Charlie

I like to maximize my happiness by combining two objectives. I am usually happy on Thursdays, when we go out shopping while our housecleaner cleans the house, so I am spending money to buy both the things I want and freedom from doing something I don't enjoy. I don't like cooking and am not good at it, so I am also happy when I go to a restaurant for dinner, since I can purchase meals that I like to eat but don't want to or can't make at home.

Yes. We adopted him from the county shelter, where he been brought by animal control after he was picked up as a stray. He had no chip nor any other I.D.. One of the conditions for adoption was that we were required to have him chipped and neutered. He had obviously been raised in a home, because he was in good physical shape and perfectly house-trained. If the previous owners had chipped him, of course, we would probably never have encountered him, so in a way I'm glad they didn't chip him.

Maybe he wants to borrow someone's little Personal Assistant.

When I first glanced at the first photo, I thought Joshua was a woman. Not that there is anything wrong with that. It is actually refreshing to see that it is not what has become the stereotypical gay marriage between two super-butch jocks.

As I have written before, I think Avalon is not someone whom we can reason with. He has chosen his situation, and he would rather talk about it than actually do anything to change it. It may make us feel good to give him sensible advice, but there is very little of it that he will take. When he does, as with the walker, it feeds us encouragement to keep engaging with him, which is all he really wants. If we stop engaging with him, he will probably make one small move, post about it, and people will engage again to encourage him to do more, but he is really playing us.

I forgot about Ed Rendell, because I used to meet him so often before he became an important political figure. He was our neighbor in Philadelphia for a year. I also forgot about another political figure, Kenny Duberstein, Reagan's chief-of-staff and a powerful DC mover and shaker for many years after that, because we shared a dorm bathroom when we were teenagers.

Ooo! 1959 Plymouth.

Not with the rack, silly! With the pages ripped out of the magazines.

When we moved into one of our homes in Philadelphia, which had been designed and owned by an architect, we discovered that he had installed a bidet next to the toilet in the master bedroom. After trying it a few times, we decided it was not something we would use regularly, so we removed it and replaced it with a magazine rack.

An old friend of ours is no longer able to take care of himself, so a friend of his has power of attorney for his care. He needed a walker last year, but because he has Parkinson's, he needed a better quality one in order to get out of his house and get around in his small town. When she tried to get what he really needed, she found that it would take six months to get approval from Medicare for the best model for him (it is sort of the Mercedes-Benz of walkers), so we ended up quietly buying it for him, and told her to tell him that Medicare had paid for it. The only problem is that it is so much sturdier than the cheaper types that it is heavy to collapse and put in the trunk of a car.

"OK, what's it worth to you to get these back?"

My club doesn't allow shirtless players, which is a good thing, because with opponents like these, I would have a hard time keeping my eyes on the ball.

I have never seen so many rhetorical cliches in a single ad!

Wait a minute! When did you start wondering about the same kind of things that fascinate Avalon?

In my area, Verizon sold all their landlines to Frontier, the most incompetent utility I have ever had to deal with.

Is it ever!! About a 1949 or 50.

I had four centenarians in my family: my mother, my aunt, and two great-aunts. Those older generations also had many others who lived well into their 80s and 90s, and one of my uncles has just turned 95. However, my generation isn't following that pattern. The average age at death of my dozen first cousins has been 61; almost all of them are already dead, and I'm the oldest one still living.

El Paso is a different world from most of Texas, so it is right that it should be in a different time zone.

Well, if it is noon in L.A. at the same time it is noon in Phoenix, then someone is confused.

Broadcasters would adjust: we would be on MST all winter, just as AZ is now on PDT all summer.

I would check with your doctor about how often you should take meloxicam. Our doctor gave it to my spouse, but he said not to use it as a routine daily medication, only when necessary.

I'm glad it is dead for now. It was wonderful to get up at 5:30 this morning and walk the dog in daylight.

I am voting against the proposition on the ballot in CA to allow the state to go on permanent DST. I am a morning person, and I hate getting up in the dark during the last weeks of DST; that would last for months if we were on DST all year long.

Hahn was the first cousin of the mother of one of my dearest friends. He fled Paris ahead of the Nazis with their family when my friend was an infant. I once went to Glyndebourne to hear my friend sing a recital of Hahn's songs.

I wouldn't call a blind and elderly elephant a "savage" beast. BTW, the famous quote is actually "Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast."