I AM SO VAIN

How vain am I?

Oh, good grief, I am too old to pull this crap.

The renewal notice for the driver's license came. My sweet Thomas asked me when I was going to go get it. I said when I get my new glasses. Why am I vain? Well, I didn't want a picture of me to last another four years in old frames, since I was getting new ones.

That reminds me of a wonderful lady named Sara. She had really short hair when she had her picture taken. Her hair grew. She wanted a different picture on her license. She went to the the examiner's station and presented a story about how she had misplaced her license. They said to wait and she was preening to stand in front of the blue cloth. ALAS! They printed the old one with short hair for her!!!

So I shined up my new, anti reflected, diamond ground glasses this morning and even combed my hair. I figured if I was there by 8A, there would only be a dozen in front of me.

And I waited the 13th in line. Ahead of me was a motorcycle guy with the most beautiful hair I have ever seen on a man. In front of him was a jolly fellow with a rotund shape. Behind me was a lady who had an hour to drive to get to work by 9A and it was already 8:10. Behind her was a lady with a cane. Sitting in a chair waiting was a army guy decked out in fatigues. What was he waiting for, I wondered.

Before I was next in line, a young girl with long straight hair and triple eye liner came in. She was with someone with a ND tag on her shirt. Tag shirt and young girl came in to the building together. Tag was carrying a clip board. The girl looked scared. Girl sat down by Army guy and Tag talked to him. A sense of relief cloaked Army and girl. She had passed her test!!! They hugged. Did you get a hug when you passed your test? Did you look scared?

The gent that helped me was most efficient. We talked about license going on line but he said it would never happen because of all the data. He filled out paper work, including eye exam, of which my left eye, even with new glasses is not sharp. I will talk with Tom about that.

Somehow the lady with the job an hour a way got to the photo cloth first, followed by jolly/rotund. Jolly did not like his picture. Lady with cane didn't care what it looked like. Me? First picture I had closed my eyes.

Vain? Oh yes. I said I would do it when I got my new glasses. BUT EVERYONE, whether you wear glasses or not take OFF their glasses to have the photo taken. Even IF you have anti reflective coating.

And that, is why I am vain.

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BUT ITS BLURRY

I have a pet peeve.

When I got my first camera in 1952, I was told to hold the camera still, take a breath and hold it while I pushed the plunger. The camera was a $2.98 Baby Brownie. Then, right after I snapped the picture, I was to advance the film. There were 8 pictures on a roll.

Later, I would receive a 620 with a flash. That camera was held next to your body and you looked into the lens. Again, breathe, hold, shoot.

All of that and one still had a good chance of having something blurred.

With the advancement in camera speed, even with the film cameras, less pictures where bad enough to dispose.

Digital came in and we had an opportunity to have clear crisp finished pictures because we could see them before we printed.

Today? Those dang camera phones, we are back to blur. Today I saw a photo of a middle aged couple They would have looked much younger with out the blur factor. Another lady took a picture of herself after she had her hair colored dark. People who know her said she looked great. She had a jaundice color to her skin, most likely a cast from the beauty salon lights, which made me think she had her hair dyed for death.

I know an SLR is heavy but if you don't want to carry it around, then at least use a point and shoot. Or, if the subject of the picture is not recognizable, don't post it for others to wonder what the image is, unless, of course, it is your family is playing some sort of a guessing game.

Life is like a roll of film, let's hope your images are clear as well as your pictures.

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MAIL ORDER, WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT WAS

Odd, isn't it, how we take things for granted. Imagine, if you will, that first Montgomery Wards catalog, wasn't it like, one page long? How that has expanded with the Internet. If you are in need to know or price something, it is at your finger tips.

The post office is going up two cents in 2011. More and more people are paying bills on line and not using stamps. They have a paper trail, it just isn't a check. Medical places have been filing electronically for 20 years.

Ever order anything on line? We always look for postage paid. But someone has to pay the post man.

Imagine too, waiting 4-6 weeks for the item to arrive. Amazing, isn't it? We can thank the operators of the business for getting it out AND the post office for delivery.

