My most difficult train shot

I WANTED THIS SHOT! (Photo by BobbaLew.)

—The April 2019 entry of MY calendar is two Norfolk Southern freights passing “Ledges.”
First of all, the train on Track Three (rightmost) is going away. The locomotives are a helper-set, and are pushing westbound up The Hill (Allegheny Mountain). The train on Track One is eastbound downhill.
“Ledges” is not extraordinary, but is my most difficult train-shooting location. It’s a rock outcropping overlooking the railroad.
It’s out in the middle of nowhere. You park yer car in woods below the railroad-grade. To get there you use a shooting-range dirt-track that tunnels under the tracks.
From parking you hike up a narrow ATV-track — my brother drove his 4-wheel-drive suburban up it. Bouncy-bouncy; parting the path-side shrubbery. The trail is strewn with rocks waiting to puncture oil-pans.
I probably could get my SUV (all-wheel-drive) up it, but I use my feet. Climbing it doesn’t take me outta breath; but I used to run, and never smoked. The biggest challenge is not falling. My balance is minimal, and loose footing is everywhere. I grab stuff beside the path.
To get to the “Ledges” overlook, one has to wiggle a tiny drainage-wash down from the ATV-track.
If it were raining or cloudy I’d pass. But the lighting was fabulous: sun out, blue sky, and not a cloud in the sky.
My aquacise instructor counseled I skip it; but I wanted this picture! Never again might I see light so perfect. “Ledges” is morning-light looking up The Hill, and it was morning.
I had to be extremely careful. I was alone without nearby help. If I fell and broke something, I had my cellphone. But help would have a hard time finding me.
I had to crawl part of that drainage-wash. By now my aquacise instructor woulda been a nattering nabob of negativism. Never again might I see light so perfect, plus I keep getting older.
I made “Ledges” without falling, and hung out there at least two hours.
Finally a “double,” one up passing one down. Not exactly what I hoped for, but close. Better woulda been an eastbound approaching downhill on One, passing a westbound climbing on Three.
Next was getting back down without falling. Again, engage extreme concentration. Again, crawl part of the drainage-wash.
Returned to my parked car below-grade, I iPhone photographed and texted that to my aquacise instructor. “Made it!” I crowed; “Toy not with the master!”
I doubt you’ll see this “Ledges” view again in my train-calendar. “Ledges” is my hardest photo location, and I ain’t young. I probably could still do it, but “Ledges” isn’t extraordinary.
“Hey Frank, some dude is up on the rocks takin’ pictures. You’ll be an Internet sensation tonight!”

• I do aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool, two hours per week — plus a third hour on my own. My “aquacise instructor” is the class leader.
• RE: “Hey Frank,” etc........ —That’s a lead helper-locomotive engineer talking via radio to the rear helpers. I heard that on my railroad-radio scanner.

