Friday, the 13th day of January, 2012

It wasn't until I was trying to solve a SUDOKU puzzle near noon time today when I realized it was Friday the 13th... Holly Smokes! For those of us who are superstitious, days like this one are extremely stressful; for those of us who are not, days like this are between 'blah' and 'so what?' But there is another point of interest: is superstition dependent on language/culture? You see, in most of the Hispanics sub-cultures (ones derived from Spain), it is not Friday the 13th but Tuesday the 13th the one you have to be careful with/afraid of... So, do bad things that happen on a Friday the 13th go unnoticed by people in Hispanic countries? And do bad things that happen on a Tuesday the 13th go unnoticed by people on countries of North Western European descent? I don't know the answer to those questions, but I am tempted to submit to you - though a little cautions, just in case - that superstition is only in the mind of the believer...

Oh well, on with life and here it is: my last daughter - Leah - was the last one to return to 'the real world' after the Christmas and New Year season... She left on Saturday, January 7th, and left behind a couple of grateful hearts for getting to enjoy her company until then, and also heavy for being left with a truly empty nest and only the memories of the good times we all had during the season... To make my heart even heavier, that same day would have been my father's 90th birthday... He's been gone for 1,188 days and I still miss his humor, his wisdom, his company...

The pro football season is over and playoffs are here, and neither one of my teams made it: Dolphins and Bucs were simply pitiful this past season; thankfully both their head coaches were fired! Talking playoffs, this past week-end I went two for four: won two (Giants and Broncos) and lost two (Lions and Bengals) - just realized we have no more felines on the playoffs... This week-end my favorites, albeit sentimental, are: Saints (vs 49ers), Broncos (vs. Patriots), Giants (vs. Packers) and could-not-care-less (Ravens vs. Texans)... On the college ranks I rooted hard for the LSU Tigers but they did not show up against the the Tide led by Nick SaTan... They looked inept and confused for 60 minutes...What a lousy show that game was... Les Miles should be fired and then flogged in the Tiger Stadium parking lot.

Romney seems to be the presumptive Republican nominee to challenge the President in the fall... Let's see how terminology such as "Vulture Capitalist" and his role as a wealth producer (others may call it corporate raider) are played by the Obama and the Democrats against him...

Temperatures dropped radically today (high of 23) and snowed about two inches... Local folks believe this winter will pack a nasty punch. I will make it a priority this week to fire up my generator, hook it up to the house, and test the connections made specifically for those type of contingencies...

Finally, a little anecdote: back in 1974 a reporter asked Arthur Ashe about how lucky he had been in a particular tennis match which he had won. Ashe, keeping his customary gentleman-like demeanor, responded: "The harder I work, the luckier I get"...

So, stay lucky my friends...

Happy New Year 2012!

And so it happened that, unceremoniously, one of the most difficult years of recent memory left us... Good riddance 2011 and welcome 2012!

In the past, and ever since we have been together, Jan and I decided that New Years' eves were some of the most dangerous times to be on the road. People, many of them amateurs (young people with little experience on how drinking impairs their senses) are on the road going from party to party, and rushing to get somewhere; too risky. So, we always stayed at home and, many times already in out pajamas, broke the seal of the ceremonial New Year champagne, and toasted each other and our families to a prosperous and healthy new year. This year we broke our mold by going to a New Years party outside our neighborhood... Bill and Ginny Loos, dear friends who now live in Sparta, TN and who were close neighbors whom we never met in Florida, had a party at their house and we decided to go. Alex, Leah, Jan, Pat Ross (a neighbor) and I got there at about 8:30 PM; mingled, drank a little, ate more than a little, and then at about 10:30 PM we decided to sound retreat and head back to the mountains... Got home, got into our pajamas and played a game of Mexican Train while waiting for the New Year, Central Time. Nashville had a snafu with their dropping icon, and CNN had another snafu with the connection and at 12:02 AM we realized we were already in another year. The four of us hugged each other, did not drink the bubbly, and went to bed.

On New Year's day, I spoke to Ligia, my sister, and all her clan is well. I also got a text from my oldest daughter, Clarissa, wishing me a Happy New year; returned the text with likewise wishes. Finally, I took some time to reflected a bit on the fact that my mother would have been 83 years old on New Year's day, had she still been around... She's been gone for 441 days and I still miss her...

