Hello on Thursday

Dear Friends,

I booted up my leg first, and the computer second this morning. Day one with the boot went very well. I tried not to move around too much, but that didn't happen. I did leave the house only one time, and that was to visit Mom in the nursing home. The meeting at 2 PM was for the required quarterly family review. The update on how Mom was doing was a very positive one. Mom is not eating meals in her room anymore. She is participating in more activities, but she doesn't get involved in things like Bingo. She never was game player since she spent most of her time taking care of the family and cleaned her house sometimes twice per day. I asked the staff about her dementia, but the case worker said that she recognizes all the workers and acknowledges them.

A patient pulled a fire alarm about 15 minutes before our meeting was supposed to start, The Lenox fire trucks did show up, and reset the alarm system. For a moment, I thought that I was back in school where every once in a while some student would do the same thing. As I left teaching, the number of students who pulled fire alarms decreased because they charged the culprit(s)a little over $1000 for the misbehavior.

My father is amazing, as I saw him work the corridors and rooms of some people who he knows at the nursing home. I know where I picked up that habit of working the crowds in my life. Everyone knows and loves him in the nursing home including the nurses and house keeping staff. He can't walk down any corridor without acknowledging someone. The nursing home should hire him as "The Mister Feel Good Guy." It would probably help my dad to overcome some of his loneliness.

My Red Sox lost another game last night by a score of 2 to 1. The Red Sox bats have gone cold. I don't want to talk about the Yankees!

We received an e-mail from our Neighborhood Watch President. Someone broke into his car the other night, and also in a neighbor's car few doors from his. At the last neighborhood watch meeting, the police said that we had one of the safest neighborhoods in Pittsfield. Well, cancel that thought!
Luckily, the Curley's are now parking their cars in our garage since the deck work has been completed. Our cars have been parked in our driveway for a month and one half.

Politics -- Congress hasn't reached a budget agreement. The President wants the richest of the rich to pay some taxes, but the Republicans say no way. Why is it that the average person has to foot the bill for everything that needs to be taken care of in the United States? Most of us citizens who do pay taxes are tired of paying for able bodied people who don't want to work or who are on the public dole. As I have said in the past, some of the social programs were designed to give people a little help in a time of crisis. Living on welfare checks when you are physically able to work should not happen. Maybe it would be wise to hire more people (to lessen their workload) to check up on the freeloaders. Can we get rewarded if turn some of these freeloaders in whom we know could be out in the workforce?
Also, when Social Security was created, it wasn't supposed to be a person's retirement plan. People were supposed to save a few dollars on their own for retirement, or hopefully work for a company which offered some form of a pension plan.

Politics continued -- My radio show host friend still beats up our President and the Congress in general on his radio talk show. His latest pet peeve is that our President and his wife are taking too many trips in the guise of campaigning for the next election. Every sitting President has done this. Being the Liberal Democrat that I am, I say that it is perfectly acceptable way to spend my tax dollars. Presidents should work the global crowds. The benefits of doing so might not happen instantaneously, like we all would like it to, but the rewards will happen.
My friend should go after companies like General Electric or the Big Oil companies which paid no taxes last year. These companies claim that they were spending a lot of money for research and development, and that they deserve a tax break. Yeah Right!
I can hear my friend talking about jobs and the economy. I say stop the wars, and spend the dollars fixing roads, bridges, public parks, etc. like they did after World War II. This would get a lot of people off the unemployed roles. Building a high speed rail system across the country would get more people back to work too.

Social Calendar -- Since I an unable to play golf for a little while, I will be participating in grandchild and dog care for this whole weekend 24/7. Max and the creatures will be at our doorstep at 11 AM if all goes as planned. My son is usually the one who knocks things off the schedule. This is not a Curley trait that I passed on. I / we are known as the "Early Curley's". I did have to train Linda a little bit, but she knows how anal that I am. She still doesn't like the fact that I go to wakes 15 minutes before the viewing time. Sometimes the mourners think that I am a family member!

Linda is also hosting BONCO (total of 12 women at three different tables) this evening at 7 PM. I haven't figured out how I am going to take care of Max and the dogs. I might abandon the dogs, and take Max to a playground or go and visit the neighbors up the street until Max is ready for bed. When Max goes down for his afternoon nap, I will be taking a nap too!

As the weekend approaches, I hope that everyone has a great Fourth of July.
Get out that American Flag if you have one.
Talk to you soon. The Hobbling Curley Lad