Yosemite

“I been thinkin’ about Yosemite,” I said to my friend *****, at the Canandaigua YMCA swimming-pool.
***** is a lifeguard.
I count various pilgrimages throughout my life; Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Grand Tetons, the Front Range of the Rockies, Pikes Peak. But not Yosemite.
My wife died seven years ago — I no longer have her around to accompany me on such journeys. All jaunts were before she died.
Four years ago I did a railfan fall-foliage excursion — I’m a railfan. It was a year-and-a-half after my wife died, my first feeble attempt at returning to my former self.
After the train-trip, an organizer asked if I had fun.
“Well, sorta,” I said.
“What do you mean by ‘sorta’?” he asked.
“I miss my wife,” I said. “She woulda been with me, and she’s gone.”
Together we did a lot. Saluda Grade in NC, Tehachapi Loop and Cajon Pass, both in CA, Union Pacific’s Sherman Hill Crossing of the Continental Divide in WY, and of course innumerable times to Horseshoe Curve in PA.
“Vacation, eh?” a coworker asked. “Where ya goin’ this time?”
“The Mighty Curve of course,” I answered.
“I shoulda known,” he said. “What is it about that place? Yer always goin’ there.”
“Trains man,” I said; “smack in yer face. Wait 15 minutes and here comes another.”
“If my mother at age-88 can fly to Scotland,” ***** said; “you should be able to do Yosemite.”
“One problem,” I noted. “I no longer have my companion.”
“Which is why you should look into group-tours,” ***** said.
“Yeah, but I’m not a joiner, and my wife was the best companion I ever had.
You and your husband go to New Zealand, together as well you should. A group-tour is not a marriage-mate.”
Before my wife died we befriended a railfan in Altoona (PA), location of Horseshoe Curve. He did train-chases as a business for railfans like me. Trains galore up-and-down 50 miles of railroad.
He’d take along his railroad-radio scanner. Sudden bootleg turns in his aging Buick.
I scheduled another chase shortly after my wife died, and it became “The Train-Chase from Hell.” My camera died, and it started raining. I got very depressed — almost silent.
Since then, my brother started joining me on train-chases. We’d zoom up-and-down the railroad, and became much more knowledgable. It’s pleasant, probably more than my wife, who wasn’t a railfan.
But my brother isn’t my wife.
My wife’s mother made 100 in 2016 — she outlived her daughter. That trip to FL for her birthday was my first flight since my wife died. Almost four years after.
My youngest sister’s first-born, a son, got married not too long after my wife died. They wanted me to attend the wedding. That’s a flight or two-day drive to VA. I was in no condition to do it.
After my wife’s mother’s 100th birthday I tried flying to Fort Lauderdale, FL to visit a niece. That was 2017; almost five years after my wife died. I did that again last year, and will do it again, but via Amtrak this time.
Baby-steps, sorta, and Yosemite may be too late. I’d like to visit southern CA again, but would be more inclined to do so if my wife were still alive.
My wife wanted to do the AlCan Highway to Alaska, but cancer intervened.
On the other hand, I no longer am who I was while my wife was alive — better I hope.
In a few days it will be seven years. Only now do I feel like I’m returning to reality.

• I do aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool, two hours per week — plus a third hour on my own.
• “Saluda Grade” was the steepest mainline railroad-grade in the country. It’s currently dormant.
• “Tuh-HATCH-uh-pee,” and “Kuh-HONE,” (not “Cajun).

