THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

Yeah, me too.

All right, Gentle Readers, it's time once again to reflect, rest and rejuvenate.

It's time to put your cares and worries aside for awhile and let those wrinkles laugh lines take over your countenance.

It's time for The Friday Funnies!

Yay!

Wahoo!

Play ball!

All right you cheery, chuckling, chortling chumps . . . the command from the top is: have yourself a merry little weekend.

All right, all right, ENOUGH!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

(oh, man, I may have to check her prints.)

HERE COMES THE MONSOON

The Prescott Daily Courier's ace reporter, Cindy Barks, had a story in the newspaper today about the drought conditions in Arizona.

Here in our immediate area, she reported, we've had only a little more than two and a quarter inches of rain in the past 9 months.

That compares to about 13 and a third inches the year before.

And it makes 2018's "water year" the driest since 1898!

Tell that to your climate change deniers.

But the monsoon season is on its way, partially courtesy of Tropical Storm Bud now off the southern tip of Baja California, pushing moisture north through Southern Arizona.

Here in the Prescott area that gives us about a 50 percent chance of thunderstorms by Friday night.

I changed my header picture to encourage it.

But the rain, if it comes, will only be around for a couple of days.

As any local knows, the monsoon season doesn't officially begin until the 4th of July.

THE "CATZ"-ENJAMMER KIDS

I may have said this before.

Our cats are Indoor Cats.

They don't go outside.

Except when they get a chance.

They both escaped out the patio door a week or so ago.

Muggles just lay down on the patio and enjoyed the night air.

Blackwell was gone for a couple of hours before he returned, looking even cockier than ever with his John Wayne amble.

Last night he did it again and went over "the Fence".

Judy blamed herself but I said "you just can't trust the evil bastard!"

Anyway, he came back after a mere 30 minutes of rambling this time.

Muggles, meanwhile, was bored by the whole event.

Incidentally Blackwell had an eye injury some time back.

It looked like he might have caught a claw in one of his eyes and it eventually turned a bloody, reddish brown.

We feared he had lost the sight in it.

Judy used some of her glaucoma eye drops on him.

We don't know whether those or just "Natural Cat Healing" made the difference but, amazingly, the eye has nearly totally cleared up and he has just a slight spot at the bottom of his pupil.

His sight appears to be back to normal.

Normal enough to see a door open a crack, affording him the opportunity for another late night ramble.

THE MURALIST

I can hear the mental wheels whirring even from the other room down the hall.

She has told me the fence mural is far from finished.

But what will be added to it is known only to her.

I got a hint though after she returned from a visit to a crafts store.

These are lined up and ready to be used.

For something.

Grass Green, Yellow Ochre, Raw Umber, Titanium White, and Crimson.

Hmmmmmm . . .

(stay tuned)

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

Ahhhh, what a week.

There's only one good thing you can say about it.

Because as you know, Gentle Readers, Friday brings us all that brief period of time when we can put our careworn troubles aside, ease back in our respective chairs for awhile and LAUGH!

So let us begin.

Did you know that cats are not the only animals that can not resist small spaces?

Take a look at the evidence.

Listen, I have it on good authority that even BIRDS seek out those tiny spaces.

So there you have it.

Some thoughts to dwell on tomorrow morning as you're sleeping off your Friday night debauchery with a new friend.

Or an old pal perhaps.

Whatever.

Now I won't equivocate, prevaricate or prattle on any further.

Let's all have a perfectly, positively, painstakingly, precisely fine weekend.

And always remember to keep laughing!!!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

(Yes, you can bring a friend.)

IT'S DONE!

Well, the first stage.

Now comes some detail work.

Continue to . . .

. . . stay tuned!

THE SIXTH OF JUNE

Today always means something to me.

Not because of the anniversary of D-Day in World War Two.

And not because it is the anniversary of the day SWMBO and I entered Mexico on our 4+ year adventure back in 1987.

No, it's because it is the anniversary of my mother's birth back in 1904.

Hattie Loretta Hylland Taylor was born one-hundred-and-fourteen years ago.

Amazing.

She was a school teacher in a one-room schoolhouse on the North Dakota prairie when my dad found her.

As young people do they fell in love and were married.

Seems like they ought to have been happier, doesn't it?

Oh they were.

They spent their honeymoon and much of the first year of their marriage "snowed in" on a North Dakota ranch.

Later on, they posed for what I always think of as their "Bonnie and Clyde" picture.

She gave birth to me when she was approaching her 36th birthday.

And 13 years later she was gone, the victim of a brain tumor.

