I like our local Walgreens here in Lawrenceburg, TN. They have been my pharmacy for more than five years, their prices are fair, and someone always greets you as you walk in.

Today, 1/31/24, I timed my visit to the exact arrival of my new Parkinson's drug, at 1245, according to their website. I want to start these new meds quickly.

The young lady that greeted me told me it wasn't ready yet. In other words it had arrived in a container box from somewhere, along with a whole bunch of others, and hadn't been processed.

The initial implication was, come back tomorrow. But this is where her customer service shown through.

She dug through that box of new arrivals, on the floor across the counter in front of me, and found it.

This fine young Walgreens employee had a three letter name. Very sweet, loved my fingernails. She could have easily said come back tomorrow but allowed me to start a new Parkinson's drug today.

My truck Jill is thirty six years old. I don't know the formula, but I know one vehicle year is longer than a human year. Say it's just two, Jill would be 72, three she would be 108.

I continue to maintain her as she ages, like I do myself. Buying another vehicle is completely off the table and I need to get around. I need to be able to get to the stores here!

Although, if she dies, I could just say screw it, go on food stamps and use the local ride share services offered by the Senior Center to get to Krogers. I could even have everything delivered.

Jess grabbed some shots of Riley hanging out with his girls, and a visit from his mom and grandma.

His redheaded mom Colleen:

His redheaded grandma Sharon:

I thought I really had my truck in great shape as she purred down to Tampa over Christmas. Then the cold weather hit and white smoke started belching out the tail pipe, and she started running rough.

My boy Riley correctly diagnosed it over the phone as a blown head gasket and my mechanic Thomas just confirmed it this morning.

He pulled up a guide that estimated the job at more then $1750, but he bid it down to $850. I asked if he would make a profit at that point, between him and his helper, and he said barely. We settled at a grand and that could finish off my travel plans.

So tomorrow I'll drop it off at 0800, Thomas and the helper will strip the head down and take it to the machine shop for resurfacing, all back together by Friday afternoon.

Well, it looks like a great visit is about to go down this Summer, between me and my sons Pacific Northwest family, and my amazing grand-daughter Shelby.

We can fly in for a week and enjoy both family and area. I'll show Shelby Seattle. Maybe hook up with some old friends.

I've got some issues to resolve first though. My old truck is running pretty rough, it started when the cold weather hit a couple of weeks ago. And, white smoke is blasting out of the tail pipe.

I told my automotive genius son Riley about it, and his answer was "ahh oh". He suspects a blown head gasket and had me check for a milky fluid in either the radiator fluid or the oil. If the two merge together, I can lose my engine.

They looked alright so I kept my neurology appointment today, 30 miles away. She got me up there and back and I booked a 1000 with my mechanic for tomorrow.

Thomas the mechanic said the recent rain and snow took out the roof of his small shop, and he's basically shut down for a bit, but he'll look at it out front.

I also got some bad news from my neurologist. Looks like my Parkinsons is getting worse and they're not going to continue the drug I've been out of for a month now, which was just for tremors.

Now I'm walking funny and my arms are messed up, so I've got a new heavy duty drug, to be taken three times a day, arriving at Walgreens tomorrow.

It's Carbidopa/Levodopa 25-100mg Tabs, Qty: 270. Apparently Parkinsons destroys dopamine, and this restores it.

Also, as I was driving up there this morning I had a couple sharp chest pains. I mentioned that to my doctor and she made it clear that she wanted no part of that and asked if I needed to go to the ER. I smiled and said no.

So, this is my drama queen post. Poor poor pitiful me. I'm actually not looking for sympathy, just documenting things if I or my truck drop dead.

Daniel's and my poker game was into day three on my table today, but his wife has had him snagged since yesterday, I needed the space, and just tore it down.

Grand-daughter Shelby and I are talking a Seattle trip this Summer, she out of Tampa, me out of Nashville. She's got some Defense business to do, we both have a new baby to meet, and we can stay in their trailer out back.

Shelby's also a travel agent, so I can just leave the arangements to her.

This will probably be my last adventure. I'm running out of money, mobility and ambition. A great trip to hang with my favorite people this Summer, is a perfect way to wind down.

Hey Riley and Jess, plan an event that includes both sides of your families. I would love to see them all again, and introduce them to Shelby!

