3814 Days since retiring July 1, 2005!

”No cockle shell here!”

To quote an old child’s poem. My tomato plant has produced a real tomatolette. In honor of the unborn child of some woman who married some grandson of the astoundingly ugly British queen Elizabeth, I too will call my future tomato “Diana”.

At her present size I estimate her value at $97 expended by 0.044 pounds. That is approximately a present evaluation of $2200 per pound. That is in the same ball park as gold at $17,919.30 per pound. I know it is hard to see but it is that little round thing near the bottom most yellow flower. Diana makes me happy.

My ability to carry those plastic grocery bags from my car to my room has almost completely vanished. The downward tug on my right shoulder is excruciating. As an expedient I have been hanging the bags on the handles of my late wife’s electric scooter. A recent expensive failure of a couple of those bags prompted me to start thinking of alternative cargo transfer. If you have ever seen the mess a large can of peeled tomatoes can make from dill pickle relish, a dozen eggs and a large tube of exploding biscuits you can reckon the horror of the scene. I looked like the Pillsbury doughboy had been disemboweled by ravenous broccoli creatures. The picture shows the reconfigured scooter with a full load of groceries. The arm rest have been relocated to the other side and turned upside down. I use three 1 by 2s to construct a platform across the arm rest that now stick out the back of the seat.

The great feature is that the scooter can be returned to its intended configuration in just moments. I have dubbed the machine “my little mule”. Carolyn would be horrified by such a use of her scooter. She treated it more gently than she treated herself.

For the last several weeks I have been unable to sleep at night because of my legs “jerking” uncontrollably. I have tried all the medical flubble-dubble and all the old wife’s tales to no avail. The bar soap under the cover did only caused the sheets to smell like soap. But I could sleep for hours when Rascal and I settled down for our post lunch nap. In fact I could sleep all day after the sun came up. One evening I put those facts together and decided to experiment. Monday night I turned on the kitchen light, my desk lamp, a work light at the window bench, and the bathroom lights and went to bed. I slept the entire night. Well except for 2 liquid drainage breaks. I have slept well each night this week. I do believe I am afraid of the dark. No, not the night time dark but the long dark that waits for all of us. I want to see it coming so I can beat hell out of it for taking my wife.