Boo

I remember the Africanized killer bee scare of the 1980s. Reporters spoke of waves of killer bees coming up from Mexico and swarming across the United States. There were going to be so many of these bees that the sky would be dark in the middle of the day. Crops were going to be destroyed and livestock killed. If you get caught in the middle of one of these swarms of bees...may God have mercy on your soul. I was a little kid, I was naive. The man on the T.V. said the bees are coming. He was wearing a suit and spoke in a very serious tone...his hair was perfect. He must know what he's talking about. The media reports were exaggerated at best, but they did manage to scare the bejeezus out of young Boo. So long as I'm wandering down memory lane here...when I was in junior high school the big hair look was in for the girls. Between classes in the central area of the school where the lockers were, there was always a thick cloud of Aqua Net lingering in the air. We were always one spark away from the whole school going off like a bomb.

Good job Mona. You're halfway to the lido deck now.

I just saw a headline about the ozone layer. I hadn't thought about the ozone layer in a long time. There was a great deal of consternation about the ozone layer back in the late-eighties and early-nineties, then it just drifted out of the news. Back in the day, they said chlorofluorocarbons from hairspray cans were a leading culprit in the hole in the ozone layer. So I blamed the band Whitesnake, but now it's 2020 and we need to find a new scapegoat.

I'm a little obsessed with Sturgill Simpson's new bluegrass album right now. Even though I'm more bothered than I should be by that album cover...the deck on that mower is backwards.

Nice work Midmale. Sorting through the lies we told ourselves and accepting the truths we didn't necessarily want to hear is a major part of the process. Congratulations. You are building a rock-solid quit for yourself.

Great job Steven.

Congratulations on nine months of freedom Angeleek.

Confession: I'm beginning to have doubts about democracy. Early voting started here in Tennessee this week. The parking and traffic situation around the courthouse is a nightmare. Folks seem to need three lanes of traffic to parallel park. Even at that, half the cars end up on the sidewalk and the other half end up parked halfway out in the street. Somebody knocked over the sign marking the handicapped spot. The future of the country is being decided by people who couldn't parallel park a car correctly if their life depended on it.

Special dedication going out to our good friend Ol' Ozzie Looney Bird...hope this cheers you up a bit.

Some mental blocks take longer to get over than others. Doreen mentioned smoking as a reward for a finished job. It took the better part of my first year quit to get over wanting my "reward" when I finished a task. It's a distant memory now, but it took a while to get there. Hang in there Mona. You're doing a great job.

I hear ya man. I was talking to a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago. He told me his daughter is starting her senior year at UTK. That blew my mind. I still remember very clearly stopping by the hospital for a visit the day after she was born. The time really does fly by. Speaking of daughters...It's official: Maddie is spoiled rotten. She likes to have her hair brushed. If I stop brushing her hair before she falls asleep, she lets out a little whimper and stares at me. As soon as I start brushing again, she calms right down. I also have a new title, one of Sugar Britches' friends calls me: Maddie's Daddy. It is becoming clear who's in charge now.

Excuse: But, but...I really enjoy smoking. Truth: I was just another garden-variety addict getting my fix.

Embrace the weirdness. New and improved always feels a bit weird at first. With time, the weirdness subsides but the new and improved continues. Buckle up, knuckle down, and drive on.

If it seems like we treat quitting smoking like a matter of life and death around here, it's because it is a matter of life and death.

I think willpower and motivation are overrated. Much of the time you see what the right thing to do is and you just do it. Quitting smoking is the right thing to do...just do it. Commitment, a relentless commitment, is what you need to stop smoking. With a firm commitment, it doesn't matter if you're riding high or just punching the clock and putting in the work. Commitment will carry you through any and all challenges. Commitment is a firm foundation you can build on. Motivation is unreliable and fleeting.

I found Joel Spitzer's videos incredibly helpful when I started my quit. There is a wealth of information in those videos and they are available here for free. https://www.quittrain.com/forum/15-joel-spitzers-quit-smoking-video-library/ By the way, welcome to the Quit Train Margeetx. Enjoy the ride.

Maddie has a couple of pop-up books in the rotation already: "Pop-Up Peekaboo!" and "Fun with Pets" are a couple of her favorites. My sister, well aware of my fascination with stop-motion animation and those old Rankin-Bass Christmas specials, brought a gift by the house on Friday night. "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" the pop-up book. She explained: "I bought it for Maddie, but I knew you would enjoy it too." She wasn't wrong.

My reading list these days is filled with lighter fare.

Sorry I missed your call.

Coming in with the old October surprise...

Some of Eddie's finest work... And a personal favorite...

I'm not saying my avatar is the best, but it is the one that confused Bakon. He thought it was a motorcycle helmet. That gave us all another opportunity to laugh at the village idiot. And who doesn't enjoy pointing and laughing at Bakon?