Update: Can you spot Shelby emanating from the middle, surrounded by two dark haied ladies and a hot redhead?

Something is going on with me, my brain is fading, and I don't even know how to write about it. Daniel thinks it's because I've been off my main Parkinson's drug for more than a month, and I need to go see Amanda up in Columbia for a refill.

Maybe I can just call her office and request a refill? It's not like they need me up there to confirm I still need it!

So I'm down to two meds, morning and evening: Celecoxib for my right shoulder pain and Pramipexole, my other Parkinsons pill.

So, I suppose that's not bad, just four pills a day at the age of 77, with a max of six if I ever get my self together.

I got a craving for an ice cream sandwich and a little chocolate this afternoon, so I drove up the hill to the Dollar General. There was a couple in front of me buying out the place with their teenage daughter, who swore that Kit-Kat was her favorite taste in the world.

As I stood there with the ice cream melting in my hand, I thought about my ex who started working for Dollar General when we moved here five and a half years ago. She has since told me fuck you and disappeared.

And I realize the only feelings I have left from that twenty year relationship is sadness, and anger. For a while there I thought she would contact me and tell me how she landed, I loved her and wished her well, but it never happened.

Now I'm just bitter. I arrived in this place thinking I would have some family and maybe continue a friendship, and just ended up a broken lonely old man on a dead end street.

I have always spoken lovingly here of my many years with Steph, but I'm making it a personal vow to never mention her, or her family, here again.

My friend and next door neighbor Daniel and I have had a poker game going on around my round table for the last two days. We had a phone chat yesterday evening with Erica, our hairstylist, as Daniel made his appointment for this afternoon.

Erica is the stylist lady that both he and I lack in our personal lives. Steph was that woman for me back in Idaho and is long gone now. We can let our heads go to hell and she fixes them when we're ready.

She cuts our hair down to a short stub, shaves our faces and trims our goatees. She gets that hair on the back of our necks, she trims our eyebrows, the hair in our ears and up our nose.

Daniel was late getting to the poker game tonight because he was getting the Erica treatment at the Beauty College. My turns coming up, not sure when, and I am a mess.

Profound thoughts dissolve quickly from my fading scattered mind. I've been working on a good buzz with a good buddy all day, and now he's gone, along with my mind. Drove it right along into the rainy afternoon and now it's in stoned neutral.

I'm accepting the fact that my mind is on the last train to Clarksville, my body has left the station, and it's OK!

I had a great video chat last night with my boy Riley and his family in Washington State. My grand-daughter Ariella now remembers me from Nashville last Summer, and that's very cool.

She was holding the phone and staring into my eyes with a glimmer from hers that said I remember you grandpa!

So I guess I'm OK. I have no love life, just a couple of friends, and family scattered across the country, that I will never see.

I turned the homeless guy away today, and as my lonely night sinks down over me, I know I made the right move.

I look at each major moment of life these days, as either a right or wrong move, never neutral.

My moves have been alright lately. I'm taking the depression of decline, and mellowing it out with vodka and legal smoke.

I look forward to my next day, my next month, my next year. I will give each one all the honesty and integrity I have.

And if I have to close the door on a homeless guy to keep my sanity and integrity, I will.

The homeless guy Kip showed up at my door today around noon. I saw his face appear through the stainless glass before he knocked, but I didn't know who was there.

There he stood, soaking wet from the rain, with a big smile on his bearded face. He owes me money, ripped me off the last time I let him in, and all I could do was shake my head and close the door.

He understood, and left. I walked out later to make sure he hadn't crashed in my truck.

I consider myself a very compassionate man, but there always comes a point where you have to stop. That happened today.

And now I sit here feeling bad. Maybe I should have given him shelter for a bit, found out what was going on, but I did not.

Or maybe I did the right thing for myself, for a change...

I killed this blog for a while today. I've been stressing over it so I shut it down to see how it felt. I wrote two lines of PHP code and stuck them up in the header of the oldmanjim.com index.php file.

"OldManJim is done." was presented to a blank screen, and then the site simply stopped. Dead to the world.

I left it up there for a few hours this morning, and access to all 2,041 posts across more than five years, thousands of images, hundreds of videos, and tools that have been used millions of times, was gone.

Here's what it looked like:

OldManJim is done.

I've since commented out that kill switch, but it is now less than a minute away.

