WELL THERE WENT MY ORANGE JUICE AND WE HEADED HOME EMPTY HANDED

 WE SURE HAVE HAD A LOT OF SNOW DUMPED ON US AND THERE IS MORE ON THE WAY

It was somewhere around 3 a.m. when with a loud 'pop' I was jarred out of my sleep when our power went off again.  A good thing I had decided to sleep in my clothes I thought.  It turned out to be the start of my day when after maybe five minutes there was another 'pop' and our power was back on.  But the damage was done and I lay there in my recliner now wide awake with a thousand thoughts rolling through my mind.  My day had begun and due to lack of sleep again, I basically went down hill from there. I fired up my laptop and started on today's post beginning with this paragraph.

 A WEE DRIVE AROUND OUR PARK THIS MORNING

My nose wasn't as congested as the past four days and my two-day headache has not returned and I don't think I am coughing as much as the past two days.  My appetite is gone but I've had a desire for orange juice, and I'm out of orange juice.  With a partial blue sky and with all this new snow hanging in the trees, it was a Winter Wonderland outside.  Pheebs and slipped around our Park taking a few photos and then headed off into Bayfield and down around the harbor where I saw the darkest skies out over Lake Huron that I have ever seen.  From there we headed to Foodland to get some orange juice.  I thought it odd that there were no vehicles in the parking lot.  The store was all dark with a sign on the door saying, 'Power Outage'.  Well, there went my orange juice, so we headed home empty-handed.

 HEADING INTO BAYFIELD

Kelly's daughter Sabra from Cambridge drove over today to see her Mom and has booked a hotel room in Goderich and plans on staying a couple days.  I'm going to go up to the hospital early tomorrow afternoon to be part of the 'zoom' call with Kelly's doctor.  Sabra will be there as well.  There was some talk today about Hospice care.  Sabra made some phone calls and I talked to our nurse practitioner this afternoon.

With snow still falling I had no choice but to get myself on the end of my snow shovel again this afternoon.  I certainly didn't feel like shoveling snow but it had to be done.  The snow has a high moisture content and is very heavy and not easy to shovel.  It looks like it's going to be a long hard winter.

HEADING DOWN TO BAYFIELD HARBOR AND BEACH AREA

 THE SKY HAD A VERY ODD AND OMINOUS COLOR TO IT

 THE BAYFIELD RIVER IS BEGINNING TO FREEZE OVER

 BAYFIELD'S MAIN STREET WAS A MESS AS SNOW PLOWS AND SNOW REMOVAL MACHINES WORKED TO CLEAR SNOW

Al's Music Box:)) The Days Of Wine And Roses is a popular song, from the 1982 film of the same name. The music was written by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. They received the Academy Award for Best Original Song for their work, as well as the 1964 Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year.    The song's lyrics are notable for consisting of just two complex sentences, each of which forms one of the song's two stanzas.  The best-known recordings of the song were by Billy Eckstine in 1961 and Andy Williams in 1963.  In 2000, The Letteren included the song on their Greatest Movie Hits album. The phrase "days of wine and roses" is originally from the poem "Vitae Summa Brevis" by the English writer Ernest Dowson (1867–1900):  'They are not long, the days of wine and roses. Out of a misty dream, our path emerges for a while, then closes Within a dream.

 AND A VERY SPECIAL SURPRISE FOR KELLY TODAY WHEN THESE BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS ARRIVED FROM ONE OF OUR BLOG READERS, BARB M IN FLORIDA....THANK YOU BARB FOR YOUR KIND THOUGHTS.....PHOTO BY SABRA

GROANER'S CORNER:(( A wife was making a breakfast of fried eggs for her husband. Suddenly, her husband burst into the kitchen.  "Careful," he said. "Careful! Put in some more butter! Oh my gosh! You're cooking too many at once. Too many! Turn them! Turn them now!  We need more butter. Oh my gosh! Where are we going to get more butter? They're going to stick! Careful. Careful! I said be careful!  You never listen to me when you're cooking! Never! Turn them! Hurry up!  Don't forget to salt them! You know you always forget to salt them. Use the salt. Use the salt! The salt!"  His wife stared at him.  "What in the world is wrong with you? You think I don't know how to fry a couple of eggs?"  The husband calmly replied, "I just wanted to show you what it feels like when I'm driving."

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- The only thing creepier than seeing a guy in a Speedo is seeing a guy in a Speedo staring back at you.

Knock Knock
Who's there?
Emma!
Emma who?
Emma bit cold out here, can you let me in?

Son: Father, Can I ask you a question?

