Okay, it's Tuesday morning and not so early as usual today, but I'm good and here we go. I'm good. Not saintly, surely not sinless, but good as in good, better, best. On that same scale I'm a good man, a good person, a good husband, a good teacher, a good priest, a good preacher, I was a better Navy officer, I'm a good driver, I have good judgment; as my crumbling portrait shows, I was once a good looking man, and Linda says that for an octogenarian I'm cute. I think I've been a better father, dad, papa, but in other parts of life I'm mostly good. Just so today. What I mean, though, in now saying I'm good is that this morning for a change I'm thinking that I'll make it after all, especially based on yesterday , and good is a giant step forward as hurricane emotions wear on. Mind, it's hardly today yet, so who knows what I'll be, good or bad worse worst, by noon, never mind tomorrow, but for the moment, looking good.  Yesterday ...

D H Lawrence, how do I remember him -> he wrote "Lady Chatterley's Lover" that was making the scandal rounds at some time during my life's lusty teens, meaning that we all had to read it, especially the filthy parts, but I read it all. Too, DH wrote poems, was a poet: from his pen, yesterday's poem-a-day was Winter-Lull -  Winter-Lull D. H. Lawrence Because of the silent snow, we are all hushed                    Into awe. No sound of guns, nor overhead no rushed                    Vibration to draw Our attention out of the void wherein we are crushed. A crow floats past on level wings                    Noiselessly. Uninterrupted silence swings                    Invisibly, inaudibly To and fro in our misgivings. We do not look at each other...

Haven't stepped outside on the porch yet, but pulling back the shade to glance around it, the street looks wet. Weather on my phone reads Panama City 63° Santa Rosa 59° about normal mid-January for us. But with a cloud and cute little snowflake under it, caption "Winter Storm Warning, WashingtonDC 29° snow this morning will taper off to light snow this afternoon," taking me back forty years and less and more in winter memories I love to visit. One is a blizzard as I recall it, or maybe it was just continuous snow, dropping 25 inches on Northern Virginia to snow us in, was it 1978 or 1979, I'm trying to date by the car I was driving in parts of the memories, Buick coupe or Pontiac Firebird or Cadillac sedan or Chevy Camaro.  Another, told here before, in my traveling days, changing planes between either San Francisco or Los Angeles where the weather had been beyond lovely, in O'Hare airport, standing at a window wall and gazing out into the night at driving ...

Sometimes these posts begin like the starting post at the races, my eye on the light and pumping my engine, ready to go, with words in mind. More often, as this morning, they get off to such a slow start that I go off and play a few games of klondike solitaire while I wait for the red light to change to green.  Linda is ready to go already, always prompt and early. Twenty-five miles, we aren't leaving until eight-thirty, figuring to be at HNEC in our seats for the PB's visit by nine-thirty. Or so. I don't know what the plan is after that, I'm just tagging along, tagalong. Noonday prayers. Lunch. Maybe an oyster, but I'm not a StandInLiner so we'll see. BBQ or maybe a hamburger. Magical baked beans in any event. It's five minutes to seven now, Time to shift gears and get going I guess. Tag

It's magic being here, living here at Inlet Beach, Rosemary Beach. Peace at last. As if Harry Potter waved his wand over the word Hurrication  that hit me on returning to Bay County, Panama City, StAndrews and Bay from Pensacola right after Hurricane Michael, taking in Malinda's house and 7H and heading back across Hathaway Bridge for a month or two at PCB; then another bridge and transported westward into South Walton County. Maybe Phillips Inlet Bridge is a portkey and this is Diagon Alley. Magic, another place altogether. Not only fifth floor rooftop with sea vista; sidewalk down, around and beneath a canopy of trees along a village green; private porch for stargazing. Cars speeding by and trucks shifting gears aren't as fascinating as large ships a stone's throw out, but a busy intersection, US98 & 30A with moving things to watch. Not to mention fried, baked, and half-shell oysters at Stinky's Fish Camp. Oysters at Stinky's?  Shhh, can't you r...

Never in wildest imaginings did it occur that at this age I'd be living in a fancy resort hotel with its own private gourmet restaurant. Six of us live in this spacious 3 bed 3 bath condo at the end of the building, with windows all around and three balcony porches. Seven when Kristen comes over, which I love. My grandson Ray Kelly, a chef who attended the culinary school at Gulf Coast College, is in charge of the kitchen, stove and refrigerator. Bubba done died and gone to heaven. Not used to snapping selfies, I don't have the knack of it: that looks like I'm asleep, but I've not yet mastered photographing myself while looking up instead of down at the camera, and have no intention of doing so. Taking better pictures of myself is not on my bucket list. Also, counter to appearances, I do not wear my Vietnam Service Medal ribbon on my pajama shirt; it's on my phone because the phone case is black, and when I lay it down I can't find the damn thing again unles...

October 9, three months ago right now, Malinda checked in to Admissions at Sacred Heart Hospital, Pensacola, for her third brain surgery, this one to coil and stent a second aneurysm before it could rupture and bring on a second and likely fatal cerebral hemorrhage.  Several hours later we were called to visit her in the Recovery ward, where the neurosurgeon told us the procedure had been quite difficult, but went well. And so it did, though an apparently unrelated mild stroke that evening has left her with impaired short-term memory that we trust may resolve in time even if to date we have seen no change. Sunday before leaving Panama City on Monday, we had cleared completely our bayside porch as well as, an afterthought, the cubby outside our front door at 7H, thinking it unnecessary but a precaution against the winds of the tropical storm way down south. I might say the rest is history but am not inclined to grace Wednesday, October 10, 2018 with any positive-sounding...