Klowns in my Koffee

Daily Kup (My Life in the Real World)
Mr. T and Attila the Son went to Boy Scout Camp and got a ringside seat near the path of a tornado.  They ran through a hailstorm to a shelter and then headed for home during a break in the weather.  They came back soggy, otherwise well and an evening early.  I think T was largely happy to have avoided sleeping in the tent, a possibility that he'd been dreading since the encampment was announced.

Tornadoes don't seem quite real.  When the sirens go off and my family is in the house, I herd them and two uncooperative cats into an internal hallway in the basement.  If I'm the only one home, I go outside and look around.  The landscape seems transformed with strange pinks, architectural black clouds and the oddest green cast over everything.

And It Wasn't Even On A Toyota Matrix

Is it the ultimate question?  Would you prefer to live unknowing in a sensical but false existence or learn the tragic reality?  Take the blue pill or take the red pill?

There's a possibility that reality is overrated.

The greatest truths are often really confirmations of what we already know.  The Matrix Runs On WindowsXP

Daily Kup (My Life in mid-Rapture)
Despite the predictions of Harold Camping, the Rapture did not occur at 6 PM on May 21st.  At least, no one is missing on my street.  Admittedly, there could be other reasons for that.

At that exact time, I was working at my "cash-bringing" job taking phone orders.  As the show of the hour featured a show biz personality who has used considerable initiative to develop a line of skin care products worthy of Dorian Gray, callers seemed more interested in a future of receiving shipments at 30-day intervals than declaring, "I'm going out with a bang and wearing the face I came in with."  My neighbor was mowing his lawn for at least the third time this week.  As he was doing it in the rain and with something that sounded like four jet engines while I was trying to work on the phone, I would have been OK with his sudden disappearance.  I really would have.

On the Career Front
Jobs I'm Not Looking For Anymore
Replacement for Charlie Sheen on Two and A Half Men
Replacement for Aflac Duck

New/Still Open Job Postings
Replacement for Dalai Lama
Head of International Monetary Fund (no travel required)

Spoke Too Soon?
Tornado sirens going off.
In which ring of hell do the sarcastic people go?

Daily Kup (My Life in Parking Lots)

I once had a German car but it would only play Wagner.
Amazing Plates Seen While Waiting for My Kids, My Husband or the Apocalypse


But it was on a RED car.

 

Kind of glad this van wasn't selling underwear.

  

Says it all!

 

Daily Kup (My Life as a Sip of Time)
My daughter from college made a quick trip home to celebrate Easter.  Those of traditional college age are such a bundle of contradictions.  The college won't tell you their marks and doctors won't tell you anything other than name and birth date.  (Clue to you, doc.  I'm was responsible for both of those.)  They call when the world deals them some unfairness but remain coy on more momentous developments.  They come home to look for their Easter baskets and then drive off to the rest of their busy and increasingly adult lives.

Who's New At The Zoo?
This species can be found travelling with large bags called "laundry."  The college student itself is a wide ranging species that can be found along almost any highway or byway;  the laundry is migratory, always finding its way back home.

Just when you thought it was safe to take your eyes off your Easter basket.

Daily Kup (My Life as a Dance Fan)
A longstanding family tradition is attending the annual performances of the Minnesota Chinese Dance Theater.  This group of talented local dancers has the mission of enhancing cultural understanding in Minnesota by showcasing the ethnic dance traditions of China.  The performances feature colorful and richly-detailed costumes from China and are narrated in both English and Mandarin.

A Tradition Tibetan Dance



Young Dancers Capture the Innocence of  Pandas at Play

  The finale is always a highlight that includes the entire large cast in a dazzling display of costumes and skillful, energetic dancing.  I regret that I had to leave before the final number in order to be at work in time.



Graceful Sleeves Evoke Rainbows

 


If you know more than half of these, that might be TOO much.

Daily Kup (My Life as Today's Top Value)
Rejoining the ranks of the marginally employed has its drawbacks.  For example, working seems to require a time commitment.  Back in the time of [Career - 1], it required an exceptional amount of time and almost a blood oath, so any improvement over that seems to be a step in the right direction.

Setting one's own hours grow on you after a while.  So much so, in fact, that I am probably ruined for ever wanting a corporate, fixed schedule job again.

