Category Humor

Seasonal affective disorder

Michael 5 Comments

It was a sad weekend. Sad because it was time to put Rosemary to bed. Sadder because this year’s unusual weather patterns left us with an autumn devoid of autumnal hues and the annual romp through the country lanes with the top down trying to catch a falling leaf or two.

Last year’s fall foliage was positively neon, a culmination of ever more brilliant colors year over year for the past five or six years. This year…bleh. I blame it on little orange men. They’ve screwed up everything else in the world that was good.

But back to nature. It was not a good year all the way around for topless driving. The spring was too wet, the summer too hot, and the fall was too dull. A dull fall is the worsts way to end convertible season.

There’s only one thing that can be done. Not end the year yet.

It’s been more than several years since I had the opportunity to run a snowflake rally through the Christmas lights, as comforting, if not quite as comfortable, as a leafy lope through the mountains. As much as there is something indescribable in driving along the mountain roads nearing the same heights as the tree tops themselves as they give up their colorful leaves, it is even more difficult to describe the feeling of driving along inside a snow globe. Both or either must be experienced.

Of course, the problem is there is no guarantee that the holliday lights season will overlap the falling fluffy flakes season. Fortunately, with a couple quick connectors it will be no problem to wake Rosemary and prepare her for a quick midwinter excursion if the opportunity arises.

I suppose you will just have to stay tuned for updates as the seasons change. Wish me luck.

Advanced planning?

Michael 2 Comments

Let me start by saying I don’t expect anything to happen soon but… Like many Americans, and maybe other Earthlings, I have planned and prepaid my, ahem, final expenses. When I first entered into the agreement? program? coercive activity? it was called pre-paid arrangements. After a while, the monthly bills would list it as pre-planned activities. (You know, activities like pickleball and croquet.)  Now, even though the arranged activities have long been paid, I still get a monthly mailing detailing new options and and additional services in what is now referred to as advanced planning. 

I have a problem with this nomenclature. Shouldn’t all planning be of the advanced type. Doesn’t the “plan” assume it’s happening “pre-“ something. What would the opposite of pre-planning be anyway? Crisis management?

It seems to me that somewhere along the way, someone wanted to capitalize on making plans but ‘plan’ all by itself sounded too weak to be a viable strategy. Plan. Dull, unimaginative, overlook-able. Can you hear the marketing guys talking about plans?

Plan? Won’t do. Much too unremarkable. We need to spice it up or people won’t go for it. Let’s call it a pre-plan. Maybe an advanced plan. How about advanced pre-plan? Too much? Okay. We’ll start with pre-plan and go from there. If in a couple years we need to goose it up a bit, we know we have ‘advanced’ in our back pocket.

Personally, I think ‘plan’ all by itself gets the message across. It’s a message we spent some time on in yesterday’s Uplift post at ROAMcare, Be prepared. And yes, had I been more prepared today, you”d have gotten this post in your mailbox hours ago.

Band-Aids and Coffee

Michael 17 Comments

I visited my daughter yesterday and she greeted me with a small bandage around a finger and a series of them of the larger variety up her right arm.

“My! What happened to you?

“Just a regular morning. Seems my life being held together with Ban-Aids and coffee.”

Coffee is her pick me up and her sedative, her elixir of life. For as long as I remember, she’s always liked coffee. I was like that too. I never didn’t not like coffee. Coffee, tea, chocolate. Anything with caffeine although I don’t overly indulge. I can’t say that I have known anyone else who immediately took to the black gold of beverages. (I also immediately took to that other liquid black gold, Guinness, even though beer in general is not among my list of favorite beverages. Guinness has a sweetness to me, but that’s a story for a different post.)

Most “adult” beverages take some getting used to. Some people never get used to them. Or to some of them. The clear ones, tequila, vodka, and gin, take most people by the greatest degree of surprise at first sip. They’re clear. Like water. They should have no taste. But they do. And somehow people get used to them.

