Five hours after the fact, I restart my blog.

Thanks AEP. I don't know about you but since electricity was deregulated I sure think it sucks. All of it, service and price. If I'm calling a power outage in I sure don't want to hear a "cheery" voice welcoming me to the automated response system. If it was automated they should have already responded. This morning I went through all the prompts, and ended up waiting for a service representative. Her name was Gayla and she sure wasn't reassuring. I hope they aren't paying her more than minimum wage and she would certainly be a strong argument for not increasing minimum wage.

I was almost through proofing my blog when power began flickering. Lights became dim, battery backups began sounding their alarm. Then a final flicker followed by darkness. I have never seen a battery backup lose power so quickly. I realize it has a load but it should have done better than that. Luckily I had purchased a new little maglite recently and knew exactly where it was at. Initially I began assessing our own house, everything appeared in order at the breaker box. Then I began looking around the neighborhood. Everything to our east to Wynland Place was dark. Three blocks. Nothing. I called the AEP outage number and the adventure began.

So with that, and since blogger can't or won't recover my post, I will attempt to resurrect it from my feeble mind.

Let the games begin!

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me!

Krl and I don't really celebrate our birthdays anymore. We may allow the birthday boy or girl to select the menu, but no parties or outlandish celebrations. We may or may not have a cake. It all depends. However we do acknowledge the grandbabies birthdays. On that note, tomorrow is Kat's birthday. Happy Birthday Kat.

It doesn't seem that long ago on my birthday that I was exiting a plane after a business trip to Newark, New Jersey and saw Krl waiting at the gate, balloon bouquet in one hand, cell phone in the other. I thought we were going out to eat, she told me there was a change in plans. We were going to the hospital to get a grandbaby! Kat missed being born on my birthday by scant minutes. When she did arrive she had a fist planted in her mouth which was reason for the delay due to faulty exit strategy.

This year I feel sorry for Kat. Since her Meme is disabled I will be entrusted with selecting her gift. Krl and I have always had an unspoken agreement. She does for the granddaughters, I do for the grandsons. It has always worked well, after all she was once a girl and I was once a boy!

As regular readers are aware, I made a trip to Sweetwater Friday to pick up my annual birthday meal from Ma Allen's. I went ahead and made a stop at my folks house in Roscoe where my Mom wanted me to eat with them. She had gone to Snyder and gotten her hair cut and while she was there she had picked up Chicken Express. I declined, telling her the reason for my trip over was to pick up Ma Allen's chicken and trimmings. She asked me when my party was and I told her

"It's my party it'll start when I want it to, start when I want it to, start when I want it to!"

When I had returned home Friday with the meal, I had purposely picked up more than Krl and I needed for a meal. In fact we had enough for several meals. When I walked in the door she was ready to eat.

Funny thing Saturday morning was for the first time since Krl's accident she was able to sleep in. It was middle of the morning when she opened her eyes. She is beginning to get me trained because I went immediately into the kitchen and fed and watered the dogs and got her blood pressure medicine. I then asked her if I could get her anything else and she said "food". I asked her what and she said "Ma Allen's". I fixed her a plate of chicken, squash, potato salad and a slice of bread.

I am becoming very domestic. Cooking is not a problem, I am very adept in a kitchen. That doesn't mean I like the clean up though. I can do laundry, however I can argue about what qualifies as a light or a dark. I think if an item is striped, the lighter color might qualify it for a light while the darker color might qualify it as a dark. In that case I feel there isn't a wrong answer. I like stripes.

Krl is quickly whipping me into shape as a house cleaner. The last couple of days I have come to know the tubs and toilets in our house up close and personal.

If there is any area I do not excel in, it is menu planning. I can put a meal together but subsequent meals sometimes find the main course repeated or simply a variation in preparation. Friday we ate chicken. Saturday for breakfast I fed Krl chicken. I asked her what she wanted for supper Saturday and she asked what I had thawed. I told her I had ground beef and I had a pack ...a.ge...o.f... ch..ick..en that I had set out to thaw before Merrit had called earlier in the week when she was thinking about coming for a visit. Krl told me I had better use the chicken before it ruined. So for the third meal in a row, we had chicken. However, I did it with a twist. I cooked frosted flakes oven baked chicken with Idahoan potatoes, corn on the cob, and biscuits. It was good.

In our house we've eaten so much chicken lately even the eggs are holding their breath. And well they should! I got a new omelet/poached egg pan for my birthday!

I had told Krl since I get to choose the menu for my birthday (never mind the fact that I will be the one to cook it), it would be filled with my favorites. I had planned to begin the day with chili cheese dogs! Yum!
Thanks to AEP that didn't happen. During one of my excursions to see if repair crew had responded, I made a dash for the Golden Arches Dinner Club to pick up breakfast.

Now I am so flabbergasted I don't know whether to just slide the chili cheese dogs to lunch or what!

Of course we still have chicken in the fridge.

It is just a couple or three hours now until the Daytona 500. I can hardly wait. If it is loud or goes fast, I'm interested. I have my favorites, but this year I would almost pay to see Michael Waltrip win in his #55 NAPA Toyota Camry. If I were him and did win, it would be tempting for me to stand on top of the car (even though that is a rules violation) in victory lane and "moon" the NASCAR officials (I don't think that one is in the rule book although they would probably group it under actions detrimental to stock car racing).

As Maple Syrple and Phooey scuffles go, "give 'em the leg" Mikey!

And with that, have a day on me!

FATHER, thank YOU!