It's Summertime and the Livin' is Easy

There are several things that make summertime my favorite season.  I think it starts with water melon and moves to being outside on great mornings.  Yes Grasshopper, it is damned hot in the Heartland in the afternoon and that's a good time to be inside reading a book.  I live in the basement with a good fan in the afternoon.  Kind of like the winter in reverse.  If you have things to do, start early and end by lunch or shortly thereafter.   


One big change in my life is when I was younger I loved fireworks and probably spent more disposable income on them than I did on beer.  Just so you will know that I often say that I should have bought Budweiser stock rather than their beer.  I wonder if Cutty Sark is made by a company traded on the Stock exchange.  I now consume neither product and my life really hasn't changed much except that I can hear the same and I know that when I wake up in the morning that's the best I will feel all day.  I really can't say that I miss the big fireworks displays.  

I got a letter from the VA and they have awarded me a 10% disability for the ringing in my ears.  The underlying damage to my high frequency hearing is just not bad enough to rate an additional 10%.    They tell me that I will soon receive paperwork that will change the retirement compensation I am getting and make all of  $127 a month non taxable.  The only real thing I would like to have is one of these days when they work out the medicine that stops the ringing.   Most of the time I can live with it but it seems to be worse at times and it is kind of like a warning bell when I get really dehydrated.  Kind of like the Bladder warning light that goes, "Pee! Pee! Pee!"  


The Corvette National Club is in town this week and I am seeing a lot of pretty cars around.  I have never owned a Corvette and somewhere in the back of my mind is the desire to strap one on and take a trip.  I know they aren't practical but who loves everything practical?  Kind of like one of my favorite cars as a kid was a Morris 850 or what was then known as a Mini Minor.  Didn't go straight real fast but went around corners like a go cart.  Even then I was not a small guy but I didn't take really long trips like I am prone to do now.   I am not like an over the road truck driver but I think a trip of about 1000 or 1200 miles a thing I can do in the Crown Vic.  I would probably have to rig some kind of a lifting device to help me get out of a Corvette after a long day of driving.

My advice for today is to Smile and make everyone wonder what you are up to.  


MUD