I mentioned that 2024’s coming up in a few hours and…

..Andy realized that if he was going to celebrate at midnight…

…he better take some naps!

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I have a little eggnog my friend Casey gave me for Christma left and a really fine single malt scotch my Texas friend Chris and I share – he has a matching bottle in Texas – while having our routine telephone chats. The scotch is best left to sharing times with Chris. I will probably have some ‘nog at the stroke of midnight. Of course, more likely than not, Andy and I will share our New Year’s tradition: Once again, we will sleep through the transition from this year to the next!

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I had another tumble on Thursday. When the brake cable and my supplementary oxygen tank gauge cluster tangled, I was trying to put my walker in the car. I landed, hard, on top of the walker, that was on top of the snow. Fortunately, I missed the car frame, though my head bumped into the side of the seat.

There was a patch of compressed snow next to the car, left in the process of clearing the snow off the parking pad while my car was still parked. It was dark because the street light that used to give me adequate lighting has been disconnected or turned off, I’m guessing, as a cost savings for my landlord.

While I use a flashlight to help me get from the apartment to my car, I’m not a Hindu god with multiple sets of arms. Fifty percent of mine were in use with the flashlight, so when I needed 100% of them to get the walker into the car, the flashlight had to go into a jacket pocket, leading to the blackout, and then the failure to notice the tangle that lead to the fall.  

I have an LED light that you attach to your head using an elastic band. I found it less helpful than a regular flashlight for avoiding hazards between the apartment and the parking pad, but it might have helped this time. Of course, a proper streetlight would work even better.

I had a cup of eggnog that Andy had to sniff on his way to..

…his current best place to sleep, the recliner footrest.

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“No thanks, Doug!” I was relieved that Andy didn’t want to try the eggnog, which is a gift from a friend and which is one made with bourbon. Yeah, it is pretty tasty in small amounts and is especially good since the bourbon cuts that gacky-sweetness that non-alcoholic eggnog has. 

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WordPress always has little surprises for users and producers of blogs. The current one I’m experiencing is I schedule prepared posts for just after midnight my time, go to sleep, get up around 2 AM or 3, expecting the blog to be posted and getting early reads. Early readers, then, start the comments going. Comments, as any blogger will verify, are the “payment” we get for what we do. I look for my posted blog posts on my smartphone, then, to copy the link to repost that day’s version on Facebook and…I see it’s labeled that it was scheduled but failed to post! That’s happened three times in the past week. What’s up?!

I note that I manually post to Facebook because, in another mystery of how WordPress works or doesn’t, a long time ago, my new posts stopped posting automatically to Facebook! I gave up trying to figure it out, thinking, “Hey, they charge me $300 a year for the privilege of maintaining my high-volume photo-heavy blog on their servers, so I deserve to be screwed around with! Muahahahaha!” 

After licking the red ribbon, Andy’s strange obsession, he decides those Greenies are a more productive target.

Hmmm! Andy knows there are toys and Greenies beside the glide rocker.

He goes to explore, during which (he doesn’t realize) he steps on the mother lode of his Greenies treats! 

Bored or sated? The exploration expedition failed to amuse him.

Too much to work through. Andy rests a moment before heading to where he knows there’s some catnip! Yes, ‘nip’s the answer! Then a nice nap!

> Slurp! Slurp! <

> Slurp! <

Uh oh! Andy just noticed me

The “Disdainful Look of ‘I’d Kill You Mercilessly with My Murderous Claws of Vengeance if You Weren’t the One who Opens the Cans'”!

Kitty! Kitty! Kitty! I was just admiring how fastidiously cat-perfect you are.

That’s right: Nothing!

I always think of this square dance song when Andy sticks his foot in the air. My mother and father used to belong to a group in the 1950s that got together to square dance, and this was always a favorite song of mine. 

Andy’s minding his business.

Doug is bugging Andy!

Poor kitty!