SKY CHANGES

 Riding shotgun into Prescott today with SWMBO at the wheel I couldn't resist taking this picture of the pretty clouds in the bright blue sky.

But coming home an hour or so later, it had all changed.

How's that old refrain go?

"What a difference a day makes."

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

Wella, wella, wella, here we are again.

It's been a week of searing heat and violent thunderstorms here.

It looks like the temperature is settling into the high 80's for the next 10 days or so.

That may sound hot to you but after weeks of highs in the 90's it feels like a cold wave.

Well . . . . maybe a cool wave.

We here in Arizona can handle hotter "cool" temperatures than the rest of you, I guess.

At any rate we can see the light at the end of the tunnel now.

Or is that an oncoming train?

But enough of my prattle.

We all know why you're here so why delay any longer.

Hit the maracas, baby!

I hope you're laughing.

Elsewise what would be the point of all this?

Now buckle up for an Olympic weekend and enjoy it to the fullest.

And never, never, never . .  forget to keep laughing!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

( . . . oh, yeah . . . )

RAIN

We've been hit by a couple of thunderstorms yesterday and today.

The power was out here yesterday for exactly 30 minutes due to the storm.

But as luck would have it, we were in Prescott at a doctor's office and missed the whole thing.

We have a ditch in front of our property that handles water runoff but one side of it was clogged up and I had to clear it to get the water running.

We also have a channel across our front yard that takes what drains out of our eaves into that ditch and I cleaned a huge amount of debris out of it before the storm hit today.

I don't know if this is truly the monsoon since it doesn't appear to be coming up from Mexico but whatever it is it's welcome.

I'm hoping it soaks into the ground around my struggling tree.

So it goes in my part of the world.

I'm healing.

My wife and I are controlling my drinking.

I'm doing my exercises and visiting doctors.

I've NOT been paying attention to this blog so here's a little preview of Friday.

Tada!  That's all, folks!

ENTICING AROMAS

Y'wanna make your house smell good?

Toss those room air freshners, incense and the like.

Saute some apples on the stove.

SWMBO has done that several times recently.

They're tasty either warm or cold but, as I told the boss, they smell so darned good, just about better than anything.

'Course that's excepting a couple of things I did in the past 24 hours.

Yesterday I baked a couple of loaves of Judy's favorite English Muffin Bread and she said it smelled so good.

We haven't had it in awhile and this morning she told me she'd had a great breakfast.

Then, later this morning, I got another gold medal as I baked a batch of brownies.

This time as she came into the kitchen, she said it smelled like heaven.

I'll take that.

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

 I'll bet you thought I wouldn't be here today.

Eh?

Eh?

Nosiree, Bob, you can't keep a good man down.

Well, down but not out.

Well, down AND out, but not for long.

I mean a couple of days isn't long, is it?

Then there's the question of "what is a good man?"

Bah!

Humbug!

Leave us get onto duh business of duh day!

Let it hereby be known, the Catalyst is back!

But just because I'm back doesn't mean your normal weekend duties are thrown onto me.

No, no, no, no, no!

You still have work to do.

But don't think of it as work.

Think of it as a joyful rendering of tasks to determine that you and yours all have a wonderful weekend.

And no falling!

And always remember to keep laughing!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

( . . . oh, puh-leeze . . . )

HEALTH

I am healing.

It's apparently a slow process.

I either sleep too much or too little, it seems, but I'm working to control that.

In spite of the fact that a couple of doctors and a few nurses have told me that my limit of drinking should be two drinks or two beers or two glasses of wine a day, I have kept it to one since I came home from the hospital.

I'm a little wobbly on my feet even before the alcohol.

Still I'm getting around, with the help of a cane at times but the walker I started off with was too much of a hassle for me so I quickly abandoned it.

I've been visited by a physical therapist for an interview and to see how I've been doing.

She'll be back to torture me with exercises, again and again and again.

I have appointments scheduled for next week with my personal care doctor and with my cardiologist.

So that's my report, to anyone who is interested.

I have had one recurring thought, though, that has me scratching my head.

THANK YOU

I don't know what to say other than "thank you" to all of my friends, both known and unknown for your kind comments to my post Saturday.

I am busily making and fielding calls to and from various doctors and home health people today and I'm going to take a break from this bloody computer shortly and rest for awhile.

To keep you up to date, I had not had a drink of anything alcoholic from Wednesday night (after my idiotic fall) until last night when I asked Judy to make us each ONE of her fine Martinis.

We each had one and it was fine.

And then a delicious dinner of barbecued pork and sweet potato french fries and home grown tomatoes and wonderful, wonderful watermelon.

And no wine, just water.

So I'm trying to change the ways of a lifetime, a long lifetime.

But I was whelmed and overwhelmed by all of your kindness yesterday.

And while I am considering a foam rubber sumo wrestler's costume (thanks YP), I was not wearing Jager's trifocals when I tumbled to a very hard Planet Earth (driveway).

For those of you who yearned for the missing Friday Funnies, here's my apology.