. So far, we have harvested two tomatoes. Picked when they just started to “pink up,” they now grace our windowsill and are turning redder by the day.

Mind you, we have an ACRE available for gardening. All I can think about is how much WORK it takes to convert a plot of dirt into the “what a beautiful garden you have” stage.

So this year, as in years past, (and probably into the future), we settled for a starter plant and will happily harvest (if one can even CALL it a “harvest”), and eat the fruits of our daily watering.

Our tomato plant has about a dozen more little green boys that we hope will grow into something worth harvesting. We could make salsa and spaghetti sauce. I remember that green tomatoes can be fried, or turned into relish….but wait! I only have ONE plant!

It can happen so suddenly and with an abrupt realization that there isn’t any hope to stop it; only to fight for every additional day. In this case, a headache, a diagnosis of an eye tumor, removal of the eye, implant of an artificial eye and then, six months later, the recurrence, and brain cancer. Four months later, a prognosis of two weeks to live. That became nine months of fighting for life.

There were so many at the service who knew her better than I did….so much better. They could remember her great laughter, her great sense of humor. Her friends told of her achievements and her healing powers, a qi gong master, an acupuncturist, and so much more. She had many friends who were healers: qi gong, yoginis, acupuncturists, cranial-sacral healers, faith healers, vibrational healers, spiritual healers, reiki masters, massage therapists, shamans. Her friends sought more to ease her way than to heal her physical body. In the end, she died; her body exhausted.

I cried for her husband who stood up there in front of 200 people and attempted to tell them how much his life had been enriched by her presence and how much he will miss her.

The few friends that I have are becoming fewer and fewer in number. Mostly, they have become victims of cancer. I don’t understand why science and medical researchers have not solved cancer. They know that some people reject cancerous cells as soon as they form; others are defenseless. If it is just a matter of money, then we must be spending our money foolishly. Too much on military, space exploration, bank bailouts, executive salaries, welfare (to take care of so many cancer patients too).

I know the American Cancer Society is always looking for volunteers and donors. And the Relay for Life is another way for individuals to show support for patients and survivors and contribute something as well. I need to reassess my own priorities and make certain that I do what I can.

A stupid question you think? Perhaps so, but if you are eating so much chocolate that your poop smells “chocolate-ty,” then you will might as well give up on dieting.

Again yesterday, we experienced that agonizing realization that there was nothing further to be done for our pet and the decision to release him from Earthly agony was one we reached reluctantly but with compassion.

Sadly, we said our good-bye’s to our black and white cat, dear “Oscar,” yesterday. He suffered an inexplicable circulation problem that resulted in poor blood flow to his hind legs, causing weakness and atrophy. That his mind was still sharp and eyes bright with life and alertness is what causes us the most pain, I think. If he were aged and his eyes were tired and dull we would simply acknowledge that he had lived a normal life span. To see him in his prime, and yet unable to move normally, was painful for us as well as for him.

The exercise of this “power” that humans have over animals is not really debated; it is considered “humane” to put an animal out of its misery and pain. When we choose to have pets in our lives we have to realize that we may be faced with the “life or death” decision, even more than once, when the pets that we love are approaching the end of their life spans.

The most difficult decision is often to choose between the cost of surgery and the “value” that we place on our love for the pet. How much is a cat worth? A rich man or woman might not hesitate to spend $1000 or more to extend a cat’s life by a couple of years, but for most of us, that would not be possible.

I realize that it is unfair to characterize animal euthanasia to be akin to “pulling the plug” on a human, but, speaking from direct personal experience, I can attest to experiencing some of the same emotional jolts to my psyche.

I know that my diet is high in carbs, but mostly from vegetables and cereals. Perhaps I need to look at this more closely. I eat mueslix, which does have quite a few calories, but hell, I have to eat SOMETHING! I don’t eat meat or eggs and I avoid dairy as much as possible.


Oh, wait, there is that Ice cream that I love, a nutty coconut flavor, and of course, rocky road ice cream. I guess ice cream has always been a favorite dessert of mine. In the Navy, I was caught with a five-GALLON container of chocolate chip ice cream tucked under my arm while I ate it with a table spoon. There isn’t much of a chance that I will let go of ice cream just to lose a couple of pounds. There are so many other things I would rather give up that ice cream will continue to be the one pleasure that I still permit myself to enjoy. I will just buy one scoop at a time, instead of a half-gallon.

