Changing Forecast

In just a day or two since last I looked, the weather forecast has changed from sunny all week to rain today and tomorrow and sunny for the rest of the week...  and, on the surface of it all...  that really does not bother me because all I want to do (especially before it gets too humid to do so) is sit on my screened-in back porch and write articles for my blogs and perhaps write down a poem or two as the mood strikes me...

Rain...  and depending upon how it falls will cause me to return to the insides of our home...  and, I know the commercials on television recently make a big deal about home...  being inside one's home is not the same as being outside in the fresh air...  I guess because we have been inside the home all winter and need to get outside.

The weather station is reporting a temperature of 65 degrees for our area and while that is good for T-shirts and sandals, I am sitting on my deck with a T-shirt covered with a sweatshirt hoody...  as it feels a lot damn colder than 65.

I was planning to mow the lawn later tonight but with the rain and the cool temps for the next 2 days, I doubt if I'll be able to mow it by late Thursday night...  which is not good because then I have a bunch of grass clippings that need to be disposed and that is extra work...  I don't mind work...  but extra work is BS.

I am on my second YETI mug of coffee...  each mug holds 3 cups, so when this one is gone, I will have consumed 6 cups of coffee and ordinarily, I would be wired...  but, my coffee intake these days is DECAF...  which takes like piss or what I might imagine piss to take like since I have not really tasted piss myself...  but, after several years of drinking DECAF, one gets used to it and now regular coffee does not taste right.

Morning With Coffee

Saturday morning in the Valley is beginning with a cool breeze and a clarity of sight that comes from an infusion of decaf coffee laced with two spoons of sugar free Cappuccino Mix that has been stirred to perfection and poured into a YETI cup with a mail ordered handle that sits with me wherever I go...

I am the proud owner of 2 YETI cups...  one is used for water and a varieties of cold teas and one is used for coffee and Cappuccino Mix.  My wife has 2 YETI cups as well that she uses for water and Diet Pepsi...

We both have found that we prefer the taste of Pepsi of Coke and have performed our taste taste several times when we are in restaurants or other establishments that do not serve Pepsi products.

In fact, after several years of drink Diet Pepsi, drinking a regular Pepsi actually tastes terrible to me as it is oftentimes seen as TOO SWEET.

However, I became a fan of Pepsi when I was in the Navy and we were crossing the Atlantic on our way to a 6 month MED CRUISE and the rocking of the boat was making a bunch of us sailors nauseous...  a seasoned naval veteran suggested that I drink a soft drink and eat some saltine crackers... I followed his advice and it worked...  the only available soft drink was Pepsi.

I don't drink any kind of soft drink anymore as I read somewhere that there is an ingredient in soft drinks that prevents the body from losing weight...  and, ever since I stopped smoking cigarettes at the age of 40, I have had to be conscious of my weight.

So much for memories...

On The Back Porch

Storm clouds gather in my field of vision and I wonder how long I have out here before it starts to rain...  and even though my porch is screen in and does a relatively good job at keeping out the bugs and insects, it unfortunately cannot keep out the rain.  I prefer to sit out here and write than inside like I did for most of the summer as the humidity made me sick to my stomach, leaving me often with a feeling that I could not breathe... a changing sensation in my body that has arisen as I have grown old.

The round thermometer inside the porch reads a warm 70 degrees but I just cannot believe it is that warm today, although I feel rather pleasant sitting here in a t-shirt and my pajama bottoms which is all I seem to be wearing these days since I don't leave the house much.  And, even if this COVID disease was not upon us like it was, I doubt that I would be leaving home anymore often than I am now as there is really no place that I want to go.

During the first few years of my retirement, my wife and I traveled all over the place, going somewhere for a week (sometimes longer) every other month...  sometimes, we would drive our car...  sometimes, we would use our frequent flyer miles from using our American Express Card and fly, and sometimes, we would drive to Florida and take a cruise.  BUT...  after just a few days of being in another location and despite the sights and sounds and restaurants, we had a keen desire to simply return home.

Why spend the money if you go somewhere and wish that you were HOME...

On the porch with me is our overweight yellow cat...  overweight, not because of eating too much per se but because of all the steroids he's had to take due to his allergies that were causing him to sneeze and cough from lung congestion...   inside the house, we have two more cats, one yellow as well and has the personality of a typical cat or what one might think a typical cat should be like, and one Siamese that is not your typical cat at all, but is a typical Siamese literally HOWLS when he wants something, is very jealous and possessive...  and, who does not like being picked up or put into a cage...  which is all very interesting especially because he has asthma and must get a steroid shot too about every 90 days or so.

He has a tendency to be cold and have a heating pad under a thin blanket on which he lays on days like today, when according to him, it is a little chilly, especially when there are clouds in the sky and no sunshine.

The YETI metal coffee cup I have holds 3 cups of coffee and keeps it warm for at least a couple of hours which as far as I am concerned is not bad.  I take this cup full of coffee and leave it in the car when I go to see the doctor or when I have my cancer treatments which usually lasts 3 hours maybe a little bit more...  and, when I return to the car, the coffee inside is still very much warm and I drink it on the return drive rather than stopping.

One last item before I return inside since my laptop battery is rapidly declining and that is the KODI box that I purchased for about fifty bucks.  It easily attaches itself to a WIFI connection, and offers free movies, TV shows, and NEWS outlets many of which you have on CABLE if you are willing to pay the monthly fees.  It is a way of saving money iffen you need to...   and as far as I am personally concerned, I hate paying a fee for television service that used to be FREE...  but, that's just me.