It’s not only beverages that hold this acquired taste phenomenon. The cheese family has many examples of food that objectively tastes bad. Stop and think about it. Most cheeses smell bad, rely on mold or fermentation to achieve their heady flavor, and many come with a slimy, sticky, or crumbly texture if they aren’t held together by a waxy coating. Not the sort of list one might write up when developing a yummy confection from scratch.

Did you ever try to eat a peeled kiwi by hand? Impossible. It’s like trying to corral a sardine.

Speaking of sardines, the fish family is another with seemingly endless reasons not to like. Slimy, smelly, bones that magically appear after cooking.

then there are bizarre organ meats. Liver, tripe, brains. Ecch.

Mind you, I like all this stuff. And add to that olives, squid, eel, even cilantro.

But no liver or brains. And no gin.

What’s in a word

Michael 6 Comments

I met a friend for lunch last week. He said, “how ‘bout the Dive Bar.” “Sounds good to me.” Now, you might think a dive bar is an odd place for a meal, but notice in its first appearance in this tale, the D and B are upper case. Hmm. A proper name. And in fact, this Dive Bar is a far cry from a dive bar (where lunch can also be had if you don’t mind a microwaved frozen pizza).

The Dive Bar has a beautiful bar, horseshoe shaped, trimmed in walnut, high tops in wood and marble, comfy banquettes, dim lighting. It features a separate dining room with a wall of windows that bathe the space in natural light. When it feels like letting its hair down and recalling its namesake, an entire separate bar upstairs hosts happy hours, karaoke nights, and bar specials so the lower level remains up scale. Truly, the Dive Bar is not a dive bar. You can’t always rely on your expectations and assumptions. There could be untold millions who have missed on out a fabulous lunch because they didn’t want to eat at a dive bar.

Fifth century Pope St. Celestine I, founder of the papal diplomatic service said, “We are deservedly to blame if we encourage error by silence.” I am following the good pontiff’s advice and calling out some of the more egregious errors of the week. Think of it as real news. Or maybe stupid news. Don’t worry though. Thursday I will return with the good news from the week.

My favorite piece of erroneous thought this week comes from our favorite source of errors and little thought – yes, Mr. Orange-Aid himself, the dingiest, the dongiest, the dingdong-in-chief. When asked about the weak jobs report, the bozo of all bozos said (out in public mind you), “We’re doing so well – I believe the numbers were phony so you know what I did? I fired her.”

That narrowly beat out Last week’s headline news: “Federal officials to repeal Obama era climate change findings.“

Of course, anyone who grachatated the sixth grade knows that’s not how math and science work. But that’s okay. These are the same people who told you illegal immigrants are on Medicaid. I suppose they got sick from eating all the dogs. Sorry – that’s old news.

Okay. Here’s a sneak peak at some good news. Not really news, more like good people. I discovered a new Instagram account this week. beverlymahone  She goes by Auntie Bev and she is retired journalist who has features a word of the day series on that site on TikTok. Word of the Day accounts are nothing new but she brings a new twist to it, calling out words that you may hear on the news and finding words that explain what you hear on the news.  For example, a word I did not know existed, but it does – trumpery. Looks good but is worthless. She also corrects misunderstandings about words, like when Donnie the Driveler claimed he made up the word “equalize,” reminding everyone that it’s been around since the 1500s. My kind of Word of the Day site.

I’ll see you with good news from this week on Thursday. Don’t go away!

Never can say goodbye

Michael 11 Comments

Yesterday was the 56th anniversary of the first manned moon landing. We can land a man on the moon but we still can’t come up with a good way to end a text message. It’s also the 58th anniversary of the first Special Olympics. And still after all this time I can’t come up with a good way to work that into a referene on the absence of a good way to end a text message. Then again on the other hand, we’v had text messages for 41 years old and I still can’t come up with a good way to end a text message. I think I have a texting dysfunction.(Technically texting is 33 years old. It was invented in 1984 but not first used until 1992. I guess they had a hard time coming up with a good way to say hello.)

Having been born and raised in the telephone era, the transition to short messaging systems has been long and difficult. All these abbreviations and pictures with no punctuation. Anarchy I tell you!

