Hit your thumb and forget the foot pain

A couple years ago, my daughters baught me a cockatiel bird. Now, most people don't like them, but I do. Coming from a family of 10 for many years to now spending most of the time home alone I need the background noise. So, anyway, they bought me this beautiful bird. I looked it up in a book and it said the way you tell the sex of a cockatiel is by it's coloring around it's cheeks. (for those of you that think to look elsewhere, it doesn't work!). So because my bird had bright beautiful cheeks, I called him Sammy, El Guapo. Now the El Guapo comes from the movie 3 Amigos and it means "ladies man". For the last couple years we tried everything to get hime to talk. Even bought a DVD with bird sayings on it. But He just squawked.

Now here we are at Friday night and Saturday morning. I was in trmendous pain from a neuropathy in my legs and couldn't wait till I got out of dialysis to get home. I was counting the minutes till they unplugged me. Hoping that we still had some prescriptions for pain pills at home.

I came home tired, worn out and beat and the first thing I walked in Joy said, "Hey dad, guess what Sammy did?" I don't know I said. "She laid an egg" What! "She laid an egg! Take a look" Hmm, looks like we'll have to call him/her Samantha and drop the El Guapo part! As Joy looked up on the internet it seems that white cockatiels have been so inbred so much that they have lost their characteristic male/female cheek color identity. Another thing they do is hang upside down on the cage like a bat to protect their nests! Sammy, uh er Samantha was always doing that which we thought was cute.

As it sunk in that He was really a she, we got some good laughs thinking about all the effort we put into tryint to teach him to talk (not as dominant in females). Joy even tried for quite a while to teach him the Marine Hymn!

Later that day at a softball game we were telling some of the grand daughters about it and one of the 4 year olds said, "so what did the baby look like?" "Well, there was no baby" "Why, she said?" "Well, she needs to be married and have a dad" The rest of that story I'll leave to her parents to answer.

So what did that have to do with hitting my thumb. Because in that moment of discovering my 2 year old bird was a she, I forgot my pain.
I'm thankful to God for that.

I'm just realizing

some things my dad was trying to teach me.

I'm turning 59 this year and I'm still learning some things dad was trying to teach me. I've tried to raise my children so it won't take them 59 years to learn some things but we'll see. I am thankful for the values that him and mom raised me with. Some of their teachings (most actually) were done by their example. They showed how to live the right way through their example. Mom and dad stuck with me through thick and thin. I thank God for that. I'm not quite as patient with my children as my parents were but there's still hope for me yet. My hope for them is that they realize that life is not about them Kids grow up quick before you know it. And the sad part is to see them mimic you when they get oldr then you realize that you messed up in some areas. On the other hand, God has blessed me in many other areas with some great kids and grand kids and daughter-in-laws. Still praying for son-in-laws.

8 things...

My daughter-in-law challenged some of us to post 8 things about ourselves. Since my mouth is stuck in overdrive today, I'll give it a try.

....so here goes:“Rules:” After posting these rules, each player proceeds to list 8 relatively random facts/habits about himself/herself. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, leaving them a comment on their blogs to let them know.

1. Although I used to be known as a techno-geek and won a prize by Bell telephone for my Science Fair project of making a telephone there is one thing that I'm pitiful at is using a telephone. It took me years to figure out how to use call waiting....

2. Hard to believe but I played varsity basketball and track in high school!

3. My buddies and I used to "haunt" attics and bank building clock towers in college and as a result left a legacy that come of the building in that town were haunted! ha ha

4. To raise money for a Chiropractic cause while I was in college, my wife and I made hundreds of ties and sold them.

5. One of my "wants" for a present is to get a Mindstorm lego robot.

6. Took helicopter lessons with my dad in Arizona

7. Although we had 9 children, we really wanted 12!

8. I'd like to live in a one room shack by the ocean for a year

Since I get an average of 9 visits per day on this blog site and you know who you are, you're tagged... :)