Amazing

“Had not my wife died, I wouldn’t be talking to you.”
I said that to a widow-friend in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool. She’s older than me — and her husband died 26 years ago.
“Not to keep her from being jealous,” I added; “but because she allowed me to be antisocial. She said she liked me; it seemed she did. I could therefore avoid contact with other women.
Combine that with my childhood — ‘No pretty girl will ever talk to you’ — and I was antisocial.”
It was Saturday afternoon, the time I go to the YMCA’s swimming-pool on my own. I do aquatic balance-training in that pool, two days per week, plus a third day on my own.
“Since she died I’ve tried socializing with other women, and what a pleasant surprise that has become. If my wife were still alive, I’d still be the antisocial person I was.
I could bore you to tears with stories,” I said.
“I don’t think so,” she smiled.
I didn’t hit her with my childhood: a “sob-story,” I call it.
Months ago I talked to a complete stranger I’ll never see again. She wanted to know why I came from DE to Rochester 52 years ago. “To get away from my parents,” I said.
“Interesting,” she said. “Were they Catholic?”
“No, Bible-thumping Baptists,” I answered.
“Tell me more,” she said; “but only if it doesn’t hurt.”
My pool-friend just had major surgery at Wilmot Cancer Center (“will-MOTT;” as in Mott’s applesauce), which treated my wife.
“Wanna hear a Wilmot story?” I asked.
“Sure!”
(This is so surprising.)
“I knew there was NO WAY my wife could handle that Strong Hospital parking-garage, so the one who always took her was ME.
‘How come you always know where the car is?’ my wife would ask.
‘Because I made it a point to know where I parked the car. Third floor, up the ramp, THERE’S THE CAR.’
‘How come you know to turn right outta this garage?’
‘Because that’s where the sun is. I wanna head south, toward the sun. South is home.’
‘What if it’s raining?’ she’d ask.
‘I know where the sun is supposed to be!’ I’d say.”
My pool-friend laughed. I love to see her laugh. She lights up the pool.
“Wanna hear a Thompson story?” I asked.
“Sure.”
(Again, “No lady will ever listen to you!” And “Thompson” is Thompson Hospital in Canandaigua.)
“Sometimes we went to Thompson,” I said.
“‘Theatrics,’ I’d tell her. ‘Lemme get you a wheelchair. They won’t take you seriously unless you come in a wheelchair.’
She’d start walking toward the Emergency-Room. She was as ornery as me,” I added.
Paul Manafort, President Trump’s campaign-chairman, pleading whatever, arrived to his sentencing in a wheelchair.
As sick as my wife? I doubt it. ‘Theatrics.’”
By now my pool-friend was laughing continuously — lighting up all-and-sundry.
“Familiar with GPS?” I asked. “That GPS-lady better agree with me, or I ain’t listenin’.”
One time I’m headed out the West Ave. Plaza lot, and ‘Turn right onto Greig Terrace.’
‘What you been smoking, girl?’ I asked. ‘You got me turnin’ into a one-way street the wrong way.’
BAM; ‘I’m drivin’ honey, not you!’”
I pointed to my head. “The GPS is always in here. That GPS-lady better agree, or I’m shuttin’ her off.
Once I was driving back into northern DE from south Jersey, and I haven’t been in northern DE in years. It also was night time = pitch-dark. I had my GPS on, but construction detours were everywhere. I got lost. I was on Route 13 south of Wilmington.
‘What’s that airport doing on my right?’ I asked myself. It was pitch-dark, but I could tell it was Wilmington’s airport. Runway lights only.
‘That airport should be on my left. I’m headed for MD; I should be headed for PA.’
By now the GPS-lady was going ballistic; I shut her off. The Keed took over. I got turned around, and returned to my brother’s north of Wilmington without GPS.”
My pool-friend related how they were gonna do robotic surgery if they could, but might hafta go non-robotic.
“You damn well better not wake me up to ask!” she told her doctor.
“Sounds like yer ornery yourself,” I commented.
What’s amazing to me is conversations like this are becoming ordinary. With ladies of all people! “No lady will ever talk to you.” My parents and Sunday-School Superintendent neighbor spin in their graves. My lady-friends love it, and I ain’t some drooling geezer.
“I hope we meet again,” I said.
“Me too,” she smiled.
This lady is the same one I made my eat-out offer to weeks ago. I said nothing this time, but probably will some day.

• My Sunday-School Superintendent neighbor is the infamous Hilda Q. Walton, who I’ve blogged many times.

