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.

MY ABSENCE

 Sorry, my friends, for leaving you in the lurch Friday.

It's a long story.

It began Wednesday evening when I had consumed three drinks and a quantity of wine at dinner.

Later I stepped outside, either blacked out or tripped and fell to the pavement, striking my head and leaving a good bit of blood in the driveway.

Friends who were next door were summoned by my wife and rushed over and got me to my feet, then parked me in Judy's Rollator and then called 911.

The fire department and a crew from an ambulance company came and I was put on a stretcher and loaded into the ambulance.

Judy said I was talking to her but the only memory I have from when I walked out the door was when I was loaded into the ambulance.

Some of the examination at the hospital I may remember and then a doctor telling me I had a brain bleed and they were sending me by ambulance to a hospital in Phoenix.

I spent a couple of days in the I.C.U., undergoing various tests, and another 36 hours or so in a regular room.

I remember one doctor telling me two drinks a night should be my limit.

I remember another technician telling me a surgeon had ruled it was not necessary to operate on my head.

And I remember doing a lot of soul searching, though the doctors and nurses and technicians who took care of me probably would doubt that, as my constant sense of humor took over and I refused most of the time to take my situation seriously.

My wife's daughter, aka The BAD, brought her down to the big city three times, including today when they brought a slightly remorseful appearing jackass home.

Some changes will be made in my life, even though I am 84.

But never fear, the Friday Funnies will continue.

Next week.

TASTY BITES

It's been awhile since you've had a report from the Tasty Taylor Eatery so here comes one.

One of my favorite pastimes is to read recipes on the InterWeb, find one that sounds delicious, print it out, hand it to SWMBO and wait.

Sometimes she says something like "Oh, that's too silly" or "That involves too many ingredients that we don't have".

But sometimes she brightens my life outlook by saying "That sounds good and it's relatively simple!"

Such an event occurred recently so I thought I'd relate it.

We were talking about how much chicken we have in the freezer and some different ways to fix it.

That prompted me to hie to the InterWebs, even though we have several shelves worth of cookbooks in our abode.

But . . . I found a delectable sounding recipe called "French Onion Dip Chicken Bites".

And the Boss liked the sound of it.

And a few days later she prepared it.

Taste buds ready?

It was served with PictSweet Farms Vegetables for Roasting (halved Brussel sprouts, butternut squash and onions) and Seeds of Change (quinoa and brown rice).

Ladies and gentlemen, it was exceptional!

If it whets your appetites enough you can find the recipe here.

You're welcome.

AND THEN THERE WAS ONE

When we moved here just shy of a couple of years ago there were three trees in our yard.

Two majestic ash trees in the front and an elm tree at the side of our garage.

But Arizona has been in a drought for many years and apparently it finally caught up with them.

First the elm tree died.

We learned it was a Siberian Elm, which is really a weed.

Leaves dropping from the tree had littered our side and back yards and sprouted and grew into towering weeds and threatened to take over.

So we were glad when it succumbed but twigs and branches fell from it into our yard and onto our roof.

So a few days ago a pair of arborists came to cut it down.

One man went up in a cherry-picker with a chain saw and began attacking the evil elm.

Before long the towering tree was reduced to this.

Just a stump to identify where it had been.

Then the crew attacked one of the ash trees in the front yard that had also died.

The pieces cut off were fed into a wood chipper that swiftly converted then into dirty brown dust.

And too soon, it seemed, this was all that was left of that formerly sturdy tree.

So now all that remains is one of the ash trees.

I've been trying to save it with deep watering several times a week and it seems to be fighting for it's life.

A sad tale of life and death in Arizona, the land of eternal sunshine.

WOMEN

 The big news in the past 24 hours was that President Joe Biden of the United States of America had opted out of his re-election campaign and endorsed his Vice-President.

That person is Kamala Harris of California.

Nearly all of the contenders for that position have now also endorsed her, which means her nomination at the Democratic Convention next month is almost certain.

If elected in November she would become the first female President in the country's history.

Women have been gradually rising to positions of prominence throughout the world in recent years.

Now as I was thinking of that this morning a big truck and trailer from a U-Haul firm turned up in my street.

Two huge boxes had been delivered and loaded with the household goods of my neighbor over the weekend.

Maria is moving out to be closer to her grandchildren in Texas.

The truck driver unloaded a little yellow vehicle from the rear of the truck and swiftly used it to expertly pick up those big boxes and put them on the trailer.

The employee then maneuvered to the rear of the truck, steered the projecting rails into slots, locked the vehicle into place and raised it up.

Job done in only a few minutes.

Now why am I telling you this?

Take a good look at the sole worker on this job.

Slim and trim, a young smiling female did all of this by herself.

Responding to my question she said she'd been doing this work for about a year.

Then she got into the cab of the big truck and drove away.

Times have changed and I, for one, think it's a good thing.

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

Well, about the only good thing I can say about this week is the heat lessened.

Slightly.

Which means we're no longer threatening to hit or break 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Funny, it sounds a lot cooler when you state it in Celsius.

38 degrees.

Right now I could live with that.

Well, no, then I'd be complaining about how cold it is.

It's kind of like life in general.

Just one thing after another.

Oh, well, let's get to the comics pages and see what they've got.

Okay, spring chickens, just remember this: you're all younger than the ol' Catalyst.

Well, most of you, anyway.

Now forget about your age, dance like no one is watching and enjoy a mah-vel-lus weekend.

And always remember to keep laughing!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

( . . . oops, I guess I should have said *kitties* . . . )

MOVIE TIME

We dipped into the past yesterday to watch an old favorite movie.

"Tempest" is a Paul Mazursky film with an all-star cast.

John Cassavetes, Gena Rowlands, Mollie Ringwald, Susan Sarandon, Vittorio Gassman, and Raul Julia, among others.

Ringwald made her movie debut at the age of 14 and won a Golden Globe nomination for it.

Sarandon never looked more luscious, especially in a wet shirt.

Raul Julia is wonderful as a crazy Greek shepherd dancing with his goats while yearning for tourists.

We loved the film back when we first saw it in 1982 and still this time around 42 years later!

Here's a taste:

It may be a version of Shakespeae's Tempest but it translates into modern times with good humor.

We found and rented it on Fandango but it's available from other services also.

For me, it lived up to its long remembered line from Cassavetes' character: "Show me the magic"!

MONDAY, MONDAY

 I caught a photograph this morning of an anonymous art lover visiting the gallery in our side yard.

I have been wondering for some time if that painting on our fence might seem too realistic for our bird population and one might fly smack into it.

But they seem to be able to tell the difference between it and the real sky and none of the population of house finches, goldfinches, robins or sparrows have so far had an accident.

So a new week has gotten underway.

Have a good one.

BLACK CATS

I suppose this post should have appeared yesterday, on the 13th, long associated with superstition as are black cats.

So, just pretend it's the 13th today and see what happens when a 10 pound cat comes across a 5 pound box.

Why she snuggles right down into it, of course.

I don't know of any cat that can resist a box.

That's Opal, one of the BAD's feline tribe.

And actually I suspect she may weigh more than ten pounds but don't say anything.

We wouldn't want her to be embarrassed.

Meanwhile, over at our abode, the contest to get a decent picture of our much smaller Sweetie-Pie continues.

I think I surprised her with my camera-phone this time.

But, as SWMBO pointed out, our little kitty seems to be frowning.

So I tried again, calling her by name and holding up my free hand to get her to look up.

And THAT was the result.

Maybe I'll learn my lesson some day: never ASK a cat to pose for a photograph.

They will tell you "I ain't havin' any!"