14 Years Today, But Who Is Counting

One of my siblings passed around the following cartoon this morning:

I am moody, grumpy, opinionated, prone to depression, and occasionally let my anger get the best of me. All of that while being more than a little misanthropic and, more often than not, frugal to a fault… cheap sounds so vulgar.

Good bless Señora for putting up with me.  I remarked one time that her ability to do so was due to all those years she spent as s special education teacher.  She told me after I had repeated that comment a few times that I could say it five more times then I needed to stop.  Not exactly sure how many more times I have intermittently resurrected that remark, but I have ran out of fingers and toes to count it on.

Glad I found someone who is not like me!

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David aka Heh-soos

I started to title this one, For my Baptists Relatives

Friday is normally the day I mow the grass at our little hacienda. However, thunderstorms, then rain moved through the St. Louis area, making that a chore for another day. I decided I would do the running around I needed to do.

This summer, I have been slowly rebuilding our 250 feet of picket fence, three eight-foot sections at a time, trying to do one a week. However, with weather and other unforeseen happenings, this has extended out longer than I had planned.  I needed some more lumber for the job.

Señora had not been feeling well, and I left the house with Continue reading “David aka Heh-soos”

Songs of the Silver Screen, Allegro’s 2026 Spring Concert

This is one of the choirs that Señora sings in.  It is for persons who are at least 50 years of age.  Señora almost never comes home from a practice without extolling how many talented folks there are that are members of this group.

This particular concert featured songs everyone knows from the movies, including some songs I knew but did not know were movie tunes.

Señora is sitting, just to the left of the pianist.

Enjoy!  I know I did when I attended the concert.

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Matrimonial Log – Star Date 5786.129

“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 was having trouble sleeping the other night.  I would fall asleep, only to wake up a short time thereafter.  Last time this happened I glanced at the clock radio on my nightstand whose luminous digital numbers read 12:30.

As I laid there staring at the ceiling, trying to fall back to sleep, I decided the thing to do was to count the number of angels dancing on the proverbial pinhead.  Problem was that every time I put my ocular organ close enough to distinguish individual angels, they dispersed.  I begin to think that rather than semi-divine beings with a spiteful sense of humor, they were Tricksters, demigods so popular in Native American and African religious mythology.

Fortunately for me, Señora begin to talk in her sleep, well mumble is more like it.  When I first started sleeping with Señora almost two decades ago and she did this, I would try to ascertain what she was saying, thinking I might gain some insights into her inner life.  Since most of the time she was mumbling this was a fruitless endeavor, and I gave it up as an useless exercise.

This particular night the amount of well-formed words were numerous.  Then she said the words that I never expected to hear from a spouse, current or past.  And she said them in a sweet, melodic tone, rather than in the grudgingly manner I would have expected.

“You are right,”  she said.

I would say I can now die content, but, in all likelihood, she was dreaming of someone other than yours truly. Could I go back to sleep after that revelation, no, not really.

And so it goes.

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Matrimonial Log – Star Date 5786.103

“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.”

Well another birthday has arrived, putting my feet closer to the grave.

Last week Señora kept asking me, “what do you want for your birthday?”

I told her the truth, “nothing.”

This went on for innumerable iterations with my response being the same each time.  I really did not need or want anything.

Finally, maybe from a little exasperation from hearing the same question for the umpteenth time, I said, “a ménage à trois.

I know that eventually Señora will stop laughing and pick herself off the floor… eventually.

One would think after this long on this spinning globe I would have learned, one would think.

Pray for me as I know she will get off the floor.  Sounds like a good time for me to go golfing.

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Matrimonial Log – Star Date 5786.085

“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.”

My office/man cave is at the top of the stairs, to the right. To the left is the master bedroom.  Frequently when Señora comes up the stairs she will see me sitting at my computer, but she cannot see the screen.  She will ask me what I am doing.

The other night she did so, and I responded, “watching porn.” The reality was that I was balancing our various accounts in Quicken, but apparently my response was the WRONG one.

I am still trying to dig myself out that hole.  Pray for me.

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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:

Click to see bigger

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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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