remember that you are dust
and to dust you shall return.
Wednesday, today is Ash Wednesday, meaning Lent has begun, this is the first day of Lent 2026. Forty years ago, or fifty, who'd've thought I'd still be here, much less thinking I still have sense enough to think. But "I think, therefore I AM," I guess.
The morning hour is just past seven-thirty and we're waiting until eight-twenty to head downstairs to the car and off to Lynn Haven to stop at Adams Pharmacy and then across the street and a couple of blocks north for Linda's dental appointment.
While she's in the dentist chair I'll be in the husband's waiting room, probably finishing this blogpost, assuming my brain doesn't drop off to sleep. I think I have a way to stop the syncope when I sense it coming on, at least it seems to be working for me. Otherwise the nausea then momentary blackout is quite bothersome.
Those who are as fortunate as I am to arrive at this extreme old age, a mover and shaker who is still thinking, will soon enough find out how this is.
Whoever does the research is always finding out that coffee & caffeine are good for you, then deadly, then good, then deadly, then good for you is on the good for you kick this month. Linda read, then I read, articles about how two or three cups of coffee (not decaf) morning help ward off dementia. To avoid wasting my Club Coffee I'd been limiting myself to one magic mug a day these past several years, but now I'm trying to remember to brew a second mug later - - right now I'm sipping that second mug - - but for the second cup I have coffee from Aldi's, German coffee packed 500 grams a sack for the same price as American brands packed in the new and improved super economic twelve ounce new super pound.
It's the same with bacon, nowadays packed in the new twelve-ounce super pound at the same price.
And believe it or not, Buddy Gandy's now carries oysters in their new, improved twelve-ounce super pint, and still the same price as before; I can't hardly believe nothing these days, nomesane? I'm still buying my oyster pints in the sixteen ounce size still sold at Tarpon Dock.
Speaking of oysters - - you weren't but I was - - now that the Apalachicola oyster harvesting has played out (and they were topmost excellent), the best cold, salty ones on the half-shell are the farmed Alabama oysters they were opening at Gene's the last two Times we were there. Plus, now they've opened the new room at Gene's and are taking credit cards, we don't have to rob a bank for enough cash before we go there.
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Wandering, wandering, Mr. Bubba. Which always brings to mind a hillbilly song I used to call them when I was in high school and college - - Webb Pierce with his high tenor singing, "Wondering, wondering, who's kissing you - - wondering, wondering, if you're wondering too ..." who besides me gets haunted by that old song from Time to Time? Probably nobody: everybody is too sophisticated to admit loving country and western, as Grand Ole Opry music is called nowadays.
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But Lent. Some take on the old custom of giving up something for Lent. This year I'm liking the Pope's suggestion that we commit to not saying or repeating unkind things about other people. If it were to become a habit, it could change our nation.
God Bless America
RSF&PTL
T90