My Life

Have you ever been in one of those situations where you saw your life pass before your eyes?  I have……several times.  

I've had this happen several times when I've been in a dangerous situation in which I felt like I was losing or lost control.  Recently, this past Labor Day on my third visit to the ER with my kidney stone drama I thought I was passing onto the Great Beyond.  I was resigned to my fate but the tears did well up in my eyes when I saw Bill standing over by the wall, helpless what to do as I was writhing in agonizing pain, praying that I would pass out of anything just to stop the pain.  It was at that moment that I thought I was really going out and I was ready but the tears were flowing down my cheeks.  However, what happened was the double dose of pain killers kicked in and I was soon in La La Land, having been given another reprieve on life.

This morning while I was plowing through my backlog of e-mails in my AOL account (who still has AOL you ask? ME!)  I came across this collage of photos that I've posted to my Retired in Delaware blog account over the years.  These pictures are only a small representation of the photos I've posted on my blog since I started it in 2006 but they do give you a fair representation of my life….literally passing before your eyes.  Not that I have had a particularly unique life (I think I have) but I think everyone has an equally diverse and interesting life.  I just happen to be one of those people who record much of my life by photographs and post them to my blog.

I hope you enjoy these photos as much as I did.  I am so glad that I can blog and share my life with all my blogger friends.  

Goodfellas

Tonight I saw the movie "Goodfellas" from my Netflix rental.  I'm probably one of the few people who hasn't seen this movie.  I certainly have heard a lot about it.

I like it.  I'm not one for violence and this movie opens up with a particularly violent scene.  Usually when one of my Netflix rentals opens up with a violent scene or an overtly graphic sexual scene I eject the DVD immediately and put it back in its Netflix envelope.  However, I made an exception for this movie and I'm glad I did.

Of course all the actors were great.  Ray Liotta (who I don't particularly like as an actor) was good; the great Joe Pesci and of course Robert Di Niro.  Lorraine Bracco as "Karen" was especially good and sexy and that's saying something coming from me, a gay man.  Samuel L. Jackson was even in it although he didn't speak a word, which is a shame because he is so good as a menacing character (I'm thinking "Pulp Fiction").

Yes folks, on this rainy night in southern Delaware, (thank goodness we're missing the snow storm that is going up the East Coast), this was the perfect movie to settle down in my cozy, comfortable bedroom, in front of my 60 inch Samsung flat screen TV with surround sound (great 70's soundtrack by the way on this film) and watch a GOOD MOVIE.  Oh how I like to watch a good movie in the comfort of my home on a Saturday night.  When I had to take a bathroom break I could put the movie on hold.  Can't do that in any of these multiplex theaters.

I needed something to come out of my funk of the past few days from being let down by a couple of folks who disappointed me.  I can't dwell on them and how they hurt me.  Have to move on folks.

Why I am a F.A.G. Volunteer

Some people run a 5k races for self satisfaction while others twist their bodies pretzel like in yoga poses for body flexibility and spiritual enlightenment.  

Me, I've always marched to a different drummer.  I'm a F.A.G. volunteer. 

Me at a family cemetery in the North Carolina mountains 2013

Granted, you're unlikely to see a photo of me in too short shorts in the Cape Gazette running one of the many charity 5k runs. Nor will you see me in some 105 degree yoga studio, sweating my balls off with a bunch of fellow, sweaty women yoga practitioners, seeing if I can hold my pose without peeing myself or passing out.  Nope, yours truly, when I am in the self enlightenment mood will be at either your local cemetery or in some old, forgotten family cemetery in the mountains of western North Carolina.  For you see Virginia I am a Find a Grave volunteer.

What is a Find a Grave volunteer you ask?  We F.A.G. volunteers take photos of headstones in cemeteries and post it to the website called Findagrave.com.  Find a Grave.com was founded coincidently by a distant cousin of mine, Jim Tipton, to record the final resting places of celebrities.  However, in a very short time it became a very popular website for recording graves of everyone, whether they were celebrities or not.  I've been a member for over five years.  I've recorded over 4,500 memorials (graves) and over 9,600 photos.  

