GROWTH

I don't know why I do this but whenever I decide to grow a full beard it's usually at the beginning of the hottest time of year.

So, here goes.

By the way, do you Gentle Readers find yourselves examining and grading the bookshelves you're seeing on t.v. newscasts as people are quarantining themselves at home?

We do.

And this (photo above) is not a good representation of mine.

Here's a better view.

That bottom shelf is (part of) our cookbook collection.

And I still look for recipes on the Internets.

That makes about as much sense as growing a beard for summer.

Go figure.

MUSIC YOU'LL LOVE

Sometimes you stumble across a new musical group that simply knocks your socks off.

Such was the case for me a few minutes ago when I read a blog post on Robin Andrea and Roger's blog.

Four kids sitting around in a motel room play some of the sweetest sounds you've ever heard.

Their harmony is amazing.

Check it out.

Right now!

BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS

HAPP-YEASTER

Rain was promised and rain came yesterday.

You can see it falling from the sky over towards the center of the town.

But all we got here at the Bat-Cave were a few drops.

In spite of a threatening sky.

As for how SWMBO and I are doing during these self quarantine days of the pandemic, it's not a whole lot different from our normal lives.

We both tend to be hermits anyway.

So, as I emailed the BRD on her (cough, cough, ahem, er, uh)-th birthday yesterday, we had our pizza, postponed from Friday night, watched Wheel of Fortune, and Jeopardy, and Death in Paradise and then went to bed.

Just a couple of old folks.

I hope you're all staying healthy, well and sane in your own self confinements.

And happy religious-event-of-your-choice.

THE BAKERY

In these days of quarantine in my neighborhood (Prescott Valley, Arizona, U.S.A.) the oven has been fired up more than usual.

I baked a loaf of pumpkin bread the other day.

It came from a recipe on the Smitten Kitchen website, presided over by a New Yorker named Deb Perlman.

As you may be able to tell, the loaf is topped with a copius amount of cinnamon sugar and the ingredient list includes sugar, ground ginger, ground cinnamon, ground cloves and freshly grated nutmeg.

So it has a double payoff.

As one commenter said, it makes the house smell wonderful while baking.

SWMBO said it is so sweet it should be called pumpkin cake but I didn't think it was all that sweet.

Different strokes for different folks.

Or two people with perhaps different taste senses.

I took a picture once I had sliced off one end so you could view the interior.

But I'm not the only baker in this household.

Judy has baked several dozen cookies of various recipes so we are well stocked.

After I baked the bread/cake she told me to slack off awhile as we have too many calorie-laden goodies in the house and we may gain back some of the weight we've both lost over the last year.

Maybe I could avoid scarfing them down by wearing my Covoid "mask" in the house.

What do you think?

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

It's the Stay the **** at Home version of the weekly humor roundup.

I hope you're all well and safe and, as Joe says, washing your fekkin hands.

Let's see what's turned up, shall we?

Feeling a bit better now, Gentle Readers and Fellow Quarantiners?

I hope so and I wish for you all to have a sweet and peaceful weekend.

Take care of yourselves, stay well and always remember to keep laughing.

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

(awww, would you look at the puss on that puss...)

ThrowBack Thursday - A Blue Christmas

Jager and some friends were reminiscing yesterday about some Cadillacs they had known in what are now known as "the good old days".

Jager said he had taken his test for his first driver's license in his grandfather's great huge Caddy.

It was a time when the license was typed up and given to the new driver instantly.

Jager, armed with his new license, asked his grandfather if he could borrow the car for a little while.

The response was a firm "NO".

Well that and all this news coverage of the Corona virus took me back to one Christmas when I was a youngster.

I had wakened one morning with a severe bellyache and found when I stood that I couldn't straighten up.

Dad said I was faking it to get out of going to school but Mom insisted that they take me to see the local doctor.

He did some tests and found that my white blood cell count was sky high and that I probably was suffering from appendicitus.

There was no hospital in our small North Dakota town but there was one in another town about 30 miles away.

Now Doc Flath was a single man all his life and he indulged himself with Cadillac automobiles.

So he loaded me into the back seat, mom rode in front in the passenger seat and we drove to Powers Lake.

That was my first ride in a Cadillac and, except for the pain in my gut, I loved it.

When we arrived at the hospital I was surrounded by nurses who had needles in both of my arms simultaneously.

I was in surgery within minutes and my severely ruptured appendix was removed.

I spent a week or so in the hospital as I recall and then was sent home for bed rest.

My bedroom was on the second floor of our house and there I was confined.

I had some kind of drain tube protruding from my body and the doctor would come to our home frequently, pull a section out and snip it off.

It sounds ghastly but I don't remember a lot of pain associated with it.

I was still recovering when Christmas arrived that year and someone carried me downstairs to lie on the couch for the ritual opening of presents.

I look about as bleak in this picture as my grandfather to my immediate right.

My uncle Zenas, who had come from San Francisco, is on the far left next to Mom, and Dad is on the far right next to the Christmas tree.

I'm not sure what my gift(s) were but it may very well have been a magic set.

I was into magic at that time and my first time out of the house after my ordeal was at the annual show put on for the kids of the town by a visiting magician.

By the next summer I was all healed up and, wearing a cape and top hat made by Mom and "with nothing up my sleeves", putting on my own magic shows.

And I was smiling!

Ah, the recuperative powers of youth.

JP

Forgive me.

This is one of my favorite John Prine songs.