Hello on Friday

Dear Friends,

It is a balmy eight degrees below zero as I begin this blog. Once we get by today, we will have several days in a row where the temperatures will hit day time high in the 30's. I am not sure what is going to happen when melting begins to occur since we have so much snow, and none of the storm drains are visible or open. Melting snow and ice on roofs are another problem.

Linda and I made it through a long day on Thursday. Linda left for her Red Hat breakfast which took place at 9:30 AM. I was listening a the Radio Auction as she was socializing. I made no purchases while she was socializing. She arrived home in time to pick me up so that we could take a friend to her cataract surgery. This takes 2.5 hours for the whole process, but the actual insertion of a new lens in a person's eye takes only a few minutes. As we were on the way home, our friend said that her vision was the best that it was since she was 5 years old. Linda and I thought that our friend should have had this procedure done several years ago. She will need a pair of Walmart reading glasses, but at least her nose won't be touching the page of what she is reading.

We had time to go home and freshen up before heading off to the science fair judging. This was a 4 to 7 PM affair for Linda, but not for me. I completed my judging by 6 PM. Linda got into teaching mode, and I had to drag her away from the judging. Each of us was assigned three student projects to evaluate. I stopped at every student project which looked interesting. Linda treated every student project like she was grading a Biology Lab report. She was writing comments on the side of the evaluation sheet, and she actually needed more paper to do so. Each of the 50 judges received a goody bag. The best two items in the bag were a beautiful pen, and a heart shaped box of chocolates. If Linda wasn't present, she would have gotten that box of chocolates as a Valentines gift from me. Every male judge who was not with their spouse was thinking alone the same lines.

Our car was parked in front of Patrick's Pub, but we didn't have the energy to even go inside after the Science Contest. We just got into to our car, and headed straight home.

As were were driving home I got to thinking how lucky we are to be close to every store, and
Pub that we like. From our house, I can go between two to five miles, and I can reach multiple grocery stores, restaurants, Pubs, Walmart, Home Depot, downtown Pittsfield, and our schools. A few miles more, and we can be at the Berkshire Mall. We are 12 miles from the Massachusetts Turnpike, and we are pretty close to the New York State Thruway. Some of our friends don't like to be so close to their neighbors, but when our children were at home playing sports, it was so convenient to be close to everything.
I guess having several acres of land, and not being close to your neighbors has it's advantages.
The only negative is that as we get older, I would have no desire to maintain the property like I did when I was younger. Also, I like the idea that when you invite the neighbors over for a party, cookout, etc., they can walk to your house.

I was watching an article on the Today's Show about hockey rinks. This article peeked my interest because our son Kevin played youth hockey, and four years of High School hockey. The article focused on students who were getting sick at these local rinks. The Hockey Players were getting sick because of Carbon Monoxide. The Carbon Monoxide was coming from the Zamboni machine which prepares the ice for hockey, figure skating clubs, and public skating. They brought in an engineer with all these air quality testing devices. After one Zamboni cleaning of a particular rink, and the use of a gasoline powered edging device, the carbon monoxide levels were so bad that they had to clear the rink. Many of these non professional rinks throughout the nation have little or no ventilation. The long term breathing of carbon monoxide, whether you get sick or not, can have effects on your body.

Politics -- I was amazed about how wonderful people thought that President Reagan, as they celebrated what would have been his 100th birthday, was during his terms as President. He was good at making you feel good, but I wasn't fond of his "Trickle Down" economics theory. We teacher retirees in Massachusetts are still reeling from decision that collecting a State pension and social security benefits classified us as double dippers. Many of us teachers chose to work second jobs so that we could partake in social security benefits as well as our pensions. President Reagan put and end to that dream. During his last term as President, they hid the fact that President Reagan was experiencing the beginnings of Alzheimer's disease.

Linda is leaving the house first today. I had her body maintenance procedure booked in on the incorrect day. It takes place today at 10:30 AM. Linda will come home in time to accompany me to a 1:30 PM doctor's appointment. When I see a doctor, I need her with me so that I don't forget what the doctor tells me. She always likes to ask questions that I would never think of.

Well, this is the start of an unusually light weekend for the Curley's. For the rest of February, and most of March, we don't have a single weekend free. Have a great weekend!
Talk to you soon. The Curley Lad