So where can you find a job outside of self-employment where you set your own hours, have a minimal commute, and maybe don't have to dress up too much?  Oh, and some benefits would be nice, too.

For people who don't find magic lamps, these opportunities are rare.  Through pure dumb luck, I found one — the opportunity, not the magic lamp.  I am now an at-home phone agent for a large and well-known television and online retailer.  I sign up for whatever hours that I want to work.  I take phone calls through my little headset from people who are spending hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars and who have no idea that I am sitting in my living room.  The genie did a good job:  there is even a 401K.

Can't beat the commute.

The downside is that I feel for the customers who sound like they really shouldn't be making purchases of this size on credit.  There may be a spot for me in Dante's hell, but it's somewhere in the cooler area with the people who crinkle candy wrappers in movies and send you holidays cards showing their cats wearing antlers.

During my training, I had the chance to see Suzanne Somers while she was filming in my company's local studios.  She doesn't look quite like the forgiving pictures on her website, but she really doesn't look too bad.  Kind of like Chrissy's mom.  She's is in fantastic physical shape and has a vivacious and down-to-earth personality that positively radiates. Take that, National Enquirer.  Whatever she had done to her face, it healed.

A 401K and a brush with minor celebrity.  Doesn't get much better than that.

Cubic zirconia, anyone?  Just call when I'm working.  Which will be whenever I feel like it.

And please buy a warranty.  I get a commission.

Last Week's Brew
For a cruise down memory lane, check out this scene from the George Lucas' love song to a time of innocence and heroism when good and bad were so clearly drawn.  No, not Star Wars;  American Graffiti.

And who was that "perfect, dazzling creature" in the white T-bird?  Suzanne Somers.

Daily Kup (My Life as a Gainfully Formerly Unemployed Person)
I'm baaaaack!

Life got a little busy for a while there.  Mr. T, he of the giant heart and endless supply of bad luck, upgraded my computer and unleashed demons from the gates of hell.  Or Erie, Pennsylvania.  They both look the same to me.  If you've ever used a public restroom just off the highway in Erie, you know what I mean.

While my computer was lying on the floor, six legs in the air and coughing convulsively, there was a period of rapid change in my life from which the blogosphere has been saved a detailed description.

Once upon a time, there was a day when I was offered three jobs, one full-time and two part-time.  None of them paid well but they were all very flexible and didn't harm the ozone layer or cause wars.  Casting the dried chicken bones of fate, I accepted one part-time job and one temporary contract for another part-time position.

Both companies have reasonable social media policies that pointedly prefer their employees to avoid publishing their internal secrets.  Neither are keen about being ridiculed either.  Fortunately, I don't know any of their secrets and am unlikely to stumble across them.  Even better, neither company seems to have too much to ridicule in other than that joshing, punch-you-in-the-arm kind of way.  For one more kick at that dead horse  (Dig that double entendre!), this is in such stark contrast to Porkus that I feel that my house just fell on the witch and I've emerged in Technicolor.  Listening and training and bonuses, oh my!

What do you get when you blend technology with really shiny things and apply for 24 hours per day?  And why is Suzanne Somers so tan?  I found out on job #1.  I'll tell you about it tomorrow.

Technical Java
What was wrong with my computer for all those days?  T knows but he won't tell me.  Usually this means that he did something wrong and doesn't want that fact to resurface in five or six hundred later discussions.  Perfectly understandable.  Of course, I just assume that he did something wrong given the fact that it worked, then he touched it, and then it didn't -- causing him to spend several days engaged in data preservation and swearing.

Porkus Flashback Deep in the Heart of Taxes
Under the question "Do any of these apply to this W-2?", TurboTax has a checkbox for "I earned this income while an inmate in a penal institution."  I stared at that Porkus W-2 for a good long time ...

Daily Kup (My Life as a Gainfully Semi-employed Person)
Mr. T started upgrading my computer several days ago.  That I am unable to use it at all or to access all the backed-up photos and other work-in-process on the backup server (the server whose job it is to help me out in these situations) shall hang wafting in the wind.  Not an accusation, just an extremely sore point.

Can't wait to share latest developments.  I now have two new part-time jobs.  Yesterday, I met Suzanne Somers -- assuming that 'met' means 'stood twenty feet away from her and gawked while she was working.'

