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Our Daily Thread 11-29-14

Good Morning!

Welcome to the weekend!

On this day in 1892 a patent was issued to Almon Brown Strowger for the rotary dial. 

In 1929 the first airplane flight over the South Pole was made by U.S. Navy Lt. Comdr. Richard E. Byrd. 

In 1963 a Trans-Canada Airlines DC-8F with 111 passengers and 7 crew members crashed in woods north of Montreal 4 minutes after takeoff from Dorval Airport. All aboard were killed. The crash was the worst in Canada’s history. 

And in 1981 actress Natalie Wood drowned in a boating accident off Santa Catalina Island, CA, at the age 43. 

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Quote of the Day

“Statistics are used much like a drunk uses a lamp-post: for support, not illumination.”

Vin Scully

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 Today is Merle Travis’ birthday.

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Anyone have a QoD?

113 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 11-29-14”

  1. Good morning. Just woke up; waiting on the coffee to perk… Becca spent the night at the main house with my brother’s daughter (she’s fourteen and has been super kind to Becca).

    We’re leaving for home at noon today. I’m so ready to get back to my version of normal… Thanks for all the prayer support.

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  2. I’ve never seen two guys play the same guitar before.
    I’ve told you this a dozen times, but every finger picker owes Merle Travis. He didn’t invent it.
    But nobody else was doing it until he made it popular.
    And Chet Atkins developed his own style trying to imitate Merle.

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  4. Good and cool morning wishes from Atlanta! It is suppose to go up to the fifties later today.

    I was just thinking that I have about six people to buy Christmas presents for this year, three family members and three friends. I know that’s not many compared to how many others shop for. Most on my list will receive several gifts from me so it isn’t just six items to buy. So, how many do you have to shop for? Where is your best source for gifts to give?

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  5. I just got rid of my brothers and their families in the last email, so that reduced the number by 10. I’ve now added a couple adorable great-kids, so I’m up two in that column. Probably 20. I don’t want to think about it too hard right now.

    Leaving in five minutes to take Stargazer and my niece and her two little ones to the airport. It’s not raining as hard as I feared, so if I’m “lucky” (as in, make the round trip in less than 3 hours) I’ll make it back in time to drive another hour into the country to have a “fantastic” breakfast with the eight relatives still in town.

    I’m really ready to go back to the war, though it has been a terrific three days packed with hugs, children, stories, some tears, food, food, food, even some football and lots of dishes.

    Our daughter is here another 23 hours. That’s always good.

    We can plan the annual cookie party three weeks from today! 🙂

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  6. I am not even considering Christmas right now. Youngest stepson has asked for two new tires for his car. Baby Girl has given me a list of about 3 things she wants. Middle stepson –his dad mentioned something for him. I need something for my friend D and her husband. I have already “scored” one gift for Mr. P.
    College Game Day is already on my TV. It has been a busy weekend for us. We are going to friends tonight to watch the football game. I am looking forward to tomorrow afternoon abnd work on Monday. 😉

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  7. My buying list isn’t very long. I buy for my husband and I usually get something for my sister’s kids. And I have a goddaughter for whom I get something. Together we buy for the girls and his parents. But in this family (as opposed to my family of birth), we make lists of what we want. My husband is the internet-shopping expert (knowing how to get the best prices), so generally he takes the lists and makes the purchases, and I wrap all of it except what’s for me. (My husband will go in the bedroom and lay everything out on the bed, sorted by recipient, and wrap mine. And then he’ll call me in and tell me which pile is for whom, and I do most of the rest of the wrapping, and when he isn’t around I wrap his too.)

    We also always buy a few things that aren’t on anyone’s list, based on known interests.

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  9. Good Morning! It is windy here this morning, but not too cold…in the 40’s. The snow is mostly melted…the deer will need to come to the watering bucket now 🙂
    We give our kiddos a money gift for a family getaway to make a memory…we love hearing their stories of how they made a family memory…skiing, hiking, camping trips…and the pictures! I do send a small gift to the grandkids to open on Christmas, either books or art project materials…I send to my Mom…give gifts to my closest girlfriends…about six gifts there….Paul and I decided to buy a Keurig for a gift to each other this year…last night he threw in a new chain saw that he wanted 🙂 We need to take a Christmas picture to include in the Christmas cards I need to send out…soon!