Here life evolves, on a snow thawing Monday evening in the Deep South. My friend Daniel dropped by after his school district maintenance job, on a day when they shut down the schools. School is shut down again tomorrow, he's not.

All sorts of shit is going down around here, Summertown's water froze, so did New Prospect's. They just don't plan for serious weather around here.

They get a few inches, it freezes, and they freak out. Pretty sad.

Daniel explains that the Deep South is not the North West. Really? He say's everything is buried deeper at 6500 feet, I suppose...

When Winter hit back there in October, it stayed until May. I lived, drove and worked in that shit for twelve years. Fuck you pussies around here!

Here it is in late January and the temp will be back in the fifties by the end of the week. What little snow and ice gone...

Hah! Hey, I'll take every day of it! I truly wish I could extend my life further. Fuck everything and wake up on a tropical island with no worries.

But that ain't happening, and all I can say is, good night...

The point where the top of my right front thigh joins my upper torso, hurts. The spot where my lower neck joins my right shoulder, aches. I have no idea why these things are happening, and I feel it spreading to my left side.

I wonder wtf is going on, and I know that if it worsens, I'm in trouble. In the meantime I observe in pain and wait for it to happen.

I ran out of the primary Parkinsons med I've been taking for years, a few months ago, and nobody has renewed the prescription. Maybe my body is pissed off, and it's sending my mind South.

I remember when our mom dropped dead in an Orinda, CA extended living home. My sister offered me all of her stuff, and a U-Haul rental to take it back up to Seattle, after the funeral.

I had just started a $4.50 an hour bellboy job up in a Kent, WA hotel. I was barely staying alive and had no room for her stuff. It all went to the Salvation Army and I went back up home on the Amtrak train.

I've got a Will now, but I'm wondering if that's a mistake. Most of my stuff goes to son Riley back in Washington, and grand-daughter Shelby down in Tampa. Attending my funeral and processing my shit, would be disruptive and non-productive for both.

Why doesn't a service exist that could take care of all this stuff. Swoop in, separate family and physical things into a local storage area. Allow family to fly in and gather anything of sentimental value, sell the rest to a second-hand place, then organize the cremation and funeral with the proceeds.

I don't want my passing to be a burden, and I want folks to look back on it with a smile. Too much to ask?

This big Southern Tennessee Winter snow event is over and it should be in the sixties by the end of next week. It's fucking fine with me if I never see another snow drop fall for the rest of my life.

I woke up this morning to an email from my longtime Liberal West Coast friend. We've been on the outs for a while and she wanted me to call her. My apologies old friend, if you read this, I can't.

My daughter, mother to fourteen grandkids and some great-grandkids, was three years old when I met this friend fifty seven years ago. We have a long history, and now there is none.

I only have a couple of friends left here, and they're both guys. Somehow I have allowed women and kids to fade from my life, and it's left a huge emptiness in my heart...

I've invited a buddy over tonight to play poker with Daniel and me, and I haven't seen either all day. I have everything needed for a fun Saturday evening of cards and all I need now is players.

It's 1735, I have painted fingernails, I'm a crushed lonely old man, and I feel on the verge of doing something stupid. Some times we have friends around to correct that stupidity, most times we have not.

Daniel just called and said he was picking up some House Fried Rice, so I'll set up the poker chips...

I'm beginning to recognize the expression on total strangers faces that I do business with. I call it the What do we have here? look.

What they get back in return is a toothless unshaven old man who really doesn't give a flying fuck. In fact, I'm not even going to cut them until the pattern grows out, get those nails long and gnarly.

I went into town this morning, almost had eighteen wheels roaring up the hill put my misery to rest, as I slid partially through the Hwy 43 stop sign.

This snow silly southern town has been mostly shut down for days, but it's slowly coming back. I moved here after a decade plus spent high in the Rockies, and this ain't nothing.

In fact, Teton Valley was at the base of a Wyoming ski resort, and thrived on many feet of winter snow. We lived and worked with it, here they just shut down at a few inches.

We were surrounded by love, beauty, money, volcanos and world class trout streams. None of that is no longer around me. I thought I was going to continue to be part of Steph and her families lives here, but I was wrong.

Something's wrong. My brain has gone South on me and I have no idea why. I can't remember how to do things on my computer and I had a real hard time getting this Post out.