Can't wait to catch up.  As Arnold said, "I'll be baahck."

Daily Kup (My Life between Stops)
Gasoline prices hit the highest level in recent local history.  In the winking irony that is life, this means that we spent most of the day on the the road.  Our first stop was the Walker Art Center, a contemporary museum in Minneapolis that offers free admission to families on the first Saturday of each month.  From there, we zipped over to St. Paul where Kollege Kid had a lacrosse game at the University of St. Thomas.  Defeated but unbowed, we took our goalie to the Blue Door Pub for a famous Juicy Blucy and then rounded out the excursion by ending the day at the Como Zoo.

Kollege Kid went on to her active social life.  And I took a nap.

The two little ones complained that we never do anything fun.

I Know It When I See It;  Art, I Mean
For all the years that I have lived in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, I've never been in the Walker Art Center before.  We once considered having our wedding at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden which is basically the front lawn of the Walker, but had not ventured inside.  The Sculpture Garden is best known to the locals as the place with the big cherry on a spoon.  The iconic sculpture is really called Spoonbridge and Cherry and makes one feel a little more comfortable about contemporary art because you can look at it and know what it is.  And it sprays water in the summer so it's not only art but the biggest aluminum lawn sprinkler that you can imagine.


Photo courtesy of Tim Wilson

 We plunged into the sea of contemporary art.  I appreciate contemporary art in the same way that I do opera singing and yodeling — two sides of the same coin in my book — because I understand that they are hard to do;  I have to give props to something that requires effort and commitment.


Our trip to the Walker would not be complete without a photo of Attila the Son (and Flat Stanley) in front of the piece of art that he identified as his favorite of the hundreds of contemporary pieces at the Walker.


I don't have the heart to tell him it's where they keep the fire hose.

Good to the Last Drop
Every once in a while, I check my website analytics to see if people are reading and what people are reading and how they arrive at my door.  One recent visitor wandered into the site from a search engine by querying "grossly incompetent boss."  Oh, I think I remember that post.

Daily Kup (My Life on the Cub Scout Bear Trail)

With our project team assembled and positioned apart beyond arm's length to mitigate the aforementioned location-identification-through-pinching, we faced the project that we had been avoiding all week:  Completing and installing a wren house.
Mr. T and the Son had built the house at a Cub Scout meeting last weekend.  In order to get the very last achievement signed off of the 692 or so needed to complete the Bear Trail and transmute into some other kind of animal with a different colored neckerchief, we needed to get this birdhouse completed and positioned for occupancy.

If you want to build your own wren house to attract these drab but vocal little songbirds, the construction is not hard:
Step 2:  If you don't have a Cub Scout handy, you can borrow mine.  Really.  Any time you want.  If you are considering having children and are wavering, this experience will drive you clearly to one side or the other.  Trust me.
Step 3:  If you persist in your aim not to have a Cub Scout, here are free Cub Scout-less plans for cutting and assembling a wren house.

How do you know that this is a wren house and not built for another type of bird -- say, a bluebird or any of the Kardashians?  The diameter of the hole is critical.  Wrens are small and their houses feature an entrance hole 1" to 1-1/8" in diameter.  The hole on a house for the slightly larger bluebird is 1-1/4" and for one of the more surgically-altered Kardashians can be up to 4" in diameter.  The size of the entrance restricts a larger bird from entering and doing something antisocial like coming for dinner and eating the inhabitants.  I'm personally thinking of getting a smaller front door on my house for exactly this reason.  (Don't take this personally, Phil.)

The kit house as built by the little boys has the correct hole diameter but needs a few modifications to make it a perfect home for a wandering wren family.  First, wrens do not need a perch below the entrance hole.  Wrens don't use them but other birds appreciate the stability that the perches afford that permits a hungry guest to grab on while poking his head in for a baby wren snack.

"No wire hangers!"

Air in, liquid out

Martha's would have interior lighting



See the new Bear Scout. He must stand here until Fall.



One project down, three hundred to go.

For Rent

Be the first in your neighborhood to see this one room rental unit.  New construction and freshly painted.  Close to parks, schools, and bus lines.
Good ventilation.  No appliances included.  Natural heating and air conditioning.
"If you lived here, you'd be home already."

