Home is where you like the weather!

I was reading my home town newspaper, the Mountrail County Promoter from Stanley, North Dakota, this morning.  The editor's column told of how they'd had some fresh snowfall up there on a couple of days this past week.  She said she loved the four seasons they experience, even with the severity of the winters, and she couldn't imagine how anyone could live where it was always the same year around.

Well, I left North Dakota back in 1969 and, other than a few visits, I've never been back.  I have lived in South Dakota, Indiana, Arizona, deep into Mexico, Texas and back to Arizona.  I note that I have lived since 1972 in either the Southwest or further south in Mexico.  (That allows for people who insist Texas is in the Southwest when, if you look on a map, it's actually in the South.)  But that's 39 years, compared with the 29 I lived in North Dakota.  And the three years when I lived in Indiana were, I have come to find out, unusually warm, mild winters.

And I love it.  I loved being able to take a swim on Christmas Day.  Here in Arizona, which has been my home for 33 years, the temperature never gets down to "North Dakota winter" cold.  I can remember 30 and 40 below.  I can remember snowstorms that covered cars parked in the streets and even one that buried a train.  I can remember, as a kid, ice-skating on the streets in my home town.  But not anymore.

And that time I lived in Texas we got out after less than two years, done in by year-round humidity.  And that wasn't even on the coast!

Guadalajara, Mexico and environs was our home for nearly five years and we loved the climate there.  Year-round temperatures averaged around 70 to 75 degrees.  When the rainy season came it frequently rained only at night and the days were sunny again.

The part of Arizona we live in now doesn't get the ultra-high temperatures of the low desert around Phoenix.  So we get a seasonal change, just not the severe changes I was used to in North Dakota.

But, that's just me.  I have heard people who live all over this country brag about their climate and say they wouldn't live anywhere else.  I guess it's just whatever you like.

War

I've been sort of watching the Ken Burns special "The Civil War" on PBS tonight.  Americans versus Americans.  Thousands, no, tens of thousands killed on both sides.  For what?  145 years later we are still inflamed in this country over the same issues.  No, not slavery.  State's rights.  The disagreement over whether the individual or the city or the state shall determine one's destiny or whether that destiny shall be decided by a federal government.  It is, apparently, a disagreement that shall never be settled.  The sides are about evenly divided and therefore there shall mathematically never be agreement.  Both sides are sure of their way, of their mind.  How can a nation, a people be so divided?  After decades of observing this indecision, I cannot understand it.  And I mourn  the separation of people and their minds.   It is the same in every country, it seems. 

No agreement. 

No peace.

No hope.

Just war.

Why I don't brag much about my cookin'

My wife, the famed SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed, for you newcomers), has left the cooking to me for several weeks.  I've had some successes, more than a few failures but I have learned to make whole wheat bread (in the bread machine) pretty good.

But.

And that's a pretty big "but".  SWMBO has been cooking for 60 years and she does it instinctually, which is to say she doesn't look at recipes very often, she just cooks.  And it turns out fantastic, without any of that beauty queen business I have to go through in the kitchen.  I watch in amazement and think "how does she know how to do that?"  But as she says, she's been doing it for 60 years and things just stick after you've done them a trillion dozen times.

So she cooked tonight.  A pork roast, mashed sweet potatoes, sauteed apples, a salad.  Pretty basic.  Except what she tossed together in an hour or so would have taken me until the middle of next week.  And it still wouldn't have been as good.

So, I can brag a bit about my delicious meals.  But if I really want one, nothing is better than Mama's home cooking.  Thank you, dear one, for many, many, many good meals.

(Now if I could just get rid of this spare tire around my middle . . .)

One more game, one more time

The Butler Bulldogs once again will play Monday night for the N.C.A.A. basketball men's national championship.  Butler is the first team from Indiana to reach the Final Four in consecutive years and today they defeated this year's Cinderella team, Virginia Commonwealth University.  So, after a heartbreaking loss last year, Butler will try again.


This is Blue Two II, the mascot bulldog of the team.  He looks ready.

Black and White

My "all" black cat has a surprise for me when she likes to warm my bed for me at night.  As she turns onto her side, she reveals a bit of white underneath!

Color is everything!

How to make sure no one can miss your business.

A word of wisdom about cats

My friend, Tom, has blogged today about an incidence of vicious, bloodthirsty, killer cats.  You can read about it on his blog by clicking here.  Just scroll down past his commentary on elephant seals.  Or, better yet, read about the much larger and more threatening seals to get to a link about the sweet little house cat.  Then come back here.


Okay.  Done now?  Then to lead further credence to his story, I'll relate one of my own which occurred only yesterday.  I was sitting in an easy chair, watching a basketball game on television, when a large black cat landed in my lap.  My beloved Blackwell.  But he's gotten pretty fat and pretty heavy and a surprise is a surprise.  So, to tease him a bit, I picked him up and suspended him for a moment or two upside down.  Now, I can tell you, cats don't like to be upside down.  I don't know why.  Perhaps it is uncertainty about whether they will remain suspended or be dropped.  At any rate, he lashed out.  Not viciously.  Just looking for some element of "purchase", as my wife's father used to say.  He found it.  Here's the proof.


So it goes.  Never tease a creature that is much faster and has longer sharper claws than you do.