Major Mike's Musings

I read in this morning’s The Villages Daily Sun that there is a move afoot in Congress to repeal the part of the health care law that requires all businesses to file paperwork on all of their vendors from whom they buy $600.00 goods or services in a year. Small businesses are up in arms because of the expense and massive amount of paperwork required to accomplish this. Democrats and Republicans are both in favor of repealing this section of the health care law.

It was allegedly incorporated originally to collect $19 billion of estimated unpaid taxes. $19 billion to help “pay” for the bill. That the health care bill would pay for itself was just plain incorrect. Now the curtain is being lifted.

I’m excited because Old Dad and Pretty Betty will be visiting for the next three days.

Hey, Old Dad, if your Prius accelerator gets stuck, point it toward Florida and come for a visit. Call ahead and we’ll get the nets put up across the highway.

We just received a letter from the U.S. Department of Commerce telling us that our 2010 Census form will arrive in about a week. I’m glad the government is spending billions to tell us this. Last year we received a letter from the government telling us that our stimulus check would arrive in about a week. Anybody else think this is a waste of money?

In this morning’s Daily Sun, an ad for a shoe store claimed, “We have a huge stock of reduced shoes.”

I think I’ll wander on down there to see if they have some size thirteens that have been reduced to nine and a half EEEEs.

Mrs. Major is feeling better today. Still very tired and still has some cramping. I think she is on the mend.

The weather gave us a break. The rain abated for our 1.5 hour drive to Sanford, the 3.0 hour cruise¹, and the 1.5 hour return drive.

The cruise turned out to be fun. The first deck of the boat was the dining room, filled with red leather booths that tightly fit six or four people. The food was pretty good, not outstanding, but not bad. The company was good. We sat at a six-top where the other two BILs had served in the Navy…not career like I did…and had several sea stories.² The ladies at our table, including Mrs. Major, were outgoing, lively, funny, and lovely.

The second deck had a bar and small lounge area, another lounge-dance area with a guy singing lots of dance songs, and an outside observation deck. If it weren’t so cold, the outside would have been the place to gather after dinner. The poor smokers had to go out on deck to smoke…no smoking inside.

We got home at around 12:30 am.

The only unfortunate thing about the whole trip is that today Mrs. Major is suffering pretty bad cramps. We’re speculating that he had food poisoning. We’ll have to find other PEOs who had the chicken breast to see if they had any ill effects. Mrs. Major said the chicken was dry, so it was probably cooked properly. Perhaps the contamination was from the sauce or from the handling. She’s still in bed.

My pork tenderloin was very good and, so far, I’m fine.

1. Do I hear a cheesy song in the background? [↩]
2. By the way, the difference between a sea story and a fairy tale is: One starts out, “Once upon a time…” and the other starts out “This is no s**t…” [↩]

In a few hours, Mrs. Major and I are scheduled to join some of her PEO sisters in Sanford, Florida, for a riverboat cruise dinner-dance, presumably for Valentine’s Day. This is a BIL¹ event. It’s been on the books for several months.

The problem is, it’s been raining buckets² for hours and is forecast to be the same with temps around 40 degrees at launch time. Fortunately, I think the meal is served inside. At least I hope it is.

1. BILs are the husbands of the PEOs. I’m not sure what BIL stands for, if anything; except I’m sure it doesn’t stand for “brothers in lingerie”. At least I hope it doesn’t. [↩]
2. Cats and dogs [↩]

With the passing of Robert B. Parker last week, the community of his fans grieved. I count myself as a member of that community. His Spenser, Jesse Stone, and Sonny Randall novels entertained us for over 50 years. I’m sad when I realize that, if I don’t discover some more of Robert B. Parker’s titles, I have only 16 more to go until I have no more new ones to read.

Should I read them all this year or savor them over several years?

Our discipleship/small groups moved from Wednesday night to Saturday night. Wednesday is the night Mrs. Major has cards, so now I have Wednesday night free to read. Yea!