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  11. Shopping local sounds good, but where I live I don’t seem to have many “local” shops in the neighborhood. I could better shop local in the area near our office. We will soon have a Walmart within a few miles if that gives a clue as to how things are going here. A lot of people fought it, but it is going to happen. My brother likes jeans from Walmart so that annual trip will be more convenient.

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  12. I prefer shopping local but since I no longer go into stores, I just go to the Amazon. But it used to be pleasant to go to local hardware stores and see all of the neat stuff. Like a miniature big store. And the clerks are usually quite pleasant. And they usually smell homey.

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  13. Here ya go Donna, public photos. Trivia–I attended the photographers high prom with him.
    The young lady I was most interested in is the very tall one with a ruffled halter type bodice.

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  14. “Take the pledge and commit to shop local”? That’s a more serious commitment than we’re willing to make, personally.

    It also wouldn’t do very much good, since most of what we want simply isn’t available locally! Most of my husband’s “wish list” is commentaries, and finding them in any store would be next to impossible. We did buy some gifts for each child locally, and my husband bought me earrings locally. Last week he and I went to several stores looking for a purse for me. Although I saw hundreds of purses, not one of them matched what I had already found online (at Kohl’s)–because Kohl’s apparently doesn’t send its pricier purses to stores anymore, and I wanted real leather with more than one main zipper, and no store anywhere had such a thing. (I would have preferred a color other than black, and black was the only color for the purse online.) We did finally find me a pair of shoes.

    The stores that have done best in this economy, I think, are those who have learned to use the internet to expand their market. Rather than seeing it as unfair competition, they have seen it as a greater reach, with the possibility of gaining more customers.

    Interestingly, before we were married, my husband was looking to buy me a hat, and he looked online to see if any places in Nashville sold the kind he had in mind. It turned out that the best price anywhere on the net was a small store a few miles from my home. Because so much of their business was online, they were in a part of town that really didn’t have other shopping, and it was rather hard to find. But they had taken to their advantage the strengths of internet shopping: basically, you can get away with a smaller store and compete with companies across the country, not just local companies. They didn’t have the hat we wanted in stock that day (a shipment was expected in a couple of days), but he went back to Indiana and ordered it online, from them.

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  15. We have a couple local shops that are always good for gifts (for women) when you’re really stumped. Lots of beautiful things, from lotions to little garden knickknacks and statuary (I bought a cute little rain gauge there one year that was appreciated by the recipient), unusual ornaments, a bit of jewelry. All very girly but tasteful (and not all of it that inexpensive, though).

    My most challenging gift-buying time for me was after my mom had died and I was swept into the *other* side of the family for holidays. They all were quite well off financially and the practice was that everyone bought everyone else gifts for the Christmas Eve gathering at my aunt’s.

    Not only did I now know some of the folks that well (assorted cousins, mostly, but most related only by marriage on my dad’s side). But I was never that sure who all would be there. And buying (on average) 10 gifts in one fell swoop, even ones that aren’t so expensive, say $10 each, really was a chunk for me at that time.

    But I felt strange showing up without gifts (or with only a couple for my aunt and closer cousins), so every year I found myself in something of a panic trying to scramble to get appropriate things that weren’t too expensive. It was all very hectic, but I kind of miss it now — once my aunt and then her brother died within a few years of each other, the gathering fell apart and everyone went their own ways.

    My closest cousin decided after that to not do much for Christmas at all, no more gifts for anyone — I suspect she was sort of burned out also by the huge gift-buying responsibility every year.

    Nowadays it’s very simple for me. My friend Carol usually just announces to me, with no prompting, precisely what she wants for Christmas several weeks beforehand, so that’s never hard. 🙂

    I buy for a few other friends, some out of state, another one whom I see every year for the holidays.

    But others I used to exchange with have all asked that we stop doing the gift “thing,” which is fine — although I’d prefer it if we’d just maybe put a limit on what we buy, something small is nice just for the gesture.

    And for the most part, I do whatever shopping I still do for Christmas online, it’s really so much easier, cheaper — and you can find exactly what you want without traipsing around for hours on end in a hopeless search. I have friends, for example, who like cows — so you can find all kinds of fun, useful & unique items for the kitchen, etc., with cows on them.