Alex left for Gainesville on Monday the 2nd, and after reporting in from every previously established checkpoint, she made it home safely. That same day Tom and Char Merriman came to visit and to stay with us for a night. Played Mexican Train; ate, drank and had a great time with them. On the 3rd, we drove around the neighborhood, and saw that the Rocky River Vista beautiful log house had burned to the ground... What a waste!

The Merrimans left on Tuesday, at about noon time, and then yesterday we spent most of the day un-decorating the house, a somewhat unpleasant task when compared with the decorating part of it earlier in the season...

Leah is still with us until Saturday.

I hope you all had a wonderful year-end and an even better year-start... I also hope you made resolutions that are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound).

Miguel.

Christmas Day Open House pics

The last post of 2011...

Well, Christmas came and it was good... There were many gifts under the tree and there wereno lumps of coal!

There were many other types of presents... First, Alex, Leah & Jan were safe and sound; biggest present! Second, I received a "Merry Christmas" text from each of my older daughters; that was a biggie! Third, we had house guests who are very dear to us: Leah's godparents - Spence & Marcia Price - came along with Mark Barnett an old friend whom we had not seen in 20 years; also Nancy Temperilli (Leah's confirmation Godmother), Mike Temperilli, her husband, and Jesse Temperilli, their son and my confirmation Godson! We had a great time catching up and also reminiscing; great time! The Temperillis left on the 26th, Nancy's birthday, and Spence/Marcia/Mark left on the 27th, early in the AM. We are back to normal...

On Christmas Day, we had an open house (we usually have in on Christmas Eve, but Leah and I were on the road then driving up from Gainesville; made it home right before Santa - 11:15 PM!) and many of our friends came, some with their children, and some even with their grandchildren. Mark Barnett is a professional photographer and he took some amazing pictures (https://plus.google.com/photos/115303719259856077033/albums/5691586494571974721?authkey=CNK04_bjjNPcRw).

We played a game of Dirty Santa and everybody went home with a present they either stole, hid (to keep it from being stolen), or could not have it stolen!

Many Thanks to all of you who made this one a special night!

Regarding the end of the year, the time comes now to start reflecting on the whole year, highlights, low-lights, what worked and what didn't, things to continue doing and things to stop, things to do more of and less of, and develop plans, goals and - of course - resolutions for 2012.

2012 will be a leap year so those poor people born on Feb 29 get to have another every-four-years birthday; it will also be an election year here in the USA in which we may get to hear how our leaders plan to attack very complex issues with the economic outlook for the Western World, lack of trust on the institutions (Congress, Government) and the system (Capitalism and the unprecedented power and immunity of Wall Street), and then we get to decide who we think can do the least damage, and elect him/her!

For my part, I hope you all have your happiest and best year yet, in all dimensions, in 2012.

See you on the other side...

Miguel.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

OK, I have to man up... I had said before I would be writing something every Monday and I have failed... However, I've written something every week; that is a pattern I am more comfortable with and that I intend to keep...

Adventureland...Last Sunday I went deer hunting. One of my neighbors owns 800+ acres nearby and invited me to hunt on his land for the afternoon; he new I was looking for a big buck, a wall hanger as they call it (not interested on does - have gotten two already this season - or on small bucks)... I found none, and therefore shot none; but his son-in-law shot a big buck and did not fulminate it; so we went tracking the animal after 5:30 PM (real dark!) and follow a trail that eventually faded after one mile and two and a half hours of trekking through thick brush in the dark. Never found it. The next morning they went tracking it again and found it; wounded but not mortally; well enough to high-tail it into the brush and get lost... Good adventure; good experience; will try to avoid it in the future...

Seasonland... Jan and I are done with the Christmas decorations inside and outside the house... Every year we seem to do as much decorating, and always have leftover items we find no place for; which items are left out depends on what box we open first and which one is last; it is always like a lotto... We made Hallacas this past Saturday. Hallacas are corn pastries filled with seasoned meats - traditional Venezuelan fare for the Holiday season. We had an assembly line with five work-stations. We made 45 Hallacas and they came out pretty good!