To be very frank, I’m still not comfortable with the habit of just jumping into the conversation. No “Hello, how are you?” “Are you busy?” “Hey, s’up!” How do people think it’s appropriate to start off a conversation with “on my way,” or “be there soon,” or worst of all, “omw.” But having gotten beyond that I still can’t just stop. It’s like just getting out of— hmmm, its like sending a card that just says happy birthday and not signing it because the recipient should be able to figure it who it’s from by checking the postmark.

Closing a phone call is easy. “Bye,” Bye.” And you’re done. Messages seldom end that cutly and dryly. Oh, someone might get a “but” in but usually it’s as abrupt as it started and I’m not sure if they’re done so I poo back on and say something to see if they’re still there.  And so on and so on and son on.

You may need shaking your head and quietly chuckling over this, but I know it’s a problem, a real problem, and others experience it too. I know because I got into a text message conversation yesterday afternoon with another who couldn’t say goodbye and we finally got around to “hanging up” around 9:30 last night. It’s a good thing we don’t have to pay for those things individually anymore.

7 Highly Successful Habits

Michael 12 Comments

I have always hated the seeming simplicity of the seventies self-help series. Truth be told, they were mostly from the 80s but I don’t get to use alteration often, so I fudged it. You know the ones I mean. The One Minute Manager, Seven Habits off Highly Effective Name Your Interest Group, The Four Hour Work Week. Mind you, they were transformative and had, and still have great insights, but taken literally you will be a lousy manager, rather ineffective, and likely out of work.

But I found a simplistic approach to life that really can be done in 7 steps, in a matter of minutes, and have oodles of hours leftover for balancing all the life you want. And I found it on the Internet. On social media even! The seven things one must master to become an adult. It was actually one of those cutesy images and its title was ‘7 Habits Every Child Needs to Learn Before They Move Out.’

I have a feeling that the person who posted it might have been holding tongue somewhat tightly to the inside of check, yet still it is the best expression of satisfied human needs since Mazlov drew his pyramid. It is truly to road map and/or GPS directions to a fully fulfilled human type person, stupendous in its simplicity. Unfortunately, I estimate 99.7% of the people out there never mastered, mayhaps never attempted, Habit #7.

What are these magical machinations fledgling humans should be attempting?

1.        Do your laundry. Okay, this was written as what young adults need to learn before moving out of Mommy’s house, but I tell you I know people who do not do their laundry. Grown up people of both sexes and/or genders still transporting bags of laundry from their apartment to parents’ laundry room. And others who use laundry services. This isn’t New York City I live where apartments may or may not have adequate laundering facilities. This is the ‘burbs where washer/dryer combinations are status symbols. Learn to wash you own clothes.

2.        Cook simple meals. I think most semi-adults can pull this off. It might be three different kinds of eggs but I’m willing to go out in a limb and say we got this one. Frozen pizza does not count.

3.        Manage a budget. I’m quite convinced there are too many folks to count who cannot balance a budget. I’d say balance a checkbook but I’m not sure how many people still use a checkbook. If people were good at managing money, why would we be so concerned about needing an account without overdraft fees? I firmly believe banks have gone way the frack overboard with fees of all sorts, but “As long as the machine still takes my debit card, I still have money,” is not a financial plan.

4.        Keep your place clean. I’m not at all against cleaning services. If you can afford a maid, have at it, but know how to handle the basics.

5.        Know how to make appointments. Again, I think most of us can do this. You gotta have one or two gimmes.

6.        Basic maintenance. Yes, the “Check Engine” light means something. Yes, you too might need to work a plunger, and those lightbulbs are not lifetime regardless of what the package says. I’d say this is another gimme.

But now, here we hit the one thing that I think too many adults who have been on their own for decades still cannot figure out, especially those with part time jobs in Washington, DC.

7.        Take responsibility. Need I say more?

Have a happy week!

It’s a sign

Michael 11 Comments

There is an account on Instagram, Ian the Sign Guy (ianthesignguy), who posts short videos of himself cleaning road signs in England. (He is also on YouTube.) There is no background music, you rarely see him. The videos are just his brush scrubbing away the filth that accumulates in roadside traffic signs. Here is an example. I think it’s one of the greatest things on the internet today. Sort of a new go at cat videos.

