My MOTHER is reading my JOURNAL! But it's OK, she knows me pretty well anyway. And at 80, she's seen all of the words... or heard them, anyway.

After seeing Karen off to work this morning and cleaning up some around the house, I just kinda sat around and waited for Mom to show up. And waited.... and waited... I had somehow got the idea that she would be here around noon or so, without her ever really telling me that. Well, that's what's happened before, when she came up with Margaret. I guess that I should explain Margaret. She's a lady that Mom worked with years ago, both in Topeka and in Enid. Margaret has a son who lives here in Topeka, and when she visits him, she likes to have some company, and Mom is happy to come along for the ride.

Well, they've got another old buddy who is an artist living in El Dorado, Kansas, which is right on the way up here. So they stopped off and visited with him a while, and they didn't get out of Enid until after 10:00 to start with. They usually leave at the crack of dawn. Anyhoo, they got here at a little after 16:00, about five minutes before Karen got home.

And I had been up since about 05:30, and I knew that I had to get some sleep. But that was not in the plan, not at all. Well, it was my plan, but I couldn't get to sleep. Too much coffee, and I'd really slept too many hours last night. Well, dammit, I was tired and still kinda sick to boot. So here I am, midnight on Friday night, with seven hours to go. I am definitely gonna have to find something to amuse myself this night if I'm gonna stay awake.

Friday night. Payday, and the welfare checks came today too, the last of the month. There will be some celebrating tonight, and probably some fighting and drunk driving too. So my amusement might come to me, I might not have to go looking for anything tonight.

But I've been wrong before, and I hope that I'm wrong this time.

Speaking of amusing... I kinda glanced at the want ads this morning in the paper, and there were a couple of and that caught my eye with this phrase:"Serious inquiries only!" Makes me want to call the number and laugh hysterically for a minute or two, then hang up. Can't safely do that in these days of Caller ID, though.

Mom noticed a book that I have in the bathroom, Treatise on the Gods by H. L. Mencken. She told me that brother Dan (Jon) had inherited his desk at the Baltimore Sun. I had never heard that, or didn't remember it, anyway. She also said that Dan didn't think too much of him, and we speculated on why that would be. I finally came up with the reason, maybe... and this is entirely speculation, understand... but how would he have felt if, after he won his first Pulitzer Prize, if someone would've said to him, "Well, you sure ain't no H. L. Mencken, even if you are sitting at his desk!" I would imagine that would cause some resentment. I thought that Mom was having a fit she laughed so hard... she's easily amused.

And I've trained her to laugh at my jokes, too.

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The sabres are rattlin' again... this time it will be simpler. All that we really have to bomb are the "Presidential Palaces" where the munitions dumps are, because we know where they aren't. I'm sure that they will have their human barricades in front of all of them, though... but it's really hard for a bombadierre to see their faces when he presses the release switch. That must be a lot like playing a video game up there. It would be really hard to sympathize with the victims... but that is hardly necessary, after all. It would be really hard to sympathize with the fanatics who bring their women and children to camp in front of a doomed palace even in person. I remember seeing them on CNN the last time Saddam was threatened. Sorry, folks, but the world needs fewer people like that, in my opinion. Bombs away!

A few more things for my list:

• My earliest memory was when I was 2 or 2 ^1/2 years old in Enid. There was a tornado, and my hand got caught in the screen door as I was running inside.
• I have several other memories from that period... Mom and some aunts were making birds out of little plastic strips... cousin Errol (or someone else...) sat in a red ant den... Dad was disciplining Errol (supposedly) in the garage, Errol was screaming and dad was whacking his own hand with the belt...
• I have seen six or eight tornadoes. They are really neat, as long as they aren't killing people.
• I like weather that is interesting. I don't like more than one clear, bright day in a row, I get bored.
• I can freely dislocate my shoulders and my wrists. And put them back, of course. Never had a mishap doing that.
• I've only had two dogs, and they both lived seventeen years.
• I can "pop" almost every joint in my body.
• I used to be able to whistle pretty damned good, until I split my lip in a car wreck in 1969. Now I can't.
• I'm looking forward to getting older gracefully. Or maybe clumsily. Hell, I don't care how I do it, as long as it doesn't hurt too much.
• My favorite numbers: 3, 5, 7. Not necessarily in that order.
• Favorite ice cream: mint chocolate chip, generally. Goo-Goo Cluster, but I've only had that once.
• Favorite color: blue, maybe.
• Favorite song of all time: House of the Rising Sun, by The Animals
• Favorite punctuation mark... guess.
• Favorite granddaughter... Lacee.
• Favorite pants... Levi's 501's.
• I've never knowlingly told a lie of any consequence.

That's enough for now. I'm starting to get punchy, it's about 04:00 now... three more hours. I have a bunch of portable chest x-rays to do in the Intensive Care Unit. The hospital is fuller that it's been in a few years, thusly much busier... except for third shift.

And all hell broke loose about 05:30. Well, it wasn't really that bad, but now that I'm home, I'm about ready to drop. So I'm going to do that...