Boomer Randomness

I had dinner with friends last week and met their now 9-month-old twin babies for the first time.   As I held one of them for a minute (the one on the left in this picture) I had this rather odd thought … that might be the first time I ever held a baby. OK, that’s crazy.   Every adult, even those without kids of their own, holds a baby at some time, right?   A nephew, a friend’s baby, some baby.   But I could not and still cannot remember ever holding a baby till last Tuesday.   How can that be? I told a couple of co-workers my speculation and they said ‘no way’.   Then I laughed and said “I bet I know one adult other than me who never held a baby.”   One of them said my ex’s name and we all laughed; and I said yes, that’s who I was referring to.   So I texted her and asked and, well, she did hold babies, twice in her life.   I lost that bet with myself.   And she added that one of them was stinky and the other screamed ...

So I went to the nearby mall Saturday in search of my ‘new look’.   It was my first visit to this particular mall in more than ten years but it felt just like it did then … big, confusing and full of stuff I don’t want or need.   However, I did stick with my usual shopping focus.   I had three specific types of things to buy or at least look at and that is exactly what I did. First, as I mentioned a few days ago, was clothes.   I looked at dress clothes and casual clothes and quickly determined that Macy’s has a great selection of dress clothes that look right on 40 and 50 year olds and casual clothes perfectly suited to either 18-year-old high school seniors or 30-year-old gay men.   So I decided this would be a dress clothes shopping trip.   I looked at everything, had the sales guy measure me for proper shirt size (which turned out to be exactly the sizing I guessed) and picked out a couple of basic items.   I looked at every brand and en...

No matter how many times I hear the stories noted in the illustration below, I am impressed.  You should be too.  Learn from these stories.  If someone gives you negative advice, ignore it.  If someone tells you can't do something, but you want to do it anyway, do it!  Surround yourself with supporters, mentors and fans.  Ignore the naysayers.  I have failed many times and I attribute those failures to my current successes.  I am not in the league of those in this picture, but I am a success by my own measures and far exceed many of my peers who gave me negative advice.

There is a rumor out there that men don’t care much about style and we hate to shop.   If that is true, then I am an exception, sort of. I care about style but I am not very stylish.   My style history is a huge embarrassment.   I wore dress pants on a camping trip once, for example.   Another time at a dressy event in high school, I was whispering some catty comment about a classmate because he was wearing a black suit, white shirt and black tie.   I was wearing a patterned suit with a patterned shirt and a patterned tie, most of which barely went together.   Another classmate pointed that out to me and I shut up.   Funny how the two suits I currently own are both black, I always wear a solid color shirt with them, usually white or light blue, and my ties always are color-coordinated with the shirt in some way. Shopping?   Well, I like to shop … in a focused know-what-I-want-go-in-get-it-and-leave sort of way.   If I am overwh...

Had a pretty good weekend.   Went with a friend to a birthday party where I didn’t think I would know anybody there, including the birthday boy.   When I got there I realized I knew several people, all of whom I met on an outing with my friend more than a year ago.   Also discovered two of them like a lot of the same blues bands I like. One of my goals in my ‘new life’ is to find a place where ‘everyone knows my name’ … my own sort of Cheers.   I won’t be a barfly who sits there drinking all night every night, but I’d like to frequent a place enough to where the bartenders know me.   Meanwhile I realized today that the owner of one of the wine stores I frequent now knows I’m a regular at his store.   He even knows at least one of the wines I like.   That’s a start.   Next time I’ll ask for his name and hope I can say Indian names without stumbling. The Boston Marathon bombing and subsequent capture of the bombers had some odd connec...

“ I numbed the pain at the expense of my liver” - Miranda Lambert “Oh we’re never gonna survive unless … we get a little crazy.” - Seal “This could be our last first kiss … history in the making.” - Darius Rucker “Straight ahead never turn round Don’t back up, don’t back down Full throttle wide open You get tired, you don’t show it Dig a little deeper when you think you can’t dig no more That’s the only way I know” - Jason Aldean "I'll be yours until the sun doesn't shine Till time stands still until the winds don't blow When today is just a memory to me I know..... I'll still be loving you." - Restless Heart