Didn't Jondude do kind of a freestyle version of the latest list going around? Something about he always wears Wrangler jeans? I'm too lazy to look back and see, but that was my general impression.

Here are some things about me, but I don't know that they are what a person would call ODD, they are just what I feel like talking about. And it doesn't add up to 40.

Gas or electric stove? I have a gas stove here in Las Vegas and electric in the summer. Cookin' with Gas is fun, although I don't do a lot of cooking here. Charcoal or gas grill? We are trying to use up all our charcoal before we invest in a gas grill. Some of our charcoal is more than 20 years old, inherited from deceased family members. It doesn't burn very well, small wonder, so it's going to be awhile before we use it all up. I want one of those 'chimney' things to start the charcoal in but too cheap to buy one so am trying to figure out how to make one from a coffee can. I don't think we are ever going to buy a gas grill, and I don't really care. Or as my cousins from England would put it: I'm not bothered.

Cell Phones: We finally got a cell phone for each of us, and we keep them turned on. I let our family members know via email but warned them this doesn't mean we have turned into people who talk on the phone a lot, it just means we are more accessible. We have only used them one time: Mr. Tbend called me from the hotel front desk to tell me our room was ready so he didn't have to walk all the way back across the casino to where I was playing penny poker.

Here is a good hand I hit in penny poker. I held the pair of fours. The ace is a 'kicker' so I won 2000 coins: $20.00. Well, I was only risking a nickel a hand, so this was a good return.



Hobbies: reading is one of mine. I read myself to sleep at night and for a couple of hours before getting out of bed in the morning, for a tota; fp 4 or 5 hours a day. Sometimes it is so engrossing I don't want to get up, and when I finally decide to, I think I'm going to walk around the house, eat breakfast, etc. and keep on reading. But the moment my feet hit the floor it is easy to put the book down, which is a good thing. During the day I might get another hour or three of reading in.

The last hotel we stayed in had these little reading lights attached to the headboards of the beds. Perfect. The best I have ever seen in a hotel and I wish more hotels had them. I hate that kind where there are lights in the ceiling above your head because they shine right in your eyes if you want to lie on your side and read yourself to sleep. I have tried wearing a baseball cap to bed so I could adjust it to shade my eyes, but this doesn't always work out.



Mr. Troutbend goes to the library and brings home 5 or 6 books at a time by the same author. A couple of weeks ago it was Dennis Lehane, who wrote Mystic River, and right now we are reading books by Ian Rankin.

Favorite names? Oh, what does it matter? The current trend in naming children seems to be towards making it unclear whether they are girls or boys, and away from 'Christian' names that have been traditional. One of my friends has grandchildren named Dane, Finley, and Caden, two boys and a girl, not in that order. These are not my favorite names, in case you are wondering. This guy was recently murdered in Las Vegas: Landtreon Deyon Taylor. Now, that's a name.

Salad dressing. Why does anyone care about blue/bleu cheese dressing so much? What I want to know is if anyone asks for Thousand Island or Green Goddess any more. I often just tell the waiter I want whatever salad dressing they have that is white, which could be Ranch or Creamy Italian, I don't care which. I like "blue" drinks - whatever they have made with blue Curacao, and "pink" wine, whatever it turns out to be is fine with me.

Gun ownership. Well, that's an interesting topic. I inherited some guns - rifles and shotguns and a hand gun - and don't know a whole lot about them. I suppose the thing to do would be to buy some ammo for each of them so I would be prepared for anything. The reason I don't try them out is then I would have to clean them. The only use I could think of for them would be if I was to be attacked by a rabid dog like Old Yeller. I suppose I could fire a gun into the air to scare off a large wild animal like a bear. People who have lived on my property before me carried handguns with them all the time, but I'm not sure why.

Things I don't like? People chewing gum loudly and/or throwing it just anywhere so it gets on your shoes, and/or their jaws moving constantlyl like their life depends on working that wad of gum. The smell of cigarette smoke and how smokers just throw the butts all over the place as if the world is their ashtray. I don't like telemarketing calls, but I don't know anyone who does.

Do I love where I live?
In the summer we live in a wonderful place on a river with no neighbors in sight. We have satellite TV, TIVO, fast Internet, and it is paradise on earth. But 9 months of the year Mr. Troutbend is not there because he is bowling and smoking cigars in Las Vegas, so it isn't as much fun without him. For the time I spend where he lives, I have a gas fireplace, gas cooking range, front loading washing machine, and a dry stream bed landscape feature in the yard. These are all things I always wanted. Our TV reception is crappy, our dial-up internet connection is slow, and the neighborhood is full of yappy dogs that never shut up. Life is full of trade-offs.



What's the deal with singling out ADD? Aren't there a whole slew of other mental conditions that a person could have? A better question would be: 'If you would admit to having a mental disorder, what would it be?' In a Jonathon Kellerman book I read something about the reason some people collect 'things' is because 'things' don't hurt you the way relationships with people do. That's my little nugget for the year so far, for whatever it is worth. Maybe it explains why I like my $200 Brighton purse better than my sister.

Sometimes I think I should be keeping a record of all the books I read so I could look at it and marvel at how many there were, but then I feel like there is no point because it would provide 20 seconds of interest to me alone, and nobody else in the world would care. And I would have spent hours keeping track. Maybe it would be worth it if I was younger and had all those years ahead of me.

I used to save all my fortune cookie fortunes in a shoe box thinking that when I died people would be impressed at how many there are, but when I realized nobody would care, including me, I threw them away.


Done. Sort of a rant.