"Post No. 732"

On this, my last blog post of the year, I'll "catch up" a bit since my last lengthly post.

Yesterday I took my mother to her pacemaker doctor in Elizabethtown, KY. (45 miles from here). She got an excellant report and doesn't have to come back for another checkup until April. My chief complant isn't taking her to the doctor, but the distance we always have to drive (about 100 miles round trip). I'm thinking that there must be a closer place for this checkup, perhaps at a doctor in nearly Glasgow, KY. (only 14 miles from her house). She has a checkup with her local doctor this coming Tuesday and I'm certainly going to ask about that, especially with the cost of gasoline jumping all the time, problems getting a full day off to take her, plus I'm not sure how much longer my vehicle's going to keep making these longer trips. It's a '95 Ford Taurus, and it's been an exceptionally good car, but I've put a lot of miles on it over the years, the tires are getting bad, it needs a long over due oil change, and the brake light came on on this trip. I depressed it several times and the light went off, and I didn't see any leakage under the vehicle and the master cylinder was still full, so I'm thinking perhaps the master cylinder may be going out and that'll be another unneeded expense these days.

While we were in E-Town I wanted to stop by Barnes and Noble and check out their discount racks of trade paperbacks, but was just too tired after sitting in the doctor's office waiting for so long, but we stopped at The Peddler's Mall, a place filled with several hundred booths by individual venders. I didn't have a whole lot of time to look around, but still managed to spend less than $10. on a small bag of various action figures (some superhero, such as one of the recent Burger King/Batman-The Brave & The Bold "Aquaman" figure, and a lego "Robin" to go w/my Batman one), plus four misc comic books: The Human Target (DC-VertigoX) #5, The Human Corps (DC) #4, Squadron Supreme (Marvel/2006 series) #6, and Dawn (Sirus) #2.

Been working an awful lot here of late which keeps me exhasted. I worked several days a couple weeks ago, then on the day I was off had to take mom to her foot dr.'s apointment, then worked several more days and had Christmas Day off which pretty much was just shot spending all day at my aunt's for dinner, etc., then working 4 more days and having yesterday off to take mom to E-Town, then I'll have to work until Monday before I have another. (I'm pretty pooped.)

Christmas was okay. As I stated, my wife and mom and I went to my Aunt Sally's house for dinner since we had Thanksgiving at mom's. My wife gave me a nice flannel, quilted jacket and long-sleeved shirt, my cousin leslie gave us a $20. Wallyworld gift card, my aunt gave me three older $1. coins (Eisnhowers from 1974-75, bi-centenniel types for my coin collection), mom gave me house slippers and t-shirts, and a friend gave me a copy of Superman III on DVD (which was the only one I needed to complete a set of the Christopher Reeve films of the character).

I finally got a bonus at work, but it wasn't any more than last year's; at least it will help on bills. (I'll not be off any during my "local" comic book shop's 30% off sale on all merchandise this month anyway.)

A very Happy New Year to one and all. Meet me back here again "sometime" next year!