Skip to main content

You Pick Um

Years ago, two friends of mine, who have the kind of sense of humor and quick minds I love to hang with, pointed that the signs in Door County that advertised that U'Pick Em's were misleading in the sense that they were not a different kind of berry, but a discount for labor. They further educated me that 0%'s were neither a different model nor even a vehicle.

The Poppa is batching it a Camp Jeff this weekend. The Maria is romping in the swamps of Louisana with the Coven of the South (Linda & Meme). It was pitched to me as an opportunity to have quality time with our dog, Lucy. I don't deny the fact that Lucy is glad somebody is home, but I don't think she is sleeping any less. 

I sat with my friend Danny Chauvin and watched the Alabama / LSU game last night. We were actually in our homes, mine in Appleton, WI and he in Mandeville LA, but we IM'ed our feelings back and forth until the painful end. You can love them or hate them, but you have to admit Alabama is good.

My friend, Julie, who is writing 50 essays about her life before her fiftieth birthday, seem to hit a cord of self-realization to me about every other day. Today it was in general about, what would you do differently in your life if you could go back and change it.

Specifically, she wrote about her failed marriage. After confessing what she thought was her mistake in even getting married to her ex-husband. She followed up and remarked that if she hadn't got married, she wouldn't have her daughter. Her child then is worth the pain

I've said that about my two failed marriages. I can tell you it doesn't cut it with some of the kids. I won't go into details or point fingers. They know how they feel and that's okay. They have the right.

Maria and I have eight kids in out mashup family. We got kids we made. We've got adopted kids. We've even got one kid, who technically is not our's but she claims membership, and that's enough for me.

I love them all. They are interesting people with a myriad of talents and faults. I think, if I described each one of them to you, you would not be able to say, "He caress more about this one than the others." If you think you could, I will point out it's impossible.

Our children, all of whom ar adults now, have each in their way distinguished themselves. Some in their jobs.  Some in their Art (We have a statistically high percentage of artists in the group)  Some in their ability as parents. But all of them are good people. Most of them have gotten over the fact that they come from a broken family. I laud them for that because some of the former spouses haven't moved on very far, that's for sure

From Camp Jeff in The Fox River Valley of Wisconsin, This is Poppa Jeff saying Adios

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ring The Bell

 It appears there is a tradition in the radiology department at Ascension Hospital that patients, upon completing their course of treatment, ring a bell. ( We know not for whom this bell tolls.) Ring the Bell with My Sweetheart Jeanne. Jeanne drove me to all but two of the appointments. Pam Frautchi took me to the other two. Today, after being zapped thirty-two times, I rang the bell. This begins a roughly one-month recovery period where the effects of the radiation abate and, I'm assured, a return to normalcy occurs. In my case, I anticipate more energy and greater awareness. Books, Books, & More Books I am simultaneously celebrating the end of the third year of volunteering for the All Saints Hunger Book Sale. Next week, we will wrap up the preparation for the sale and open our doors on August 3 for the public. I ran into this humourous but quite accurate cartoon on a T-Shirt that shows most of the volunteer's sentiments at this point. If you think the printed and bound p...
One of my latest efforts. Sketch: The Lady Is Blue Gouache 9 X 12 Reporting: I enjoyed a pleasant evening with my friend Michelle Mooney. I took her out for dinner to celebrate her birthday and to thank her for the many first-rate haircuts she's given me. We were surprised at the number of people who dined alfresco in the balmy night air. Whatever we've done to please Mother Nature, she had deemed acceptable by giving us a shot of summer just when late fall weather was wrapping her fingers around our throat. If I have one complaint about the friendly confines of The County Claire, it's the noise level that makes it difficult to converse. The rumble is an acoustical problem with the customers speaking in normal conversational tones. This is without audible TV showing some game or background music selected by a dance DJ.  I know! We should have eaten outside, where the only noise is the occasional 14 bus snorting by.   Maybe It's Me Since my two soccer teams are not doing...

It's time again.

It started in 2004 when we moved to our condo off Downer in Milwaukee. Then we mover to the Westside of Milwaukee when we rented from Ken Karr, the former landlord, now a current friend on Highland and 29th St. Then we moved to Mandeville Louisiana for a little less than a year. Returning to The Fox River Valley, we rented a home in Fox Crossing, formerly The Town of Menasha. When the tree fell on the roof, and the landlord felt no urgency to fix it, we moved to W. Commercial in Appleton. Here is a shocker. Are you sitting down? We are moving. No, I don't mean off the couch and out to the patio. There are too many damn mosquitoes for that to happen. No, we are packing our stuff, or at least the stuff we unpacked from the last move and moving to a home Maria purchased on Mason and Glendale in Appleton. Let me unpack that last sentence (pun planned for). We are moving at approximately the end of September to a house. The house has been in t...