Do I want to explain that? Sure. Why not? There is nobody screaming at you. No UNHINGED USE OF CAPITAL LETTERS, or ridiculously obvious lies to wade through. It’s not an innocent looking post trying to get you to buy something, agree with something, or watch and re-watch over and over to find the hidden meaning. It’s just a guy scrubbing away the dirt and grime of your basic traffic control signage.

I don’t recall ever seeing signs here as filthy as he finds there. Some of his pre-cleaned signs are barely legible, yet they seem to be on some major roadways. I suppose we haven’t yet stripped the Department of Transportation’s personnel budget of the sign scrubbers. It’s quite satisfying to watch the dirt melt away, to see the brush go scrub scrub scrub over the sign surface, and to hear the faint drone of whatever equipment he uses to get the water flowing through the brush head. I could watch video after video and be quite content with it and nothing more. A cat video for the 2020’s.

We need more of these. Yes, it is an unexpected joy to have a random Muppets video show up in your feed, and a daily dose or three of old Peanuts cartoons will surely turn surfing snarls into smiles. But no, they aren’t the sign guy, a real-life person out to make his part of his country a little cleaner so his fellow motorists can tell where they are going or how fast they should be going while getting there. It’s a new twist on “love your neighbor.”

Or perhaps he is the new superhero. Not a Superman dumped on our planet to avoid complete annihilation on his. Not a Spider-Man or a Hulk who happened to be around the wrong radioactive insect or experiment. Not like Aquaman getting the best genes from a human father and an Atlantilean mother. More like Batman, just a normal guy who happens to be incredibly wealthy and has a cool costume. I don’t know if Ian is incredibly wealthy, but on the rare occasion you get to see his work clothes, they seem to be top shelf.

It’s worth it to spend a few minutes or hours watching Ian tirelessly make England’s Motorways Glow Again. And no stupid red hat either.

Not so famous last words

Michael 11 Comments

There are entire books of famous last words. Most of them are famous solely because they were said by famous people rather than being famous because they were profound. There are some that are a little of both. Benjamin Franklin’s last words were, “A dying man can do nothing easy.” The back story – that was in response to his daughter telling him to turn over in bed so he can breathe more easily. Sort of profound on its own. Now that you know the story behind it, it sounds like something I’d say!

Anyway, most last words will never be remembered by someone other than to whom they were spoken, except for last words you see and hear every day.

An exceptionally famous set of last words seldom seen today, was de rigueur in a different century, early in a different century, was “the end,” seen on the last page of every book and last card of every movie.

Other last words often more memorable are the last words you see when that car passes you on the highway and you get a look at their license plate, license plate frame, or bumper sticker. There are some pretty clever examples of two of the above specifies at the links noted. I’ve not yet succumbed to a vanity license plate although the frame I have around the classic plate on Rosemary the Little Red Car reads, “Aged to Perfection. Old Guys Rule!”

I saw an interesting sight just yesterday that I had heard of but never had seen in the wild with my own eyes. A Tesla car with its stylized “T” removed and replaced with a lightning bolt. Not quite a last word but a lasting impression.

A particular type of last word I have a difficult time with is the one to end a text message conversation. Not a quick message like “on my way.” That doesn’t even require an answer. But the conversations that go back and forth for a while, the things that have taken the place of phone calls. Phone calls were easy to end. The last word typically was a simple “bye” plus or minus a dear, hon, or second bye. An e-mail’s last words are like any other correspondence. But a text message. No good way out of that and when you usually decide on a last word, it’s more likely an emoji.

Now I’m not sure what kind of last words would be best to tack on the end of these words. I think I’ll steal Michael Landon’s last words. On his deathbed, his son said to him, “I think it’s time to move on.” Landon’s reply – “You’re right. It’s time. I love you all.” Actually, it’s his last, last words that mean the most. I love you all.

Are you talking to me?

