Matrimonial Log – Star Date 5786.020

“Matrimony… the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Casamiento Segundo, its until-death-do-us-part mission… to explore a strange new relationship… to seek out a new life and new adventures… to boldly go where no sane couple has gone before.”

In our bedroom, on my dresser, is one of those candles in jar.  It was originally put there as a decoration.  Over time it has morphed into a, shall we say, “signaling” device if one of us is feeling, shall we say, “feisty”.

A while back I was in such a mood. Señora was still downstairs finishing up whatever movie or program she was watching.  I had lit the candle, put on some soft New Agey music from my music server onto the bedroom television, set the screen display to off, and crawled into bed with, as Dickens might have said, great expectations.


Señora finally came upstairs and went into the bathroom to do her nightly ablutions before retiring.  Exiting the bathroom, she walked past the dresser, and without missing a step, she blew out the candle.  That shot that was heard around the world was my bubble bursting. Perhaps that was kinder than “not tonight dear, I have a headache”, perhaps.

Fast forward a few months.  I came home only to find that Señora was not there, running around doing this or that, keeping herself occupied.  I walked upstairs and into our bedroom and almost immediately noticed that the candle was no longer on the dresser.  Thinking to myself – can you do it any other way – well, I reckon that chapter of my life has passed into senescence.  I then noticed that everything on the dresser was out of place. Señora had been dusting in the bedroom, and had moved everything around, pushing the candle to the back behind a picture, obviously failing to return the items to their original and expected positions.

Whew, dodged that bullet… at least for now.

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Songs of the Season: Let The Joy Ring Out – Allegro’s Holiday Concert 2025

As I have mentioned before, one of the joys of Señora‘s life is music, especially singing.  She has been a member of this 50+ choir since it started up in St. Louis.

I normally attend, but I missed this concert.  The concerts have become so popular that they have started doing two, one on Saturday and another on Sunday.  This last time around they had started requiring tickets to prevent the overfilling of the venue.  While they ask for a $20 donation per ticket, it is not mandatory. I normally donate anyway as I know you cannot put on these sort of events without money, and to support Señora.

Somehow Señora missed the ticket requirement, and I was unable to get one.

Here is the YouTube video of the concert, ENJOY.  Señora is sitting on the far right just behind the piano.

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Crazy, Crazy Weather

This picture of Señora was taken this Christmas Day.  We were riding around August A. Busch Memorial Conservation Area in my MX-5 Miata, top down, no coats, no heater.

This is the forecast for Sunday night going into Monday morning, we are going from 75 degrees at 1 pm to 14 degrees at 7 am.  It has been springlike most of the Christmas week. Golf courses have been covered up and impossible to get on. Mother Nature is giving me whiplash!

Click to see bigger

Or if you prefer you weather in Celsius, we are going from 23 degrees to -9 degrees:

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American Tapestry of Song, Allegro’s 2025 Spring Concert

Besides yours truly (smiley face), Señora has a few other passions in her life, her gardens, her ceramics, but above all music.  The Allegro Choir is a choir for folks who have obtained at least 50 year’s worth of life experiences.  They put on two concerts a year.  They have moved to doing two performances each time as they fill up the auditorium for each performance.

If you look real close you can see Señora.  She is sitting just behind the piano player and a little to the left.

Enjoy.

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Cheap Vacation

Señora tends to collect the airplane size bottles of shampoo, conditioner, body wash, lotion and even bars of soap that have not been opened from the various hotels and motels we stay at.  I will, by spells, also gratify the penny-pincher in me by doing the same.

I was in her bathroom the other day, and I noticed several of these bottles lined up on the window sill, including two bottles of body wash with honey in them from our last sojourn to a resort south of Cancun, Mexico.

Thinking I should at least put the body wash to good use, I liberated them from her space to the shower in my bathroom.   As I spilled a bit of the Mexican, honey-scented body wash on to my fluffy, gray washcloth I was instantly transported back to the beautiful beach on the Riviera Maya. You cannot go there any cheaper than that.

