THROWBACK THURSDAY

I hardly recognize myself but that's me at the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami Beach.  The convention mainly ran at night so I spent my days on the beach, which may account for that blond hair.  I can no longer explain why I smoked back then.  Or more important, why I wore a Nehru jacket!

TAX TIME

So, whaddaya do when you go in to see your CPA and have your taxes done and you're thinking (dreading) you're really gonna get socked this year and instead he tells you you've got a big (for you, anyway) refund coming?

You want to kiss him, right?  But he has a full beard and a very messy office and a bit of a Monk-like personality (he pointed this out, I didn't) so you just sit there giggling like a lunatic.

Let's face it.  Good news is hard to handle.

So you begin to fret once you've left his office.  Did he figure it right? Can it be true?  Or will the friendly (?) old IRS come back on you months down the line and say, "Oops, sorry, there was a mistake.  YOU actually owe US a zillion dollars."

I suppose if that happens you could always claim insanity.  You could always blame it on your CPA.  Oops, he's left town, no forwarding address.

Nooooo.  We've only used a tax man for the past two years and he's done us well.  Last year we had to pay a bunch of money but that was okay because we earned a bunch.  This year the income went way down and, behold, so did the taxes.

So there's the secret.  Don't make a bunch of money.  Don't pay a bunch of money.

There's something to be said for poverty.

HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

Pretty good camouflage.

JAPANESE (?) PLUM BRANCHES

SWMBO was out manicuring our plum tree this morning.  Not for beauty's sake.  It was just that the low branches interfered with her getting to an outdoor faucet to turn on water to the hose.  She only clipped about three and brought them into the house to put in a vase. I thought that it looked very Japanese and having a designer's sense I added one of my Buddha sculptures.

The randomness of the branches, the light green vase and the serene meditating Buddha all seem to flow together in my mind.

But wait!

Another angle and another facet of Japanese art.  A cat!

Perfection!  All right, artists, shoot me down.

MY COMPANION

It's curious how cats choose which of their humans they gravitate toward.  Muggles spends most of her time with SWMBO. 
Blackwell is MY cat.  He follows me around the house and any time I sit down he jumps up into my lap for a nap.  A lap-nap.  Like late yesterday afternoon.

Just about to doze off.  

"If only he'd stop flashing that camera in my face."

O.K.  I turned off the flash.  But then . . .

"Was that a bird just outside the window??"

It's always amazed me how they can come instantly alert out of a dead sleep when something gets their attention. Blackwell always looks directly at me as if for proof of what he'd seen or heard.  Or condemnation for disturbing his nap.

"Shame on you, human friend.  But I'll stay.  

Your lap is warm and comfortable."

1,600 AND FRIDAY FUNNIES

O.K.  Pop the champagne.  This is my 1,600th blog post!

If you're drinking along, keep in mind this bit of wisdom.

And if you run out of liquid potables, help is on the way.

Actually to reach this number of posts means I was much younger back when this all began.  Now I'm just an old dog.

The rapid changes in technology have been hard on my cats, too.

Some cat owners are luckier than I am.  They get some help from their companions.

"Wowee!  Did you see that???"

Now, pardon this next little bit of xenophobia.

Here in Arizona, we have ways to make sure we don't have those kinds of collisions.  At least some Arizonans do.

I hope no one was offended.  This post by an old dog was all composed with a sense of humor.  As a friend from long ago that I just spoke with said:  "keep laughing and you'll live longer."

Have a fun weekend, folks!

WHATEVER

Yesterday was a great day for contrails.

As we were heading home from running some errands, there were dozens of them in the sky at once.  I joked "Maybe Putin has launched an attack!"

Contrails, incidentally, are water.  You can learn more here.

Back home, some plum blossoms were getting ready to open to the sky.

And, apropos to absolutely nothing, do you know what a musician is? My friend, Meggie, in Australia posted this on Facebook the other day.

Sounds like that could have been written by the wife of a musician, don't you think?