65 years ago but I still think of my childhood memories of her every June 6th.

39 x 2

I was waiting in a fast food restaurant yesterday and was engaged by a woman in idle conversation who said something like "I hope we're all still learning."

The subject was a (presumably) 2 year old child who was trying out his voice.

Anyway, I thought of saying to the woman "I'm 39 and I'm still learning," and then adding "Actually I'm 39 twice!"

I didn't speak those thoughts aloud but then I started doing some mental arithmetic and realized that 39 twice is exactly my age now.

I told SWMBO about it when I got home and she commented "For awhile, anyway."

Talk about puncturing one's balloon!

Anyway, back to the back "yard" projects.

You may recall that we lost a glass birdbath to a dust devil yesterday.

I was planning on putting it into the dumpster because it was beyond repair but then I thought "Hey, why not use the two largest pieces as a decorative item."

And that's what I did, with SWMBO's direction.

I rather like it.

Speaking of SWMBO, she continues to paint "her" fence.

Last night she was adding more blue, creating a sky above the green hills.

You will note that she has made a more distant mountain range above the closer hills.

The work goes on, though it is too hot during the day to paint so she does a little in the evenings when the temperatures have dropped a bit.

Stay tuned.

THE DEVIL PAYS A VISIT

Could SWMBO's muralizing have angered Mother Nature?

It may have seemed that way today when I was sitting only feet away from it at my desk by the window when a dust devil came right over the fence and through the back yard.

If you're not familiar with "dust devils", allow me to explain.

They are relatively small whirlwinds formed when hot air near the earth's surface rises quickly through cooler air above it.

They are similar to tornadoes though usually of less intensity.

They normally appear on hot, clear and sunny days over flat land.

Here's what one looks like, courtesy of Wikipedia.

So there I was, at my desk, when a dust devil came right over the famous partially-muralized fence and charged through our back yard.

A chair and several plants in pots were blown over and remember that pretty bird bath I was trying to figure out what to do with?

It has seen better days and is now headed for the scrap heap.

The fence?

It withstood the mighty blow.

And the work goes on.

. . . AND THERE'S MORE!

SWMBO has been a tad amazed by the reactions expressed here on her "little painting project".

The work continues, the view improves and her mind is shuttling through ideas for the rest of the fence mural.

But today, she's taken the day off to spend with the Sunday New York Times so I'll just show the progress to date.

As you will note, there is no whitewash on this fence (yet), possibly because when she was beginning I warned her not to pull a "Tom Sawyer" on me!

However.

In another corner of the yard there is an elevation that had a large pot with an artificial tree in it surrounded by large (and heavy) rocks.

We had placed a colored birdbath bowl we weren't using and a small monk statue up there but SWMBO had a more ambitious plan in her mind and had already tipped and rolled some of the boulders down the slope.

Fearing another fall, I then entered the act (yes, Jager, I got off my . . . er . . . duff) and began arranging them per her instructions.

It is a work in progress.

Originally, Judy had planned a yin/yang symbol out of black and white pebbles in the center of "the eye" but abandoned that idea when she was unable to find black stone at any of the building supply stores.

She had thought perhaps the colorful birdbath might go in the center but "we'll see".

As I said, it's a work in progress and you'll note that a new (and real) viney plant has been placed to grow up on the old artificial tree limbs.

So we continue, trying to make something out of a pretty barren back yard.

Stay tuned.

"WHAT IS SHE UP TO NOW?"

SWMBO never ceases to surprise me.

Nearly one year after her fall on the rear patio that resulted in a broken femur and a lengthy recovery and rehabilitation, she's back out there.

Seemingly recovered she's dabbing paint on our fence.

At some time in the future, those weather-beaten old boards will sport a mural of green hills and a bright blue sky.

And a few trees.

When she was buying the paint and explaining her project, the salesman asked if she was going to include some hot air balloons in the sky.

She laughed then.

But now she's thinking about it.

In the artistic universe that I merely cohabit, only time will tell.

Or as the great leader would say, "We'll see."

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES!

... what is so rare as a day in June . . .

The weather is near-perfect here on this first day of June.

I think it's a perfect day for . . . . . . oh, yeah . . . THE FRIDAY FUNNIES!

I'll try not to hog all the fun.

Some of you Gentle Readers may need a bit of brightening up.

And with that pungent thought from Sailor Bill, I'll call avast to this salty cruise.

Now, whether by land, sea or air, Gentle Readers, let's all travel tremulously with tittering and tintinnabulations (that one's just for you, Frank) through a terrific weekend.

And always remember to keep laughing.

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

(oh, my)