Toby

He had been only with us for about a week when I decided since I was the last one up before going to bed that I would let him out one more time. He would usually wander around in the back yard off the leash and pee then head back to the porch where I would give him a treat. Well tonight he seemed to wander longer in the dark night getting farther and farther away from the house as he sniffed around. Suddenly he was over the back wall into a new territory, another neighbors yard. Well it isn't so much a yard as it is a wooded area of several acres next to the local middle school, in other words, plenty of places for a puppy to explore.  

 And explore he did. With everybody else in the house asleep and me on the porch in my bare feet I panicked. I went to the house for a flashlight and proceeded to check the woods behind the house. I had lost the new dog!!!  My daughter had just started had just started elementary school and Toby was her new best friend. I spent the next two hours circling the neighborhood calling his name. Well I returned to see him wagging his tale sitting alone on the porch. We would have many more adventures during his 17 years. Hiking the woods of Exeter in middle of  the winter with him occasionally chasing deer while I enjoyed the solitude. The backyard baths after his regular wrestling match with local skunk.
Like a lot of things in life we remember the good times as being to short but time has no mercy it just keeps moving not worrying about good times or bad.

 Rest In Peace....Toby

Graduation Day

This weeks blog isn't a story about me but instead it's about somebody I love. My daughter Kayla
Nothing clever or witty just a proud parent celebrating his daughters accomplishment. She just graduated from college. A beautiful day in May , blue skies , smiling faces and proud parents.
As I sat there in the crowd waiting for her to take the stage I thought of another day in May some ten years earlier. We were in the backyard it was the beginning new season. The game was whiffel  ball home run derby and it was me and Kayla. She wanted to bat first. The first pitch of the season and it was gonnnneee...a home run. She has a natural swing. It wasn't something that I could take credit for because I never had to teach her how to swing a bat. She just did it. Hit after hit. We kept score, standings with wins and losses and all the stats. It was a great way to spend the summer nights.
Now she was all grown up and smiling on stage with diploma in hand ,off to another chapter in her life. My home hitter.

Sick

Im not feeling well. Not bad enough to go to the doctors. ( I'm laughing now becasue those of you who know me are laughing to becasue I rarely go to the doctor. The yearly physical sure but not for every hang nail or ache or pain. Stiches yes but that is only if the bleeding is causing people who see to become ill themselves or there is so much blood that it's getting tough to walk because my feet are sloshing around in what are becoming very red shoes..but I'm getting off track here...)
I am sick enough so that I feel like laying down in the middle of the day. Now in the commercials and sitcoms being sick is like a day off at some spa. People come by give you comfort make jokes and you take anap as th world passes by.  Well I have never had s a sick day like that. Even when I was a kid if I was sick it was so bad that I couldn't move or when i felt better the guilty would take over me . I'm a lazy bumm living on orange juice and crackers while the rest off the world supports me  or I'm so   sick that I feel that I'm near death and  I can't enjoy a decent soap opera.  When I'm sick I can't relax.  Come to think of it I have a hard time relaxing when I'm not sick.....mmmmmm

A website ....steventymon.com

I'm trying to start a website. I will use it to post my blog and other things. I'm new at this so be kind.
Let me know what you think. I'm gonna try and link this blog to it or start a new one there. I don't want to lose of my old blog stuff so I will see what I can do about linking the old with the new.

steventymon.com

I'm aggrivated

I am aggravated and normally I don't whine especially on my blog but I was sitting here writing and thinking and I started writing what I was thinking. I'm aggravated. Maybe I should go chop some wood, clean the bathrooms or make a pizza for dinner but nnnnooooo I'm to aggravated.

It isn't about something important. Its silly. But non the less I'm.....(you know).

It started this morning with and old bill that I have been disputing for a while. It looks like I wont be getting much satisfaction and by satisfaction I mean MONEY!! Yes that is it I'm aggravated today about money and it is not something that I ever get to excited about. I don't gamble much, the reason being I would never gamble enough so that if I won it would change my life. I know people hope that they will win the lottery and it change there life. It will but maybe not necessarily for the better. I don't think that I could trust anybody that I met after I won because I  would always bee thinking that they might be after the money. Managing fame and fortune isn't as easy as people think. I like my life and I'm not kidding when I say money is not even close to the most important thing. Today in the the United States anybody reasonable intelligent healthy and just a lit bit lucky can make a lot of money. But nobody wants to pay the price in time, effort, health , etc.