I am drinking plenty of water, and avoiding soda (and now beer), but I do enjoy the tropical fruit taste of that Glucosamine supplement drink called “Joint Juice,” but it’s only 25 calories a can and just one per day. I consider this to be a “health” supplement.” Ha Ha

I have cut down on bread, now eating just one slice of sprouted-grain bread a day, but do eat some sprouted-grain tortilla shells every week. I guess I have a few more dietary changes to make.

One consideration might be my portion size. I have noticed that I eat EVERYTHING on my plate, no matter how much, and often go back for seconds. So, even though the food may be healthful, I could still be simply eating TOO MUCH of it.

I also expected some weight loss, which would be good for me, but so far not so good. I am two pounds heavier, and have been sitting at this higher weight for a week now.

I am trying to determine what change in my diet could account for the weight gain and have decided that it is beer.

Or chocolate.

Or both.

Frankly, I have no plans to give up either pleasure entirely, but I do know that my beer drinking has increased, right along with the outside temperatures. God, but is there anything that tastes so good as a cold beer at the end of hot day of gardening and landscape work?

But one beer a day, which is all I will admit to drinking, only adds about 700 calories a week, and that would be about a pound every five weeks. So, beer alone is not the culprit. Chocolate, on the other hand, has about 100 calories per ounce, or maybe a little more, depending on the type of chocolate. It would only take me about five minutes to eat 200 calories of chocolate. I deceive myself by purchasing bulk packages of chocolate-covered raisins and malted milk balls, and such other confections that might be labeled as “comfort food,” in very small baggies at the health-food store. Ha Ha Ha.

Trail mix is another really, really bad thing to eat if it contains chocolate and peanuts, and most of the mixes do. I once sat at the computer and consumed 2,000 calories of trail mix at one sitting, just while reading e-mail and writing in blogs. I broke that habit by NOT BUYING IT!

As usual, summertime brings many competing activities, and time for all is simply not possible. I’m sure that most readers share that experience. So I will do my best to post frequently, but I know that the daily post will be absent for a while.

Two weeks ago I began my efforts to eliminate meat from my diet, and by way of a progress report, I can say that so far I have been successful. I do eat fish, and have found the texture of fish tacos quite satisfying. I enjoy the taste of bar-b-que sauce on baked potatoes and yams, so that substitutes for pork ribs, etc. Not really a replacement, but the taste of “hickory-smoked” bar-b-que sauce satisfies some mental memory. Wierd.

So it’s on to week number three. We are eating quite a few artichokes, and thanks to Mike Foster over at Livelife365 How to Eat an Artichoke, I have learned how to properly prepare them. His little “you tube” video is worth a visit, so I have linked to that.

We are now eating salad every night, and I eat a lot of burritos as beans do provide protein and seem satisfying since they sit pretty heavy in my stomach, like meat.

I used to think vegetarians were rare (no pun), but it seems that vegetarianism has existed for centuries!

Leonardo da Vinci, Plato, Socrates, Plutarch, and Pythagoras were all vegetarians. (This is based on their writings.)

Albert Einstein, Voltaire, Van Gogh, Henry David Thoreau, Albert Schweitzer (at the end of his life), Charles Darwin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Leo Tolstoy.

In recent years, many celebrities have become known for their vegetarian ways. Often times, they use their celebrity status to promote causes, like animal rights and so on, like Pamela Sue Anderson.

Did you know that all four Beatles were vegetarian? Paul, John, George and Ringo. Incidentally, Linda McCartney, Heather Mills (McCartney), and Yoko Ono (Lennon) too.

There are a lot of musicians who list their preference as all-veggie, including Michael Jackson, Carrie Underwood, Ruben Studdard, Avril Lavigne, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, K D Lang, Leona Lewis, Tommy Lee, Pink, and Seal.

Actors are prominent in their veggie-ness too, including Robert Redford, Mary Tyler Moore, Hayden Panettiere, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kate Winslet, Sandra Oh, Diane Keaton, Vanessa Williams, Lisa Kudrow, Alyssa Milano, Anne Hathaway, Bernadette Peters, Brad Pitt, Brooke Shields, Candace Bergen, Christina Applegate, Ashley Judd, Samuel L. Jackson, Pierce Brosnan and Woody Harrelson.

