HEAT WAVE HODGEPODGE!

     Well, here's another set of thought provoking and fun questions. I don't know where Joyce comes up with these, but they are fun to answer. Won't you join in?

1. Picture postcards were first printed back in the mid-1800's and deltiology is the official name for postcard collecting. When did you last send a postcard?  Receive one? Do you save postcards sent to you? Do you collect and/or send postcards when you travel?

     A couple of years ago SWMBO and I took a trip to Niagara Falls, NY. We were thrown out of Canada on that trip, but that's a story for another time. I think we sent a postcard or two during that trip. I don't remember the last time that I received a postcard. I do not collect them, however, I do on occasion send them when traveling to a place of interest.

2. What treat do you most like to indulge in while on vacation?

    SWMBO and I have a sort of unofficial rule when we're on vacation..."All Diet Restrictions Are Off!" That means that while we are on vacation we might eat  or drink something that is not on our normal eating regimen. My list might include an ice cold beer, corn on the cob, watermelon sherbet "anything", or some decadent, cream filled pastry thingy, just to name a few!

3. Are you good at hiding your feelings?

     I am with most other people. Sometimes I am with SWMBO, but if something is really bugging me, she usually knows.

4. Does your town/city/county still deliver telephone books to your home? Do you check the yellow pages when searching for a local business number or has the internet replaced the phone book in your home?

     We do get a phone book now and then. In our town it has morphed into a business directory of sorts. A lot of people have done away with their "home phone" and rely exclusively on their cellphones. The internet has practically replaced the telephone directory.

5. Would you rather be first or last?

     When we have a potluck meal at the church I generally will go last. I think that it's only fair to give everyone else a fair shot at getting their food before I attack the buffet like Grant took Richmond. I don't think that I have ever had a burning desire to be first at anything. I am more than okay with waiting for my turn, in fact I prefer it that way.

Yosemite National Park

6. July is National Park and Recreation Month (in America, but everyone can still play along)...where and when were you last in a park?  Did you participate in any recreational activities while you were there?

     Several years ago, SWMBO and I flew out to San Diego to join our son and his family on a trip to Yosemite National Park. That was one of the best vacations that we have ever had. We all took a raft ride down the Merced River. That river had the coldest water that I have ever been in, including Hampton Beach, NH, and the North Sea off the coast of England. 

     Yosemite is one of the most spectacularly beautiful places on the entire planet. I highly recommend it to you.

7.  What was one of your worst ideas?

     Only one? On that Niagara Falls trip that I mentioned earlier, I figured that I would leave the interstate and take a shortcut across upstate New York to get to one of the ferry crossings  to cross Lake Champlain into Vermont. Well, I got lost and dragged SWMBO and the dogs with me. She was okay with it for the most part, but it was not my finest hour.

      Another time, I ate some Indian Pudding that my mother in law made and....

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

        We are in the throes of a typical New England heat wave. The temperature has exceeded 90 degrees and the humidity is somewhere in the 60 percent range for a few days now. It is so hot and uncomfortable that most "normal" people are longing for the cold of winter. 

        Interestingly enough that's the way it works up here in the northeast. A Yankee by definition is a person who in the winter complains vociferously about the snow and the cold and in the summer complains as forcefully about the heat and humidity and when you ask him "Well, if you're so miserable, why don't you move?" Their answer is "Because there is no better place on earth to live!"  I'm a proud New England Yankee. It doesn't have to make sense, people, that's just the way it is!

       Oh by the way, when I talk about the so called "normal" people, that excludes SWMBO. That's right, my beloved SWMBO is not normal! When the temperatures are so hot and the humidity is so high that the simple act of breathing brings sweat from every pore, SWMBO does not sweat...period! It's amazing, no matter how miserably hot it gets, she basks in it like a turtle on a warm rock.

       The other side of that coin is that during the winter months I seldom, if ever, get cold. My whole existence is dedicated to keeping SWMBO warm during those times. Such is the Yin and Yang of our existence. You see, opposites truly do attract. God bless you all!