So now I have gone from being aggravated to preaching which I promised myself that I wouldn't do here on the blog. Great...now I'm even more aggravated...oh well...lets go with that and be aggravated for the day and only today and just hope that I don't .. please don't win the lottery today....(maybe tomorrow but not today...heh heh heh...I may be crazy but I'm not stupid)

You have a loving family, a nice job, some money in your pocket and your health is relatively stable. As far as most of the world goes you have it relatively good. But there is something missing. Something that you could use more of. You chase it daily and as you get older you find it more and more elusive. When you were young it wasn't important, in fact at times it slowed you down and seemed like a waste of time. After all you could always catch up with it later when it was absolutely necessary to keep going. But all of that has changed. Now is has become a precious commodity that you chase, desire and beg for. Sleep..  

A certain point in life everyone craves sleep. But some of us beg for it more often than not. We past out from exhaustion or just because our bodies have given up. But it isn't sleep, not the real relaxing. Sleep like we did till noon when we were twenty kind of sleep. Its the kind of sleep that lasts a few hours but stops when the rain is to loud and you wonder if the basement is flooding again. Or the sleep that every parent has with you keeping one eye open until your teenager is home safe from that "party" at a friends house. Counting sheep,drugs, reading, music, ball games on the radio, reliving a the childhood memory of you playing basketball with the older guys and hitting the winning shot...zzzzzzzzzzzz....ohh where was I????

I guess its time to start chasing the fours of sleep that I will probably

get tonight....maybe tonight some of them will be in a row.    

My head hurts. My back hurts. I'm hungry,tired and worn out. Another long day at work?  A trip to the dentist , a colonoscopy? Fighting with your accountant about a medical deduction involving experimental drug that will guarantee your more than two consecutive hours of sleep a night. No!!! This is one of those days that should be one of the best of the year or at least the last few years because it doesn't happen that often. Your about to buy a new car!!! 

Well I'm not the one plunking down his hard earned cash on the latest hunk of plastic and computers from Japan. It's my father in law...an 80 something Veteran who looks like a man having the blood sucked from by some vampire instead of enjoying the purchase of what might be the last new car that he will ever drive. He is sweating now as he signs his name for (and I'm not kidding because I counted) 14th time on a series of documents that are longer than those signed on the battleship USS  Missouri ending World War II. I try to help by making jokes about how things used to be simpler way back when but it doesn't seem to be helping. He is ready to put his fist thru the wall and pull the plug on this transaction if the bean counter with the $3000 printer whirring in the background puts one more document in front of the old man. Finally we are done. Ready to enjoy the open road in the new wheels but ...No! We are back with the salesman now who explaining how the car drives it self and that it will follow us home if we push the right button. My father in law explains that all he cares about is if gets 30 miles to the gallon on the highway and if it gets his country music station on the radio...he has his priority. As the salesman leaves still muttering something about a satellite finding a gas station and how you open the trunk from your bathroom, I see a small smile on my father in laws face. Its done. The car is his. I tell him that I will meet him at home and to take the long way and enjoy the ride. He says he may just go back to our driveway and take a nap in the front seat with a little Johnny Cash playing and enjoy that new car smell.    

I'm sorry ... I'm late

I'm sorry ...I apologize to those of you who are regular readers of my blog. I'm late ...worse than that I have nothing to say. I tried but I got nothing this week..NOTHING!!  I'm dried up..no imagination....nothing to say...nothing to talk about...nothing clever, witty or thought provoking. If your still reading this ...STOP...you have better things to do and I don't want to waste your time. I did I try ...really. I have tons of little notes that I write all week when I think of something that I could use in the blog. I looked at all of them and left uninspired. This maybe the end. What if I can never think of anything interesting ever again? Well we will all have wait and see....tune in next week..who knows?