Daily Kup (My Life on Spring Break)
"Can I play a video game?"
"Are you done with your chores?"
"Almost.  Can I play a video game?"
"Please finish your chores.  Then we are going to run some errands."
"Can I play a video game instead?"
"No.  We are going to a museum."
...
...
"Do they have video games?"

Saved by the Bell (Museum)
Attila the Son went to baseball practice, something that is just like a video game but much bigger and only slightly more realistic.  On a Geeky Girls' Night Out, I loaded Princess Potatohead in the yellow bus and we struck out for the Bell Museum of Natural History located on the east bank of the Twin Cities Campus of the University of Minnesota.

I'm very fond of the U of M since I spent several years there off and on attempting to graduate, a feat that I finally achieved in my mid-thirties after having been initially enrolled in college half a lifetime before.  In short, I know my way around there except for those pesky new buildings that keep blooming from holes in the ground.

The Bell is known for dioramas featuring taxidermy.  If you are a badger and want to spend eternity with half a squirrel hanging out of your mouth, the Bell's the place.  Sooner or later, every schoolchild is the urban area is bussed to the Bell for their share of pelts and antlers that can be touched.  Here and there are live things and, when they move, it really creeps you out.

In a move away from mallards frozen forever in mid-paddle, the Bell has a current exhibit on sustainable shelter and featuring a solar house.  As a special event, they were hosting a vendor fair this evening that promised to include some interesting resources on sustainable living and general green stuff.

Speaking of green stuff, here is biodome that is consuming a small child:


Note:  No children or biodomes were harmed in the production of this blog.

She is actually climbing up on a stool and has her head through a hole in the bottom of the huge glass terrarium.

Daily Kup (My Life Limping Along)
Ever the graceful swan, I survived smacking into a few walls and landing hard on my back yesterday on roller skates only to blow out my knee skating across the carpet as I went to fetch a Slushie.  This only goes to prove the Slushies are dangerous, and not only if you don't want a blue tongue.  Ever notice that they are labeled as having actual flavors -- cherry and blue raspberry -- but they are only called "red" and "blue"?  I've grown lots of raspberries and they have all been raspberry-colored;  not a blue one in the bucket.

Tendons?  Ligaments"  I don't remember which is which but something that used to be attached to one side of my kneecap has relocated and is not happy about it.  I suppose I can cross that major league football opportunity off my career options list.  Too bad.  I'm a better photographer than Brett Favre.  (Don't be afraid to follow the link -- it's not to any portion of Brett Favre.)

With my knee brace, I have that stiff-legged, graceful gait that was so appealing on Chester on reruns of Gunsmoke.

Hold Me Closer, Tiny Dancer
The blogger's equivalent of the fuzzy kitten is a group of little girls in fancy outfits dancing for their parents.  The rojo number that Princess Potatohead is sporting was a gift from her sister's semester in Spain.


Embarrassed to Admit
When I see the Judds, I can't immediately figure out which one is the mother.

How to Keep a Giraffe From Robbing Your Convenience Store

Daily Kup (My Life Between Winter and Spring)
The two youngest, Attila the Son and Princess Potatohead, are on Spring Break.  They haven't broken me yet.

As a first birthday present for KiMK, I bought my domain.  We are now http://www.klowns-in-my-koffee.com/ without the .blogspot, though the old URL will still forward.  Forgive the analogy, but it's like being out of diapers and into Pullups.  (Is that like SSDD 'same sh!t, different day'?  Ouch; too close.)

Cheap Skating -- Literally
We went roller skating today.  The phrase is tossed off casually, as though I often grab my elbow pads and battle my sisters in the derby.  We went to the Roller Garden, a local landmark known for its huge floorspace and brontosaurus-themed decorations.

Attila the Son is a natural athlete and easily picked up the new sport while still practicing coolness times ten.  Princess Potatohead clomped around the 0.1 mile oval on her little pink skates with determination.  I held her hand whenever possible and was pulled down to hit the hard, shiny floor on several occasions.  After one particularly vicious thwack as my back hit the floor, I decided to lie there for a few minutes near the wall thinking that my best contribution to the sport of roller skating might be as an obstacle.

I had some time to look up at the lights from my vantage point of lying near a carpeted wall and trying to breath.  These global lights from a roller rink started in 1943 are exactly the same as the ones in my kitchen. Somebody needs to do some updating.