I have two food dishes in the refrigerator that I don't remember making yesterday. One is a large pot of some red stuff, and I really don't know what it is.

I do remember getting to the cheap grocery store yesterday but I ended up with two receipts, paid for both of them, and one had items I think I never bought.

I don't know what the fuck I'm doing anymore, not sure if I really care...

It's Tuesday, midway through January 16, and there's still too much snow and ice on the roads to venture out to the Hwy, much less the Places in town.

I had an amazing Transit career operating up in the High Idaho Teton Valley mountains, for more than a decade. My work partner and I each drove brand new sixteen wheeled passenger busses along Hwy 33, we served the town, the kids and the Seniors.

The busses were made for the snow, with four rear wheels moving us between small towns, with the best tires money could drive at the time. On the last New Years afternoons we were there, Karen dropped by our log home to give me and Steph a bottle of expensive vodka, and I turned it down. I quit for almost a year there, and our friendship was never the same.

Summer came, I trained a guy to replace me, with Karen's and my friendship fading way.

Steph was the woman of my life when we moved here. I loved and lost her when we did.

Daniel is getting his big service truck ready for an icy snowy trip into town here, and I'm going along...

Well, we're getting hammered with snow, and Daniel said he's never seen this much here. It's real cold, seven inches on the ground, and more heading this way all week.

It's 23° and snowing in Lawrenceburg, TN. This is my fifth winter here and I've seen some interesting weather, including snow, but this one could dump a bit.

I remember Steph's and my first big snow in the Grand Tetons. I made a snowman out by the mailbox, on our little subdivision street, off Ski Hill Road. We were the new couple on this very spread out block, and were the first house you came to as you entered.

Just for the fun of it, I stuck a stick, facing upward, into the snowman's lower belly and packed a snow sculpture around it, in the shape of something very hard and erect. The Horny Snowman was born!

I wish I could give a rational reason for that, I do know, as that first Winter sunk in, we hadn't made any friends in the subdivision. I think I was just giving the place a friendly fuck you.

Ahhh, Sunday evening in the South, in January. The snow totals are projected to be seven inches or more tonight.

Back where I come from, we talked in feet, not inches. I know what driving a public bus in the dead of a high mountain Idaho winter is like. I did it for a decade.

That experience now tells me to just stay off the road and let it thaw. Put that strip club down in Huntsville visit off for a bit.

I have determined that I have an addictive disposition. Right now I'm suffering through a bout of Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter munchies. The kitchen knife lays poised to dive into the jar, on a paper towel, in my kitchen.

In fact, that's been my main exercise, back and forth for another scoop, each time swearing it was my last.

And I have not communicated with anyone all day. No calls, no text, no email, no human interaction. I have power and heat, I'm secure, and I'm thankful for what I have left in life. Let it snow...

I'm using this old hammer for breaking up ice in the bag in my freezer compartment. It's been in my life for quite a while now, with no memory of how it arrived.

It's not like my grand-fathers hammers, which are probably at least a hundred years old, this one is different.

It's heavy, with a big solid white hammer head of unknown material, designed to deliver a softer, spread out blow. Handmade holes at the bottom, with wrapped braided threads at the tip.

Riley and Jess's new baby Taleigh is beautiful, and it looks like red hair is emerging to match her sister Ariella's.

It's headless chicken time, here in Tennessee. The weather people are warning about possible snow in some places this weekend, that may reach a couple of inches!

I moved here after spending twelve years in high altitude Idaho snow country.

My landlord just sent me a text to make sure I keep my faucets running when it drops below 32. We ran our faucets when the TV weather station in Idaho Falls said we should, and it was way below freezing.

Our Winter temps often got down to -40°. The faucets were defiantly running but Teton Valley would just shut down.

Schools would closed, and I drove a bus that had a bunch of kids on board throughout the day, so I stayed home.

Leave a skeleton crew at the grocery store, a gas station open, and the Valley would just wait for everything to warm up.

When snow is piled high against the house, and around the hot tub out on the deck, you hunker down at -40°.

But not with two inches of snow and temps in the twenties and thirties...

I took the CD of my Liver Ultrasound over to Daniels last night and saved the contents to a thumb drive. I looked at the files this morning and there was no viewer software for the DICOM image file format included. Which means it's totally unusable to a layman. Only people in the Medical profession have the software to view these images.