I will miss the winter

I will miss the winter. Alright before you think that I have lost what little I have left of my mind let me explain.
I'll  miss the quiet. The winter is quiet. Nature is sleeping so walks in the woods on a cold afternoon are good for thinking and listening to the world around you. I will miss sitting with my father in law each of us with our morining coffee by the wood stove as we shoot the crap, warm our old bones and plan our day. I will miss getting up for work with the sunrise...some days it seemed to come up
just as I was leaving the driveway. The warm weather is coming at that means painting the house, a new roof, leaf raking, etc all things that can be put off in the winter. Also in the winter you get these random days that everything shuts down and there is nothing that we can do about it...snow and more snow...It gives you and unexpected day off sometimes. But the seasons change and soon the the air will be filled with bugs instead of snow flakes.
Heh wait a minute....the sun is out..it feels warm...ahhhh...mmm... maybe the summer is pretty good too.

PS...My NCAA Bracket:

I care...

As promised I have dedicated this weeks blog to things that I do care about .


I care.....about my family and friends...without them I would be nothing

I care....about what my wife is making for dinner. She has made herself a great cook...from her turkey meatballs to lasagna and other dishes with roasted potatoes, beans and chicken that she refuses to name. I can't go out to dinner with out comparing it to something that she has made. The restaurant always loses. She a self taught cook who can look in a fridge and minutes later come up with a  complete meal. (dammm now I'm hungry)

I care ....about my ability to still climb on my bike after a long winter and feel some strength in my body that I thought had long since dissipated over the winter. It is like stepping on the gas in your car and the engine responds and gets up past the car in front of you. I hit the first hill after a few miles of warm up and I'm not sure how the aching back and tired legs will respond. What the hell...up I go ...its not like running where if it ain't there you have to crawl home. On a bike I can coast with some dignity back down the hill and somehow make it home even if I have the strength in just one leg. ( I've done it...lol) But I make it somehow to the top...young again...lol...

I care....about the military veterans that I work with and have known and the sacrifices that they have made.

I care...less about some things than I use to....... but more intensely about the things that I do find important now....   

I don't care

I don't care .......how old I look. I'm old...social security...bad back...grey hair...the whole package. It is what it is. The thing is I don't have to be young any more. I'm not a professional athlete hanging on to the end of my career. I'm not an actor sitting in the front row of the Oscars wishing I had one more shot of botox as the damm Hi Def camera zooms in on my tired face while I struggle to fake happiness as some twitt kid wins my Oscar.

I dont' care....that people think I'm nuts becasue I wear shorts in the winter...heh they are comfortable.

I don't care...... that I drive to slow. My job is to get my passengers where they have to go safely and comfortably. If I have to slow down to avoid a pot hole that might throw some World War II vet in the back of the bus from his seat ...then I slow down.

I don't care....that my daughter hates my "old music". I will listen to Roy Orbison and Sam Cooke till the day I die.

I don't care.....that some people don't like my blog...my solution?...DON'T READ IT...there is no law that says you have to....( all though I think there should be one)

I don't care...if people think that I'm crazy for buying my wife flowers for no reason. She deserves more than flowers for putting up with me and I don't need a calender to tell when I should celebrate Valentines Day.

There are things that I do care about but you will have to tune in next week to see what they are.

Steveisover60: I wonder...

Steveisover60: I wonder...: I wonder.....why do people worry so much what other people think. About what we look like...our hair,what we wear, what we think about any ...

I wonder...

I wonder.....why do people worry so much what other people think. About what we look like...our hair,what we wear, what we think about any particular subject. We spend a lot to time and energy thinking about how others perceive us. We want to fit in...at work..with friends...etc. Some of it can be constructive if we look at how other people see us a constructive perspective to help us evaluate ourselves occasionally. It can help a person grow to get another opinion or see something thru somebody else's eyes.

But we should forge our own path..be true to who you are...good and bad.

I wonder.....why do people think that driving is a right not a privilege? Why do so many think that they are the only people with a place to go allowed on the road?

I wonder....wonder....ooouu ...who wrote the book of  love??....(its a song kids)

I wonder........ how much we realize how dangerous it is to drive with in feet of another piece of metal and plastic going 60 miles and hour without thinking whether the person next to us has any degree of competence in handling their piece of metal and plastic and flammable fuel?

I wonder.....why are people so surprised when somebody dies.?...especially somebody over a certain age.....it is gonna happen to all of us....

Maybe its that we don't think about time moving forward everyday because most days are the same as the one before unless some thing drastic happens to wake us up.

