Walking my oldest daughter down her wedding aisle was excruciating!
Never mind the other 23,982 steps my Fitbit recorded that day. Most of the energy was used in the 25 to 30 steps walking down the aisle!
It’s a travesty, really.
I mean, who came up with the rule that the dad has to walk his bride-to-be daughter down the aisle anyway?
It’s not fair. It’s void of all decency of a civilized society! Continue reading The Longest Wedding Aisle, Ever
Last Friday I took my wife Janet out on the town! A five-course dinner date! I know! Right!?
But we live in the oldest town in Texas, and there’s not a great deal of five star restaurants in Nacogdoches, Texas. So we created our own “fine dining” experience in a mobile, drive around way.
I wrote down twenty restaurants and fast food joints up and down our hometown main drag. Each place was cut to its own little strip, and I put them all in a styrofoam cup that had all 5 courses scribbled on the outside. Janet blindly reached in the cup and pulled the first slip for the first course.
It was Subway. Janet objected. She said Subway had the most expensive drinks in town, so she wanted to go somewhere else. Eventually, she acquiesced, and we ordered one large half and half tea, two straws.
The second course was Bottle Cap Alley for appetizers. A quarter mile drive and we were there, but they didn’t have many choices. Basically, we settled for fried onion rings. Besides, the next course was vegetables, so we could get something healthy then.
The third course drawn, however, was another fast food place, Taco Bueno! My five-course meal deal idea was falling apart.
We had to be creative, but guacamole with fried chips was as close as we could get to vegetables.
The fourth draw for the main course drew a groan from both of us, and then the laughter. Dominos Pizza!
While they made the extra thin crust vegetable pizza, we munched on the chips, guacamole and onion rings. After that, the pizza tasted like saltine crackers with onions and tomato sauce on it.
There’s a bloated, clog up your arteries with grease feeling that was kicking in, but we were committed to a 5 course meal…
Dessert! Should’ve started there! A quick draw from the cup and it was Whataburger, the Texas standard for fast food burgers. It was a no brainer choice!
But ice cream and milkshakes don’t mix with lactose intolerance, and the scrumptious home style cinnamon rolls were 580 calories a piece! We settled on apple pies that were only 200 calories each. Did I mention they were fried?
It was fun though, and totally random! We’ll do it again, but not tonight.
Tonight Janet will be in the hospital.
We’re in Houston. At this very moment, Janet is in surgery to remove cancer from a kidney. She was diagnosed three weeks ago.
I’m scribbling to redirect my emotions, blind my thoughts, dull the heightened awareness that the future has changed.
How much, and to what extent it’s changed, we won’t know until the pathology report comes in next week.
If all goes well, this will be a one and done surgery.
If it goes really, really well, next Friday we’ll be celebrating the 15% chance that the cancer is benign.
That’ll be worth a five course meal for sure! 
~Disclaimer: This is the second satirical post and only meant to entertain, maybe even cause a grin, snicker or smile. The first post is here. And yes, there are ALWAYS exceptions. For the record, no words were injured in the writing of this post, so please don’t injure the writer. (Wink, wink.) ~
It’s weird! Men and women have fun differently! Granted, there’s no hard and fast rule, but generally the pendulum swings two ways.
Men feel friendship with other guys by doing stuff together. Here goes:
Two men. They get up at 3:15 AM in cold weather, and meet 3:45 AM sharp at a gas station. They go inside, fill their thermoses with coffee and get in a truck together.
“Good morning”, one says.
“Morning”, says the other. Continue reading Just Two Little Letters — 2
Slowly walking with my four daughters through the Houston Galleria, we passed a Zale’s jewelry store.
I’m not sure who first noticed the couple inside, but they quickly captured our attention. The couple was looking at rings, and because they were trying them on her left ring finger, we assume it was a wedding ring.
The guy wore flip flops, blue jean shorts and a nice sleeveless t-shirt showing off his well developed muscles. His hair was stylishly combed straight down on all sides.
She wore a cream colored sun dress with sandals, and her flowing brown hair was curled on the ends.
Everything about this couple was normal, except they were midgets.
(Radio Announcer Voice) People see Santa Claus once a year, Thanksgiving to Christmas. The view of his life and who he is, is so slanted.
If people truly knew the soap opera life Santa lives the rest of the year, they would clamor to charge him with breaking and entering into their homes on Christmas Eve. Instead, they see him as a benevolent hero delivering government subsidized free presents to nice children everywhere. And so today, we continue with another compelling episode of — (pause for dramatic effect) — North Pole Days of Our Lives!!