Unless you're a computer genius like me, who can track down a Dicom viewer package and install it on my Windows 11 laptop.

Bingo, there were 37 images to do with as I wanted. I could have converted them all to .jpg, but the viewer app had an export to video function, so I created one.

The resulting video had my confidential info on the front and back, and it flew through the 37 images in three seconds. So, I popped it into my video editor, stripped off the personal data, and stretched it out:

The video turned out great. You can see the title of the organ, force it's way into the upper left, as each one slides into view.

Here is the good doctor Douglas White's diagnosis as a result of seeing these images.

 • Pancreas is unremarkable.

 • Gallbladder is normal.

 • Common Bile Duct is good.

 • Right Kidney has mild diffuse renal cortical thinning without hydronephrosos or nephrolithiasis.

Bottom line, he stated that I have diffuse fatty infiltration of the liver, otherwise unremarkable.

Sometimes you have to dive deeper when all they say is "You have a fatty liver, so now fuck off, that's all you get to know".

I've been thinking about my priorities lately, and they've come down to a few things. In order of importance: Family, friends, freedom, my mancave, physical and vehicle mobility, ice with vodka and water, a little smoke, and some hot sex before I die.

Beyond that, I'm just doing my best to keep moving forward, with a positive attitude and love in my heart.

It's a healthy process, to think about, and honestly rate, your priorities!

One of my goals today has been to pay god's blessings upon me, forward.

As I headed into the discount smoke shop for ice, I saw a man drop a sheet of paper into the parking lot, in the wind. He managed to secure it with his foot, but couldn't bend over to pick it up.

I walked over and picked the paper up and placed it into the stack of papers within his arms. He said it's rough being 57, and I told him I'm 77.

Then he said something that blew my mind: "I know you are, I think you're amazing"!

He looked familiar, was this another person I've helped out around here, that I can't remember, or a friend of one I have. Whatever, it was a great encounter!

I realized that I didn't pay my $10 copay the last time I was at my little strip mall medical clinic. The front desk girl was busy and I just spaced and left.

I went in there this morning to pay my bill, but the girl said there is nothing due. I told her that's just what happened at Pat's Cafe, where my order info vanished before I could pay, and I got a free breakfast.

She smiled and said "maybe you're blessed, pay it forward" and I told her I do that as much as I can.

Then, being on a roll, I drove up to the hospital to get copies of my liver ultrasound images. Once I navigated through a couple of folks in the main building, I ended up down in Records at the back of the Hospital.

I filled out a couple pages of info, let her scan my ID, we chatted about Florida beaches, and then she handed me a CD.

I don't own a CD reader anymore, but I could run up to Walmart and get one for twenty bucks. Or better, Daniel's got one for his laptop, I'll just borrow his tonight, for this one-off event.

I wonder who my blog audience is anymore. Turns out, a lot of people have been reading my posts, but I have no idea wether they're friends or family, or just folks who I've given my site name to, and they decided to stick around.

This blog has been firmly embedded in the Google search structure for more than five years. It's secure, trusted, no ads, no cookies, no spyware and no comments wanted, just a place where an old man rattles on to the world about his daily survival, and what he thinks about this amazing experiance called life. New followers may very well be coming from Google.

It's interesting to think that OldManJim has a following, maybe I should be more careful about what I write.

Nahh...

The best time I've ever spent here in my Southern Tennessee small place, was when the dark rental vehicle turned on to our street and I said "they're here".

Suddenly, a flood of family came rushing out the doors, into my space and into my arms. My son Riley, wife Jessica, baby Ariella, and Taleigh in the belly. Grand-daughter Shelby and her dog Zinny.

I had barbecue waiting in the center of my mancave. They all got to experience my life here, and like I said, the best day. I even took them on a back road cruise up to the Park and back through the Square.

Then we all headed North for our amazing Nashville adventure.

I've lived in many places in my life, and I've learned a truth. You either love it, hate it, or endure it. If you love a place, you lovingly hold onto it. If you hate a place, you fight desperately to escape it.

To endure a place is to accept the level of security it offers, at a price you can afford.

Maybe there's another level, where the three emotions can come together, and thrive. I think that's where I'm at right now.