Motorcycling redux

The final issue of my “Cycle World” subscription arrived the other day.
Replete with a screaming declaration Armageddon would begin if I didn’t renew immediately.
Tire-smoking burnouts, chesty tarts displaying acres of cleavage, scantily-clad vixens, heavy with mascara, beg to be “driven-wild.”
So ends 30+ years of subscribing to motorcycle magazines. My motorcycling was over last year when I gave my motorcycle, a 2003 Honda 600cc Double-R, to the classical-music radio-station out of Rochester I listen to.
I hadn’t ridden it in years. I preferred writing. To be a motorcyclist one has to enjoy riding. Just dressing to ride takes 10 minutes. That’s 10 minutes I don’t need to hop into my car.
Riding motorcycle is pleasant, but writing more pleasant. Ten years ago I was down to riding once per year: up the street for inspection, then maybe 10-15 miles to warm it up. My Double-R was at about 2,200 miles when I gave it away.
A friend wanted to buy it, but I didn’t wanna sell to someone I knew.
I could bore everyone with my motorcycling history, which began when I started driving bus in 1977. I befriended another rookie about to sell his Triumph, but I ended up buying a used 850 Norton.
I had read Robert Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” much earlier. Pirsig took his son cross-country on motorcycle from Minnesota to northern California. It sounded interesting.
I’ve had six motorcycles since, none of which I toured on. They reflected my changing tastes. I became obsessed with weight. My Norton was insanely heavy, and having ridden bicycle, which I can carry, I wanted a motorcycle that was light.
My Double-R weighed about 400 pounds, my Norton maybe 600. My lightest motorcycle, a two-stroke, weighed maybe 360, but that’s still way more than a bicycle.
Adventures occurred along the way. I could recount my “motorbike trip from Hell,” where I went off the road near Harrisburg, then nearly dropped it after skimming an unseen curb in the dark in Gap, PA.
I also did an earlier trip by motorcycle returning to my youth in south Jersey. It was so depressing I cried in a diner. I recently returned to my south Jersey youth by car. Never again! Again too depressing.
I also think the reign of the internal-combustion piston engine is over. We piston-slappers are dying off. Soon electric motors will replace the internal-combustion piston engine. This computer is more fun than laying rubber. Plus overcooking a corner can put yer lights out.
That friend who wanted to buy my Honda is about 60. He claims he’ll never give up motorcycling. I used to say that. “Cycle World” recedes into my filmy past.

• RE: “up the street for inspection......” —A motorcycle-shop is about 1,000 yards north of my house.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My heart-defect caused stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability, and that defect was repaired. I recovered well enough to return to work at a newspaper; I retired from that over 13 years ago.

Another Facebook hairball

“Why can’t they leave things alone?” I asked.
I happened to fire up the Facebook of a “friend” in search of a specific photograph.
Things were different. Suddenly my “friend’s” photographs were in “albums.” Maybe they existed before, but they weren’t displayed as such.
Another unannounced Facebook change.
My Facebook is around 10 years old. I don’t do much with it. I know a guy who poo-poos Facebook, but my “friend” celebrates it can be used to keep track of family.
So did our family’s website long ago. That service tanked, partly because of Facebook, I guess. Now we get similar functioning in exchange for targeted marketing and snooping.
And buxom hotties since I happen to be in my seventies. Plus various Facebook fast-ones, like secretly trolling my iPhone contacts to suggest “friends,” etc.
Plus every time I fire up Facebook I get a new interface. Unannounced and unexplained of course. How do I drive that? I hafta engage additional minutes just to operate it. At least 15-20 extra minutes.
Every time I open it: “NOW WHAT?!”
I found the picture after the usual dorking around. Facebook is always frustrating.
Ten years ago there was yer “wall.” Now I guess it’s yer “home-page,” which I never look at. The dreaded “algorithm,” secret of course, is also at play. It limits content on yer home-page. Deluged by every dancing-cat video yer “friends” posted, yer home-page would blow yer computer.
I could dump my Facebook, but so many of my actual friends have Facebooks. It also seems to be the new e-mail. E-mail can’t crunch videos, yet Facebook can. It’s interesting the typical FB word-post is tiny, yet videos are megabyte city.
Two guys with whom I attended college refuse to have Facebooks. My brother in Boston also refuses. My deceased wife had one, but under an alias. She’s gone, but her Facebook continues.
Years ago a nephew and his wife had a baby. The birth was announced on Facebook. That son was age-3 when I found out.
I’m always mad at Facebook. The fact I have one at all was them playing on my ignorance — a fast-one. It also could freeze this computer, although it hasn’t for some time.
They deluge me with targeted ads. Worst are the scantily-clad hussies.
Years ago I found that a high-school classmate had a Facebook. Looking for it I unearthed acres of cleavage. They clearly weren’t my classmate.
I did find her Facebook. She said all she used it for was to keep track of family. She probably gets invites to Facebook’s clarinet group, since she played clarinet in high-school band.

• Apparently if I click “albums” in a “friend’s” Facebook, their pictures will appear in “albums.” If not, they appear singly. LA-DEE-DAH! “Trumped again, y’old geezer!”
• My wife died of cancer April 17th, 2012.