I wonder...why I don't look at the sky more?

I wonder.....how long my dog ,who is almost 18, will live for?

I wonder...if I will ever learn to play the guitar or bagpipes or any instrument?

I wonder...if the people who lived in my house 200 years ago thought about who might live here in the future? ( I really don't think they did...they had more important things to do)

I wonder....I wonder why I waste so much time wondering?

I wonder....what is for lunch?

I can remember looking out the window of the plane. We were coming back from a Florida vacation. I could see snow on the ground and off in the distance was a glow of some kind. It was a fire. It looked rather large, perhaps a mill fire. We got to the ground and dug out the car for the cold ride home. It was nearing midnight when we hit the highway. I noticed some rescue vehicles heading north as we headed south. It might be a big one I thought at the time. Once we got close to our house there were more than several fire and rescue apparatus passing us going back to the highway. That is bad I thought as I reached for the tv remote while my wife and daughter struggled with luggage in the other room.
It was I night that changed a lot of lives. Almost everyone in Rhode Island knew somebody who was affected. It was 11 years ago today at The Station nightclub.
I think of it now whenever I'm in a crowded public place. I think of all of the nights that I spent in crowded clubs like The Station and what could have happened.
Sometimes time doesn't heal all wounds

Today I'm searching for something to write about. I put a lot of my random thoughts at random times on scraps of paper that I compile throughout the day. Occasionally I get "inspired" and the writing is easy. It flows like a river down a mountain. Other days its the Hoover Dam. Some body once said creativity is more perspiration than inspiration. Well today is the former. So I search thru old scraps of paper for ideas. Lets see write about...being patient, bad drivers, all the jobs that I have had, being color blind...I  gotta stop......you get the idea...besides I might want to use one of these bad ideas for a future blog.
Today is about the process. The work that it takes to be "creative".  I have always had 9 to 5 jobs. Thinking that a writer, painter, artist was some lazy hippie type who slept till 11, smoked pot all day, ate granola and got inspired sometime around 3pm and created something then went to a Grateful Dead concert. (ok I never really thought that but it does sound like the stereotype of a 70's artist)
But the music we love ,the books that we read and films we enjoy all come from some place. I am trying to allow myself to be creative. Some days it doesn't flow. So I have approached it like a lot of things that I do. Full speed ahead...dam the torpedoes and see what happens. I cant wait for inspiration ...that takes to long. It ain't pretty but its mine what ever it is. Lately my creativity has come in form of a sledge hammer, chainsaw, bloody fingers and an aching back, but heh who is to say what being creative is ?  I created a new apartment and a pile of wood. I think that I will be a painter tomorrow. Working in water based stain covering white....hmmm the kitchen walls will be my canvas.

The Bar

I can remember when you could go to the local bar and not worry about getting shot. I remember bars with "ladies entrances", pickled eggs and jukeboxes with 45's. Believe me I did see some memorable things. Drinkers, gamblers, junkies, enemies ( I really never had any enemies ....at least that I knew of !),fancy dressers, cross dressers, politicians, celebrities, musicians and friends. Most of the places that I would go to had music and I saw some great shows and met many famous and some infamous musicians.  But I don't remember anybody getting shot. I did see few guns. A once prominent professional wrestling manager who also worked with some local musicians dropped his gun on the bar floor and while attempting to pick it up and put it back in the waist band of his over sized pants, proceed to kick the gun across the floor in what looked like a football player trying to pick up a fumble on an icy field. Nobody paid much attention to his futility which ended when a kind patron with a better ability for reaching his toes picked up the gun for fumbling manager. There were plenty of fights and police would be seen occasionally but there were no ambulances or wounds from gunfire. I don't know why it is different now. I don't frequent those places any more so I don't have any answers. I guess it depends on where you are and the times in which you live. I'm sure that there was a lot gun play in the old west with men wearing guns on their hips and saloons filled with drunken cowpokes. Times change as do the dangers of everyday life.        