Michael 2 Comments

There are times when the things I think I think are stranger than the things I think and that I know. Like the other day, I was reading for enjoyment, yes a novel concept and every now then I do get the chance to take on such an inviting task. As is typical for my leisure activities, murder played a major role. Another major role was played by a major. A retired major I would assume because he was described as a “gentleman with a private income” and became a major (sorry) suspect. Now here’s what I think I think about that. At least I think I thought this.

Stories, whether played on pages, screen, or stage, set anytime through the early twentieth century and/or in England through modern days, are filled with captains, majors, colonels, and the occasional admiral or general (or brigadier (across the pond)). I think it would cool to actually see that happen in practice and/or real life. (And for all I know, it does – across the pond.)

Except for the odd “Mr. Michael” from a barely English speaking customer service phone representative, I never am never offered any honorific, haven’t hear a title associated with my name since I left hospital practice. But if people were to start introducing, and speaking of and to me as “Captain,” I could get along with that. And I promise I wouldn’t ever give reason to suspect me as the murderer. Everybody knows the butler always did it. (I wonder if I could still fit in my old uniforms. I’m sure the hat would still fit me.)

There is absolutely no way to tie this in with yesterday’s Uplift post other than to say it’s Thursday, it must be time for my shameless weekly plug. So…shamelessly speaking, if you know where you’re going and you know how to get there, trust that you will get there. Knowing where you’re going is more important than how fast you get there. You might even get there at the speed of popcorn. Check out, You’re a Pop Star at ROAMcare.org, this week’s Uplift offering.

Cite your sources

Michael 12 Comments

Somewhere sometime someone is having a crisis. It’s me!

I’m having a crisis. I am losing touch with the part of the world that feeds me information and I’m worried I am starting to sound like a one of those people who spouts so-called facts that you know aren’t true. Their verity may be questioned without question because they (the facts) are so ludicrous that nobody but a Dimwit Donny Disciple (DDD) would believe them (e.g., did you know gas is only $1.98/gallon), or because they (the fact-spouters) are DDDs or DD hisself.

Believe it or not, this is not a political post. It’s a true personal crisis. I’m forgetting not things, but that which made me aware of the thing. Don’t question. Just read on. It will become clear.

It came to me when I mentioned to my daughter, “I just read somewhere that keeping cut fruit in the fridge in glass containers will add at least 2 days to their use by date versus storing them in plastic.” This isn’t something I dreamed or something I overheard in the produce section while working my way around the gaggle of grocery gals gathered in front of the mango display. This was a real “read somewhere” moment, but I can’t recall where. If it was say in Food Network Magazine, then it’s probably a pretty good tip. Likewise in the food section of the newspaper or a real food expert’s social site. On the other hand, if I read it in the comments section of an online recipe or in the social site of the dingy broad who records entire recipes in 30 seconds and posts them to a site known for lip-synched videos and blasphemous AI generated images, it likely is as true as claims of sub $3.00 eggs (per dozen, not apiece).

This worries me because I always would be able to recite the source of my information as readily as the information. I know I found the cut fruit tidbit in a respected, responsible source, but not being able to recite that source feels like I should be being fitted for a red hat. (By the way, why does the Dummy in Chief always have those stupid hats on its desk in the Oval Office. Is there a merch table at the back of the room to visit between acts?) if I should be challenged in the fresh fruit freshness extension tip, I wouldn’t be able to cite my source other than to say, “I read it somewhere.” Well, that’s not an answer. I might as well expound on the sphericalosity of the earth without doing the math.

So you now understand my crisis. (You do, don’t you?) How will I ever be taken seriously again. How will I ever take myself seriously again. I won’t be long before I begin a conversation with, “I saw somewhere that someone did something that I thought was interesting. What do you think?” My sole reasonable conversation partners will be clairvoyants, mediums (It is mediums not media when you’re speaking of those who communicate with dead, right?) (I figure they’d be a decent one to chat with considering by then I’d be at least brain dead), or DDDs (because they are experienced in listening to unfounded, unproven, unreliable sources of disinformation).

Anyway, I read somewhere than fresh cut fruit stored in glass containers will extend its life. That all I had to say.