New Shoes in the Rain

It's Monday, unfortunately.  Hope you enjoyed a great weekend.  It was my wife's birthday on Saturday so we had a nice weekend here. Today's thoughts concern things that have made me cry, even at my advanced age!  I've always been an emotional guy, perhaps even moreso now that I'm at my current station in life.  And, no, it's not always just movies that break me up, but they're a big part of it. And since I brought it up, I'll mention a few films that always affect me.  The all-time tearjerker for me has to be "Field of Dreams."  My wife and I saw it when it came out thirty years ago, and I believe that I cried for the last ten or so minutes of the movie.  To this day I have difficulty watching it without beginning to cloud up a bit, because I know what's coming.  Even as I write this, thinking of James Earl Jones' character's soliloquy about how "people will come" and "the one constant in all the years has been b...

Happy Hump Day to everyone.  Hope your week is going well! I think I've offered this opinion in the past, but I have trouble understanding the fascination with pumpkin spice EVERYTHING this time of year.  As I recall, this phenomenon used to come somewhere around October, but it's gotten earlier each year, it seems. My impression is that Starbucks was the original culprit, but now I see everything from doughnuts to pancakes offered by restaurants, and in a recent visit to Target I saw an entire display built of processed food products that featured pumpkin spice flavor, including Cheerios, Oreos, Pop-Tarts and a host of other items. Confession--I don't even care much for pumpkin pie.  It's not the flavor, but, rather, the texture that does it for me.  The taste is something I don't necessarily object to, but I don't really seek it out, either. I have no ill will toward those who enjoy it.  My wife is one of them, albeit in measured doses.  For examp...

Happy Monday---here in my neck of the woods, we're about to experience a return to the harsh and humid conditions that we momentarily left behind last week.  Oh, boy. I don't think I've ever mentioned it here, but I've worn glasses since 1987.  My mom wore glasses from the time I could remember, and my dad did, too, although he only had one prescription pair, relying on "cheaters," or simple reading glasses that one can buy at a drug store.  And my older brother started wearing glasses in high school. I was in my late twenties when I found that I needed corrective lenses, largely because I started getting headaches.  And because I hate to have anything in my eye, like dust or a speck or other foreign materials, I've never considered contact lenses. I also have never been interested in surgery to correct my vision (which I believe you would classify as "presbyopic," since I wear progressive lenses), as I've heard and read of too many ins...