I am. Sort of. I exist.

(Looking at the above Ernest Hemmingway and I have more than a Cuban bar in common.)

Been dragged down a bit. Getting the endocrine system tuned up, dead thyroid and other radiation problems. Non existent voice, foggy brain, and my get up and go, got up and went without me.

Hip replacement in the future, knee not far behind. Can't walk, can't talk and can't spit nickels.

Dragged back from depression, that was hard to pin down.

Thanks for the thoughts, I'm trying, which the wife has been saying for years.

Playing with photography more, still with the brass band, Tuba Christmas at the big indoor market this week, doing a euphonium for that. Trying to be ambi-dextrous, sugary even.

New Dog, old pickup, making a cd for Mom and Dad, music of their memories. Trying to use the accordion on such tunes as "Mountain over the hilltop", and "It is no secret...", stuff such as that. Oh, and that old standard, HellehJulia, I'm a Bum. BTW, order the DVD of that old Movie, Al Jolson and others, which would make a good holiday family movie, horse and buggys in Central Park, and one of the first talking pictures. A great treasure of cinema.

I audited another music course at the University, drove my old GMC pickup with the dog riding shotgun all over campus, and took pictures of harpsichords, Taffelmusik, and walks.

Pushing myself to keep up to 4 miles a day, limping with a stick. Trying to wear out the hip ASAP, I don't want to do it slow in pain for 10 years, get a new one and then too old to chase wimmens. I can swat their canes away now and it's a no contest.

This is a rare no sleep night, just drove 8 hours almost straight south from the Mother in Law's, she fell last week, broke a wrist in 4 places and her pelvis. My wife won't drive at night, and puttered about until it got almost dark. Madness with a method.

Pain saps humour. Trumps smiles. And the pain killers are constipating and that effects humour also.

At least I've escaped the outhouse, as there was no way my puppy was allowed in my Mother in Law's house, so we got the shanty, a smallish log cabin, no pump, no facilities, and no power. Kerosene lantern, wood box stove, and heat beans in a can on the stove for lunch/supper/breakfast. Double bunk beds, traps on the walls, 4 axes, 3 machetes, and a bear gun. No cell phone coverage, no phone line. 3 big 8 foot tall brush piles in a triangle with malatov cocktails ready for emergencies. At 30,000 feet the 3 fires have to be seen as such, stuff you used to learn up north. Can't text the ambulance if you fall and bust a leg.

I'll figure out how to post the google plus photos so you can laugh at me, it's a good time I hear.

Time for one more white pills and listen to jazz divas from Amazon, (good bargain) and try to sleep.

Or some dude reads me Uncle Tom's Cabin in dulcet tones on my Samsung Galaxy phone I got to replace the one I lost for a week until I unpacked the new one and found the old one where I put it but couldn't find it. I'm getting it done up for the wife so we can share photos of our puppy and discuss her bathroom habits with strangers see. Or you don't. I don't a night. Age related.

My buddy to me, "hey, she's a pretty little thing, can't be much over 50".

Me, "Yeah but somewhere is a guy looking and saying to himself, self, why am I putting up with her..)&()&."

Innit the s'trauth eh?

My dentist tells me that the only cure for my tooth problems is implants, one at a time. About 10,000 bucks a tooth. They don't make 1/2 teeth, so I can afford one on the top at first, and one the next year. At that rate I'll look like a hillbilly in just 8 years or so. Mom's Maybally or some such thing, the mouth harp might be my next instrument.

Those daily flights from here to Cuba are starting to look better and better. We leave money there and they let us sit on their sand and drink rough rum. At least it's not -20C.

Thanks for thinking of me.

As for Matt's thing on gamma, I'd hate to see the figures, but was told I had the maximum exposure to the gamma, and I was a test. The glow in the dark thing is fading slowly, but I still have a card says I got this radiation in me and the homeland security alert system at the border can quit flashing while guys with m16's scurry about wondering who called the drill. It happened, I had to test that card. They were so relieved they even let in my baloney sandwich, that normally gets thrown in the Port Huron landfill because if I ate it someone over the border would get mad cow disease from eating American baloney, shipped to Canada, and infected here while inside the package...

It's an interesting world, and small, but I wouldn't want to paint it. Leave that to Waltz Dizzyknee.

John Conley
Musica est vita