I received these in an email from a family member last week. They reminded me that FRIENDS can come in all shapes and sizes, and can be found anywhere we look. We don't have to be the same religion, race, gender or of the same opinions to be friends. It just takes curiosity and a willingness to be openminded and caring of one another.

I find myself facing a real life situation today that I'm not sure what I feel about. Didn't open all of our mail from Saturday until late yesterday afternoon and discovered in it a notice from our mobile home park owner that he is closing the park. There are no longer enough tenants here for him to be able to collect sufficient rents to pay the basic water/sewer taxes let alone the property tax.

He did this to himself with rules and regulations. I should say his girlfriend did it, and it only took her 5 years. He inherited from Daddy a park with sufficient tenants to continue to make money and she drove probably half of them out by her attitude. I didn't like her and always paid the rent when she wasn't there so I had no contact with her.

Some of the tenants moved out when the base closed, but more moved when she instituted the "no pet" rule. I ignored it because my cat stays inside, but there were tenants with small dogs that wouldn't get rid of them so they were evicted. There was an older couple that had their lot fenced in and had their dog for all of it's life, not much life was left to it, and they weren't going to be allowed to keep him. They sold their trailer and the new tenants trashed it and brought troublesome teenagers into the park. There were situations where older animals, or animals kept in doors forced their owners to move. Some took their homes elsewhere, some abandoned them to the park to tear down. Then she decided we were using too much water so she instituted a no pool rule. The only pools here in this park were kiddie pools, maybe a foot deep, but they were using too much water so no longer could kids be allowed to have one. More tenants moved.

I never renewed our lease because tenants with leases had more restrictions and rules than I cared to handle. We would have to have given the office the license plate number of any overnight visitors, and if they stayed longer than a certain amount of time we would have to pay additional lot rent. I didn't want to deal with that, but maybe I should have because leases were just renewed, and those people have a year to get out where I have only 6 months. So many rules, designed to enhance your living experience and yet they didn't.

My problem is that my home, although we kept it up, is an early 70's manufacture. Other mobile home parks have a cut off year of 1980 for new additions to their parks. Some are not even allowing a mobile home to be as old as 1980. This means we most likely will have to purchase a newer one. I have brand new kitchen cabinets, we can take them down and move them elsewhere, but first we have to find an elsewhere. Much of our winter funds will be wiped out if we have to purchase, with little time to recover. This isn't going to be an easy situation to handle.

Part of me is looking at it as a new adventure, and part of me wants to stand in one spot and cry. This is our home. We've been here for 17 years, We've worked on it and made mistakes, but we have what we want and need here. We have a safe place for Bashful here. We have to be out of here by January 31, 2008. That's not a decision we would have made for ourselves, it was made for us, and I think that's the part that rankles. Wherever we go, as long as we get to keep Bashful, I will be content. One good thing, Hubby is going to have to part with some of his "stuff". This might not be such a bad situation after all.

In our area the annual Honor America Days kicked off yesterday. It's a 2 week event that includes a parade, a Syracuse Symphony performance on the grounds of Fort Stanwix National Monument, fireworks, assorted sidewalk sales, church dinners, flea markets and many other events available to those that live here. Hubby and I planned on attending the performance last night of the symphony but as usual our plans were disrupted.

In his line of business there are emergencies. Not just the usual sewer backups but well water pumps foul up and require attention, or in some instances the wiring goes bad or the pump itself does. Sometimes it's just a matter of a power outage that has disrupted the pumps prime and it will need repriming in order for it to continue to work. It used to be that people without water for any reason other than lost prime had to wait until the next day because parts were not available once the hardware stores closed. Now, of course, we have Home Depot and Lowes which don't close until 9 or 10 on a Saturday night so he no longer has an excuse to ask them to wait.

These jobs can go quickly and sometimes do not disrupt our plans entirely, just make us late, which should have been the case last night. Unfortunately quick wasn't in the cards, so he didn't get home until almost an hour past the time the fireworks display had ended. The reason for that was it took until near dark to find the well, let alone to dig it up.