Then there are those who don’t fit into any of the above categories but are prominent in the public eye, including Ariana Huffington, Ellen Degeneres, Vanna White, Deepak Chopra, the Dalai Lama, Mahatma Gandhi, and Paramahansa Yogananda.

The fact of the matter is there are hundreds of people whose names or work are familiar to you and me. They are famous for many reasons, and a vegetarian diet is just one aspect of their lives that gets attention.

I researched this in order to become more “assimilated” with the veggie diet, and feel like I am not so “out-of-the-mainstream” as I used to think. This will take some time, however, it is not automatic. I may falter, but I will not fail. My health is at stake.

Today, I tried exercising to reduce my hunger pangs, caused in part by a meatless diet (to which) I am striving to adhere. (English is SO FUNNY.)

I am not starving; I’m simply not feeling satisfied after ANY MEAL! I don’t want to eat junk between meals, so am really trying to snack on fruit, which is mostly water and, incidentally, goes RIGHT THROUGH ME!

I am about “fruited out” for the WEEK! My wife recommends carrots or celery. I don’t like celery, so carrots it is. I get tired of chewing carrots, and still don’t feel satisfied.

My exercise was cut shorter than the time I had planned because my heart rate hit the maximum for my age, (62), but a pulse of 158 doesn’t seem too high; I recall 185 and 195 when I was much (MUCH) younger. (The simplest formula to obtain your maximum heart rate is to subtract your age from 220.)

When I was in the Navy, I was never a really INTENSIVE exerciser like some, but I did fitness training with the special forces people in Coronado, California, that is, the Explosive Ordinance Disposal teams (EOD) and the SEAL teams (1,3,5). We had a great obstacle course at the Amphibious Base there, and it was put to good use by all of us who were at least moderately fanatical about fitness training.

Before I left the Navy I had run in over forty 10K races, five 13-mile half-marathons, and one 26-mile marathon. I vowed never to run another marathon. I didn’t think it was a good thing to do to my aging body, and I was 46 years old at the time.

Now, at age 62, and long retired, I have a very modest workout and very low expectations. Shame on me.

I truly believe that I would have eaten meat today if it were not that I see this as a challenge for me; a chance to show a little personal discipline.

I know that I have a pretty healthy diet, chocolate notwithstanding, but the craving for something more “substantial” than baked yams and salad is very strong.

Writing about this transition to a vegetarian diet is probably helping me remain steadfast in this. I might falter eventually, but I would still not consider that to be failure. There will be little ups and downs along the way, but the ultimate goal remains to live a healthier lifestyle, lose a little weight, lower my cholesterol and build up bone density. (I have osteopenia, which is thinning of the bones, and eventually leads to osteoporosis.)

I have been reading a LOT of material on the health benefits of meat, and, other than iron and protein, I just don’t see reasons to put my health at risk just for the flavor (which I have ALWAYS enjoyed).

While I like the taste of a rib eye steak, the smell of it cooking is almost enough to gag me. I know there is a mind-game going on here, and I don’t oppose killing animals for meat, I just don’t do it myself (any more) and I let my brain be taken over by emotion.

I’ve often said that my wife is turning me into a woman as I get older and older. I don’t talk about guns and trucks anymore, and don’t have very many “guy” friends to talk with about golf, football or fishing. Since I am retired now and the wife works full time, I do the grocery shopping, and quite a bit of the cooking. I do laundry (my OWN only), and vacuum some. I feed dogs and cats and take care of the yard. Perhaps becoming a vegetarian is the next step in my genetic transcendence.

One thing that undoubtedly influences me in my dietary choices is my spouse, of course. What we put on the table has a LOT to do with what she wants, and she is vegetarian. So, that kind of helps explain my situation.

If I end up being 90 years old, with no cancer or heart disease, I will have to give her a great deal of the credit. At that age, I will feel free to eat just about anything I want, that is, anything my old teeth could chew.

I could easily go on a rampage and list hundreds of types of people and activities that really annoy me, but who else cares?

Let’s see if you recognize and can empathize with some of these:

Animal poop in public places

Open-mouth, tongue-wagging, SLURPY kisses on television. Not a turn-on, it’s not REAL! It’s television!

Parents who don’t control their kids in grocery stores.

People who never have their money ready at check-out. “Oh, I have to pay now? Let me find my checkbook.”

Kids who run up and down escalators, usually in the opposite direction. (ok, I used to do this too, but now I am an adult)

People who fart in elevators. (This might make every list.)