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A son asks his father a question.
Son: When a doctor doctors a doctor, does the doctor doing the doctoring doctor as the doctor being doctored wants to be doctored or does the doctor doing the doctoring doctor as he wants to doctor.

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A farmer was driving along the road with a load of fertilizer. A little boy, playing in front of his house, saw him and called, "What've you got in   your truck?"  "Fertilizer," the farmer replied.
"What are you going to do with it?" asked the little boy.  "Put it on strawberries," answered the farmer.  "You ought to live here," the little boy advised him. "We put sugar and cream on ours."

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Al's Doggy World

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Al's Art Gallery

FACING THE FACT THAT THIS IS WHERE WE ARE NOW

 IT WAS A WINTER WONDERLAND WHEN I LOOKED OUT THE WINDOW THIS MORNING

Oh dear, where to start.  Some things have gone right and some things have gone wrong.  I had to make two phone calls this morning to cancel the Tuesday 10 a.m. meeting with our Nurse Practitioner and our Wednesday afternoon 2 p.m. meeting with one of Kelly's liver doctors in London.  Neither one of us are in good enough shape to attend those meetings.  It's the worst possible timing but I have come down with what I think is a very nasty head and chest cold.  I think it is something I picked up in the Goderich hospital last Saturday morning.  I had two bad nights in a row and not wanting to run the risk of spreading it to Kelly or the hospital staff I did not go to the hospital today......Kelly had a drain put into her side this morning to drain the fluid out of her abdomen.  That drain will stay in now.  A doctor Duckworth came in to have a talk with Kelly this morning and he was able to formulate a plan for moving forward.  Kelly had some questions for him that we had written down.  She asked if she could donate her body to science.  The doctor said it's not impossible, but highly unlikely.  She asked about Palliative Care and the doctor told her she is already under Palliative Care right there at the hospital.  She asked about Hospice and he said there are waiting lists to get into those places.  He recommended that she not go home and explained the reasons for that which made a lot of sense and Kelly was okay with that and understood.  He said they can keep her comfortable right there in the hospital and tend to her every need.  Kelly asked about funeral arrangements and he said they look after all that as well.  So, right now that is our plan for moving forward, and for Kelly and I, we both feel it is the right thing to do.  Kelly's voice today was her usual strong and bouncy self.  She had a terrible raspy cough though.  So, today as I walk around the house in somewhat of a daze trying to wrap my mind around the thought that the one I love will not be coming home again, I have come to terms with the fact that this is where we are now............

THE BIRD FEEDER ATOP OUR BIRD STATION IS TOTALLY ENCLOSED IN SNOW

 THIS LITTLE JUNCO SITS PUZZLED ATOP THE BIRD STATION

TRYING TO FIND ANYTHING TO EAT THEY CAN

 A JUNCO SITTING IN AN AZALEA BUSH

 A JUNCO IN A SEA OF WHITE

We were walloped in the night by over a foot of snow and it is still coming down.  Temperatures came up around the freezing mark today and that made all the snow very heavy.  It's garbage collection Tuesday morning so I had no choice but to go out with my snow shovel and dig out our two garbage cans.  I could see our front yard birds were in a dilemma as well because our bird feeders were snowed in.  Despite feeling like 'an old bag of dirt' I shoveled a pathway to the bird feeders, uncovered them, and sprinkled a lot of birdseed and corn around for the guys, squirrels included.....However, I think I am slightly on the mend from whatever bug got through my immune defences because the headache finally lifted this morning.  I am still stuffed up and coughing so I am going to give it another day before heading off to see Kelly.  Kelly's daughter, Sabra is driving over from Cambridge (weather permitting) tomorrow afternoon to see her.