For years I've always liked to roam graveyards.  Perhaps that's sounds weird to some but hey, I think running your ass off in a 5k race or nearly passing out and peeing yourself doing "hot" yoga is weird too.  I guess one's weirdness all depends on one's perspective.  But I gain the same satisfaction out of my volunteer work for Find a Grave as do the participants in the previously mentioned activities.  One thing is for sure, you'll never hear an S.O.S. going out for me because I got lost climbing a mountain or collapsed running a 5k race.  Oh sure, maybe I'll faint in a graveyard…..not likely. What's more likely I would fall into one of those collapsed graves (had some near misses on that).

One of my very favorite activities is fulfilling photo request for Find a Grave.  The way this works is someone, whether it be a relative of non-relative, requests a photo of a grave or memorial as we call it; that request is posted to the Find a Grave.com website and those F.A.G. volunteers in the area can claim those requests.  That's what I did this morning when I claimed seven photo requests for the Union Cemetery in Georgetown, Delaware this morning.  

Yep, that was me on this cold and overcast morning, down at the Union Cemetery in Georgetown, Delaware. Nope, I wasn't greeted by hearing crowds nor were there any photographers from the local newspaper to record this event for posterity, fame and glory.  Nope, just me and Bill roaming the cemetery looking for "Ira Short Jan 24, 1894 - Apr 24, 1956".  

Ira Short headstone, Union Cemetery, Georgetown, DE

We found him and the other six requested photos of gravestones of those dear, long ago departed citizens of this southern most Delaware County of Sussex who are buried at the Union Cemetery in Georgetown, Delaware, the county seat of Sussex County. Yes folks, we did our volunteerism without the Roar of the Crowd.

As I mentioned earlier in this posting, I'm not totally selfless in my volunteerism for F.A.G.  I do get a sense of self-satisfaction and that I am helping people by recording the final resting place of relatives and loved ones who are not in the geographical area.  To me all Find a Grave.com is the Digital Age extension of the old fashion cemetery.  With the Internet and computers and the thousands of F.A.G. volunteers taking photos and recording the final resting places or the previous inhabitants of this planet, we are literally making a virtual cemetery.  

Of course with an endeavor that I am in I endure some negative feedback.  There are trolls and negative nabobs wherever one goes these days who will be quick to criticize and says things like "Why would you want to do something like that?" Not so coincidentally those negative comments almost always come from the same folks who criticize everything else I do or others do and yet they DON'T do.  Go figure.  In the Find a Grave.com community we call those people "Find a Grave Drama".  I've had them attack me as have had other Find a Grave volunteers.  But you know what folks?  People like that are everywhere, I ignore them.  

But last week I received an e-mail that made all the hard work of looking for the cemetery (some of these small family cemeteries aren't easy to find), in all kinds of weather (it was COLD this morning) worth it.  This lady posted this comment on my Find a Grave.com account:

Now this made me feel good.  Here I found the grave of the sister of this woman's grandmother's sister who died as an infant (got that)?  She never thought she would find the grave let alone a copy of her great aunt's death certificate.  I also posted the copy of the death certificate because I am also a member of Ancestry.com and have access to death certificate of some of the decedents.  Where I find them, I post them.

Now here is a lady who took the time to thank me for the photo I took of her great aunt's grave in the remote mountains of North Carolina at a small family cemetery that I did have some trouble locating. I remember well this expedition last year, it was raining the whole day I was traipsing around those mountains and I ruined my sneakers. I was soaked by the time the day drew to a close.

I was in this area because it was where my father was born and grew up until he was ten years old at which time the family (he and his eight brothers) were moved to southeastern Pennsylvania in the late 20's.  Each year I've been visiting this area to take photos of the local family cemeteries, looking for Tiptons but also recording the graves of other folks in that area, many of them related to my family (not a small amount of inbreeding in those mountains folks but I won't go into that at this time).  

