Tales from the Love Shaque

Monday, May 25, 2026

Remember & Honor

Remember what your three day weekend is actually for.

from Great Lakes National Cemetery

Today, at my VFW.

Wednesday, May 20, 2026

#AtoZChallenge Reflections & Catching Up

I totally missed the sign up for the A to Z Challenge reflections but oh well! I'll just kind of gloss over it.

Woohoo! I made it through!

As usual, I dropped the ball with visiting other blogs.

I already joined the Road Trip, at least I can remedy that somewhat.

Some thoughts from the Reflections post linked above....

I like the Theme Reveal posts. It's neat to see ahead of time what people are writing about and to poke around their blogs to see what they're about.

Yes, at least one of the hosts did visit. That's got to be a tough job - kudos to them for visiting everyone! Some of the blogs have topics that I'm not interested in so I think it would be hard to make any meaningful comments on it!

I'm pretty sure my blog's comments are open to everyone - I do have a time frame set where any comments after a certain time need to be moderated, but that's to weed out the weirdos.

I don't like the blogs that are hard to navigate, and I've even seen some where there wasn't a way to comment - at least that I could find. I always wonder if they actually look at their blog?

oooo and I really like they already listed the sign up dates for 2027! That theme is really pretty, too.

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Catching up.....

Who needs Mother's Day flowers when you can stop the ice cream truck!

So my search & rescue team is now an "associate" member of the SE Michigan Dive Group, along with a whole lotta law enforcement / fire agencies. We had our first training with the county dive team last week. Since we're all "professionally trained volunteers" we will never actually dive, but we can assist & support the actual divers.

We met at the sheriff's department & got our made up scenario, then made a convoy to the lake.

There were 4 of us from my team, plus one K9 who is certified in water searching.

We were told 2 guys collided out on the lake, their boats sank (there really are 2 boats at the bottom of the lake we went to), they swam to shore and fought, shots were fired, etc. So, we had to go into the woods and look for the firearm.

I may have said "gimme gimme" when the guy in charge of the training offered up one of the police dept's 800 MHz radios for us to use.

I was warned several times NOT to touch the orange button (is the emergency button) but when it came time to actually USE the radio? I hesitated since I was listening to real police traffic the whole time we were in the woods!

Found this pretty little guy out there, too

Fun fact - there is only one poisonous snake in Michigan, the Mississauga Rattlesnake, but it tends to be much further north than I am and is very timid, so bites are rare. This is a harmless garter snake.

Afterward, we got to go out in the boats and see how they use sonar. I've watched videos on YouTube with guys looking for cars in lakes, but it's different in real life!

It was a super cool training. Luckily, it's only once a month since it was during the day on a Tuesday, so I could easily just adjust my work hours.

Everyone in my house is finally getting over the plague. Over the course of 2 weeks, 4/5 of us were sick. First, it was the Spouse. He was down for the count for 2 days, shortness of breath, coughing, etc. His cough is still hanging on! Pretty sure he had bronchitis but he, being such a guy, didn't go get checked out. Then I started getting a sore throat, congestion & coughing. Then the next week, the granddaughter came down with hand, foot & mouth. Then the grandson got it. The kids finally went back to school yesterday. The togetherness was getting to be too much. They were constantly fighting & tormenting each other.

I went out to breakfast with my sisters Sunday and when I came home, the Spawn was by herself in the back yard. The neighbor behind us invited the kids over to help him pull weeds in his garden - she said he was probably tired of hearing them screaming and her yelling at them!

The tulips & hyacinths are done blooming, but the irises are out!

These used to be purple years ago, not sure why they turned white.

We also just had the VFW's Day of Service - somehow we got involved with the caretakers of a local cemetery, so a whole bunch of us gathered there and cleaned up the cemetery and put out flags for Memorial Day. Since I'm the VFW's post historian and website admin, I'd like to find out more about HOW we got involved with them and write a little piece for the website. Everyone I asked pointed fingers at Mike, but Mike doesn't remember how he met them! I'm hoping the caretaker's wife knows something since her family took care of the cemetery before they did.

Signing off for now!

The Uncomplicated HodgePodge

I'm back off my blogging break! I didn't even do my A to Z Reflections post - oops! Maybe I'll still do it even tho I missed the sign ups.

Thanks as always to Joyce at From This Side of the Pond for today's HodgePodge.

1. What do you make more complicated than it needs to be?

Most likely some processes at work. Next month is my (gasp!) 26th anniversary there and of course over the years some tasks have somehow oozed onto my desk, and I don't always get proper (or any) training.

2. What impresses you?

Talent. Some of the kids the Spawn used to dance with were incredible. Artists, too. (edited to add) Public Speaking! I'm impressed every year when I have to help judge the entries for the VFWs Voice of Democracy program. It's high school kids writing & presenting a speech on a given topic. They're always amazing.

And what made me say "WOW!" just recently was seeing a picture of Admiral Brad Cooper, the Commander of the US Central Command.

(pic snagged from navy.mil)

A civilian might not understand, but all those ribbons on the left chest/shoulder stand for awards, recognitions, commendations, honors, etc. That's an insane amount.

In comparison, I did 8 years in the Navy and came out with 6 ribbons. However, looking at all the gold stripes on his sleeves (each one means 4 years of service) he's done at least 20....

I bet he's got some stories.

3. On a scale of 1-10 how picky of an eater are you? (1=extremely and 10=not at all) If you had to eat a meal made entirely of one color what color would you choose?

A solid 9. I won't eat red onions - but white/yellow is ok. Tofu. Green peppers. Otherwise, I'm pretty adventurous when it comes to food. I've eaten - and enjoyed -rattlesnake (takes like chicken/turkey) and escargot and buffalo. I currently have a pound of ground elk and some venison steaks in my freezer, thanks to the Spawn's male friend. When the Spouse & I went on Carnival Cruises back in 2005 / 2007 we made a point of eating something we'd never had before every night at dinner.

I'm going to steal 99% of Joyce's answer for the color - red. No red onions, of course. I'd burp them up for days. But I wouldn't have thought of red meat! And I will eat red peppers (and orange & yellow if I have to) but those green ones ...

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4. What does balance in life mean to you? Does your life currently feel 'balanced'?

Being able to separate home / work / volunteering / continuing education. It's tough to do sometimes since I need to get in the correct frame of mind for whatever hat I am wearing at the moment. So no, life is not balanced, but not for lack of trying!

5. If you could travel the world for a year what would be your first destination?

Australia, since I didn't get to go there back in 1995 when I was on my WestPac cruise in the Navy. I still want to try Vegemite handed to me by a real Aussie.

I also want to visit all 50 states. Like real visit, not just drive thru.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

I made the mistake of leaving my phone unattended last Sunday and I ended up with 50 or so photos of these 2 little faces. And 3 videos. This is a screenshot from one of the videos (they didn't know it was a video!!)