Gaining a second wind and, for once, being pleased with the ample padding with which I am endowed, I coughed up the extra three bucks to rent inline skates rather than the traditional models that I had been using.  This allowed me to gain enough confidence and speed that I hit the floor less frequently but even harder.  I recommend it.

I was finally able to remain stable enough to hold my daughter's hand on the floor without risking spinal injury.  Fully worth the $3.

We skated for three hours for $5 each and had a wonderful time.  After a couple of hours of practice, I took a victory lap at a fairly fast clip to the final song, Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" -- a bittersweet success as I realized that I was the only one skating who was older than the song.

Speaking of URL

Daily Kup (Celebrating One Year of Change)
I started a one-year experiment ... well, one year ago.  The year has gone by quickly.  My highly unenforceable non-compete contract has expired.  I honored the provisions not because I thought that they were ethically or legally valid but because I am a person of honor.

Most rankling was the clause about not revealing any information that would compromise my former employer in the marketplace.  It was stressed to me that this included any revelations about attempted falsification of test data for defense contracts or management purposefully shipping untested and/or defective hardware.  These aberrations are disgraceful in light of the many hardworking, competent and quality-conscious employees who wanted to deliver the best products to customers and were often able to do that despite an unsupportive environment.

"Don't tell secrets about processes, pricing, supplier and customer information" -- Perfectly understandable and appropriate.  "Slide over the whole thing about signing government contracts with no plan or intention for complying" -- little sticky on the whole citizenship responsibility area.  Not a problem.  I hear that "everybody does it."

Now that the mantle of the non-compete agreement has been removed, I'm not nearly as interested in ploughing this ground as I was a year ago.  What was some bitterness has ameliorated into a kind of bemusement, the same way that you shake your head and wonder why they don't euthanize a performing wild animal when you read in the newspaper that it mauled someone in the audience.

The past is now the past.  Year One was expansive and frightening and ultimately satisfying.  There seems to be no need to number my days any more to remember that I lived them. The continuum of my life as it moves forward without artificial divisions will be even better.

“Living well is the best revenge”
~George Herbert

What I Learned On My Reality Vacation


Next, To Change a Latitude ...
We all say we hate a catchy, syrupy pop song with little redeeming social value.  And we hum them when no one is around.  As balding pop rockers go, Jimmy Buffet seems to be having a lot of fun and his devoted fans are absolutely nuts.  When I found out he had a tour called "Year of Still Here," I knew it was a sign.



OK, Well, Maybe a Tiny Drop of Bitterness Left
I was researching owls with my son for a Cub Scout project.  Owls don't have teeth.  They swallow their prey whole.  They later cough up a pellet of the indigestible portions like fur, bones and teeth.  When I read this, I immediately imagined that the head of Human Resources at Porkus had a special wastebasket in her office for just this purpose.

I'm allowed one last parting shot, right?

Occasionally, this blog will describe our life-changing trip to Kazakhstan in 2005 to adopt our two youngest children. While some of our friends and family have seen a few of the pictures, we've never put it all together in an organized format. One of the reasons is that I hesitate to subject others to a 21st century version of the endless slideshow of vacation photos harking to some relative's visit and a lost evening of my childhood. Still, the story must be told before details are lost since this is my children's unique birthright. When we get to the end of the story, I'll edit the posts together into an extended and separate blog page and then have it printed by one of the blog-to-book(let) services for my kids. For people with less interest, these posts will be easy to identify and avoid.

There it was -- a little pink envelope with thirteen badges left over from fourth and fifth grade. Envelopes only 'stare at you accusingly' in really bad fiction so, if not staring, this envelope was displaying a bit of attitude.

This was just one forgotten promise shut away in a drawer, well-intended but now thoroughly irrelevant. Promises don't stay ripe forever. They have a shelf life.


I specifically did not want to be the kind of parent who teaches children that any dream is most likely a wild and baseless musing. I never promised an elaborate tree house when we didn't have any usable trees in our yard. I never got out maps and drew over highways in red marker to places that we weren't really going to go.

But there's that envelope again. It stands for favorite clothes that did not get mended and play dates that weren't arranged. Promises that went stale.

Meet the latest pop princess. I've heard she's had some "work done."
You be the judge.

