I just went on an interesting archeological expedition.  I decided as spring’s just around the corner, it’s time to get started on cleaning the house.  I began with one of the lazy Susans in the kitchen, and found it fascinating to see how my mind works when in the grocery store.

I see that I must have had a strong interest in making lemon meringue pies, judging from the boxes of Shirriff lemon pie filling, yet I’ve never made one in my entire life!  There must also be something that compels me toward Taco kits, though I’d have to say it’s at least ten years since I last made them.

I got rid of a lot of expired dreck that will never be eaten.  But it’s actually quite hard to do as I do the same with food items as I do with clothes.  I put the item on the pile to be thrown out, then I pick it up again, and go no.  These herring fillets in curry sauce don’t expire until December and surely someone’s going to eat them.  No-one will, of course, so next spring they’ll sadly go into the garbage.

I was a huge fan of the Monkees as I was 12 when they hit the scene, and as we all know, that’s a very formative time in a person’s life.  I was therefore very shocked and saddened to hear that Davy Jones died the other day.  He wasn’t my favourite, as I was crazy for Micky Dolenz, but I loved Davy too, tiny as he was.

Who doesn’t like belting out the words to Daydream Believer when driving along?  I watched their weekly television show and would sing along to the theme song: “Hey hey we’re the Monkees, and people say we monkey around…..”

My friend Barb Barker and I rehearsed the walk down the halls of Osoyoos Elementary Junior Secondary School just like the four of them did at the beginning of their show.  I actually sent away for, and received a signed photo of Micky.  Whether it was machine-signed or not, I treasured it.

Do you recall the Mark Twain story of Tom Sawyer painting the fence?  You’ll recall Tom managed to inveigle his friends to come and do it for him.  I was able to observe a tableau vivant of this the other day.

I had asked Nicky if he would please remove all dog feces from the yard and rake all the pine needles. He gave the standard reply:  I will.

A few days went by, and then he announced that Ryan and Taylor were coming over to do some yard work.  Sure enough, the three of them worked for two hours, and the yard looks fabulous.  They did really, really annoying things like rake into my beds, but I said nothing.  I  thought as long as I don’t have to do it, I’ll cope with all of the busted tulips later.

I said to my mom maybe the B.A. in psychology is paying off for Nicky after all.  I mean really, he was smart to get two guys, who work for landscapers for God’s sake, to help him and as he has no money, and I said I certainly don’t have any, he must’ve found some profound arguments in order to make them come and do it.

So you see, a B.A. in psychology does have very practical applications.