It’s been a pretty good week.
Our daughter, Suzan was home from Lincoln for a couple days and, while here, announced that even though the official mourning period for their recently departed cat, Spangles, isn’t quite over, they decided to visit a shelter (embarrassingly named The Cat House) just to look over the selection of kittens and perhaps find one to fill the feline void in their life. Well, at The Cat House, it’s not just a matter of making a choice and taking an animal home. No, the proprietors insist you first meet certain requirements. Well, I have since learned that they have been approved and are actually getting TWO kittens; sibling sisters named Laverne and Shirley. The kitty’s homecoming has been delayed, though, because both are in quarantine a few more days as they’re being treated for ringworm. Yuk. Anyone else remember when farm kids would show up in school with a silver dollar size round scalp-exposing bare spot in their hair? Ewww..my head’s itching just at the thought. Anyway, The Cat House isn’t taking any chances of passing the kitten’s unfortunate condition along to my granddaughter, Zoey.. who..by the way..has absolutely no connection to the TV series that inspired the naming of her new pets and has received permission (yes, it required Cat House approval) to change their moniker. Her choice? Blue and Bubbles. When asked why..Zoey simply said she liked those names and you don’t question the reasoning of a recently heart-broken 10 year old.
We took delivery of the new family-room furniture I wrote about last week and it has met with the approval of all who have beheld it. I’m especially fond of the recliner rocker and have already spent considerable hours in it so it will quickly conform to the contours of my impressionable frame much like breaking-in a new baseball mitt.
Speaking of my formidable frame..there’s a little less of it these days. I’m not going into great detail but I’m coming up on five weeks of careful calorie counting and starting to notice some subtle changes..like the fit of clothing. I don’t weigh because our scale only goes up to what I want to get down to.
Had a weee of a time in Brookings the other night. I met up with Steve Hemmingsen at the Pheasant restaurant and lounge where they have live music on Monday evenings. On this night, we were treated to the stupendous sounds of jazz courtesy of the Johnson/McKinney Quintet. They have terrific taste in music but dubious judgment in who they allow on stage. In this case, I was offered an opportunity to sing a song or two. It went fine and the audience seemed to take delight in seeing a former TV guy belting out Sinatra. As I left the stage I mentioned to the boys in the band that Hemmingsen also had quite a reputation in piano bars from Sioux Falls to Nye’s Polynesian in Minneapolis as an interpreter of Broadway show tunes..so Steve was invited up and, after a challenging up-tempo number, he settled-in and provided a pleasant vocal surprise for both the players and patrons.
Steve closes his set with a big flourish. Musicians include, Corky Johnson, sax..Jim McKinney, vibes. Greg Olson, drums and I can't remember the bass and piano player's names..sorry.
You’ll have to check the place out. It’s a great Monday night alternative to TV.
Several months ago, the agency that sends Linda and me our monthly sustenance checks decided they had overpaid me and began withholding a sizeable sum from said checks until the debt was repaid. Well, my longtime tax man agreed to help me construct a point by point reasoned response to this agency in the form of an appeal. After several months had passed, we’d concluded that our plea had fallen on deaf ears but then the other day in the mail came a government letter telling us our appeal had been accepted and the dollars withheld would be reimbursed. Needless to say there was much jubilant jumping around the kitchen at the news and many thanks owed to Doug Amen CPA.
Now I wish I’d held out for the recliner with the vibrating fingers feature and side-mounted cooler for storing my low fat yogurt and diet cherry flavored Mountain Dew. Yumm.