I don't understand how you can own property and not bother to know where your well, or your septic tank is located on that property. Some wells have above ground casings and caps which make it very easy to do any type of repair. In that case it's just a matter of taking the cap off and having access to the inner workings. In this particular case a gazebo had been built over the top of it. It took quite awhile to bring equipment in to move the gazebo and then dig up the well to find the problem. Hubby tried to tell the owner that he'd come back today to fix the problem. The home owner didn't think he could last overnight without running water. Personally I think since he created the problem he should have been made to wait. Hubby doesn't think that way which probably makes him a kinder person than I am.

After all his hard work, the owner had the nerve to airily tell Hubby to send him a bill. All the additional work and expense was created by the outright stupidity of the homeowner, yet he expected Hubby to walk away unpaid. For once, Hubby told him that payment was due then. A very unhappy homeowner coughed up the cash for the job with the attitude that he was spending money he needed for his vacation. He was leaving today, which was why he couldn't wait for running water. Sometimes the hardest part of this job is dealing with the people. In addition to the fact that he was ticked off about having to pay for the work that was done, he also didn't understand why his gazebo couldn't be put back on top of the well. Hubby told me that after he picked his jaw up off the dirt, he just told the guy he'd put it back where he found it and never said a word beyond that. I hope he has a nice vacation.

I'm in the mood for what my favorite oldiez radio channel calls "The music of my life".



I don't feel like posting the entire list of 45 tunes so I'll just surprise you.

A study released this week, that I saw on our Nightly News indicates that if we have friends that are "plump" we most likely will be "plump" as well. I still weigh 195 *sigh*. Now, I've always thought it was because I eat too much and don't exercise enough. Now I find out that I'm "plump" because my friends are "plump". Excuse me, I need to go get an ice cream sandwich while I think about this.

The breakdown of our little group, by weight would look like this. Jeannie and Laurie weigh 250 and 275 repectively. Chris and I both top the scales at 195. It looks much better on Chris because she's younger by 12 years and taller. Ginger, who is the oldest, weighs a close to anorectic 97 pounds and Melissa weighs 105 soaking wet. In Melissa's defense, she owns a Great Dane and she has to walk it twice a day. Plus she owns her own business and has a toddler. Sitting in front of the computer isn't in the cards for her...yet.

Ginger is a close to anorectic 97 pounds because she has celiac disease, and a hiatal hernia. She barely eats, let alone eats too much. She is intolerant of wheat gluten and wheat gluten is found in many more foods than just wheat bread. Which means she eats absolutely nothing that is considered a simple carbohydrate. No sauces, gravies, or condiments like mustard and ketchup. They all contain wheat gluten as a thickener. I know I wouldn't wish to have her health problems. I've tried her rice flour bread, I'm not in the habit of eating cardboard, but I bet it has more flavor. According to the results of this study, Ginger and Melissa are in danger of becoming "plump" because of the rest of us. Chris and I are in danger of becoming "plumper". The things we do for our friends.

The statistics were, that if your family was overweight you had a 40% chance of being overweight yourself. If your friends are overweight you have a 60% chance of being overweight. I inherited the 40% from my Dad's family and of course the 60% from my friends. The reasoning behind this conclusion is that the smaller person gives themselves permission to be "plump" in order to fit in. Which, if true, supports my theory that peer pressure has more impact on behavior than family does.

Ginger seldom goes out to lunch with us because she, of course, can find very little on a restaurant menu that she can eat without experiencing serious discomfort. Laurie is an accountant, which means she sits for most of her 40 hour week. When we go to lunch she tends to choose fried foods like shrimp baskets and has to have her cheesecake for dessert. Jeannie will usually order a grilled chicken salad, but she drinks 2 or 3 cokes during and has to have her chocolate peanut butter cake for desert. Chris is big on BLT's with a side salad, diet coke, and nothing for dessert. With me, it's usually grilled chicken sandwich or a turkey club, side salad, coffee and no dessert. Melissa likes burgers and fries. She never eats the whole thing, preferring the doggie bag idea, drinks tea and seldom orders anything more than a scoop of ice cream for dessert. I did say she owns a Great Dane and has to walk it twice a day, didn't I?

I might be wrong, or suffering a sugar rush from the ice cream sandwich I ate while thinking this through, but it looks to me as if being "plump" is more about lifestyles and food choices. I wonder whose pocket got picked to provide the cash for this study? It just occured to me that maybe I'm "plump" because I sit around watching too much money being spent on nonsense, maybe I need to pick some pockets and go spend the money myself. I wonder how many people could have afforded to "call Jenny" if the money had been given to them?