Message board topic:

Last week was one long, tiring week.  Monday I had to take Cheri in to the doctor in Columbia.  We weren't there very long but it was a long trip.

Wednesday I had to take the grandson to the orthodontist in Jefferson City, not quite as far away as Columbia.  About an hour after I went to bed Cheri had a minor medical emergency but I had that dealt with in about half an hour and went back to sleep.  This time Cheri wanted to come along so she could shop at her favorite grocery store and hit the nearby shopping mall.  Jefferson City and Columbia have 2 of the few remaining vibrant malls left in the country.  Columbia has a Barnes & Noble, but we didn't go to that one.  Jefferson City has lots of dress stores and shoe stores but the only thing there that interests me is a cookie store and a food court.  I spent most of my time sitting on a bench, waiting.  Made for a long day and I was way too sleepy to be driving  all the way back.

Friday I played in Centerview.  It's usually a fairly receptive place where people seem to like us but my 2 bandmates had too much to drink and put on a pretty sloppy show.  As the expression goes, I was not a happy camper.

Saturday I played in Odessa Missouri, just a little this side of Kansas City, but it was an early afternoon wedding reception so I didn't have any time between jobs except to sleep.  I looked up the location on my computer and thought I had a pretty good idea how to get there.  I still left myself a half hour buffer to get there a little early.  When I got to Odessa though, I didn't see where I was supposed to exit the interstate, so I pulled into town and pulled over to check GPS.  Much to my shock and surprise, I had just bought a new phone a couple days before and...Google Maps wasn't set up on it yet.  I was furious and was pretty sure I was going to be late if I had to hunt around for the place.  I had to reason it out.  Fortunately I'm fairly reasonable and managed to find the place, only about 10 minutes after I expected to be there.  The job went far more smoothly than the night before, so I was greatly relieved.  All that remained was the long drive home.  I went to bed early last night and slept a good 9 hours.

Today I woke up with the cat right next to me and I plan to just relax all day.  At least that's the plan.  John

Sounds like you were busy going all over. ;)

I am away right now. NJ trip to now turn mom's home over to a realtor and estate people to sell it. I am not happy doing this. I dislike liquidating someones life/memories. :/ I'll be home Saturday and cannot wait. Flying out I was crammed in a totally full plane from Salt Lake to NJ, not 1 open seat and I was in the center of the plane and crammed to where a window would be, but it was the ONLY bulkhead with NO window. I felt claustrophobic for rthe first time ever. 

It's an odd feeling getting rid of a place like that.  When my Mom remarried and moved just a couple of years before she died, I had to help get the old house ready to sell.  It was a lot of work, tearing down hanging ceilings, scrubbing down walls, tieing discarded building materials to a trailer to haul off.  All the time you're remembering things that happened there, how much it's changed over the years, and knowing that it'll change again when somebody else moves in.  Even thinking about it, decades of memories flood back.  You take that last look around and know you'll never see it again.  Then I went through the same thing again with the house Mom died in.  Not so many memories of course, but they're there just the same.

I've never flown but I know from being on ships what a diference a window can make.  I was once on an old diesel submarine, (it didn't go anywhere) and I couldn't imagine how claustrophobic it must have been with 50 other sailors and unable to see outside at all, and especially if you were under combat conditions.  That's a terror I'm glad I don't have to look back on.

I'm still worried about Cheri.  She has plenty of energy in the mornings but it doesn't last long.  I was surprised when she felt like going to Jefferson City the other day and especially that she felt like hitting the mall there.  The furkids are all doing great. Piggy has been going through the hay and Van Gogh has been going through the cat food.  John