Dem changes

“What’s it gonna be this year?” I asked myself as 2019 began. I never expect change: any changes are usually slight.
As one who survived a stroke 25 years ago — it was caused by a heart-defect long ago repaired —I try to bring order into my life.
My food intake is scheduled up the waazoo. I like it that way. Things are predictable. (Madness avoided.)
Take salmon for example. Years ago my wife and I made salmon-loaf every Wednesday. When canned pink salmon became hard-to-get, we switched to wild-caught salmon fillets.
That lasted even after my wife died, but then packaged wild-caught salmon fillets became hard-to-get, so I switched to wild-caught salmon patties — which I came to prefer. (Those patties also became Thursday.)
A few weeks ago my aquacise instructor and I discussed water intake. She leads my aquatic balance-training class in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool.
“So what do you suggest?” I asked.
“Vitaminwater™,” she said. She cuts it half-water, half Vitaminwater, and I wasn’t aware it was a brand.
I looked for it at my supermarket, but not as a brand. Then I noticed my cleaning-lady had “Vitaminwater.” It’s a brand. I looked again, and found it. But numerous flavors were available, all with varying vitamins. Plus a zero-calories variant, which I wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole. (Can you say “Aspartame?”)
All non-zero variants have a small amount of sugar, but not as much as soda-pop. Now I was looking at labels. The idea was to get off coffee, or more precisely the caffeine therein. I was making a pitcher of coffee every day, three or four cups, then drinking that all day. That was my water source.
Then two weeks ago I started to get a cold. For Valentine’s Day that aquacise instructor gave all in her class a small baggie containing a single packet of Emergen-C®.
Years ago I switched from sugary desserts to fresh fruit-in-season. I’d eat an entire grapefruit or orange for dessert. With all that vitamin-C I never was getting sick.
Emergen-C is 1,000 mg of vitamin-C. Perhaps I could fight off my flu-symptoms with that extra 1,000 mg of vitamin-C.
It worked! 75 years I’ve been on this planet, and never before have I skonked a cold. I went through an entire 10-packet box of Emergen-C in two days.
So now the coffee I made four days ago sits. I can’t drink it. I prefer Vitaminwater spiked with Emergen-C, warmed about the same as coffee. And I cut the Vitaminwater two water to one Vitaminwater.
That switch away from coffee is change number-one for 2019. It’s also extreme.
What do I do with two sacks of specialty coffee? I’m a child of Depression parents: “You better eat them brussels sprouts; children are starving in China!”

• My wife died of cancer April 17th, 2012.

Different

Intermodal from Macon to Port of Savannah in GA. (Photo by Ruth Brown.)

—The February 2019 entry in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a Norfolk Southern stacker on snow-dusted railroad in GA.
The railroad is between Macon and Savannah. The train is headed for the Port of Savannah.
The picture is not extraordinary, but different. How do I repeat it?
I can’t. It’s from on-track railroad equipment.
Most train-photos are from about five feet above the ground: eye-level. They’re also trackside.
So the classic three-quarter view of an oncoming train is nearly always trackside at the height of the standing photographer. If the photographer sits, or takes the camera down to ground-level, the locomotive looms even higher than if the camera were about five feet.
But photographer Brown was on a rail-grinder on the rightmost track. This takes her camera up to cab level. Five feet is the locomotive frame.
Sometimes photos are taken from the track next to the track the train is on. I can’t do that. It’s too unsafe. NO WAY do I get up on the track. You don’t get much warning with an oncoming train. Suddenly getting off the track invites falling or entangling the rail.
But photographer Brown, on a rail-grinder, has her camera -a) on the track next to the train, and -b) at a height not normally photographed.

• I know it’s March. I wanted to blog this last month, but didn’t get to it.