Sunday football and our Titans are trying to knock the Jags out of the play offs. There are a bunch of teams with an investment in this game. We're up 28 to 13, early third quarter.

Daniel did a fine thing for a longtime friend today. For years he's been the ice house maintenance guy on weekends, for his friend Jim, who owns ice units all around the area.

After his foot surgery he had to back off, and Jim has been scrambling to find a replacement for Daniel. The one he currently has, is an irresponsible idiot, the Pulaski and Ardmore ice houses are down, he's losing money, and he's furious.

So Daniel stepped up and said he would find a way to fix them this morning. He can't drive his service truck because it's a clutch, and surgery was on the left foot. He also can't go up and down ladders like he used to.

He then called his good friend Alan, who agreed to drive the truck and be a parts runner from the truck to halfway up the ladder. They got an early start, made a good team, got both ice houses fixed, and Daniel made it over here by 1200 for football.

He also made a whole bunch of valuable points, with an influential Southern Tennessee business man.

Image generated by OpenAI's DALL-E.

It's been a quiet lonely day here on the deadend street. Daniel dropped by earlier and drug me up to Cash Saver's for something he wanted. As he headed towards the store, with his door closing, I said "I'll just wait in the truck".

I think I saw his middle finger emerge from his stocky hand and it all has to do with Lanie Wilson. He hates her, or at least says he does, just to aggravate me, a Wilsoner.

There's a line in a recent CMA 2023 video about domestic violence, where the man finds a beaten woman in the middle of a dark road, and they drive back to her abusers house. He tells the woman to "just wait in the truck", and then takes the guy out, permanently. Smoking one of his cigarettes, and waiting for the cops to come.

It's a great performance, with a message, but my neighbor doesn't like it because Lanie's in it.

It's also sad that an otherwise intelligent, talented guy can be so wrong about the hottest female country star in the world. Jennifer Nettles is real high on my hot list, along with a couple others, but Lanie is tops for me.

Daniel says that she's bourgeois, boughie, as he likes to say. I asked him who he likes, and he shows me some chick in pink with pony tails. Meghan Trainer, I like her, but talk about the ultimate definition of boughie, she's it.

I'd love to be giving my friend some Lanie grief, and discussing these differences, but he's been hunkered down with his wife next door, all day.

Guess who's birthday I just spaced on. Umhuh, I knew an important one was happening but I couldn't recall that today is my beautiful favorite grand-daughter Shelby's thirty second birthday.

She had texted me earlier: "We're at Disney for birthday festivities", intentionally leaving "my" out of the expression, testing me.

Finally, after reading my Life Blog post, and realizing that I just wasn't getting it, she texted: "My birthday is today papa..."

I fell to my knees before my laptop, in humility, and texted her for forgiveness!

Photos of Shelby and Kristin's Disney birthday day are forthcoming, check back tomorrow.

In the meantime, here's a very short clip I found on my little video camera. It was taken as Shelby and I had just sat down to that fancy Tampa brunch, with what's her name.

As I float through early 2024, towards the middle of a decade that I thought I would never see, I've felt that everyday has been somebodies birthday. Some persons I was close to and loved, that I can't even remember their name now, had a birthday on this first week of January.

I am so terrible with names these days, and I have almost zero birthday cognizance. I wish I had started a blog when I first learned to write, along with a Google spreadsheet containing notes and dates about everyone I ever met.

Obviously, the tech wasn't there in the late forties, but it is now. I think it should be every parents responsibility to learn how to setup a blog and a spreadsheet!

Then give each child the gift of their own space to record their life, teaching them how to do it, and why they will love the ability to relive any day, any person, as life moves on.

Each post and spreadsheet update would be completely private and stored in the cloud. If the blogger want's to share a post with anyone, as the years roll by, they can. The rest of the blog is not visible, to anyone, but them.

Give each child a basic phone as soon as they're ready. The blogging platform could be baked in, and all the parents would need to do is customize it for them, and teach them how to use it.

Daniel read the Just Go On post and then, having been born and raised here, gave me the history of Pat's Cafe.

The very nice lady who takes orders on the tablet, and who bought my breakfast this morning, is the owner, Teresa. Her mom was named Pat, and with her step-fathers help, opened the cafe years ago.

Teresa and her two siblings inherited the restaurant, then she bought them out, and the place was all hers. I assume the implementation of the technology is also hers.