This is also the same area where I was going to introduce my cousin Bob Tipton and his wife to our cousin, our grandfather was her grandmother's brother (got that)?  As I said I WAS going to introduce the cousins until the son of the cousin asked me the night before, when I had called on the phone to confirm the meeting, "There is a rumor going about you Ron.  I have a question to ask you Ron.  Do you practice the gay lifestyle?"  After closing my mouth, which was agape, I said "If you're asking me if I'm gay…yes I am." There was a pause then he said "Now listen to me and listen good, if you ever step foot on my parent's property (his mother is my cousin - our grandparents were brother and sister), you'll have ME to deal with.  You got THAT bud?"  Well folks, this is North Carolina after all, land of the most voter repression law in the United States and non-marriage equality.  Hillbilly country where you won't see ONE minority in those hills be they black, Italian or Romanian. One of the last outposts of homophobia.  Where gays like me area called "QUARRS" (as the husband of my cousin called our President during our last visit). Oh yes folks, this is the U.S.A.  So I probably won't be going back anytime soon to Deliverance Country.  

Me in the North Carolina mountains - 2013

I probably will never go back again after last springs Welcome Wagon reception from the son of my cousin (he's my cousin too whether he realizes it or not.  Just imagine, he has a "quarr" for a cousin.)  But I am glad that I received this thanks from this lady last week for my small act of volunteerism.  Sort of gives me hope that not all people are hateful and perhaps some are even appreciative of what this one, insignificant, non-celebrity volunteer does, expending time and money and sometimes, at personal physical risk, to do something good.  

My cousin's husband during a visit in 2012 before he knew I was "quarr" - I was allowed in his house then.  Now that my "lifestyle" has been identified I am no longer welcome

This past week hasn't been good one for me folks. First one of my sister-in-laws gets offended (too easily in my opinion) because of a photo I posted on Facebook of my Mother getting her hair combed by my niece (said sister-in-law's daughter).  Some folks noted the dress my niece was wearing (floor length with a ruffled apron) and teased my niece about her choice of clothing.  My sister-in-law promptly sends me an e-mail saying that I attacked her and then mentions something about my "lifestyle."  A remark that was frankly beneath her and hurtful.  I didn't know know THAT was simmering beneath the surface of our relationship.  

The offending photograph - my niece combing my Mother's hair Christmas 1979

Then on the same day I was having a casual conversation with my longtime friend Bill B. on the phone and same sex marriage came up.  I forget what brought it up, maybe the fact that I sent him a Christmas card that shows me and my husband on the front of the card during our marriage ceremony.  My "friend" said "What's next?  Marrying your pet?"  There you go folks.  You never know what just beneath the surface of people you know.  People who are self-proclaimed "Good Christians".  You know the kind, judgmental.  Well, as I wrote about it before both occurrences left me feeling sick in the stomach.  Little did I know that these two folks, who I thought liked and respected me really considered me "less than."  

Me with my friend who asked me if I'm going to marry my pet next - I never cease to be surprised by the latent homophobia of some of those I have known all my life who I considered my friends 

I tried to have a reasonable discussion with my friend, telling him that he had just insulted me and didn't understand what he was talking about but you know folks, there is just no reasoning with people like this.  They have their horse blinders on, blinded by their so called "faith".  They will never change their minds.  In their mind I am "less than" and always will be.  So I am letting them go folks.  I am tired.

This morning, in the cemetery, looking for those graves to fulfill the Find a Grave photo requests I felt a sense of peace and tranquility that I didn't feel with my relative and friend this past week.  

Me at my great-grandfather Hiram Tipton's grave in Limestone, Tennessee

When I received that thank you from that lady for taking a photo and posting her great-aunt's memorial, I felt like I was appreciated.  For all I know she may be just as homophobic and prejudicial towards gay people as my relative and friend but at least she said "thank you".  And that means a lot.  

Me with my pet Sparky, who I never intended to marry

Nurse reveals the top 5 regrets people make on their deathbed

Folks, this blog post of mine is from another person's blog.  Her name is Bronnie Ware.  You can click on the link to her blog below under her name.  

I'm posting her blog to my blog to share my feelings with my followers.  Some years ago I made the decision to live my life as I saw fit and not how others wanted me to live my life because they had determined that they knew better than I how to live my life.  

Of course this decision has caused not some small consternation with those of my friends and relative and even co-workers who, either through their own misguided interpretation of their religious beliefs that they felt a self-righteous need to lay on me because of my easy going persona or just because of their own arrogance that they "know better" (and you know who you are FORMER friends).  

A friend, a good friend sent me this link.  This friend is one who accepts me as I am.  No, he's not gay but he is a good friend who lives his life according to the way he has determined that is best for him.  He, like me, causes no harm to anyone other than their perceived loss of privacy (which really isn't), by living his life on his own terms.  

