December's Letter

Well, November began with taking Benny to the vet to have his abscessed tooth removed.  Mom took him to the vet a few months before and was just given antibiotics.  The abscessed tooth cleared up for a while but returned.  I dropped Benny off at 0830 and they told me they would call me in the afternoon to tell me how he was doing and when I could pick him up.  I would be lying if I told you that I wasn't a little bit worried about him.  But I knew he would be just fine.  Before I went to pick him up, I bought him some soft dog food.  It was somewhat humorous when they brought Benny to me.  His eyes were kinda half open as he was still woozy from the anesthesia.  He was probably thinking "What have you done to me?"  For the rest of the night he was confined to his crate.  The next day he was still a little bit listless, but by day three he was back to his usual hyper self.  But I could still tell he was still hurting b/c he would still grumble every now and then.

I was trying to reseal the back porch in the 2nd week of November.  It was still somewhat warm at 75 degrees F.  However, the bugs like to explore during the warm hours before winter sets in.  There were plenty of wasps and Japanese lady bugs flying around.  I was concerned about the wasps, so I read about natural ways to repel them.  If you fill a zip loc bag with water and a penny, it will resemble a spider web and a spider.  Bugs won't voluntarily fly into a spider web.  It has to do something with the wasps compound eyes that make the bag of water look like a spider web.  Well, that didn't work.  I even saw a wasp land on the bag of water.  Another way is to blow up a brown paper bag and hang it up.  It resembles a nest; wasps are territorial and will think this area is already occupied.  But I did not have a brown paper bag to try that one out.  The best way to repel them was to wait until the sun was about to set.  They like to sleep too.

I was supposed to go to a friends wedding, but I slept in and missed the time at which I was supposed to depart.  It was in Alabama. Does it mean that I am old when I have gone to 6 weddings in the past 6 months.  I have another friend who is getting married in January.  Maybe I won't miss that one at least.

So, since I donated all my late Dad's suits, it is time for me to start a collection of my own...slowly of course.  I have 2 sport coats and I kept one of my Dad's sport coats because it fits me well.  But doing research on suits brings me into a whole new world.  I will tell you this, I don't like cheap stuff.  Cheap as in "it's good for one use, then it falls apart".  I won't go into all the details of what makes a quality suit but I found a store in Chattanooga that has quality suits.  I decided to go all out and buy a whole new ensemble except for new shoes.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Ours was spent at Aunt Pam's where we ate twelve pies.  Okay, twelve pies were made, but I thought about eating twelve pies.  But if I did eat twelve pies that would be gluttony.

I've been playing with post-process Tilt-shift photography effects.  It's where a large scale image looks like a miniature.  A photo is attached of what I think is the best I have done.

I now know how to tie a tie four different ways.  Only eighty-one more to go. There's an app for that.


Until next time, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!