Daily Kup (My Life in the Last Half-Century)
The first day of spring break came with a snowstorm, a broken serpentine belt that idled one of our vehicles, and the sad news of death of a friend.

The latter made the first two so much less meaningful.

Ron had the knack of calling at the end of the workday. If the phone rang at 5:25, it was sure to be Ron. When parts had to ship overnight and they didn't get to the carrier in time, Ron would call to take responsibility. He'd tell a long and colorful story for which I had almost no enthusiasm since it meant that I needed to let some customer know that a promised part would not arrive as planned, a communication that would also come late since the customer had likely closed for the day by the time that I was notified. He was always apologetic and yet also unfailingly upbeat, a trait that at first annoyed me.

Only later when I understood him better did I learn that he deliberately chose his embullient attitude to overcome situations that weren't going well.

To die from an heart attack at age forty is ridiculous and wasteful and simply unfathomable. It makes me angry and it makes me sad.

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.

~ Gilda Radner

For RW

Daily Kup (My Life on the Distaff Side)
I wanted to finish the birdhouse. I really did. We made a pilgrimage to the wild bird store to get the hanging hardware. Attila the Son knew what color he was going to stain the cedar exterior. We were all set. And then the house behind ours caught on fire.

"This is the kind of thing that I should tweet about, if I were a tweeting kind of person," I thought as we pressed our faces against the bedroom window and watched the firetrucks.

Smoke was billowing out of the garage. We could see that a large back window from the main house as open and smoke was pouring out of that, too. A lot of fire fighters were milling around. We took this to be a good sign since their excitement might mean that something wasn't under control.

Our soggy roof didn't seem to be at risk from flying ashes but the possibility of exploding gaslines was fresh in our minds from a recent incident in the news.

It's not gawking if you are concerned that your property is in danger. Well, it was a little like gawking if we stayed there a long time looking out the window.

But at least we didn't try to hang a birdhouse in the yard next to the firetrucks.

Blonde, James Blonde

This is a little change of pace that I stumbled across. It's being shown as a public service announcement in the United Kingdom for International Women's Day.

Daily Kup (My Life on the First Day of Spring)
In the Upper Midwest, when the calendar says that it is Spring, by golly, it's Spring because — darn it — it's gonna be!

As much as the transition to Daylight Savings Time is disruptive, the natural light later in the day leads to happy thoughts of gardens and school vacation and baseball season. I read that sentence back and realize that the sophisticated urban detachment that I had once sought in my life is as long gone as the odds of playing beach volleyball in a Pepsi commercial.

But Spring has returned on schedule. As if on queue, the icicles have leaped off the gutters and trees are gaining collars of brown-green mud. The remaining snow looks grimy and deflated as every day it sinks lower and lower. (A good place for a Charlie Sheen or Porkus analogy -- NO, No, must resist.)

Spring is a juggernaut now. Winter, you can have one or two more measly snowstorms. You can have freezing rain. You are on the ropes, dude. Spring will crush you and usher in picnics, walks on warm evenings, and the sounds of children jabbing each other with sticks in the backyard instead of weeding the garden like they are supposed to. OK, it's not that bucolic. But it's good.

'Another Sign of Spring' News Flash: Cub Scout Builds Bird House
Can a crystal radio be far behind? I don't know why that particular youth organization bothers to hand out neckerchiefs — each new member should simply be given a birdhouse kit because you know that's what's going to happen anyway.

This bird house is meant to attract wrens, those little loud brown birds who get louder when you are trying to take a nap.

Tomorrow, we'll show you how we built it, we'll trick out the basic Cub Scout model for the exclusive use of wrens, and give you the plans so that you can make one yourself. Come on, you need a birdhouse more than a nap!

The Pessimist's Ballad of Spring

Ice dams drip and gutters fail,
Icicles poised to plunge and impale.

Cats shed fur, kids shed coats,
Low-lying backyards become moats.

Puddles rise and snowbanks melt down,
Displaying lawns a crappy brown.

Snow recedes and reveals the prize --
Broken branches, every size!

Retired travelers return tanned,
Small town rivers grow bags of sand.

We survived the last, we'll make it through --
Winter cold to springtime flu!

~A. Grumpy Guss

Daily Kup (My Life in Recovery)