{"id":28375,"date":"2024-05-09T08:00:01","date_gmt":"2024-05-09T12:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=28375"},"modified":"2024-05-09T11:37:20","modified_gmt":"2024-05-09T15:37:20","slug":"pay-no-attention-to-that-man-behind-the-curtain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/pay-no-attention-to-that-man-behind-the-curtain\/","title":{"rendered":"Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-size: 24pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Hey! It&#8217;s me, TC. I&#8217;m here running the show and I feel like the Wizard of Oz these days.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">You see, Darcy is off on the vacation of a lifetime and I&#8217;m here pushing the buttons and pulling the levers trying to keep everything running before Darcy returns to Kanas&#8230;err I mean Michigan.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\"> That&#8217;s right. I&#8217;m here holding down the fort. I guess you never appreciate people like you should until they&#8217;re gone. From trying to keep up with the email, filling all the orders, answering your questions, making daily posts, writing newsletters, doing sessions, and keeping up with bills, I&#8217;m trying to do it all. Am I succeeding? I hope so! I will sure be glad when Darcy&#8217;s back. I&#8217;m old and I&#8217;m tired, I tells ya.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Darcy said she was going to get a special SIM card for her phone so she could text and keep in touch. Well, she&#8217;s been gone a week now, and guess how many times I&#8217;ve heard from her? Close your eyes. What do you see? NOTHING. I have heard nothing from her! She must be having the time of her life.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Woe is me. NOT!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Darcy is overseas doing as the Romans do, while I feel like the man behind the curtains&#8230; pulling all the levers and pushing all the buttons. &#8220;Pay no attention to that man behind the curtains&#8221;<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">I&#8217;m not complaining I&#8217;m just letting you that this old man, the one you know as TC, is hoping none of you notice anything is different. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">If you don&#8217;t notice anything different, then I&#8217;m doing OK.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">But these long days that run into the evenings are tough on an old codger like me, Nope&#8230; I&#8217;m not complaining, I&#8217;m lucky enough to have most of my marbles left and that I can still touch type even with my arthritic fingers. Darcy will be gone for another eight days&#8230; so keep me in your thoughts and prayers. I&#8217;m sure I&#8217;ll need all the blessings and heavenly help I can get.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">Being an old coot doesn&#8217;t have any advantages that I&#8217;m aware of&#8230; and I&#8217;ve been an old coot for a while now. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">You know how you know you&#8217;re old? You know you&#8217;re old when you notice the adult diaper section at Walmart is larger than the baby diaper section. Heck, until a few years ago, I never noticed the adult diaper section at all. There must be a lot of incontinence in the world&#8230; I wonder if I&#8217;m headed there. Can it please wait until Darcy gets back?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">You know, I&#8217;m so old I can remember the X-ray machines in shoe stores. The ones they used to make sure shoes fit correctly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">I&#8217;m so old, I can remember getting up to change the channel on my TV&#8230; there were no remotes!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">I can remember helping my friend with his newspaper route. We used to fold up the newspapers into little squares, load them into canvas bags, hook them to our bicycles, and fling the folded newspapers on peoples&#8217; porches as we buzzed down the sidewalks on our bikes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">I can remember when there were pay phones on every corner and in front of many stores. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">I can remember when phone numbers started with words like MAIN, BUTTERFIELD, CLIFTON, etc. For example, Main 9580. You&#8217;d dial MA for Main then the number.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">I can remember when there were no bicycle helmets and no child seats. Yet, somehow I survived.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">I can remember being a smoker and sitting in restaurants smoking. Back then,<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\"> every table had an ashtray. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">I remember smoking on airplanes. Can you imagine?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">I remember pulling into a gas station (then called &#8220;filling stations&#8221;) and having the attendant fill the tank, clean the windshield, and check the oil &#8211; back when gasoline was 24 cents a gallon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">I guess I&#8217;m just wanting to let you know that this old dude is running the show and I&#8217;m hoping none of you even notice. If that&#8217;s the case then I&#8217;m doing a good job and Darcy will be amazed when she returns.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">I try not to think of her touring Italy, eating Gamberi Rossi di Mazara del Vallo and Ossobuco alla Milanese while I nibble on a cold Whopper and a bag of soggy fries &#8211; dropping crumbs of food on my laptop while trying to keep our little business going.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">As long as I can take care of you and all our friends, I&#8217;m happy &#8211; no matter how many hours a day I work. I still love what I do and I know Darcy loves it too.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;\">So, for now, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain&#8230; he&#8217;s doing his best and counting the hours until Darcy returns from her trip of a lifetime.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain Hey! It&#8217;s me, TC. I&#8217;m here running the show and I feel like the Wizard of Oz these days. You see, Darcy is off on the vacation of a lifetime and I&#8217;m here pushing the buttons and pulling the levers trying to keep everything running before Darcy\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/pay-no-attention-to-that-man-behind-the-curtain\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28375"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28375"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28389,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28375\/revisions\/28389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}