Santa rolled over wearing nothing but a pair of over-sized boxers that the tooth fairy had given him. He looked at the clock. 11:12 AM. He’d slept in, again, and knew Mrs. Claus wouldn’t be happy about that.
Besides, Santa knew he snored all night because he didn’t use his Cpap machine for his sleep apnea. Worse yet, he had binged on left over eggnog and cookies the night before, which gives him severe flatulence.
He looked at Mrs. Clause’s side of the bed. Nice. Neat. Not slept in.
There on her pillow was a Hawaiian colored envelope with his name on it, not the official candy cane striped stationary authorized by the North Pole Post Office. His chubby fingers trembled as he struggled to open the letter.
He took a deep breath and began to read:
Dear Santa, Continue reading North Pole Days of Our Lives
They were young newlyweds, but he was already wise enough to be quiet.
She grew up a daddy’s girl, a tomboy in every way. She could fish, feed cows, bail hay, but at the time, she couldn’t make toast in a toaster to save her life!
She decided to make her groom a special supper of some of his favorite foods, including cabbage. She’d never eaten cabbage before, much less cooked it. Nonetheless, she wanted to be a “good wife” and learn how.
In life, hindsight is always 20/20. Looking back now she laughs saying she should’ve asked a few questions, read a recipe, something! But then again, how hard could it be to cook cabbage? Continue reading Cabbage Pot Love
The knot is tied. The balloons won’t come apart. Each is similar, yet unique, different, but the same.
They have the same amount of helium, at least at a glance, but you never know about balloons. They were filled with flight giving helium about the same time, but sometimes a balloon leaks unexpectedly. Its smooth surface becomes slack and loose. It doesn’t bounce or move like a newly filled balloon. Instead of rising to the ceiling, it begins to float around a room mid-air, eventually dropping even further until finally it rests on the floor.
Turn a full helium balloon loose outside and it flies freely, climbing higher and higher! They are easy to see at first, but become smaller as they rise to wherever the winds blow until they finally look like tiny dots before disappearing from sight.
In some ways, two balloons tied together go farther, climb higher, move faster. They catch more wind together than individually. In the long run though one, or both, go flat. Maybe one is accidentally punctured by a tree branch. Maybe the weather changes and cold air causes the balloons to move less freely. Maybe they just sail along until they simply wear out.
A retired elderly couple, probably in their late 70’s, was making their way into Wal-Mart as I pulled into a parking spot. They were dressed like they had just come from church and were in no hurry to get anywhere fast.
By the time I got in the front door, the elderly woman was bent over a display table just inside the door admiring a red heart flower pot with miniature red roses growing in it. She was short, well dressed and had her blue-gray hair fixed up for her Sunday best.
He was a tall man with a relaxed, easy-going expression. He was quite dignified and had an air about him that he was a thoughtful, well-educated man.
Still looking at the flowers, she said to him, “Aren’t these pretty! They never had anything like this until the last few years.” Continue reading Miniature Rose Surprise
Reading a magazine in the dentist waiting room, I saw someone in my peripheral vision pushing a wheelchair. I didn’t look up until I heard the familiar voice of a man facing the receptionist window.
I looked to the wheelchair and locked eyes with a woman staring at me. Even though I haven’t seen her in a couple of years, I instantly recognized her. I smiled and waved, but she flatly stared into my eyes without blinking or a hint of emotion.
She was diagnosed four years ago with early onset dementia. We worked together for over 15 years and she was an extremely responsible, competent individual who rose to every task and challenge ever thrown her way.
But now, she didn’t know me. She was looking right at me, but didn’t see. She was there, but not here; alive, but not living.
Two and half months ago a lightening strike at work crashed our computer server and immediately brought us to our knees. Within an hour a couple of computer geeks who work for the IT Company we contract with showed up. One started on the main frame and one, Joe, began checking individual computers. I walked in my office to see Joe at my desk. Joe glanced up and asked if I was having problems. I told him I’d spilled a cup of coffee on the tower and it’s acted funny ever since. Slightly amused, he retorted that my computer was just low on gasoline and after he filled it up and left he wanted me to plug it back in.
I stood fumbling through some paperwork while Joe kept hacking and coughing. Half joking, half serious, I told Joe if he’d lay off the cigarettes his cough would go away. Without looking up from the keyboard he casually said, “Not this time. I found out last week I have stage 4 lung cancer. It only goes downhill from here.” Continue reading A Short Time To Live
RabBits 