One thing in life that constantly amazes me is how some people feel it is their life's mission to change and control others lives.  What is it with these people?  Power? Arrogance?  Lack of self-esteem so they have to compensate by controlling others?  

That's one thing I will never understand to my dying day, some people's need to control others and define them.  As for me, I'm living my life the way I want to, harming no one, in spite of the lame arguments from those who want to control my life say I am.  And you know what folks?  I am supremely happy.  Much happier than they are.  

Here is this lady's blog posting.  She is right on. 

Bronnie Ware says; for many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality.

I learnt never to underestimate someone’s capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

It is very important to try and honor at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realize, until they no longer have it.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
Often they would not truly realize the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again. When you are on your deathbed, what  others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.

Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.

Source: This article originated from blog of author Bronnie Ware.

Based on this article, Bronnie has released a full-length book. It is a memoir of her own life and how it was transformed based on the regrets of the dying people she cared for. The book is available from her website, and major online bookstores and is called ‘The Top Five Regrets of the Dying – A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing’.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

My latest batch of chocolate chip cookies (all gone now) 

I love chocolate chip cookies.

Who doesn't love chocolate chip cookies?

I don't eat chocolate chip cookies but once a year.

Christmas season is the only time I eat chocolate chip cookies…….and then I go overboard.

I have went overboard in eating chocolate chip cookies.

I will make more chocolate chip cookies this weekend.

The first time a chocolate chip cookie went down my pie hole was sometime back in the early Fifties.  My Mother was making homemade cookies in our second floor, two bedroom apartment on Washington Avenue in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.  

My beautiful Mom back in the Fifties

My memory is still fresh of standing around the kitchen table while she beat the two sticks of butter in with 3/4 cup each of white sugar and brown sugar.  Then one teaspoon of vanilla.  Then two large eggs.  

Set to the side was a mixture of 2 1/4 cups of all purpose flour (the kind without the bugs in it), 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon baking soda (and now powder - BIG DIFFERENCE - I know, I've tried it).  

After the butter, sugar, vanilla and eggs are beaten well (preferably by hand, who uses a mixer?), then blend in the flour mixture, a cup at a time.

After all that is blended, add two cups semi-sweet Nestle's chocolate morsels (only Nestle's works here folks for the Jen-U-Wind Toll House flavor) and one cup BLACK WALNUTS.  None of those regular walnuts that are ubiquitous in the stores during the holiday season.  Oh sure, black walnuts are hard to find and more expensive (even more expensive that regular walnuts? You bet!)  Black walnuts lend a smoky, woodsy flavor that brings back so many fond memories of those days in the early Fifties when I, as a ten year old boy, would stand by my Mother in the kitchen and watch her perform this miracle of making chocolate chip cookies.  

Mom in the kitchen - 1979

We loved to eat (and by "we" I mean me and my two voracious younger brothers John and Isaac) those still warm cookies, with the chocolate chips almost melted, right out of the oven.  Oh God were they ever good.  Those cookies that our Mother made rarely lasted more than two days in the Tipton household on Washington Avenue.  

Some years later, when I was in the Army my Mother used to make those same cookies and send them to me when I was stationed at Ft. Devens, Massachusetts.  They weren't fresh out of the oven but when I opened up that round tin of my Mom's baked chocolate chip cookies I was taken right back home with all that love and warmth and acceptance.  

Mom during her days working at Pepperridge Farms - not cookie division but frozen layer cake- 1960

These days when I make chocolate chip cookies I am again taken back to my Mom's kitchen on the second floor of that apartment building on Washington Avenue.  Another time, another place but the same love.  

Me and my Mom at Wegman's 2009 - long after her cookie making days were over - she died the next year

I am so fortunate that I can recreate these wonderful times in my past by an act as simple and uncomplicated as baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies.  I feel sorry for those folks who turn to drugs or other means for an artificial "high." Sometimes I just stop and think how lucky I am to have the life I have.  

You make your own way in this life folks.  I've made mine and I love it!

Have a great day!

"Ain't You Tired Miss Hilly?"

My friend Bill B. when it comes to marriage equality - "What's to prevent you from marrying your pet?"

