2008 - No. 5         www.malecek.com        
It looks like a
NEW POOL
     
   The guy I chose to resurface the pool has an aunt in Minnesota and he has been there often and been to the family lake home near Brainerd. When his son heard me speak, he said: “He sounds like cousin Tony!”
It took 60 hours to refill.


It doesn’t look like
a NEW CARPET

We were going to have the carpet stretched and cleaned. It became a necessity to have them done before Gail came home. The couple who came to do the cleaning were from Czech Republic and we had a great time talking about food and they told me about a restaurant in Auckland that serves Czech meals.
They say there is no place like home. I know that Gail was extremely happy to get out of the hospital after 17 days. Her life is still limited as she rarely goes outside and is in the wheelchair most of the time. We had a young lady come in 3 times a week to help out with some chores. But Gail can do almost everything and once the casts came off on Dec 9th she stopped the home help. She still needs to saty off off her leg, so she will be in the wheelchair and wearing a "moon boot" until Feb. Her “Crash Diet” has seen her lose weight, but she wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

One Friday afternoon 12 teachers from Gail’s school showed up and proceeded to mow (three mowers plus our ride-on going), weed, sweep, prune, edge and plant. In two hours they, with 4 young sons, managed to complete what would have taken me months to do. And they did cheerfully and having a great time to boot. It was like a TV show. It was real community spirit. It was friendship. It was a blessing.


 I turned 62 this year so I began the process to claim Social Security payments. Easy if you live in the States. Living in New Zealand meant I had to go through an office in the Philippines. Many phone calls, emails, forms and it was like they didn’t want to pay me. Anyway, as I write this my application is in Baltimore and I await the outcome. The first time I called, the recorded message told me to enter the extension and hit the "pound" key. What the hell is the "pound" key? Luckily, I guessed they meant #, which in British countries is called the "hash" key.
Malley Muses

Timely Thought

If you rent a time machine and then return it before the day you took it, do you have to pay?
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