Daniel has known Teresa forever, and has a high regard for the family. She and her husband run a catering business and would love to see a responsible transition of the place, to new owners, but they haven't appeared yet.

Pats Cafe is a long block off the main highway, and down a small town road. And every time I've been there, they've always been hopping. Now that I know the history, I understand why.

I drove over to the Park to warm my dashboard up. Then I secured my two main screens with double stick tape. From left to right: Backup Cam, GPS, DC Splitter, and my straw.

This is my DJI Pocket Two mount for driving videos, while down in the corner is my internal radio antenna.

Here's the phone mount, to my left. On the recent Tampa road trip I had both Google, and my Garmin GPS, giving me step by step directions.

When I would deviate off the route, to get gas or whatever, it was comical to hear these female voices trying to get me back on track, in their own way.

Kinda the story of my life...

I had breakfast at Pat's Cafe this morning, and this little place next to the bowling alley was rocking around 1000. Really busy, and I sat at the table in the corner with my back to the wall.

Each table has a number because the ordering system is computerized. A lady walks around with a tablet and takes your order on it, and it's sent straight to the kitchen.

I had eggs over easy, hash browns and a pancake. The food is served by pretty young girls, who wear short shorts in the Summer, btw.

When you're done and ready to pay you just walk up to the cashier and she magically knows what table you were at. Maybe there's a face recognition system that takes a snapshot once you're served, and presents it to the cashier, I don't know.

But today, it skipped a beat with me. She got a puzzled look on her face, then grabbed a small in-house walkie talkie and called the tablet lady up to the register.

My order wasn't there, the system showed that table empty. Then the tablet lady smiled and said Just Go On! I was shocked and said Pat's buying me breakfast? and she said Yea, just go on.

Then I put a nice tip in their jar, and went on. What a great way to start a weekend!

I hate it when Daniel gets home late, so I demanded to know where he was tonight, and he claimed they were fixing a gas leak down in Loretto!

Yea right, I'll bet he and the boys were at the new Lesbian bar that just opened up, down the road in Leoma. I hear they have a couple of poles, and a big warm party room.

Sometimes my friend and neighbor Daniel never even makes it over here after work, because he's hooking up with his wife, or other friends. And I'm fine with that, bitch!

I don't hang out with Daniel's school system, maintenance department, co-workers. I've met a few of his friends, his two sons, and we've all hung out together, for a short bit, at some point.

The bottom line of this Post is, I have landed in a place where I have no family around me. I honestly thought Steph's family here would become mine, but that fell through.

I have a few eclectic friends here that I cherish, but just don't see very often, anymore.

My insides have been blocked up since Christmas. My gynecologist neighbor, Dr Daniel, suggested a bottle of Magnesium Sulfide (or Sulfate). I thought that young pretend clinic doctor I just saw, would have a super prescription cleanse up his sleeve, but he said the same thing as Dr D, buy it over the counter.

So I bought and drank a big bottle Wednesday morning, and the blockage fell apart around 1300. It continued through yesterday until empty, and I'm now putting solid food back in. My gut is cleaned up, and feels great!

I got a message from UPS that Shelby's package had arrived, so I texted her, thinking she was upstairs surrounded by three laptops and working remotely.

No, she was working at her office today, and a few hours from home. But now she's back and the cutting board set may have found it's place.

Shelby's great-great-grandmother's blanket looks amazing in her spot on the couch. It's a beautiful link to her great proud heritige.

My local clinic/primary care place, just told me that they aren't refilling my main Parkinson's drug, because of my enhanced liver enzymes.

So the main drug that I've been taking for years now, which controls the tremors, is being taken away from me, because I drink!

They tested my B/P twice and it remained high. The nurse asked if I was taking meds for this, and I said nope. Hmmm, somewhat disconcerting.

I told the primary care guy that I wanted to see the images from my ultrasound. When he came back he said everything looked fine except for the fatty liver. They let me down today, writing me off as some old fool who wouldn't know what to do with photos if he held them in his hand inside a thumb drive.

I'll hit the hospital next week, where they want ninety one bucks. That should give me the leverage to obtain those photos of the inside of my old abdomen.

It's a cold day here in the South, staying warm, keeping tight. Waiting for a "Package Has Arrived!" message from UPS.

I was thinking tonight, about things I want to achieve this year.

