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Thought my Lil’ Buddy – the squirrel – was gone forever. She was MIA at ‘the spot’ for a couple of days. The way squirrels bound around traffic and fight amongst themselves, you never know. I’d have missed her. Fed her since the summer and watched her grow. I kind of make a noise when I get to the spot to let the squirrels know I’m there, but I think they can smell my pipe smoke from a block away. She was back, saw her coming down a large tree, then hopping along the top of the wooden fence, headed…towards me? No, headed to a big meal! A yam leftover from Thanksgiving yesterday and an apple and plenty of nuts this afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n If the sun was out today (it wasn’t – heavy clouds), it would have felt like the first day of spring, instead of heading into winter. Almost 50 in Chicago – it wasn’t long before the cold winds began blowing in. We’ll be frigid the next couple of days, then a good warmup. Only four months to opening day for baseball!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Should’ve taken a pic: I usually finish my pipe by the Jewel before I grocery shop. I heard the Salvation Army guy, who stands near the door, singing. Now these good folks are on duty, in one place, about 8 hrs. a day, from Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve. It’s got to be boring, just ringing a bell for such a long time (I know, I did it about 10 years ago), so the guy was passing time by singing Christmas carols. No great voice, but instead of complaining to myself, I figured I can’t do any better, so I put my pipe away, went over and joined him. We finished White Christmas together – in harmony! That was fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yep – I still play guitar. Till the day I die. Just tried an impromptu jazzy Jingle Bells. Will record and post if I can edit out the clams!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Decorated the apartment in about an hour this year. Only put up a third of the decorations I did last year, but this time, I had enough energy to wrap gifts! I wonder where I put that box of Christmas lights. Maybe I’ll find it next year!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, Christmas is shaping up. Hope it is for you, too. I’m going to take a stab at making almond crescent cookies with the powdered sugar. I’ll experiment after I see my cardiologist this week. I lost 21 lbs. this year – wish someone would tell that to my waistline!<\/p>\n\n\n\n I hope to watch the end of Polar Express later tonight. Real cool Pixar movie from a few years back, with Tom Hanks playing the conductor on a train that takes kids to the North Pole. Now what young girl or boy wouldn’t want to do that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few more things to do this evening and then, before I settle in for the movie, maybe I can edit a couple of more pages in my book. It’s not over yet – everybody asks me when it;s going to be done, but it’s about getting the best out of each scene. And that takes time and concentration. But the closer I get, great and strange feelings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Monday, December 9, 2019 It’s a good thing to wear steel-toe shoes on a CTA bus. Baby carriages. I really like my bone doctor. He’s young, intelligent, concerned and is helping my messed up shoulder. Plus, his first name is Igor. Great name for a sports injury doctor. Watched Diane Keaton’s first appearance on the … Continue reading Random & Very Random Thoughts 3<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":435,"href":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions\/435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.randybaran.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/1126191535-01-1024x768.jpg\")
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