Yesterday, while having a casual conversation on the phone with my longtime (since grade school) conservative (almost all of my good friends are of the conservative ilk) friend I was again reminded of the Brick Wall of Ignorance that will always be there between us.

Generally we stay away from politics (as I mentioned before, he is of the ditto-head, brainwashed Faux News ilk) and religion (yes, he is of the "I'll pray for you" ilk - "unless you accept Jesus Christ as your savior you're GOING TO HELL" ilk) and just discuss our every growing medical maladies (he also had a stent inserted into his penis a few months ago).  However, yesterday the conservation veered towards marriage equality or as he prefers to call it SAME SEX MARRIAGE.  While he has known Bill and I for years and likes us as we like him, he doesn't APPROVE (like who asked him?) of that word MARRIAGE applied to our union.  Here is his argument (are you sitting down?  This is hard to believe from an otherwise reasonably intelligent and rational person)  He says:  "Well Ron, once you have people of the same sex marrying what's to prevent them from marrying their pet?" 

Oh here we go folks, the old Slippery Slope Argument.  My first reaction was "Bill (that's his name) do you realize you just insulted me?  Do you realize just how ridiculous your argument is?  Do you realize that you're trivializing my union with (my) Bill?"  

He doesn't answer my questions directly but responds with "Ron, there are people who believe this!"  WHAT?  Of course there are people who believe that once people of the same sex marry then they will want to marry their pets, cars, and bookends.  I asked him "Don't you remember what happened to your former Senator Rick "Man on beast" Santorum when he made the same slippery slope argument?  Again, he ignored my direct question and continued to make the lame assed argument "Ron, there ARE people who believe this!" 

Honest to God folks, I felt like throwing up.  I wanted to hang up the phone.  My friend, my longtime friend who I've shared many a good time with was espousing this Faux News/Right Wing NutRepublican/Fundamentalist religion……crap.

Here I'm having this ridiculous and insulting "conversation" with my longtime friend, on the same day that my beloved sister-in-law got in a snit because I posted a picture on my Facebook account (that was taken in 1979) of my Mother getting her hair combed by my niece (er daughter) that showed her daughter in a long, frilly conservative (yes, my sister-in-law is also of the same conservative, religious ilk) dress.  I gently poked fun at my niece and said "What is that you're wearing?"  Well folks, that set off a firestorm that resulted in me receiving a letter from my sister-in-law informing me that I had "hurt" her (geez, RELAX- by the way I did send her an e-mail apologizing for the unintended hurt and I removed the offending Facebook posting) and then she gave me a dig about my "lifestyle."  Well, well. Here we go again.  Two people I love and respect coming out in the same day showing their true colors, that they view me as "less than."  

I'll be honest with you folks, I was actually sick to my stomach yesterday.  I didn't get to sleep until 3 am this morning.  I know I shouldn't let things like this bother me but they do.  Another thing that bothers me is the knowledge that all my Facebook postings and this blog is being monitored by those who are looking for the least little thing for which to beat me over the head with their sanctimonious  cudgel.  RELAX FOLKS!  If you don't like what I'm saying, DON'T READ MY BLOG.  DON'T READ MY FACEBOOK ACCOUNT.

As regular readers of this blog know, there are couple FORMER friends (they discontinued the friendship, if there ever was one) when they read something in my blog (I'm such a terrible person don't you know?) they THEY didn't approve of.  One of my blogger friends left a comment on my blog yesterday to the effect that these people who are so quick to criticize and complain never write anything on their Facebook account or blog but they're out there trolling the blogs and Facebook accounts just looking for something to be offended about. Get a life.

I don't know what upset me the most yesterday.  Inadvertently upsetting my beloved sister-in-law (who has done a lot for our family and who I much respect) or my horse blinders, head-in-the-sand friend.  I think perhaps it is my friend with the horse blinders.  I think my sister-in-law knows that I wouldn't intentionally hurt her but she knows me well enough to know that I sometimes go overboard with the kidding without fully considering the repercussions. Even though I thought her complaint was petty and her cheap shot at my "lifestyle" was beneath her, I can understand her situation.  She prefers to remain private and here I just shoved her privacy out in the open with my Facebook account posting (which was really about my Mother, not her but I guess in future postings I'll have to blot out her face as I do my two former friends who big girl panties get in a twist whenever they see their mugs posted on my blog - group shots fellas, group shots)!  