    I’m planning to grab a tag for one of our Angel Tree kids tomorrow at church to buy for this year, too — hope there are some left, I forgot to take one last week grab a tag last week.

    I do think there was more Christmas gift giving in the past (in the sense of more smaller gifts for lots of people as opposed to the HUGE/expensive gifts for only a few; I always chuckle at the Mercedes ads this time of year — I mean, really, on what planet do people give — or get — a new car for Christmas?).

    But I remember growing up my mom was always careful to get (small, thoughtful) gifts for neighbors, co-workers, etc. Her big search to find just the *right* gift for each person, though, was exhausting in the era before online shopping. 🙂

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  17. We have a quaint little downtown area in our port town — and I know a number of the shop owners who struggle to stay afloat. So I do appreciate the ‘shop local’ campaign and feel that I should do more of it.

    I agree, though, that when it comes to consumers, we’re all looking for more choice & cheaper prices. Amazon is a brilliant company — a couple times when I’ve gone to return something I ordered from them (something that’s in the smaller range), they’ll say to go ahead and keep the item, we’ll refund you anyway.

    I used to love browsing through brick-and-mortar bookstores (and I miss them still, especially the large, now-closed Christian bookstore I used to love to frequent).

    But I confess that often times I’d just go home from my browsing and buy what I spotted at the store via Amazon — for about 1/3 less the cost (if not more).

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  19. I’d rather browse in a good bookstore than shop on amazon, and I do patronize private businesses when I get the chance. But realistically, options of shopping locally are limited, are mostly “chain” stores anyway, and take a lot more time. So it’s kind of a balancing act.

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  20. Watched “The Book Thief” on tv last night (we’re getting the premiere movie stations this weekend for free through Uverse). Very good film, anyone else see it when it came out, just last year I think?

    Also watched “The Lone Survivor” which left me somewhat shell-shocked and saddened. I had to turn it off before the end, it was an all-too-real look at war. 😦 😦 Well done film, but a bit too graphic in its depictions (and yet a good reminder of he brutality & horror of war, no glossing it over).

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  22. Once when I visited my mother, some cows had gotten into her fenced yard. I had to locate who they belonged to. As a city girl I knew little about cows. I did know enough not to hop on one and try to ride it home. My son was with me and would have forever after called me “Cowmom.”

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  23. Well, mumsee, they live on a farm so also have the real deal — but you could maybe send them to me!

    Power is out in my part of town, not expected to be back up until 10 p.m.

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  24. Cows in a fenced yard are not pleasant. In a fenced pasture, sure, but not a yard. They tend to leave large footprints which are hard to mow over.

    Maybe I will just put your address around their necks, point them your way, and set them loose. That ought to work.

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  26. The Book Thief dvd is on my shelf. I haven’t seen it and can’t remember where I got it. Perhaps I will watch it now that Donna likes it.
    Locally is the only option here. However I also use amazon for the special gift book each year. What online stores do you all enjoy? I like to browse online sometimes for entertainment and to dream.

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  27. We just returned form our “shop local” trip. The antique store closed at 1PM. So that left the other store: a thrift shop. We got two chess/checker sets that I can use in the classroom for the homeroom period, and D3 got some shoes. Yeah, all of two stores in our little river town. I guess we could have gone to the lawn mower repair shop.

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  31. I’m with Cheryl @ 1:59. I get most of my books from Amazon because we don’t have a book store in Hendersonville. I patronized them when we had one. But they couldn’t make it. I don’t patronize on-line shopping. Only Amazon. I used to use I-Tunes, but I haven’t bought music in years.

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  32. Another movie I’ve caught in the past week on television is Heaven is for Real, based on the book (but making some changes apparently). I never read the book and remain skeptical of these kinds of very subjective experiences (esp when it’s a 4-year-old).

    Any thoughts on the book or film?

    (The film seemed to almost promote universalism, though I understand that was one of the ‘changes’ made from the book which was more christian-centered.)

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  33. I have 4 of my trees up. Still need to get the real one, but since the kids won’t be home until after Christmas, we’ll wait a bit before we go cut it.

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  34. I have not read the book, but I know a church friend who really liked it.

    I currently like to shop Christianbook.com, Ebay, Alibris, and in the past I shopped REI, Penney’s, Macy’s, and Beales.