I wonder just when the post office realized it was going to be in trouble with all the Internet buying, postage paid and people doing business, as in bill paying on line.

What will happen to our canary legged postal worker? Will he work less and make less? Is the two cents for his benefit?

Imagine parents and grand parents having no worry about if it came in 4 weeks or six.

We are in a hurry and that is my two cents worth for today.

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THE BIGGEST FIREWORKS DISPLAY

Old Trunks always wonders if the 100 mph straight wind we had at the lake on July 4 of 1999 will happen again. It was brutal, tearing up trees, damaging boats, many of which came completely out of the water, and destroying trailers. A picnic table was in a tree.

Granted, it isn't as destructive as a tornado but if you and cuddled up with your husband in the bathroom of a trailer listening to the refrigerator move and see the pieces of leaves plastering themselves against the front windows, you would wish you would be somewhere else.

Why were we there? Because it came up without warning. The sky was blue and the next thing you know, it was blowing. Five minutes later, it had cut its path through the resort. No one was hurt, not even Mary and her dog who where trapped inside when a tree fell on it.

Three new boats in slips were damaged. Nothing sank. Although they has cosmetic damage, all three would fish the season and be repaired in the fall.

Now that is fireworks.

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TOMATO TIME!

One of the many pleasures of living in Kansas was the tomatoes and the roasting ears were ready by Independence Day.

In a recent survey, people on the street where asked how they liked to eat tomatoes. Give it some thought, won't you, while we address the love apple.

Many talk of NOT liking tomatoes at all! Their choice would be to turn all of them into spaghetti sauce or ketchup.

Others want them cut up in a salad or served in a sandwich. The most popular sandwich being the BLT variety. When we had these, Bud ate peanut butter and bacon.

Mother served them cold with salt and pepper.

Grandma sliced them even thinner and ate hers with sugar.

It wasn't until we planted nine plants in a natural water way by the sand pile one year that I learned how good the early tomatoes where picked on a warm day, washed and eaten like an apple. As the season moved along the skins got tough and the pleasure just wasn't quite the same.

While working in activities in the nursing home, I learned about fried green tomatoes from the residents. "Dip in egg, roll in corn meal, and fry", they said. And so, at the end of the season, when families where bringing in apples and tomatoes, we had fried green tomatoes and made crock pots full of applesauce which made the entire building have that kind of aroma we can't get out of a bottle.

People in Kansas are picking their first cherry tomatoes off the vine; Debbie in Tennessee is canning her vegetables from her garden. Alas, in Fargo, we have no ripe tomatoes and the corn is knee high near this 4th of July.

Picnic anyone?

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WHAT IS THAT SOUND?

We have all been in this position when we keep saying, "What is that"?

Normally I am not the sentry. Sound is sound but in my past life, we had so many crappie cars, there was always something going wrong and I got to know the problem by what I heard.

Take U joints, for example. If you ever had a vehicle that sounded like there was a bird under it, well, that tweet is a U joint going out. I am really, really good at that one.

So good, infact, that at one time, L. was backing up out of the drive way and I said, "U JOINT". Well, L. didn't believe me until they had it on the hoist.

So good, infact, that I brought one of our junkers to the garage and he put it on the hoist and said there was, "Nothin' wrong, lady". I insisted he drive it, U JOINT!

But this was different. We had gone to dinner and ran an errand. On the way home, we heard a sound.

It did not tweet
It did not scrape
It did not slosh
It did not get louder when breaking
It did not get louder when starting from the stop sign quickly
It was not louder when we drove on bumps or turned corners

What was it? How long had it been going on? Now, I will assure you that Tom is very careful about car care and this is the first time the man with hearing like a bat had heard it.

He dropped me off at the back door and put the vehicle in the garage.

I had just gotten into the house when I heard the noise again. Okay, it wasn't in the car. Was it something I had purchased? I shook the items one by one. No.

It sounded again.

It was close to me. It was in the care and now it was in the house.

It was the cell phone warning me of low battery. Can you believe it?

What sounds make your ears perk?

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