Tagging?

I'd heard of tagging, but it was in connection with illegal gangs, spray paint, overpasses and railroad boxcars. Oh, well. I've been very busy at my parents. In spite of the fact that the window plastic spread out across three days, and the daily thunderstorms interrupted the roof-clearing and ended up cancelling the outside painting, we actually got everything else on the to-do list done. Plus more. Hard work for two old men in the Florida heat. Okay, back to the tag game. Let's see: Three joys. Hmmmm. I've got so many, it's hard to narrow down to three. So here's three from the collection: (1) being married to a truly wonderful girl, especially one who doesn't tell me what to do or not do (.... well, most of the time, anyway); (2) Having four wonderful, healthy, happy, grown children who are capable of living independently, making good judgment choices, and who make me very proud; (3) Enjoying nature, especially mountain trails, forests, lakes, and even extra-terrestrial beauty such as found in the cosmos. I derive great joy from being alone in the wilderness. Three fears. Hmmmm. Even harder. (1) I fear that lawyers will one day exact their revenge on me for my utter hatred and loathing of the U.S. legal system by preventing me from obtaining relief of my suffering if or when I contract an incurable terminal illness. (2) I guess if it comes right down to it, I fear that one of my children will become disabled somehow and not be able to continue enjoying life to its fullest. (I don't fear that for me because I've already lived my life to its fullest, so I'm just hangin' out till it's over... but my kids still have a lot to do in the future.) (3) Hmmmm.... I can't come up with a third one. I really don't fear much. Three goals: Another difficult one. (1) I'd like to continue contributing what little bit I can to my wife's happiness. It's not much, but maybe I can do a little bit. (2).... hmmmm. I can't think of anything else. I've already accomplished everything I ever dreamed of doing with my life .... and more. It's all gravy from here on. The only other goal I can think of is to continue living a happy life as long as I'm in reasonably good health, and not be a burden on anyone at the end of it. I'd like to get out of this life with a minimum of suffering and pain and effort, both on my part and the part of those who I love who are still around when I check out. That's about it, really. While some people try to make be believe it would be nice to live to see grandchildren, that's not one of my goals because that is (and should be) entirely, completely, up to my children, and I don't (and shouldn't have) any right to put any obligation on them in any way, so I don't. If it happens, I'll be happy, especially if my kids turn out to be good parents. But I'll also be happy if it doesn't happen. I don't want my kids to be under any obligation whatsoever in this respect. Three obsessions: This one's easy: (1) I don't suffer fools very well, especially those who waste my precious time with utter nonsense and baloney. I do some of this only because it appears to please my wife, but I'm drawing the line shorter and shorter as I age. No, I'm not definitely not referring to her, and she knows exactly the type of time-wasting I'm referring to, and the nature of the meetings and other activities that are such an indescribably utter waste of time and resources that I have to put up with when I'd be so much more productive doing something else... like contemplating my belly button or even poking myself in the eye. (2) When I go to a restaurant or get on a plane or buy a ticket to a concert or something, I always ask, "do you have a seat in the No-Crying section?". I detest crying babies with a passion. The more crying babies I hear, the more this becomes an obsession with me. Deliberately. (3) I guess if I had to have a third obsession, it would be my agreement with Abraham Lincoln, who said, "It has been my observation that most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." I don't understand people who don't take action to better their life and change their state of being, but just sit there and complain about. it. This third obsession is growing faster than the other two as I get older. So I hope my wife will be understanding enough to realize why I'm going to be cutting way WAY back on spending my time in useless time-wasting activities, and attending fewer and fewer venues that are populated with crying babies. Three little-known facts about me: Well, shoot, if I put them here, they wouldn't be little-known anymore, would they? Okay, here goes: (1) One of the best jobs I ever had was caretaker of a private plant nursery, where I had five greenhouses and four acres of rich lush irrigated oak-shaded land to myself, to do almost whatever I wanted, almost totally unsupervised. I had a thousand orchids, along with bromoliads, amaryllis, and dozens of other kinds of plants, along with thousands of camellias, azaleas, ferns, and other plants. ... it was fun. I love growing plants, even though I don't do much of it anymore. Few people know that I like doing this. (2) I once worked at a microfilm company, converting top secret military documents (operating and repair manuals for jets and weapon systems) to microfilm so the aircraft carriers and other ships could reduce the size and weight of their reference libraries. I operated the filming camera, the darkroom, and the duplicators. It was also fun. (3) At one time long ago, I was not only a member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, but also a member of Toastmaster's International. At a toastmaster's meeting one time, I made the President of the Jacksonville Board of Realtor's laugh so hard she wet her pants in front of everyone. That was a WHOLE lotta fun, too. I like fun. I know that the last thing I'm supposed to do is tag some others. Unfortunately, I only know of a handful of blogs: Lintmonkey, EMT-extraordinaire, the king and queen, the Hebs, Debbie's kid fix (whose piano playing I love to listen to!), and occasionally Terrace. And they've all been tagged already. I don't know of anyone else. All the anonymous people apparently don't have blogs and are thus immune. Sigh. Thanks for reading this. Feel free to comment. Oh, don't buy a SmartParts digital picture frame. They are the most poorly designed piece of technology I've ever encountered. If you are interested, email me and ask me for more details, but suffice it to say, they are frustrating and I don't recommend them to anyone.