FRIDAY FUNNIES

When times look dark and foreboding, it's the humor that gets you through, Gentle Readers, so let us continue our time-honored tradition.

All right, folks, let's get out there and have a fabulous spring weekend and always . . . . . . always . . . . . . remember to keep laughing!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

(Hey, how do you feel about our moving, huh?)

ANOTHER LEAF

So, Gentle Readers, I've been dropping very subtle hints that a change is in the offing once again for these nomads.

We have been thinking about the future for several years as we groan into our late 70's and early 80's.

Planning on downsizing, getting rid of the accumulated "stuff" of years, nay, decades.

And now, it appears, our hands are about to be forced.

We learned on Monday that the landlord of the property where we have lived very happily for three years is putting it up for sale.

That means that once again we face the ugly prospect of moving.

A realtor was here yesterday to do a walk-through and a look-see and she told us that when the word comes for certain, since we are on a month-to-month lease we will probably have 30 days to vacate.

So that means the agonizing search for a new home that we can afford and the more agonizing packing, selling or donating the detritus of ages.

So that's it, folks.

We are not, as one of you worried, plagued by new health maladies.

It's just another relocation in a lifetime that has numbered the moves in more than a score.

I'll keep you posted from time to time.

Like the tiny leaves now appearing on the redbud tree outside my window, it is yet another new beginning.

ONLY . . .

. . . time will tell.

LIFE IS . . .

. . . just one damned thing after another.

MONDAY MADNESS

DEATH AND DECONSTRUCTION

We lost a couple of good ones again.

Chuck Berry, who some (Chuck?) say invented rock and roll, dead at 90.

His voice, along with those of Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley, was in my head in the 1950's when I was a high school student.

His bizarre "duck walk", which became a trademark, evolved from an accident where he fell while playing.

Troubles with the law led to several terms in reform school and prison.

He was emblematic of the times and the trade he took up.

But it didn't stop him from writing and performing some of the great songs we all grew up with.

And this morning we learn of the death of Jimmy Breslin at 88.

A consumate newspaper reporter for decades in New York City, Jimmy told the stories of the common man so well he won a Pulitzer Prize.

A cigar-chomping, hard drinking "ink stained wretch" of the newspaper business with a knack for finding and telling a story.

Who else would think to interview the man who dug the grave for John F. Kennedy?

We'll miss them.

For the second part of my post, take a look at what Chef Judy, aka SWMBO, created for the evening meal yesterday.

It's a deconstructed (or Inside-Out) Vietnamese Spring Roll.

Shrimp, rice vermicelli, carrots, peppers, peanuts, mint leaves.

Topped with a spicy peanut sauce (unshown) it was delicious.

I know.

I'm a lucky man.

CHANGES IN LATITUDES . . .

Judy and I drove to Jerome at mid-day yesterday to meet a granddaughter and her significant other for lunch at the Asylum in the Grand Hotel.

They arrived late because of traffic tied up south of Phoenix on the I-10 freeway while wreckage from four consecutive accidents was cleared.

But they got there only about 45 minutes late and we had a nice lunch in one of our favorite restaurants.

We reminisced with "the kids" about one of the first times we had visited Jerome, of how I had a photograph of the then 16 year old daughter who became the mother of our lunchtime companion.

It's a classic photograph of her sitting at the bar in the Spirit Room, a pub that's thrived on the same corner in the heart of town for many decades.

It was pretty much a ghost town in those days and we stayed in a hotel room with a broken glass window above the bar on one of our forays.

Now it's a fancy boutique hotel, completely re-done.

This was the view from just outside the Grand Hotel where we lunched.

It was a hazy day but you can see the San Francisco Peaks 75 or 80 miles in the distance.

I had been watching t.v. before we left for Jerome and heard a weathercaster say that it was going to be in the mid 90's in Phoenix but if you wanted to cool off and go skiing there was still plenty of snow at the Arizona Snow Bowl on those peaks.

About 160 miles separates those two locations and climate zones.

We were about mid-way in between and the day was very pleasant, with temperatures probably in the low 70's.

As we said our good-byes to the young ones we were heading back down the mountain through Old Cottonwood and New Cottonwood and back home.

When we lived between Old Cottonwood and Clarkdale over 20 years ago it was a sleepy place.

Now there were fancy stores and shops and restaurants everywhere.

It always makes me think of the line from Jimmy Buffet's song "...nothing remains quite the same..."