I am not a big fan of Funerals

    I attended the funeral of my wife's best friend today. They are the same age. Her friend was diagnosed with cancer in June, and died last Thursday. It was only two months after her husband died of cancer. That was only 18 months after he was diagnosed.

    Having to attend two funerals in just over 60 days for a couple that is the same age as my wife and I was difficult. They were our friends, and the idea that they were taken in such a short time is hard to rationalize. It just doesn't seem fair.

    I don't need the NFL to tell me about Cancer Awareness. I don't need to see a pink ribbon everywhere I go. All I need to do to be aware of the toll Cancer has taken is think about the two funerals I attended since August. I think about the children, grandchildren, brothers, Sisters, and even parents who were left behind, and the tears that were shed at the graveside today for a life that was cut short, and I can't forget what we have all lost.

   I am tired of attending Funerals for people my own age. I am too damn young for that.

Butterflies as far as the eye can see

Last Weekend I was down at Cape May Point New Jersey for several days taking care of some chores. Saturday Afternoon I took a break and rode my bike over to the Lighthouse at Cape May Point State Park.

     I took my digital camera and headed out onto the nature trail. Mid-September is a magical time in the wetlands along the shore, because THOUSANDS of Butterflies all come out at once.

     A digital camera makes it easy to shoot pictures of the Butterflies literally flocking around you.

I posted one of my pictures here that had a half dozen monarch butterflies grazing on one of the native plants.  Their life cycle is so short, but they possess such beauty. I enjoyed watching the eyes of small children light up as the monarchs fluttered in the air around them. There are some amazingly beautiful moments in life that really defy words. Saturday afternoon was one of them. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Coping with Grief is never easy.

In late winter 2010 one of my old Army pals lost his wife in a car accident on an icy road. I didn't find out until about a month after it happened, but we had shared several emails and talked about how he was doing.
  I thought of him today when Yahoo's home page ran a e-news story about the widow of actor Patrick Swayze and how she still sent text messages telling him she loved him a year after his death.
     My friend and his wife both have Facebook pages, and in the Fall of last year they had both gotten hooked on the "Farmville" application. (I have one too, but nothing like theirs) Since she died, he has kept her farm going. He does it because he doesn't want her dog to die. Because she had allergies they couldn't have a real dog, but the dogs had just came available on the application before she died, and she had used her credit card to get Farmville cash and purchase a special one.

    After a certain point, you don't have to feed the dogs at all, but he goes on her Facebook page everyday and feeds it anyway. It's a piece of her he doesn't want to let go. I have wrote about this before, but I checked with him today, and he is still doing it.

     Back in the early 1980's when we were in the Army together, VCR tapes were just getting started. One movie that we rented and made a copy of was the Clint Eastwood Classic, "The Outlaw Josey Wales."

    There were times when things were difficult, and as Demolition guys who worked with explosives, we would quote movie lines to help us cope. At our scariest moments, it seemed like someone would always say, "Dying is Easy, Living is hard."

   That's how we coped with our fear of dying. Living with the death of a soul mate is a pain I wouldn't look forward to dealing with, but I admire my friend for coping whatever way he can. He feeds a cartoon dog that only exists on a computer screen, because it meant a lot to his wife, and still means a lot to him.

     That's Love.

My name is (Tropical Storm) Earl and I'm passing Cape May Point

Greetings from Cape May Point New Jersey. I drove down Thursday and spent the day preparing for the worst. At Sunset I rode my bike down to Stites beach, on the Delaware bay side, and digitally shot the 4 minute Sunset, which was spectacular. This morning at dawn I rode over to the lighthouse and taped the surf pounding in from the Atlantic side by the old Army Bunker.
   I tried to upload those files to blogger but they keep failing, so here's a picture of the crazy surf along the jetty last night.

    Power has flickered a couple of times in the last hour because of the gusty winds. It was weird, because I got up at 6 AM and went out and the air was very still. To use an old cliche', "the calm before the storm." I got coffee at Mc D's this AM and checked my email and the news forecast.
       The weather wonders say the worst will come this evening. I can't get internet on the point, so I have to drive across the causeway to North Cape May and use the Wireless in the MicDonald's here. For a Labor Day weekend the place is pretty much empty. This is what it looks like offseason in November when we come down.  Even the parking Lot at the Acme behind us is maybe a third full, and that is mostly local employees. Rental turnovers usually take place Saturday at noon, but many people left last night. We have had a few rain squalls, but nothing major.
    I have fully charged up the digital camera and borrowed Flip cam, I will be out first thing in the AM after the storm passes to see what the waves did to the beach I was down there last around 10:30 and there were two life guards and one lady in a chair watching the waves roll in. If I could load a U-tube video, I would put up Otis Redding's "sitting on the Dock of the Bay."

    Catch you guys later.

Eating Mutant Chicken Eggs

I tried to find a picture at Google images of eggs with multiple yolks, but this is all I could get.
People are always asking me what makes me think the way I do, and I really can't tell them, because I don't know. I would ask all the people in my head, but every time I try they go on conference call and ignore me.
   But the recent recall of a half a billion eggs has me wondering. I eat pretty many eggs, as the Dutchies' around here would say. I don't know what my cholesterol is and I really don't care, But I buy my eggs at Redners, and I usually buy a dozen of the jumbo size about every ten days.
   I have noticed recently that just about every time I make eggs over easy at least one of my eggs has multiple yolks. I'm no expert on genetics, but doesn't that mean it would have been a two headed chicken?
    So am I eating what would have been two headed chickens regularly? I am really curious about that. There's something for the FDA to study, the long term effects of eating eggs from two headed chickens.
    I hereby volunteer, call me, I'm ready. So are the rest of the people in my head. Now if I could just get the IRS to allow me to claim all the voices as dependents.