AUNT JEAN WAS DIAGNOSED WITH PULMONARY HYPERTENSION

 A SNOWY DAY HERE AT TIMES

A snowy cold morning left me with little desire to even go out the door so Pheebs and I skipped our morning car ride.  With below-freezing overnight temperatures upon us again and more on the way, I slipped down under our front deck and turned the outside water off.  First time in over 22 years I've had to do that.  Well, at least I got all the mud hosed off the Subaru yesterday afternoon and it looks like a car again, instead of a muddy mud bucket going down the road......Talked to Aunt Jean Friday night and she is doing much better.  She only has to have the oxygen tubes in at night while sleeping, and only if she feels the need to do so during the day.  Her doctor has diagnosed her with Pulmonary Hypertension.  We didn't stay on the phone for as long as we usually do because I could tell she was tired........A quiet day here.  Worked away at clearing some cupboards in the kitchen.  Oh, and the reason Woodsy was briefly walking on that side of the road yesterday was to wait until I had passed with the car before crossing over to the other side of the road.  

Al's Music Box The Great Pretender is a popular song recorded by the Platters, with Tony Williams on lead vocals, and released as a single in November 1955. The words and music were written by Buck Ram, the Platters' manager and producer who was a successful songwriter before moving into producing and management. The song reached No. 1 on Billboard's Top 100.  Sam Cooke's cover of the song is believed to have inspired Chrissie Hynede to name her band the Pretenders.  Buck Ram, the manager of the Platters, said that he wrote the song in about 20 minutes in the washroom of the Flamingo Hotel in order to have a follow-up to the success of "Only You."  Ram had boasted to Bob Shad that he had an even better song than "Only You", and when pressed by Shad on the name of the song, Ram quickly replied "The Great Pretender".  He said the song would be a hit even before he had written the song to go with the title. The song was recorded by the Platters and released in November 1955. Plas Johnson played tenor saxophone on the recording. It became the best-selling R&B song in January 1956, and reached No. 2 on the Top 100 chart on Billboard in February 1956. It was also the 12th best-selling single of 1956.  The Platters performed "The Great Pretender" and "Only You" in the 1956 musical film Rock Around the Clock, and was also in the film American Graffiti.  In 2002, "The Great Pretender" by the Platters on Mercury RecondsGrammy Hall of Fame was inducted into the, which lists the date as 1956.  In 2004, the song was ranked 360th in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

 A ROBIN LISTENING FOR SOME CHILLY DEW WORMS UNDER THE SNOW

GROANER'S CORNER:(( It doesn't hurt to take a hard look at yourself from time to time, and this should help get you started.  During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the director what the criterion was that defined whether or not a patient should be institutionalized.  "Well," said the Director, "we fill up a bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup, and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub."  "Oh, I understand," said the visitor. "A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup."  "No," said the Director, "A normal person would pull the plug. Do you want a room with or without a view?"

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God: "Whew! I just created a 24-hour period of alternating light and darkness of Earth."  Angel: "What are you going to do now?"  God: "Call it a day."

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-"I believe in dragons, good men and other fantasy creatures."

- If someone with multiple personalities threatens to commit suicide, is that considered a hostage crisis?

- Last night, my wife and I watched two movies back to back.
Fortunately for me, I was the one who was facing the television.

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Twenty-one reasons why English is hard to learn.
1. The bandage was wound around the wound.
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
3. The dump was so full it had to refuse more refuse.
4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7. Since there was no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10. I did not object to the object.
11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12. There was a row among the oarsmen on how to row.
13. They were too close to the door to close it.
14. The buck does funny things when does are present.
15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18. After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

21. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
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Al's Doggy World

Meanings::

Kelly's Corner

 AT OUR RANCH SITTING JOB NEAR McNEAL, ARIZONA

 MORNING WALK WITH RV SUE AND HER CANINE CREW, SPIKE AND BRIDGETT

KELLY IN BISSBEE ARIZONA WITH BAYFIELD'S DIANE MERO....BOTH THESE FINE LADIES ARE GONE NOW

Al's Art Gallery

ALWAYS A FEW TWISTS AND TURNS ON THIS HIGHWAY OF CONFUSEMENT

 GREEN IS INCREASINGLY REPLACING WHITE

A big heartfelt thank you to everyone from Lorraine and I for all your caring thoughts, comments, acceptance, and understanding.  It had become increasingly difficult for me to write my blog, and leaving key things out knowing I knew something the readers didn't.

