Happy Birthday To You, Happy Birthday To You ….. Mary

By W.R. Jones

    Happy, happy birthday, Mary.  I know it is tomorrow but I don’t have access to a computer on the weekends.  You are an adult in the eyes of the world now.  How cool. 

    I thought I would give you this dog as a gift since I’m getting tired of taking him out to pee at 2:00 AM.

 

    But then I remembered he really isn’t my dog but my daughter’s.  So I will just send this photo and a promise that if you ever get to southern California you can take him out to pee at 2:00 AM (now that you are 21 you can stay out as late as you like).

    Happy Birthday! 

Sometimes You Just Get Lucky

By W.R. Jones

    Here is a true parenting story, or maybe just another of my nearly classic “foot in mouth” blunders.

    I was at a Friday night high school basketball game.  My daughter was 14 at the time.  I was sitting next to this couple and we got to chatting before the game began.   I did not know them and during the conversation found that they had a 16 year old daughter.  They pointed her out as she walked across the floor, a beautiful young woman.  The talk got around to how we might prepare our daughters for  the onslaught of sexual advances soon to come their way.

    I don’t remember their comments, something about about a church.  I said, “Well, I don’t care if my daughter screws every boy in town as long as she is happy.”  You’ve probably heard the term “jaw dropping”, this man and wife really did have their jaws drop, wide open.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  They turned away and never said another word to me or each other for the entire game.

    I found out later that they were super religious.  Now the interesting part of this story of exceptional parenting skills is that their daughter and mine became very close friends and still are some 12 years later.   I feel very fortunate as their daughter mentored mine and guided her through those high school years with friendship and sound advice.

    Parenting skills, or just luck?  

Which One Of Us Just Had Our Coffee?

By W.R. Jones

I’m reluctant to share this photo as the painting on the easel has been there for a couple of years now.  I have some type of mental block about finishing this piece.

For those of you itching to send me stuff my birthday is May 20, 1945.  For those tightwads who don’t send me anything, I think my birthday remains the same.

This photo clearly shows the young woman has just had a great cup of coffee while my dour face says I won’t paint a lick until I get a fresh cup and a donut.

Thinking Of Miki

By W.R. Jones

Merry Christmas to all and a very happy new year soon to come.

I expect that for the rest of my life whenever I see a lovely cup or mug I will think of Miki. I really liked this cup from the Crystal Symphony cruise ship.

I also thought of Kevin on this trip. There is never a shortage of idiot passengers be it plane or boat. Two examples on this cruise:

1. The 2 men and a woman who went through a gate marked “CREW ONLY” to get to the bow of the ship. There they played Titanic (standing with both arms raised) until told to leave.

2. The 2 men opening a hatch marked “KEEP CLOSED AT ALL TIMES”. “Here, Danny, we can get on deck this way.” “Oh, ya, this is a shortcut.” And did they at least close the hatch after exiting? Nope.

Grownup’s Santa

By W.R. Jones

If you want those kiddy gifts; Barbie doll, erector set, little red wagon, etc., go ahead and leave Santa that glass of milk and cookies.

If you want Santa to know you are all grown up and want some big boy toys, leave him a cup of coffee and some drug laced cakes.

Some people bake using precisely measure ingredients, for example, meth labs. I tend to just add a pinch of this and a pinch of that. Since it is nearing the holidays and I’m in a sharing mood I will part with my yellow cake recipe just for the club members. I get a box of yellow cake mix from Vons then I empty out my bathroom cabinet. I put in one blood pressure pill finely ground, one of those horse sized calcium tabs also finely ground, a few advil tabs, a one-a-day vitamin, and some dried out, rock hard, raisins (how did they get in the cabinet?).

Santa gets a buzz from the coffee, strong bones, and gets rid of that headache. I’m expecting a new Harley this Christmas.

What In The World Is That Brown Liquid?

By W.R. Jones

I saw this cup in a pottery store in Ojai, California while on my way to paint at a nearby lake. My first thought was to wonder if Miki would like this piece. Anyway, I do.

It might be illegal to display hot chocolate on this blog, but I’ve always been a wild outlaw type of guy so I’ll deal with the consequences as they come up.

I picked chocolate to go with the light brown colors on the mug. I found out that you don’t want to put marshmallows in hot chocolate if you plan on painting them; they dissappear in a hurry. The flip side of this problem is that when the chocolate cools the marshmallows sit on top rather than sink halfway. You have to push them down.

Those little red balls are cranberries in anticipation of Thanksgiving – American holiday where we eat too much then lie on the sofa watching American football, groan, and grow ever fatter.

I found my “tablecloth” at Wal-Mart for $0.50. I’m such a shopper!

Autumn Morning

By W.R. Jones

I was looking for something to go with my yearly – well the last two anyway, painting of a pumpkin, when I found this metal coffee cup. It has an appealing look to me with a sense of times past. There are a lot more practical mugs/cups today that hold the heat of the coffee in while not burning your hands. I’ll just use it for the painting and not actually drink out of it.

I remember drinking water out of a cup like this at my grandparent’s house. It was in a rural Iowa town and to get the water you had to pump it up by hand from a well.

Mostly, this painting does not make me think of coffee but of how to get candy for Halloween now that I’m too old to go door to door. I’ve given thought to getting a toddler size dummy and pulling it in a wagon around the neighborhood. Then I could go to the door and ask for candy for my “grandchild”. You know, I think it might work.

Blue Cup With Daisies

W.R. Jones

We were at the local Vons grocery store when my wife mentioned we needed coffee. In the past I had watched her, somewhat inattentively it turns out, grind the moca java beans that we normally use. I told her to go get me some candy while I took care of the coffee.

What could be easier? I filled a bag with the beans and went round the end of the isle to the grinder. There I poured the beans from the bag into the grinder and set the bag on the shelf underneath. I switched on the grinder and turned away to browse other items on the aisle. Since the bag was only 3/4 full of beans I felt I did not need to watch the grinding as there was no way for the bag to overflow.

As a nearly world famous scientist I was of course correct about the overflow. However, overflow was not the problem, it was “around” flow that led to the neat pile of coffee grounds on the store floor. I had placed the bag near the spigot instead of under. You’ve heard the saying, “clean up on aisle 7.” The young man who came to clean up my mess was not amused by my ignorance; neither was my wife.

Later that day I found this blue cup at a yard sale and added it to this painting.