Da Curmudgeon before Señora kissed him! Indubitably when she kissed this mini dragon she was hoping and expecting Prince Charming to appear. Instead Señora was “blessed” with a grouchy old man.

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Talk to the Lady…Please

Señora had a small fender bender in a parking lot in her Subaru Outback.  She is fine, minor damage to the vehicle. Thanks for asking.

This morning we dropped her automobile off to the body shop.  Since it is Señora‘s car and  she had been dealing with the insurance company and body shop I was trying to stay out of her way.  I ended up in a conversation with a gentleman awaiting his turn.  It turned out he was another IT guy who had been through a few corporate merger/divestiture nightmares like myself, so we had a commonality to talk about.

We finished up there, and I drove Señora across the street to the Enterprise Auto Rental office.  Again I was trying to stay out of Señora‘s way, but this time there was no IT guy to visit with. Having no where else to be, I was standing next to Señora while they were Continue reading “Talk to the Lady…Please”

Whatcha want for your birthday?

“There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call, The Twilight Zone.” ~~ Opening sequence of the early 60s iconic TV show,  The Twilight Zone

I offer for your consideration an elderly  gentleman somewhere in the heartland of this country.  For the moment he has gratefully forgotten the onrushing anniversary of his appearance on the only habitable planet revolving around a minor star, in a minor solar system, in a minor galaxy, in a dimensionally challenged universe.

He sits enthroned on his favorite recliner, the ice cubes in his glass of lemonade rattling in his left hand, his right clutching a remote control. For the moment he is enraptured by a random professional bowling tournament on his television.  It is at this instant that his spouse saunters into Continue reading “Whatcha want for your birthday?”

Matrimonial Log – Star Date 5785.089

“Matrimony… the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Casamiento Segundo, its until-death-do-us-part mission… to explore a strange new relationship… to seek out a new life and new adventures… to boldly go where no sane couple has gone before.”

Sometimes I do good and I am not aware of it until after the fact.

I own three or four suits and probably more or less twice that number of sports coats. To be frank, I have never worn them a lot, and now that I am retired, I wear them even less.  I now mostly wear them when I go to funerals or weddings.  Which explains why I am frequently vaguely surprised when I put one these clothing items on, reach into the coat pocket, and discover tissues, or more likely, a travel packet of tissues there.  Not being much of a crier myself, I keep them in my coat pocket for Señora, who does cry at funerals and occasionally at weddings.

Señora had a good friend pass away recently. A woman 10 or Continue reading “Matrimonial Log – Star Date 5785.089”

Matrimonial Log – Star Date 5785.055

“Matrimony… the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Casamiento Segundo, its until-death-do-us-part mission… to explore a strange new relationship… to seek out a new life and new adventures… to boldly go where no sane couple has gone before.”

I went downstairs this morning and said to Señora, “What about fixing me some eggs for breakfast?”

She replied, “Are your arms broken?  I know you know where the skillet is.  You put it up last night after you washed the dishes.”

She went on to add, “Besides who do you think you are, the King of England, wanting eggs for breakfast. We’re not jet setters around here who can afford such luxuries.”

All of which reminded me of a story about my daughter from when she was in 5th grade:   $40 A$$

For an interesting comparison of egg prices: Price of eggs in Mexico

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Matrimonial Log – Star Date 5785.280

“Matrimony… the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Casamiento Segundo, its until-death-do-us-part mission… to explore a strange new relationship… to seek out a new life and new adventures… to boldly go where no sane couple has gone before.”

Click on picture to see it larger

This is a picture I took of Señora gleefully experiencing a ménage-à-trois, well okay, a ménage-à-doobie, with two music icons painted on the wall of a cannabis store in Muskogee, by gawd, Oklahoma.

Of course, the person on the right is the legendary Bob Marley, the Reggae musician, famous for his advocacy of the legalization of cannabis and giant spliffs.

The cowboy hat wearing gentleman is none other than Continue reading “Matrimonial Log – Star Date 5785.280”