Me with former friends (I'm a terrible person) who wish to remain anonymous - old gay guys still in the closet except for the only one with balls (me) who isn't afraid of being publicly identified as a gay man - I'm not ashamed of being gay and don't feel the need to hide my sexual identity lest I offend someone

Perhaps what dismays and saddens me the most and saddens me is my longtime friend.  The knowledge that he truly believes that because Bill and I got married and now have the respect and legal protections that he and his straight ilk take for granted, that he considers in his heart considers me and Bill "less than."  That once the flood gates are open then "what's to prevent people from marrying their pets?"  It truly saddens me that otherwise reasonable, intelligent adults, and especially friends of mine who have known me most of my life, still consider me "less than."  They still consider me as damaged goods, some THING to be tolerated.  

At times like this I remember the line from "The Help."  Aibileen Clark (he black maid and character Viola Davis played) says to Miss Hilly (the consistently racist Southern white woman she works for).  Aibileen, exhausted and tired from living with the racism, finally confronts her racist employer, Miss Hilly and says "Ain't you tired, Miss Hilly?"

And that's my question to all my so called friends and relatives who believe in their heart that I am "less than" they are.  "Ain't you tired Miss Hilly, ain't you tired?"

I know one thing, I'm tired of it.

The Good, Bad and Ugly

The snow was swirling around outside just a few minutes ago.  Earlier, when I went out to the mail box to leave a Christmas card that didn't make my mass mailing yesterday, sleet and rain was falling around my ears.  Not a nice day!  

I'm sitting at my computer desk now, trying to catch up on my backlog of 600 or so e-mails in my AOL account.  I can never seem to stay caught up on that AOL account.  I've had it since the beginning of time I got my first computer. I probably should dump it but I'm a creature of habit.  Just this morning I was looking at my almost $200 monthly Verizon bill and doing my Wylie Coyote eye popping maneuver looking at my $59.99 a month for my land line.  I still haven't bitten the bullet on canceling that phone that I obviously don't need.  It's of more use to the multiple charities and tele marketers who use it way more than I ever will use it.  But, as I said earlier I am a creature of habit.  But……$59.99 a month for what?  Maybe this year is the year I take the BIG STEP.

Not a good morning folks.  I just received an e-mail from my sister-in-law informing me that I had hurt her feelings with an old photo that I posted on FB.  It wasn't my intention to hurt her feelings but I did by inadvertently mocking the way she dressed her daughters back then.  That was her business and I had no business making light of the way she dressed them, however unintentional.  I love and respect my sister-in-law a great deal and she has done a lot for our family and I really stepped in it this morning.  I feel awful.  I did apologize but as they say "The damage is done."  

Sometimes I just can't avoid those "damage is done" moments.  That's like the time a few years ago I made a judgement why the male masseur at the hotel didn't want to give me a massage.  I was properly berated by hotel management for posting my judgement on my blog.  Again, even after I apologized I got the "well, the damage was done."  Sorry folks!  Just living here.

You know, you go through life trying to avoid stepping on toes and getting people out of whack but sometimes it seems if you just get out of bed in the morning you're going to offend somebody.  

My morning started off with reading a blog stating that I was a gossip.  GUILTY!  Yes, I am and I do UNDERSTAND gossip.  It's called information.  Now if one wants to make a distinction between malicious gossip (untruthful or hurtful) and just general information - that's called living folks.  No apologies necessary.  I don't live my life in a cave. If you do, that's fine with yourself but don't put that on me.  I'm a different animal.  

So there I have my morning folks.  I'm a gossip who also posts hurtful pictures on Facebook.  There is one FORMER friend who reads this blog regularly (or so I hear but I believe it) who has gotten his big girl panties in a twist because of certain information and photos that I've posted on MY BLOG.  I have no doubt he's smugly nodding his head now and thinking "Uh huh, uh huh."  

And that folks is the way it goes this morning.  Bad Boy Ron misbehaving again.  I'll be back tomorrow, and no doubt offend someone else again by being myself and posting about my life.  You know what folks?  That's me.  The Good, Bad and Ugly.