“Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only for one second without hope.” – Sunday morning at the Casa, and all the kids are piled up on the bed with their Dad. Due to the knee situation, I've been keeping Chloe at bay, as her her antics are unpredictable and the slightest touch from even the most well-intentioned but rambunctious dog can be…

"God, I hope that they can fix this"; both a prayer and a quote of exasperation... Since it's inception, the Casa and Charlie's page have been always been intended as a place for good news, but the last few weeks have been quite the challenge. It started with a TIA, a "mini stroke", which is the type of stroke one who is 5'6" might have. The greatest shock was when that I realized that I…

The rest of the story... ...I crutched through the rain and into the Ortho clinic. After seven days, six hours and a thimble-full of minutes of confinement to my recliner, I was so ready for relief that I hadn't eaten anything for hours. You know, in the minuscule chance that that they might say "well, we would love to operate on that knee right now, but we can't because YOU STOPPED AT THE SONIC!! HAHAHAHA!!!…

A wise man once told me that we humans as a species are hard-wired to only accept as much bad news as we can personally affect, and anything more tends to cause us to "shut down". Imagine our most remote ancestors; they only had to process as much information as affected their immediate family, or maybe their tribe, problems that they could address. The issues were still real and possibly insurmountable, but they at least…

Pawlms 23 KJV 1 The dogs are my masters; they shall not want. 2 They maketh me to lie down on the covers, they covereth my face with their slobbers. 3 They restoreth my roll: they stampede for the car when I would ride solo. 4 Yea, though I sojourn to the fridge in midst of the night, I will fear no evil: for they art with me; their bark and their bite they accompanieth…

I have never had any letters of any type behind my name; no BA, no Ph D, no BMF or any other combination thereof. Instead of applying myself towards these all-important groups of letters, I seem to have spent much of my life working towards my Masters Degree in Daydreaming. And I did use to daydream A LOT, resulting in many demerits received during my school years and many more missed opportunities since I've supposedly…

It's the most wonderful time of the year... Yeah, right. It's actually a time of the year where we are biologically hardwired to slow down and relax, and to conserve our physical and spiritual resources. If not a season of emotional hibernation with it's short days and long nights, at least a time of reflection on the real reason for the season. But instead of a natural time of reduced activity, it has instead became…