My Snow Story

I know that nobody wants to hear another winter snow storm story. So I apologize in advance...here comes another one. I don't care about forecasts and the amount of snow that we are going to get. Unless it is going to be the blizzard of '78. I can get thru it some how. I drive for a living now so it is not like it doesn't affect me but heh I think I can figure out what to do if it snows in the winter.
I didn't have to work so I took the day to do something that I enjoy doing when it snows. I walk in the woods.
These days I have to almost drag the old dog with me. He wants to go but he sniffs more than walks, limps more than I do (which is saying a lot) and has a hard time staying on course. But still he is good company and I'm not going anywhere special in any hurry anyway. I especially like it when it is really cold as it has been and we head down a trail that has not been tread on yet by either animal or human feet. The crunch of frozen ground under my feet gives me the feeling of being off in the wilds of Alaska rather than a mere two miles from the warmth of a drafty but comfortable, cable tv internet connected, home. Toby used to leap in front of me spoiling the virgin path but now I have to look back every few feet to make sure he isn't off wandering aimlessly in the frozen woods circling a tree that has a scent that he cant resist. I stand and wait for him feeling the cold fill my lungs and at same time emptying my mind , at least for a few moments of the daily problems that everyone has.
As we head back because I notice the dog is limping a little I'm think of things like how dangerous this weather can be if you are homeless, hiking like I use to do on some deserted mountain in New Hampshire or living in a time when the only hope of warmth that you had was what would come if you rub a couple of sticks together and hope that a flame erupts before you die.

Sometimes you just need a day off or a least a couple hours. A time to do what you want.  To do something for yourself. It's good for you , try it. Go ride a bike, see a movie, make a movie, read a book, write a blog, phone an old friend, take a nap, listen to some loud music, play some loud music, go to a diner, buy a coffee for a stranger, go to the beach, go for a swim, be alone, sing a song..out loud, have beer...have two,walk the dog, sit on a bench and watch the world go by, go for a drive with the radio off, open the windows and breath the air, walk in the woods...off the path, go fishing, have some ice cream, fly a kite, yawn, look up at the sky, take a hot bath, eat some chocolate. Relax Enjoy
yourself...you earned it.   (Guess how many of things that I did on my morning off ?)

PS...go get em Pats....you can beat this Manning....and the Super Bowl is yours....no Eli this year....sorry...seriously Good Luck!

Chopping Wood

Time to chop some firewood. It's cold so the seasoned stuff should spit easier. I'll do as much as my back lets me. (It's been acting up more than usual lately) The sun is out and I have the iPod turned up, way up ,the kind of up that they use to say would make me deaf at my age. Nothing like a little Z Z Top to get the chopping rhythm going. I'm already running low on wood that I got in September. We have been keeping the heat a little higher this winter...but that's another story for another blog.
I'm beginning to sweat as slice through my fifth log. I needed a little workout today and this is cheaper than joining a gym. Anytime that I can spend a few hours alone outside is like mini vacation to me even if it is about 10 degrees in the shade. I worked inside for 30 years I would sometimes go for days this time of year without ever seeing the daylight never mind feeling the sun on my face. Dark when I left for work ,no windows, no lunch and more darkness on the way home. After several days of nothing but computer screen lighting I would begin to feel more like a bear in hibernation than the manager of a big time television production machine...heheh.  Now when the wind whips down my back and freezes the sweat on the my neck I'm thankful that I can squint into the cold blue sky the feel nonflourescent light from winter sun.
I better stop now because I felt a "twinge" which is old man talk for "spending the night on the couch with a heating pad as my best friend". Besides there is more fun ahead. There is always a snow storm on the horizon and I can look forward to dodging the plows as they wizzz  by sending salt, sand and snow all over my just shoveled sidewalk. Ahhh winter it beats a fluorescent hibernation.     

A Happy New Year !!!

Well this is the time of year when we all look back to rehash what our year was like and look forward to what is coming up. I am like most people in that I tend to do both but I'm not gonna bore anyone with my regrets of the year just past or wishes for the future. I want to be here in the moment. A cold day with the sun out and a chance to walk the dog one more time. He is 17 and he reminds me that every walk could be our last together and far from it being a sad thing it refreshes me and helps me enjoy every step  even the steps we take are slower than a turtle with no legs today.
 I take deep breaths of the cold air. I wait for him as he sniffs at something in the tall grass nearly every three seconds. Today is a good day. I can't ask for more. I don't worry about tomorrow or brewed about yesterday. Today an old dog, the sun, the woods, the cold, I can't ask for more.
Be safe, be happy..everyone.