I Think

Wow! I thought *I* was a mutt!

I loved my time over there and regret it was short and restricted by lack of money. I was getting paid $74 per month by the Navy and had to repay a loan out of that at this very time.

Your last post reminded me of the time I was stationed in Morocco, and I went on and R&R to London. I was almost flat broke, and ran into some guys who were at our base on TDY, and they lent me some money. It's amazing how people trusted others in the military.

It was easy to borrow. A pain to pay back. But I did it and the guy I owed is still my friend.

There's a saying that one should never lend money to a friend. Give it.

I agree. In fact, when I get an opportunity to do so, I give instead of lending, in every case. When I worked at the apartments, I always left my tool bag open so that others could borrow from it if needed. About half of them kept them, but it did not cure me of the habit. In my mind, I gave them what they took.

I never knew I had cousins, on my father's side of the family, until after I bought a first computer. I don't recall the year model of the computer. It used Windows 98. Through it, I learned I had lots of cousins. One filled me in on history I had been separated from, since 1945. This cousin is deep into genealogy, a topic that interests me somewhat, but, not to the extent I would spend money and countless hours at it. So, we exchanged pictures and information, over the years. Now, Family Tree has run a sale of DNA kits.

These DNA kits are all the rage, among serious researchers. Naturally, my cousin has had a kit for himself, and, then, another cousin. But, he needed a third. I was selected to give up my spit. He volunteered to buy the kit, if I use it. That is, of course, the only way I would gain access, his purchasing same.

It arrived today. The instructions, in part, include a release form, and tell how to firmly scrape the inside of each cheek, using separate scrapers and inserting each in its own vial. The sample is to be held by the company for twenty five years.

The release gives persons my email information, if they are a relevant match (all but the dead ones, I assume). I am not 100% happy that strangers will get my information, but how could it hurt me; I who have nothing. I will post an update or two, in time.

Very interesting..

Very interesting turn of events on a2k followers. How can anyone not be interested in their roots?
In our family, I'm the one who went to the Family History Library at the Latter Day Saints building in Salt Lake City. I was able to build a graph of our family tree, and I sent it to our family members including a cousin in Hawaii. I think it died there.

I am getting excited.

You mean I am not really perfect? I am crushed.

I cannot fathom any person disagreeing with a single one of the thoughts I have herein expressed. I am chafing at the accusation from that last poster. My god; I am beyond perfect and am in fact divine. I am the reason the stars peep out at night; the raison d'être of morning sunshine. I need an alka seltzer.

We have been too waterlogged around here to do much more than pick up debris about the yard, until about four days ago. Finally, I got the chance to mow. The mosquitoes were thick as the humidity, when I set out. But they stayed away, once I had the mower belching out whatever one belches. And the front part was relatively easy. In the back, it was substantially overgrown and the lack of attention had allowed some poison ivy to leaf out and become fairly tall in a few spots. The going was tough. I had to break up the work to periods numbering three days. Yesterday was the final go. I had to force the mower through a few spots, killing the engine three times. All finished, I cleaned up and set about less trying tasks, such as going on line. After an hour or two, my sinuses began to drain copiously and the sneezes were rapid fire. I learned, after about an hour, that, by sitting still, the nose blowing and
sneezing subsided. To tilt the head, however, was to spill out the sinuses. I reasoned that the mowing brought me in contact with something that I breathed in. Something that triggered an allergy. Each time I left my chair, the sneezing and nose blowing resumed.

I looked at my nose in a mirror and discovered a big knot, on the side of the fleshy part, that looked like poison ivy. I put some H3O on it and the sinuses took a breather. Next morning, I put on some more H3O. Then I remembered something I read about poison ivy: wash the affected area with soap. I did so, with Dawn. Scrub area after soap is washed away, using a clean wash cloth. I did so. Since then, the knot remains, but the discomfort is gone.

I think I did not think about poison ivy right off, because there was no itching. In fact, without the itching, it is possible I was allergic to something else, or possibly an insect caused it. It is slowly getting well, so, I am through worrying, for now.

Since I wrote the above, I went to care for the moringa tree, that hard luck plant I have been babying for a number of years. This past winter, it did really well. Never lost all of the leaves. When it started to flower, I took measures to block the birds from consuming those blossoms. Rough winds caused the bird netting to ruin some blooms. Then, the morning of the tornado, a heavy limb fell on top of the moringa. The netting caught and held it and I think that caused more damage than if the limb had fallen straight through. There are some leaves still on the tree. It will recover. I tried to cut away a portion of netting that hampers the branches somewhat, but the mosquitoes swarmed me so badly that I was wiping them from my face with a windshield wiper-like regularity. Had get back to the house after about two minutes.

Normally, I hate family get togethers, but we had one yesterday and I had a quite enjoyable time. We had lots of food and drink and there was a pretty large turnout. We played bean bags and basketball. The kids had a water slide with two ramps and also a trampoline. I had friendly conversations with people I previously could not converse with and we all went home without any rancor or arguments of any kind. I could have had a few beers, but stuck to water and a coke at one point. I like my inlaws better now than I did the day before.

Got some food poisoning today. I heated the leftover corn, but apparently not enough. A short time after eating it, I had severe stomach ache and diarrhea. Took a heavy dose of colloidal silver and felt better. I had to repeat those doses five or six times, but now I am fine and wanting some dinner. However, I am not going to eat for another hour or two, to be cautious.

Sorry to read that you were ill. I hope you're recovered well by now.

Curiously, I never had a problem I know of from corn gone bad.

I also ate some sausage that was laced with jalapenos and cheese, from the same dinner. I heated them in the microwave, but apparently not hot enough. I thought of the corn, but could be mistaken. Anyway, I am fine, this morning and back on track. I am rearranging the rooms I built on the front of the house, these days. Lots to keep a man busy.

I don't like the fact we get lots of rain, every week. The kind of low pressure it takes to produce so much rain attracts hurricanes.

Because I could not trust the computer to retain a copy of my book, I printed the whole thing and then began to correct it by retyping every word. I also put in a disc to copy each step of the revision. It proved to be incredibly hard and I quickly bogged down, losing nearly all momentum. Sometimes I would hit a snag, then ponder a couple of days before moving forward again. Yesterday I made the decision to upload the non revised portions, attached directly at the end of the completed portion. It just took a few minutes to realize that by typing every word, as I had been doing, I was essentially rewriting the entire manuscript. For, I questioned each sentence, each word, and ended doing the same work all over again. Now I keep in whole paragraphs I
would have recomposed the other way. Since putting it on the computer, I have begun making adequate progress.