Hello on Friday

Dear Friends,
Another day went as planned in Curley World.
A visit with Dad in the nursing home after an hour at Retro Fitness is how my day began. My sister showed up shortly after I arrived at the nursing home. My sister showed dad some old family pictures which were scanned into my sister’s IPad 2. I guess I forgot the way we dressed in the 50’s during the cooler weather. Dad continues to make progress with respect to gaining his leg strength back. My sister is working on having Dad over at her house for Thanksgiving Day. I am betting that once that he has a several hour visit away from the nursing home that he won’t want to go back there. He can’t be discharged from the nursing home until several health issues are resolved. I am also guessing that some form a home health aide spending time wherever he gets discharged to might be in his future.
After the visit with my dad, and a quick visit to see Aunt Ruth on the second floor of the nursing home, I decided to start working in the garage. Working in the garage meant loading up the Subaru to the maximum, and being charged $20 for the size of the load that I had. When I make these runs to the energy producing plant, I am not allowed to tell Linda what I threw away. She did know that I threw away the 1000 light artificial tree that served its purpose for many years. The tree lasted longer than the K-Mart which we purchased it from in North Adams, Massachusetts. In the spring, I am going to attack the 35 to 40 buckets in the garage, and throw out everything that we haven’t used for a while. Linda is good a labeling buckets noting the date and contents of the buckets. When a bucket is labeled living room stuff 2005, do you think some of the items in that bucket could be thrown out? Linda doesn’t want to part with anything. She thinks that our sons still want their tee shirts from the CYC basketball days when they were in elementary school. Yeah Right!
During my trip to the resource recovery plant, I left a half eaten apple on the roof of my car. I heard some strange noise as I headed down the street, and then I remembered that it was the apple that caused the noise. I bring this to your attention because Linda says that I spend too much time in my blog picking on her, and never mention the dumb things that I do.
I was telling my UNICO brothers and sister in the kitchen the other day about me going to a Fiber Festival with my wife. They all thought they both Linda and I were having some internal plumbing problems in our digestive track. Like I always say, you have to laugh at yourself and do more laughing in life. If you don’t believe those words of wisdom, all you have to do is go with me to the nursing home each day.
Speaking of Basketball, I did read where an associate basketball coach from Syracuse University might have been sexual abusing a couple of step brothers in the 1980’s and 1990’s. What he alleged did to a couple of “Ball Boys” sounds a lot like what the assistant coach Sandusky did at Penn State. This is so similar to the abuse carried on and covered up by some of the priests in the Catholic Church.
I also read the controversy in a town called Turkey, Texas. The animal rights / PETA people want to change the name of the town to Turkeyfu, Texas. Is this another case of the minority trying shove their ideas down the throats of American who want to leave things just the way they were for generations. If you are a vegetarian, there should be enough foods at a Thanksgiving Day dinner so that you don’t have to eat any meat products. In Berkshire County, we have a vegetarian organization that organizes a Vegan Dinner at a Church Hall so that you don’t have to look at the poor turkey that I am going to consume. We are several days away from Thanksgiving, and I am salivating over the thought of that beautiful bird that gave up his life so that I can have Turkey on Thanksgiving. I am going to send all my Vegan friends prints of the Norman Rockwell painting of the father bringing the cooked turkey to the dinner table on Thanksgiving Day. Actually, Linda and I don’t have too many friends who are totally Vegan. I will respect their wishes, but this boy is having Turkey on Thanksgiving Day!
Speaking of poultry, I didn’t stay home last night. I decided to watch the Boston Bruins barley win their 7th game in a row at Patrick’s Pub with some Irish Sister City friends. It took the Boston Bruins a shoot out secure the victory, but it is still a “W” in the win column. While watching the Bruins game, and listening to an Irish Band at Patrick’s Pub, I might have had a few chicken wings. There were no Vegans at our table last evening.
Speaking of Patrick’s Pub, I arrived at 8 PM, and the place was packed. It was two to three deep at the bar. We Irish Sister City friends had to wait over 30 minutes to get a table that one of our members had reserved. If you walked in that Pub when I did, you wouldn’t be observing any downturn in the economy. It seemed like all the Occupy Wall Street people were Occupying Patrick’s Pub. Do you think those Occupy Wall Street people have made a dent in the wallets of the rich people in the country? We are still a country of the “haves, and have nots.” It has been that way since we have become a nation, and I don’t see it changing in the near future. The Occupy people should be expending their energy in the classroom or working. If it takes more than one job to survive in this day and age, then so be it. These Occupy people should do a little family history, and see how difficult it was for their ancestors when they arrived on the shores of America. My Italian and Irish ancestors occupied the factories, created their own gardens, built our schools and Churches with their bare hands. They did what they had to do to survive. They didn’t have time to Occupy any financial district because they were too exhausted at the end of the day providing for their family. I heard some female New York protester saying that she should have her rights to do this or that. She was so young that she hasn’t put any time or effort into the system (even if it is flawed), and to me she has to earn her rights before she can say anything.
While at the Pub, there was a little birthday celebration for a friend who actually turns 65 next Tuesday. Jeff W. was at a table of his Republican friends. One the guys started beating up President Obama the second that I started talking politics. I told the people at the table that I will be “Liberal Weenie” until the day I die. This label was given to me by my talk show host friend who is on the daily blog. I did point out to the group that the Republicans vying for the nomination to take a run at President Obama provide a lot of media fodder on a daily basis.
I see where the cougar like marriage between Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher is coming to an end. There are some marriages which do survive between two people when there is a great difference between the ages of the two people. I can see where Ashton might be realizing now that the aging process catches up to all of us. He was probably thinking now that maybe I shouldn’t have a married person who was old enough to be my mother. He also might have been thinking about starting a family and having his own children. How would that happen with a woman who is long past her baby making years. This is all conjecture on my part!
U.S. Postal Service – I have been reading about the financial crisis in the Postal Service. The American Public and technology has caused much of the problem. When was the last time that any of us have hand written a letter and sent it to someone? My Aunt Lil is one of the few people who still write me letters even though she is on my daily blog. Her hand writing is right out of the Palmer Method of handwriting that we both learned in a Catholic Elementary school. Even though she a few years older than me, she still hasn’t lost the touch. What do most of us do when we want to communicate? We take out some form of technology. When we pay our bills, some of us pay the electronically. Linda and a couple friends still like to spend a couple hours writing out at least half of our bills, but some people pay all of their bills on line. Every time you don’t use the postal service to communicate, pay bills, send packages, something has to give. We still are able to send mail the cheapest of any country in the world. In the United States, if the stamps go up two cents all you will hear is people complaining saying when I was growing up it only cost so and so to send a letter. Get real! Many of the Curley relatives worked for the Postal Service, and my cousin Jimmy still works their now. I would never vote against a Union Shop!
Social Calendar – Linda is starting her day with the monthly Pittsfield High School female retirees’ breakfast. I might go just to spice up their lives. A visit with dad will take place after breakfast. In the evening, Linda is going out with the girls while I attend a UNICO Softball / Baseball Hall of Awards / Dinner Meeting at 6 PM. Two of the four recipients were former students of mine from Taconic High School. A third one was a Lee High School Wildcat who graduated two years after I did. It should be a great night at the ITAM. What is nice this evening is that the meal is being catered by the ITAM Caterer, Richy Powers, instead of being prepared by my UNICO brothers and sisters. The event is open to the public at a cost of $25 per person. For us members it is part of our dues.
Have a great weekend!
Talk to you soon. The Curley Lad