“Easy-peasy”

“That’s a blog-title” (above), I said to a friend at my YMCA swimming-pool.
She had just introduced me to that YMCA’s new aquatic-director. We’d met earlier after he named me in passing.
“How come everyone at this YMCA knows my name?” I asked him.
“Staunch supporter of all the YMCA stands for, always attend,” yada-yada.
“Oh stop!” I exclaimed. Pity that poor guy having to stroke same aging crackpot.
“Nope!” my friend stated, “Yer easy; easy-peasy.”
“That’s blog-material,” I said.
“I was afraid of that,” she said.
“Lemme think about it,” I added. “I walk my dog on Lehigh Valley Rail-trail tomorrow morning, and that’s where these blogs get written. With no one in sight a blog will drift into my head. The Hughes muse never shuts up. I never can turn it off.
And you get to read it,” I added; “another steaming pile.”

The flower-lady

COMPULSION . (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

“Can I get another glass of water?” asked ****** to our waitress at a restaurant in Canandaigua. It was our weekly Tuesday-night eat-out; there were five of us — all bereaved of a spouse, except for the daughter of one of whose wife had died.
Most vocal was *******, who lost her beloved almost six years ago.
****** and her husband founded a successful flower-shop north of Canandaiguia. That business still exists, but ****** sold and retired after her husband died.
I let ****** run the show. If it’s just ****** and me, we have a roaring good time. If other ladies attend, they yammer with ******, and I don’t say much.
“Here, watch this,” ****** said, as she poured that second glass of water into a pretty flower centerpiece on our table.
“You consumed your entire meal at this restaurant laying plans to do that?” I shouted.
“Those flowers were screaming at me: ‘Save us ******; there’s only a half-inch of water in this vase, and our stems can’t reach it. Without water we’re doomed.’”
“Flowers by *******” their business was called. It’s still “Flowers by *******,” but is no longer what it was. Their greenhouses were demolished, and their store rebuilt into a palace.
Worst of all, ****** is no longer running things. People wanted to buy flowers from ******; she made them laugh.
Now water-starved flower displays await. If the restaurant-staff doesn’t care, ****** does.

Small-talk

“For cryin’ out loud!” I exclaimed.
Firefox threw up an article about small-talk which I thought I’d look at it, trying to reverse 70+ years of being antisocial.
“Firefox” is my Internet web-browser, and every time I launch it, it fires up “Pocket” suggestions I might wanna read.
I usually never look at anything.
First suggestion in the article was how to start a conversation: “You remind me of a celebrity whose name I can’t remember.”
If anyone said that to me: “Are you kidding? CURRY-FAVOR ALERT! Is this for real? You HAFTA be kidding!”
Moving on: “Open your eyes before opening your mouth.” I’m missing the point, but eye-contact is what people want. I’ve seen it myself. Let the person know you think enough of them to merit continuous eye-contact.
Sadly, my beloved wife never got this. Yet she liked me anyway. 44&1/2 years.
She probably thought she didn’t deserve eye-contact. Like me she also had a difficult childhood. Mainly it was her mother; all-too-happy to apportion guilt.
Now that I see how successful eye-contact is, I wish I’d done it with my wife.
Meanwhile, I’m not trying to redirect society. All I’m doing is trying to reverse “No one will ever talk to you,” plus a 44&1/2-year marriage that allowed me to avoid people.
One of the ladies who lifeguards the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool occasionally glares at me. No wedding-ring that I can see, so my guess is some dude dumped on her royally.
What can I do to convince her all men aren’t scum — me for example, much to the angry chagrin of my parents and Sunday-School Superintendent neighbor when I was a child.
Simple, dude. Eye-contact with “Hi. How ya doin’?” Followed by “Fine myself; how about you?”
WHOA! She’s smiling at me; She’s eating it up!
The article says “Hi - How ya doin’?” is utterly useless. They’re blowing it royally. “How ya doin’” got ********* smiling at me.

• My “Sunday-School Superintendent neighbor” was the infamous Hilda Q. Walton, who I’ve blogged many times.