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  36. I just put in a last minute order at Christian Book. Wasn’t there another one called Great Christian Books or some such thing? Seems I used to shop with them when I was overseas. Picking up books on vacation.

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  37. Donna, the only one of those books I read was 90 Minutes in Heaven, and I was even more horrified than I expected to be, which is saying a lot. (I expected his depiction of heaven to at least be attractive, and it wasn’t. It was boring. The car-crash descriptions were gross. And he came back to earth no more sanctified than when he left, but he told us that now when he preaches about heaven, he does it more convincingly because he has actually been there . . . somehow his personal experience is “better” than God’s Word?!)

    I think all these books are a sign that personal experience has taken an undue proportion of our faith, and I truly do not believe they’re from God. That doesn’t mean their authors aren’t Christians or that they’re trying to deceive, but we are supposed to be discerning, and a rash of personal stories about heaven seems very contrary to the few, very subdued, stories in Scripture about such sightings.

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  41. I appreciated 90 Minutes in Heaven. I did not find it to be saying the author’s experience was more important than Biblical teaching. It was a record of the events of the accident, the miracle of life continuing against all natural reasoning, and the experiences of what happened as registered in his brain while he was “dead.” I found the accounts about the medical devices and intervention to be interesting because I did not know about that invention. I can understand why the book does not appeal to everyone, but it definitely is a good read for others who do not feel it offends their beliefs about God.

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  45. I did most of my Christmas shopping this week, Tuesday or Wednesday, and I have received three packages already. That’s most or all of what I ordered! (I haven’t yet received the purse, but that wasn’t Christmas shopping. But I received two packages from amazon and one from another company. That’s speedy service.)

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  46. No, it looks like I still have a book and another item yet to come, plus stuff I ordered for myself. But I’ve received more than half of the gift items ordered on November 26, and the order placed yesterday has been shipped. So I’d say that’s fast service, and it should keep my packages from competing with those of last-minute shoppers.

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  49. It is cold here tonight, but not that cold. When out walking the children and a couple of dogs this evening, I ended up sending thirteen year old daughter home to change out of her swimming shorts. She came back with snow pants, winter coat, hat, scarf, ear muffs, gloves, boots. She said she was warmer. She may never get to the point where she thinks of that sort of thing but I hope she does. I think the windchill is close to zero.

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  50. What an amazing place and time in which we live. We used to order things and not expect to even think about it for six weeks. Now, out in the middle of nowhere, we can expect things in two days from order. And maybe it will be just a teeny package but they can still afford to have it delivered to the door by a pleasant person with a cheerful word.

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  55. HI Jo. Far a few minutes, wordpress wouldn’t let me comment.
    But I hung with it, so here I am.
    But not for long. It’s off to church.
    It’s back to routine for us.
    Everyone is home and doing their thing. 🙂

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  61. Have you noticed that Mumsee can be sneaky at times/
    But Donna egged her out.
    😆

    We decided not to go out for lunch after church because there are loads of leftovers here.
    As we were finishing lunch, I told Elvera, “I can’t think of a place that would have been better than this.”
    They are leftovers, but except for the collards and potatoes, it was something I didn’t eat yesterday. The turkey went back, so I had to eat ham.

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  65. Nice church service to begin Advent. I wore red and black today. Those happen to be the colors of the Georgia bulldogs, but i was not thinking of that when i chose the colors today. Georgia Tech won so i guess the pastor was happy since he graduated from there. Of course i am thinking football since husband is watching the Ravens game. I like their colors.

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  67. Misten says that cat (Mouse) sure has been sleeping a long time. It sort of confirms her opinion that cats are lazy, worthless creatures.

    Mumsee, I remember as a teenager ordering from CBD, and having all sorts of exciting things I was going to get . . . but yes, I’d make a mental note of what the date would be in six weeks and then try to forget I ordered it.

    But here in 2014 our lunch was interrupted by the doorbell. That purse I ordered? For certain types of service, the mail is delivering on Sunday and Christmas day, and apparently this totally non-emergency delivery (for which I got free shipping) qualified. My husband told the lady, “They shouldn’t be making you do this” and she said, “Well, I have nothing else to do except the laundry, so I have my husband doing that.” I guess that’s one way of looking at it. But there is no reason in the world a Sunday delivery is necessary, especially this far from Christmas.

