Barbara passed away last night

This is Barbara, Brian and I just before he went to his senior prom in June 2000. I will be back.

Barbara has taken a turn for the worst

The hospice nurse was here earlier and says she has a day at the most. Pray for her.

DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!

I wake up this morning and see Brian come up stairs from the basement. He says, "Good morning." We hug each other like we always do when we haven't seen each other for a while.

He asks, "Have you been down in the basement lately?"

"No, why?"

"There's about 2 inches of water down there."?

I walk down the steps, look around and sure enough, angle deep water.

DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!

I called the fire department to get put on the list of people needing to be pumped out then go outside and to get the swimming pool cover pump. I start dragging the pump, hose and extension cord toward the back door. The extension cord gets tangled in a bush so I pull harder, rip a few branches out and get stung by a bee. Maybe it was a yellow jacket, but who cares, it hurts like a bitch!

DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!

I put the pump in the basement and plug it in, check that it's running and go outside to check for water coming out the hose. I wait..................wait some more......................"Uh, WTF, where's the water?"

I go back in the house and check the pump, and it's running. I know it works because 15 minutes earlier I could see it pumping water off the pool cover. I guess it can't pump the water up that far up hill, so to speak. The basement floor is about 5 feet below the yard level.

"Now WTF am I going to do?"

"I know! I'll suck the water up through the hose and if I get it started, maybe it will keep it going," I say to myself.

So outside I go, stretch the hose out, put the end in my mouth, spit out little dirt and start sucking. I suck for as long and as hard as I can, bend the hose, put my thumb over the end to keep the water from going back down and catch my breath.

Repeat...........repeat................repeat........................etc, etc, etc.

I spend about 5 minutes repeating this process and finally get a mouth full of dirty water. (Remember, the hose was pumping water off the pool cover earlier.) I toss the hose to the ground and SURPRISE, SURPRISE, I struck it rich! Water! I watch, I wait to see if it stops. No, it keeps pumping water. It looks like I'll get my basement pumped out after all.

It might take a week at the rate the pump works, but WFT am I going to do?

PS

I just came back in after talking to my neighbor. The hose is still pumping water but he has about 8 inches of water in his basement. It seems high tide is pushing water up through some cracks he has in the basement floor. Maybe I should consider myself lucky.

NO! I will still feel sorry for myself. You have no idea how much crap I have down there and how much I'm going to have to throw out.

DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!

Happy HNT!

Here are some shots of me as a little tyke. My mom always gave me a crew cut as I guess you could tell. We had no money, so she cut my hair.

Another thing, don't you just love the ears? My wife found them good for pulling me in close, if you get my drift.

Heheheh!!!!!

An Oldie But Goodie

Weird Al Yankovic - Starwars and Amish Paradise Parody

Embarassing HNT

This weeks HNT post is embarassing.

So, what do you think? Does it turn you on? Does it get you excited to my, .............well, you know........?

If you want to see the uncropped version, click on the photo.

Barbara Update

My wife Barbara's disease has progressed to the next step. About a week ago, she started coughing. They prescribed a med that dries up secretions to reduce the amount of saliva she produces to help minimize the coughing. It helps. Today the nurse told me it seems she is starting to loose control of the muscles in her throat for swallowing and coughing up flem. This is normal for someone in her condition and just one more step in the progression of the disease.

This is a picture of her in 1998. Our 33rd wedding anniversary was July 29th.