 STOPPED FOR A LOOK OVER GODERICH'S HARBOR 

For the second day in a row, we had the morning's sunrise beaming through the pine trees and landing on the living room floor.  And our temps were on the rise and we were already above freezing by 9 a.m.  I think we topped out at about 55F later in the day.  The snow is not only dripping off the roof, it is running off in streams of water.  And a series of warm days ahead just might put an end to all these big piles of snow lying around.  Of course we still have a month of unpredictable weather ahead and some of our more damage storms can occur in March.  Pheebs and I made it out for our morning car ride, and how nice to see farmer's fields once again emerging even further from winter's snow.

 DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS IS BUT IT'S ALREADY GREEN AND GROWING

Lorraine and I headed off to Goderich this afternoon and had a close call in front of McDonalds.  I signalled and began my turn into McDonalds when I suddenly realized the entrance was blocked off by a yellow gate.  We were now stopped crossways in front of two lanes of oncoming traffic.  Luckily, traffic was able to slow down in time and I was able to squeak around a nearby corner out of their way.  I wondered to myself how many motorists have and will be caught in this dangerous situation today.  McDonalds is apparently undergoing renovations or something so if your from this area and planning to stop at McDonalds in Goderich......beware!!  Also, the same thing with Tim Hortons in Grand Bend.  Beware of its blocked entrance for presumed renovations as well.  A drive down to the harbor to see if the road to Rotary Cove was finally free of snow.  It was not.  Following that, we headed to Walmart for a few groceries and a prescription for me to pick up.  On the way to Food Basics we went through the drive-thru at A&W and I got myself a Double Buddy burger and a coffee.  Not a big fan of fast food places, Lorraine passed on a Double Buddy burger. 

 ONE OF THESE DAYS I WILL CATCH HER LOOKING IN MY DIRECTION

I wonder how many readers over the years knew that Kelly's name wasn't really Kelly.  It was Gail.  Kelly had picked up her nickname somewhere in the shades of the past and in her friend's circles she went by the nickname of Kelly.  The only time I had heard Kelly called by her real name was when her Mom and Dad, Brother, and Sisters spoke of her.  She also used Gail on any legal and medical documents.  In Lorraine's circle of friends, she is often known as 'Woodsy' so you might see that name popping up in my posts.

MOST OF THE SNOW ON OUR SHED ROOF HAS ALREADY MELTED OFF

 MY SNOWY PATHWAYS ARE QUICKLY DISAPPEARING AS WELL

  HOW NICE TO SEE CLEAR BLUE SUNNY SKIES THROUGH THE PINE TREES

I had an appointment at the Bayfield Library this morning with the lady who usually does our income tax each year at no charge.  Kelly always dealt with that so everything about all this  income tax stuff is totally new and confusing to me.  Because of Kelly's passing the lady said our income taxes for 2024 would have to be handled by a professional income tax person but she would be able to do them next year again.  Always a few new twists and turns on this highway of confusement I'm weaving my way along now. 