 IT JUST KEPT ON SNOWING ALL DAY

 I SHOVELLED A PATH FOR PHEEBS THROUGH THE SNOW ON OUR DECK

 I THINK PHEEBS IS A LITTLE OVERWHELMED BY ALL THE SNOW

 THIS GIVES YOU AN IDEA OF MUCH SNOW WE GOT OVERNIGHT

 I SHOVELLED A PATH FOR PHEEBS IN OUR BACK YARD

 HERE'S PHEEBS STRUGGLING THROUGH THE SNOW BEFORE WE HAD THE DRIVEWAY PLOWED

Last winter we had a fellow in our Park here who plowed our driveway but we hadn't heard from him so I figured he maybe wasn't plowing driveways this year.  I didn't know what I was going to do with all that snow in our driveway but figured the all wheel drive Subaru would make it through.  But then, something kind of amazing happened.  A message popped up on my Facebook from Lori, a lady in the Park asking if I would like our driveway plowed.  Would I??  Ya darn tootin I would.  She said someone from Bayfield was driving his plow out to our Park this afternoon and was going to do driveways for a donation to a church.  At 4:15 I heard the rumble of a machine coming down the street and sure enough it wheeled right into our driveway and began plowing snow.  I was so thankful for that because now I could get our garbage cans out to the road and it would also make it easier for Pheebs when she went out.  Thank heavens for little miracles.  And, a big thanks to the bearded fella at Berger Builds for plowing our driveway............... At 7:10 tonight our power went out.  Probably the steady falling of heavy wet snow pulled some power lines down somewhere.  I wasn't optimistic that our power would be restored any time soon.  That is not usually the case here but imagine my surprise when at 8:40 with a pop and a flash of light our power was back on.  I had been planning on spending the night in my sunroom recliner beside our gas stove which keeps emitting heat despite the power outage.  And, would you believe we had thunder and lightning going on during that power outage.

Als Music Box:)) Waiting For A Girl Like You is a 1981 power ballad by the British-American rock band Foreigner released as the second single from the album 4(1981) and was co-written by Lou Gramm and ick Jones. The opening motif was written by Ian McDonald and the distinctive synthesizer theme was performed by the then-little-known Thomas Dolby.  Billboard said that "The melodic arrangement enhances the lyrics while the tasty orchestration and commanding vocal maximizes the love ballad's effectiveness."Record World called it a "dreamy ballad" and said that "a great title hook, enchanting vocals & keyboards make a perfect radio record."  It has become one of the band's most successful songs worldwide. It reached the number 2 position in the week of November 28, where it was held off the number 1 spot by Olivia Newton-John's single "Physical" for nine consecutive weeks, and then by Hall & Oates'  "I Can'tGo for That" for a tenth week on January 30, 1982. The song was the band's biggest hit until "I Want to Know What Love Is" hit number 1 in 1985. In Canada, the song was number 2 for 2 weeks, kept out of number 1 by "The Friends of Mr Cairo" by Jon and Vangelis.  The song ranked at number 80 on Billboard's "Greatest Songs of All Time".  Classic Rock History critic Brian Kachejian rated it as Foreigner's 7th best song, particularly praising the "great keyboard line played at the song’s intro and in between verses."  Mick Jones said of writing the song that: It just came out. I had no idea what it meant, but it got to the point where I couldn't even be in the studio when we were recording it sometimes. It left such a deep impression on me. It's the kind of song that the pen does the writing, and you don't even know where it came from. But I feel that it's stuff that's floating around at times, and you have to grasp it. It's kind of flying around in the air, and you just have to be open enough to let that flow through you.  In his autobiography, Lou Gramm tells of a beautiful, mysterious woman who appeared in the control room when he was recording his vocal and gave him the inspiration to deliver the stirring take that was better than he has ever sung the song. He writes that this ephemeral beauty vanished, and he has never discerned her identity.  The introduction was created by Thomas Dolby using a Minimoog synthesizer. Dolby remembers Mutt Lange leaving him to his own devices in the studio one night, "like a kid locked in a toy shop" to develop the intro to the song with six tracks of the multitrack available.  As a result, he made the "Eno--esque" ambient drones. These were sustained single notes in a minor scale, each recorded on a single track of a (separate) 2" multitrack tape; Dolby "played" the faders on the mixing console at Electric Lady Studios(by fading in and out the sustained notes) like a mellotron and bounced down the result onto two tracks.  Drummer Dennis Elliot likened the intro to "massage music" but Jones liked it and it stuck.

GROANER'S CORNER:(( The Toronto Board of Health has proposed that warning signs be placed on all alcohol bottles to tip off drinkers about the possible peril of drinking a pint or two of any alcoholic beverage.
1. WARNING: Consumption of alcohol may cause you to wake up with a breath that could knock a buzzard off a wreaking dead animal that is one hundred yards away.

2. WARNING: Consumption of alcohol is a major factor in dancing like an idiot.

3. WARNING: Consumption of alcohol may cause you to tell the same boring story over and over again until your friends want to assault you

4. WARNING: Consumption of alcohol may cause you to thay shings like thish.

5. WARNING: Consumption of alcohol may cause you to tell the boss what you really think of him.

6. WARNING: Consumption of alcohol is the leading cause of inexplicable rug burn on the forehead.

7. WARNING: Consumption of alcohol may create the illusion that you are tougher, handsomer and smarter than some really, really big guy named Psycho Bob.

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Al's Doggy World

Meanings::

Al's Art Gallery