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  68. I am glad you liked the music. Progress has been made on the tree. It is far from done. I bought some silver “scarfing” to use. I don’t like it. I am going back to my tried and true wired ribbon. I posted a photo for those of you on FB. Trying to decide what the tree topper will be this year.

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  71. Martha Washington was Mouse’s first victim off the tree. Found her on the floor under the tree. George will not be pleased. 🙂

    The next potential victim escaped, although it did get it’s tail bit. But hey, what do you expect, it was a bird ornament with a bell inside, so it was kinda asking for it. She is a cat after all. 🙂

    I tried to keep all the glass and easily breakable stuff higher up, and so far, so good. :).

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  73. I’m falling behind fast, I see. I don’t even have a tree yet — but my outdoor lights got turned on last night, they look very cute. 🙂

    We’re still waiting for our rain. I saw a photo posted in FB about an hour ago of a horseback ride on top of one of hills with the rainclouds gathering in the distance. There were a few sprinkles earlier.

    I got a book today, too, from Amazon. They struck some deal with the post office a while back for sunday deliveries. It does seem strange, but it apparently helped out the Post Office to get the contract.

    We sang “Joy to the World” today at church. Far as the curse is found …

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  74. Of course, there is always the downside to rain out here — and we are quick to complain when we are inconvenienced. This from a post from LAist that I saw:

    ‘Experts fear that drivers will lose their composure and slow traffic, outdoor yoga classes will be canceled, and doggies that went to the grooming salon would have their little haircuts ruined.’

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  78. I forgot one can change the direction of the snowfall by moving the cursor somewhere else until I just did that now.

    Oh, the fun of the first snowfall of the season! 😉

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  86. Donna, this Sunday package was not from amazon (I had seen some sort of ad in the post about their express mail service and then something about a super-duper express mail service with even better service–of course it wasn’t called that exact term–and with it there would be deliveries even on Sunday during the Christmas season and on Christmas day. I guess commercially sent packages must somehow qualify.

    Thing is, we’re not anything close to being in a big town. Our mailing address and zip code are attached to a small town (under 20,000), and we’re in the country outside that town, not in town. Delivering packages out here on Sunday is quite inefficient, and honestly, if you don’t happen to be home when they deliver, you might not even know that you got a package, since you probably won’t be checking the front steps on Sunday. So it could get rained on or stolen. If they want to do Sunday delivery the last two Sundays before Christmas to keep the packages from getting out of hand, then do that. But starting Sunday deliveries now, and delivering on Christmas Day, and delivering even out in the country–all of those seem like stupid ideas.

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  91. ah, there it is. I guess that happens when one is fighting a very painful something or other. I don’t know if I have been grinding my teeth from stress or have some sort of dental problem but definite pain from the center of the mouth, up the jaw line to the right ear. Even with lots of Motrin. I guess it is time to dart over to the prayer thread.

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  95. I am not very surprised to see Six hanging out here with one hundred looming. But I would not be surprised either to have Jo pop in. She is like that you know.

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  101. It would not let me post. I see Six Arrows snagged it. I don’t see Kare. Are you all right Kare? Donna? Kind of disturbing there Six Arrows. Knocking people down is rather rude, just to get a number. I am so glad I got it earlier, to avoid the rush.

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  105. Oh, good. I finally get caught up on the weekend thread just in time to have to go to bed.

    Emily & R have another court date tomorrow. He was giving us a lot of “drama” today when he realized there’s another area where he can’t control Emily. (This has to do with something he just realized about the custody agreement. Long story. But, boy, was he mad.)

    I say “us” because he called the house phone a couple times, talking to me for a while once, then talking to Lee later. Well, kind of yelling & swearing at us is more accurate. We both remained as calm as we could, & tried not to get drawn into his drama.

    Praying for his salvation & deliverance.

    Nighty-night, y’all.

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  112. Jo came in at the end and missed all the commotion.
    Where was I. I had a panic. I dreamed Elvera called me and I woke up. She wasn’t there.
    She was in the bath room, but I had about five seconds of panic.
    then I dreamed that my fifty Chevvy was on fire and I called 911, but I didn’t know the address. Terrible night. My wife disappeared and my car burned up.

    😉

    It was only a dream.

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