Have a beautiful young sweet friend drop by, picking up cash off the table as she walks with a wabble out my front door.

To find peace with my many demons, embrace and accept them, and take them quietly to my grave, thank you...

To plan my future journeys out into the world based on family connections, not life's distractions.

To be as real as I can fucking be, with a cap on the sharing, but putting the rest of it out right here!

Hmmm, I sit alone is this little place, with everything I need to keep me alive, and moving forward, while still hangin high on the branch.

Movies and music massage my mind, memories and fantasies embrace my body, while passion, love, family and friendship, feed my soul.

So I send out a greeting tonight, to anyone who happens to drop by, being alone sometimes ain't bad! The more you accept it, the more real you become.

I don't need a partner to define me, I define myself!

Alive, moving forward, and high up on the branch. Free, mobile, with a great mancave over my head. Not broke, yet.

I'm accepting reality when it comes to women. I don't expect that to happen again, and it makes me sad.

My Christmas fingernails are still rocking and entertaining folks. I have no plans for the near future, or the far future, for that matter...

My neighbor and friend Daniel asked me if I would like to go to Harbor Freight with him this morning. I thought there was nothing there that I needed, but as we slow crawled each aisle, embracing the beautiful tools and equipment that humankind has come to create at this moment, it was a sensual experience!

I got me some double sided sticky tape to secure my backup camera and my GPS to the front window. No more shifting around with my camera falling over...

Daniel convinced me that I needed these lights that I can velcro inside the two compartments of my truck, or use the magnets behind.

And you can never have too many zip-ties. All for ten bucks.

Zinny is Shelby's little partner/dog. When I showed up over Christmas, she recognized me and was excitedly jumping all over me.

I picked her lighted self up and used her to chat up a hottie wearing similar lighted colorful lights, at the boat parade in Tampa.

Whenever Shelby and I sat at her couch to eat food, Zinny was like a rocket to the spot, assuming her position to the right of me, her eyes riveted to mine.

As I ate my food, I always gently shared it with her. Zinny and I are good friends now, and I miss my Tampa girls.

Their box arrives tomorrow and I spoke with a UPS agent today, making sure Shelby's building and unit number are on there. It's a huge complex and our local guy left it off the packing slip.

Daniel is speaking Water Heater with his step dad Carl. They're talking valves and pressure and overflow things. You can't go dumpster diving with an empty cup, I always say! And we found a great box behind True Value!

Daniel did his mechanical magic on it and everything, cutting board, rolling pin, and a hundred year old blanket, fit in there tight and ready to head South. It was a long flat box, that he cut down to size, made a new box out of it, and taped it up!

This is Daniel's Christmas present to you, my Beautiful Favorite Grand Daughter. Heritage, culture, love and friendship, from us to you, Shelby!

Heading over to UPS shortly, to launch this box into the world, and have it land gently at my grand-daughters front door...

My chair is the center of the small world I live in, my TV is the window to the outside, while the keyboard before me is my voice. I speak to the world with carefully crafted words, ones that attempt to define who I am, but often they end up like the flat strips of dough these folks around here try to pass off as dumplins.

Now everything is starting to move forward, I think. I feel a somewhat positive energy emanating from me, my long lost self is crying to get out. I have no idea what's going to happen to us next, but hey baby, welcome back.

The hospital has sent me a bill of $99.11 for that liver ultrasound. So much for a $35 copay. When they hand over a copy of all of the images that led to that lame ass diagnosis of a Fatty Liver, I'll give them their $99 bucks.

I'm heading up to the main UPS store in Columbia tomorrow. I've got a big cutting board, a rolling pin, and a family heirloom red blanket, to ship down to Shelby.

How in the hell did I end up at the Muscle Shoals National Recreational Trail on New Years Day, at 1000?

Sometimes life gets a little bit out of control, and you land where you shouldn't. But I made it back home safely, and alone.

It's 1350 in the afternoon, in my little house, first day of 2024. and I absolutely can't believe I made it this far!

If I could go back in time, I would advise my young soul, to expect to live this long, and take better care of yourself.

I remember when I honestly didn't think I would live past 30. As that birthday approached, I rolled into Kansas City, Missouri, in a white sports car, with my Japanese wife and a young lady we were helping get back to California.

We got a room, happy 30th birthday, to me.