 ANOTHER CLUSTER OF FISHERMEN ON BAYFIELD'S SOUTH PIER THIS MORNING

Al's Music Box:)) She Loves You is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and released as a single in the United Kingdom on 23 August 1963. The single set and surpassed several sales records in the United Kingdom charts, and set a record in the United States as one of the five Beatles songs that held the top five positions in the charts simultaneously, on 4 April 1964. It remains the band's best-selling single in the UK and was the top-selling single of the 1960s there by any artist.  In November 2004, Rolling Stone ranked "She Loves You" number 64 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In August 2009, at the end of its "Beatles Weekend", BBC Radio 2 announced that "She Loves You" was the Beatles' all-time best-selling single in the UK based on information compiled by the Official Charts Company.  In Canada, the song was included on the album Twist and Shout. In the US, it was the final song on The Beatles' Second Album.  Lennon and McCartney started composing "She Loves You" on 26 June 1963 after a concert at the Majestic Ballroom in Newcastle upon Tyne during their tour with Roy Orbison and Gerry and the Pacemakers. They began writing the song on the tour bus, and continued later that night at their hotel in Newcastle, eventually completing it the following day at McCartney's family home in Forthlin Road, Liverpool.  In 2000, McCartney said the initial idea for the song began with Bobby Rydell's hit "Forget Him" with its call and response pattern, and that "as often happens, you think of one song when you write another... I'd planned an 'answering song' where a couple of us would sing 'she loves you' and the other ones would answer 'yeah yeah'. We decided that was a crummy idea but at least we then had the idea of a song called 'She Loves You'. So we sat in the hotel bedroom for a few hours and wrote it – John and I, sitting on twin beds with guitars." Like many early Beatles songs, the title of "She Loves You" was framed around the use of personal pronouns. But unusually for a love song, the lyrics are not about the narrator's love for someone else; instead the narrator functions as a helpful go-between for estranged lovers:  'You think you lost your love, Well, I saw her yesterday.  It's you she's thinking of – And she told me what to say.  'She says she loves you.....This idea was attributed by Lennon to McCartney in 1980: "It was Paul's idea: instead of singing 'I love you' again, we'd have a third party. That kind of little detail is still in his work. He will write a story about someone. I'm more inclined to write about myself."  Lennon, being mindful of Elvis Presley's "All Shook Up", wanted something equally stirring: "I don't know where the 'yeah yeah yeah' came from [but] I remember when Elvis did 'All Shook Up' it was the first time in my life that I had heard 'uh huh', 'oh yeah', and 'yeah yeah' all sung in the same song". The song also included a number of falsetto "wooooo"s, which Lennon acknowledged as being inspired by the Isley Brothers' recording of "Twist and Shout", which the Beatles had earlier recorded, and which had also been inserted into the group's previous single, "From Me to You".  As Lennon later said: "We stuck it in everything".  McCartney recalls them playing the finished song on acoustic guitars to his father Jim at home immediately after the song was completed: "We went into the living room and said 'Dad, listen to this. What do you think? And he said 'That's very nice son, but there's enough of these Americanisms around. Couldn't you sing 'She loves you, yes, yes, yes!' At which point we collapsed in a heap and said 'No, Dad, you don't quite get it!'"  EMI recording engineer Norman Smith had a somewhat similar reaction, later recounting, "I was setting up the microphone when I first saw the lyrics on the music stand, 'She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah, She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah, She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah!' I thought, Oh my God, what a lyric! This is going to be one that I do not like. But when they started to sing it – bang, wow, terrific, I was up at the mixer jogging around."  The "yeah, yeah, yeah" refrain proved an immediate, infectious musical hook.  Unusually, the song starts with the hook right away, instead of introducing it after a verse or two. "She Loves You" does not include a bridge, instead using the refrain to join the various verses. The chords tend to change every two measures, and the harmonic scheme is mostly static.

 TONIGHT'S SUNSET AT BAYFIELD'S PIONEER PARK

 'WOODSY

GROANER'S CORNER:(( Moses was sitting in the Egyptian ghetto. Things were terrible. Pharaoh wouldn't even speak to him. The rest of the Israelites were mad at him and making the overseers even more irritable than usual, etc. He was about ready to give up.  Suddenly a booming, sonorous voice spoke from above: "You, Moses, heed me ! I have good news, and bad news."  Moses was staggered. The voice continued: "You, Moses, will lead the People of Israel from bondage. If Pharaoh refuses to release your bonds, I will smite Egypt with a rain of frogs."  "You, Moses, will lead the People of Israel to the Promised Land. If Pharaoh blocks your way, I will smite Egypt with a plague of Locust."  "You, Moses, will lead the People of Israel to freedom and safety. If Pharaoh's army pursues you, I will part the waters of the Red Sea to open your path to the Promised Land.  "Moses was stunned. He stammered, "That's...that's fantastic. I can't believe it! But what's the bad news?"  "You, Moses, must write the Environmental Impact Statement."

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- This is America. It is my God given right to be loudly opinionated about something I am completely ignorant of.

- Did you hear about the old man whose birthday one year lasted only one minute?  It was his sixty-second birthday.

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Two years after my heart attack, I was teaching my college course when I felt discomfort in my chest. I paused the class to pop my medication and felt better quickly.  “Now, if I ever do have a heart attack,” I told my students, “I will give extra credit to whoever gives me CPR.”  One of them shouted out, ”How much?”

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Al's Doggy World

Meaning::

Kelly's Corner

 A RELAXING DAY AT OUR RANCH SITTING JOB WITH RANCH DOG PEARCE AND CORA OUR LITTLE MOTORMOUSE IN THE PHOTO AS WELL

 THIS IS THE HERD OF CHICKENS WE RODE SHOTGUN ON AT THE RANCH

 THIS IS THE ROAD RUNNING PAST THE RANCH LEADING TO ARIZONA'S WHITEWATER DRAW WILDLIFE AREA AND WE WALKED THIS ROAD EVERY MORNING..... THE TWO RANCH DOGS  GLEASON AND PEARCE ACCOMPANY THE BAYFIELD BUNCH

SOMEWHERE IN THE GREAT AMERICAN SOUTHWEST

Al's Art Gallery