Take two

Fixture uncovered and switched off to show LED elements. (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

—“The wave of the future,” my electrician kept saying. Defined: fluorescent lighting replaced by LED (Light-Emitting Diode).
Apparently older lighting modes, incandescent and fluorescent, will be replaced by LED lighting — per code.
My (our) house is nearly 30 years old. Many of the lighting fixtures we specced are fluorescent. Quite a few are circline: circular fluorescent. That included two bathroom fixtures.
Just recently I replaced the bulb in one of the bathroom fixtures. Within a day-or-two it became as weak as what I replaced.
I called my electrician. He noted fluorescent lighting was doomed. He suspected the ballast was wonky, but it made more sense to switch to an LED fixture.
“I don’t wanna sell you a bill-of-goods,” he said. “But LED is the wave of the future. Pretty soon you won’t be able to buy fluorescent bulbs.”
“How much we talkin’ about?”
“$130.”
“Do it,” I said; “that ain’t much.”
So the bathroom fluorescent circline was swapped for an LED fixture (pictured).
“Wanna try your new light?” the electrician asked.
“What do we have here?” I asked.
“No bulb to replace, no ballast,” the electrician said.
“If it fails, I replace the entire unit,” I said.
“Yep!”
“And it will probably outlast me,” I added.
“I got at least four more circlines. I’m more inclined to let ‘em puke out, but $130 per unit isn’t much.”
I years ago wired this house for a phone in every room. That technology was superseded. I have only two hard-wired phones, and am about to drop my landline.

• RE: “My (our)......” —My wife and I designed the house I’m in. She died seven years ago.

WordPorn, etc.

(Screenshot by BobbaLew.)

—Pictured above is a weeks-ago post to my aquacise instructor’s Facebook. It seemed aimed at me, since I received Facebook notification, and am somewhat antisocial; or at least was.
I OCR scanned it into a text-file that I printed and put on a kitchen cabinet to remind myself to be more sociable = say hello to her every day.
The fact we are Facebook “friends” is due to another “fast-one” by SuckerBird and his cronies. They secretly trolled my iPhone contacts shortly after I installed “Facebook-for-iPhone,” which was mere days after I put my aquacise instructor into my iPhone contacts.
Suddenly there she was, suggested as a Facebook “friend.” HUH? She’s not a “friend” of a “friend,” and I only had 49, not thousands.
Unwittingly I clicked it, and she responded favorably.
This wasn’t the first time Facebook pulled a “fast-one.” Two guys with whom I attended college refuse to have Facebooks. “Real friends are better.”
Years ago I got an e-mail “friend” request regarding an actual friend.
“You need a Facebook of your own to ‘friend’ anyone.”
Again unwittingly, I barged ahead, setting up my own Facebook.
“Welcome to Facebook,” an actual friend said. All so SuckerBird, et al, can bless me with right-side buxom hottie ads. At my age I’m surely a loathsome lothario.
My wife, deceased, was also leery of Facebook. Her Facebook still exists, but under an alias she made up.
I’d dump mine — I hardly look at it — but so many of my actual friends have Facebooks. Beyond that, Facebook became the new e-mail. Years ago a nephew had another child, and I never knew until that son was three years old. The birth was announced via Facebook, which I rarely look at.
I don’t regret “friending” my aquacise instructor. Hers is the one I fire up most every day. There are others, but most Facebooks have content of little interest. Dancing-cat videos, and “Congrats!”
Hers doesn’t, nor do some of my cousins. “There’s those guys singing that school-closing again” = CLICK! But often it’s stuff like “WordPorn,” and similar.

• I do aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool, two hours per week — plus a third hour on my own. My “aquacise instructor” is my class leader.
• “OCR-scanning” (optical-character-recognition) is to scan a text-document (like a letter). The OCR software then “reads” the document and converts it into a computer text-file.
• “SuckerBird” is Mark Zuckerberg, founder and head-honcho of Facebook.
• My wife died of cancer April 17th, 2012.

“Way Better......”

(iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

—Yr Fthfl Srvnt said that this afternoon after changing the ailing fluorescent circline in his (our) bathroom before taking a shower.
The fixture was down to about one-fourth of what’s illustrated, and was hard to start.
How, pray tell, does a 75-year-old geezer with questionable balance, do such a thing — without calling the ambulance?
Very carefully.
You’ll note my stepladder. I need to be able to hold on with my hands when working over my head. I can’t no-handed stand on a step-stool.
Up two steps to access the fixture. The circline is covered by a plastic thingy. My first move was to remove that thingy. Three set-screws hold it. My fingers couldn’t unscrew ‘em. Step down and get pliers = about a minute.
The pliers turned one screw; two more to go. But they were hard to access. Prior experience determined my next move = step down and relocate stepladder where I can more easily access the other set-screws.
A roundabout reach invites a fall.
I noticed the set-screws were slotted, turnable by a screwdriver. Go get screwdriver = about a minute.
Then back up stepladder to loosen the remaining set-screws.
Viola! The thingy is removed. The ailing circline is now visible. Down to basement where I had a cache of circlines. About 2-3 minutes.
Take out ailing circline, and install new circline. I never shut it off; all I had to do was unplug and replug. Light cascaded throughout my bathroom. “Way better,” I declared. The only one to hear that was my dog. —But not an ambulance-crew.
More change-outs await, but I’m not cocky. I’ve learned to use a stepladder. Experience Boobie!
A changeout in my garage may be more than I can safely attempt — although I’ve thought about it. More planning. At my age I can’t just charge into things.
But no-one tells “The Keed” he can’t do something he thinks he can do.

• RE: “his (our).....” —My wife and I designed the house I’m in. She died almost seven years ago.

Messy

“Here we are again,” I said to my silly dog as I rolled out of bed yesterday morning at 7:05 a.m. My dog was asleep in the other room on my Castro Convertible.
“And I still can’t get ***** **** out of my head,” I thought.
I always expect to wake up, but at age-75 something might happen that puts out the lights.
My beloved wife died almost seven years ago, yet here I am overly concerned about another lady. It seemed she wanted that, and it also seems she wants me to continue, despite -a) all the horrible flubs I made, and -b) we thereby somewhat ruin a professional relationship.
I’m supposed to continue interest, but if I do I’ve overstepped.
Often her responses to texts, pictures, etc. are almost immediate. Other times nothing. Three times we walked our dogs in quick succession. Nothing since, and that was months ago.
Our last walk it seemed like she was waiting for me. That went to my head = stupidity from then on, although I’ve tried to cut back.
I expect messiness; I’m dealing with a broken heart. It sounds like her husband left. If so, that explains why she never pushed me off. Others have.
My grief-share talked about which was worse: estrangement or death-of-a-spouse. Estrangement (or divorce) prompts acrimony and hurt; death-of-a-spouse is final.
And I lost the BEST friend I ever had.
A couple days ago I began getting a cold. Gallons of dilute vitaminwater™ got consumed, fortified with Emergen-C®.
“I think I successfully fended off a cold,” I texted ****** ****.
BAM! Almost immediate. Six hand-clap emojis.
I almost hadn’t sent that.
A couple hours later “Did you do anything with that Gil card?”
I purchased a “get-well” card for a guy in our aquacise-class having knee surgery. His name is “Gil.” Those in our class would sign it.
Again, almost immediate. “I have it,” etc.
“It’s all in your head,” says my good friend ******, my advisor in male-female machinations.
“Probably,” I say; “but sometimes she responds awful quick.”
My guess is she’s had multiple suitors eager to cash in on her broken heart. But that’s not me, or at least who I mean to be.
If her heart is broken, she does a bang-up job of masquerading it.
At age-75 I doubt I can repair a broken heart. That has to be whoever broke it.
All I can be is a “friend” — who also experienced a similar tragedy. My heart was also broken, but I got over it.
Every night as I turn out the lights, I say to my dog “Here we are, you and me, in our strange little life.”
“What’s strange about it?” my bereavement-counselor asks.

• I do aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool, two hours per week — plus a third hour on my own. ****** **** is my class instructor.