Emotionsland... This is a really challenging season for those of us who have any kind of fractured family, and I think most of us fall in that category... In my case, I have not seen my older daughters since last May and have not heard from them since last June; quite an inconsolable hole in my heart. I hope better times are yet to come... On another venue, we got a call earlier this week that Jody, our house/dog sitter, was suicidal. Later that same day, Jody called all obfuscated and upset about the rumor going around town that she was suicidal; Jan asked her to come over and we spent a whole evening with her, sounding her out and calibrating her answers. She sounds and looks fine to me, and that is my very personal, empirical and non-professional opinion.

In other subjects, the weather is a little warmer that in previous Christmas seasons and we are having six house guests for Christmas!

To all of you, I wish you the Merriest of Christmas and a Happy Holiday (for those who do not believe in Christmas)... Hope Santa is good to you (no lumps of coal!).

We'll talk again before the year is over...

December 14, 2011

Life continues inexorably up here in the Plateau... Everybody is in the Christmas spirit already or trying to get there. Of those trying to get there, some will and some won't. Some folks believe Christmas is too commercialized and struggle with buying the right gift for the right person at the right price, losing in the process all desires to enjoy the season; some other have split families whom they miss, or have been 'abandoned/ignored/thrown away' by loved ones... There is pain, overt and covert, all around; but, hopefully, everybody will cope and get to enjoy the Christmas Season.

Tebow continues to work his magic, much to the chagrin of his detractors/haters, and much to the delight of his fans... According to some NFL old-timers, there has never been a character or person before who has taken the league by storm as Tim Tebow has. The Packers are 13-0, an unprecedented feat by that team, and by any defending Super Bowl champion; but that story is only a by-line in most broadcast and pales in comparison with the 'storm' Tebow is causing in the league and beyond...

I will be having a one-of-a-kind Christmas: I will be on the road with Leah and away from Jan and Alex for the first time in the last 25 years... Alex is driving up the 23rd and will be here the evening of that day. Leah, on the other hand, is working until 5PM on Christmas eve; so I will be flying down to Gainesville on the 23rd and then driving up with her once she gets out of work on the 24th; so, as Christmas day comes, Leah and I we will be on the road and getting close to home...

Lastly, our big car, the Escalade, broke down yesterday. We were on our way to Cookeville (to Sam's Club) to finish our grocery shopping for the season and about three miles North of Sparta, it started to stagger and misfiring until it died; looked like the alternator went kaput. Triple A came, towed us to a local shop in Sparta and, after the diagnosis, it turned out that it seems to have been the fuel pump that went bad... We will pick it up today and hopefully it all will be back to normal...

That's all for now; we'll talk to you again next week...

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Seventy years, or should I say 3 and one half scores, ago the Empire of Japan attached the US by bombing Pearl Harbor, Hawaiian Islands; the day after, the US Congress and at the request of President Roosevelt, declared war on Japan marking the beginning of, hopefully, the last world-wide conflagration we we all see... Fittingly, I watched Pearl Harbor last night (the newer version with Ben Affleck).

This past week was full of action here... First, one day Jan and I woke up to have no running water in the house... Immediately, your mins goes wild and you go "Oh shit, the well ran dry; or maybe it collapsed (as it happened to the Ferguson down the street); or maybe the pump went again (another $1,600), or who knows what happened now..." At any rate, we called our water guy, Greg Smith from Valley Water, and after $180 he had fixed one of our filtering units which's piston got stuck in one position thus draining the system. All is back to normal....

Second, one morning, Saturday, we walk up to really loud barks form Bella (nothing unusual when deer come into the yard), but also Pancho and Bo; bolted from bed and looked outside to see a herd of eight heads of cattle in our backyard going away from our house and towards the end of the property... Cattle??? Where the heck did they come from? What do I do with them? Who do I call, the game warden? hey eventually return to the back yard and then crossed the creek to go on to the next property (William's daughter's). Haven't seem them since and nobody has any idea where those things came from...

Third, on Saturday we attended Patty & William's birthday party, hosted by Pat Ross. Patty turned 50 and William 60. It was a 'masquerade' and we all did our best with our masks! We had lots of fun with the birthday kids, Pat Ross, Hank & Terri Douglas, Danny & Donna Authement, Paul & Shelli Driscoll, Ginny & Bill Loos, Barbara Madge, Pat & Bea, Patty's son and his fiancee...