Rick Bradford's Retirement: It Ain't Easy

 THE RAIN HAS RETURNED Our governor Gavin Newsome recently declared that we are in a draught situation. What with the rain we are now getting, I think that may have been premature. The past 3-4 years have been very dry, with the rain we count on on during the winter months has not occurred. The past 24 hours have been very wet, which is welcome, but due to the fact that the rain is coming too quickly, flood conditions are happening all around the Bay Area. Our neighborhood has not experienced any flooding, which is fine with me. And we really do need the rain. Just bring in gradually, thank you very much. I've been watching the local news and too many areas are in bad shape. Let up with the rain, but keep it coming during the entire winter season please. On another subject altogether, I have a program on my computer that allows me to transfer cassette tapes (which I used to use to record music) into MP3 files, which I then transfer onto CDs (remember those?) and I have all my old m...

 ENOUGH ALREADY! Can we please never mention the former President again? Remember during the campaign, he promised that if he lost to Joe Biden, you'd never hear from him again. The SOB never shuts up. I have heard more from him since he lost than when he was in office. Just STFU! And to the news media: stop covering every utterance the orange buffoon says. If you've ever wondered why I don't blog more than I do, it's mostly because I like to write when I have the place to myself, which doesn't happen very often. The hubby doesn't understand "alone time" -- he even gets upset when I leave for my weekly pool night with the guys. He needs to learn how to enjoy alone time, not dread it. It's nice being able to go to the movies again. We've seen quite a few since the restrictions have been lessened, at least here in SF. We still wear our masks most of the time, but being able to remove them to enjoy a movie seems like a real treat. The new James Bo...

 MAYNARD MUNN and MILLARD SMITH Disclaimer: some of the following is quite racy in case you don't want to read the entire first paragraph. Maynard Munn was my uncle. I accidently found out recently that he passed away in June 2021. The photo above was a perfect photo for his obituary, as that is exactly how I remember him. He and Millard were together for as long as I knew him, and I recently turned 70, so I believe they were together for over 65 years at the minimum. In his obituary, they described Millard as his "longtime friend and business associate" -- I guess they still couldn't reconcile that they were in actuality, gay. In June of 1967, Uncle Main came up to Michigan to attend my older brother's graduation from high school. Mom pulled me aside and said I had a decision to make. He wanted to take me back to Jacksonville when he returned but if I chose that option, I would have to bypass taking driver's education classes that summer. Wasn't much of a...

 THIS AND THAT Times are beginning to somewhat return to normal, whatever that means nowadays. I played pool for the first time in over 15 months in the middle of June. Entered a tournament, played well considering I hadn't even held my cue stick in all that time. I was pleased with the way I played but lost to the eventual winner of the tournament, so it must have been fate (if I had been fated to win, I would have). I then joined up with my teammates a few weeks ago for a team practice before the league starts up again in August. It was very fun seeing all of them again, catching up and having a great time playing pool against each other. We are scheduled to do it again tonight, so looking forward to that. The picture is of all of us but James, as he was moving and couldn't make it that night. He's supposed to be there tonight. The other photo is of me getting ready to make a ball. Martin and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary on July 7 and then turned around and ...

 It's been almost six weeks since I published an article. How time flies! I had my 70th birthday on May 1. Went to a great lunch at my favorite restaurant (La Mediterranee) with Martin and David. They weren't doing inside dining yet, but we had a nice table on the sidewalk area they've set up for dining and the heater next to the table kept us toasty, as it was in the 50s and a bit windy which made it seem colder than it was. I've enclosed a photo of the three of us. The next exiting thing we did was go out to the movies again! In a real movie theater (IMAX no less). Saw "A Quiet Place, Part II" which was very exciting and we all enjoyed it. It was David's first "horror" movie and even he said afterwards that he liked it. With any luck, going to the movies again will become a regular occurrence. Had a trip to the DMV this morning, as we had an appointment to get his driver's license replaced as his was damaged. Even though it had broken in ha...

 THANKS TO CHRISTINA AGUILERA I've recently become a fan of Christina Aguilera, who is mostly a pop music artist, not exactly my cup of tea. But she has a video of her song "Candyman" that is just wonderful. It's a tribute to the Andrews Sisters from the 1940s...you should check it out. And also check out "Behind the scenes of the Candyman video" on You Tube, it will give you a better understanding of what she was trying to accomplish...which she did, overwhelmingly. It also reminds me of Bette Midler's "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B", on of her original hits. The photo attached to this was of course done by my husband, who loves his Photoshop program. I'm on the left, our friend David is in the middle, and Martin is on the right. During the video of this song, Christina is a threesome, and the Behind the Scenes video will explain how they did it, as all three singers were Christina, and I wondered how they did it. The "document...