Polar Extremes

The guy was recommended by a couple of neighbors and his price was 20% less than the big company down the road. It's in the name, really: Low Cost Tree & Stump Removal. I gave the guy -- let's call him Jerry, because that's his actual name -- the go-ahead to trim the dead branches out of a big ash tree in the back yard. He and his crew showed up the next morning.

When I get there, Jerry is up in the tree with a chain saw, doing his thing. The other 3 are hauling the limbs and brush to the chipper in the street. I start doing other work in the back yard.

The saw stopped and Jerry got down the ground. He's tall, thin, weathered. He fired up a cig and sauntered over to me. We make some small talk (he's not ready to come out and ask for money just yet) and somehow the Gaza Strip War comes up. Jerry says he really can't stand watching the news, so he just doesn't. Then he tells me that the shit is going to hit the fan here in the U.S. And this: "They're already here! They own about every 7-11 and all the motels! What might save us is the blacks -- they own all the guns...they're always shooting each other."

Stunned, that's what I was.

Imagine eating that crap for breakfast.

When I wrote the check ("no we don't take any credit cards"), Jerry told me to make it payable to him, not the company.

Next time I'm calling Big Company Down The Road.

Note to Jimmy

Mr. Buffett, you sprinkled fun on people's lives.

Myself included. 

Thank you.

Trash Tells a Story

If the FBI had a search warrant for my house, they would find these things in a bin that I use for scrap metal recycling.

Back at FBI HQ, they might have an analyst pore over these artifacts and reconstruct my activities over the past few months to find out whether I committed the crimes for which I am a suspect.

I sure hope to be exonerated. I would not do well in the joint.

Google

I went to the App Store looking for the Google app to download to my iPhone. Why? Well, that is not important right now.

I found the app. Before I hit the download icon, I saw this on my screen.

Now I'm no fraidy-cat and I'm no pussy. But this made my head explode. And I know I can live without the Google app.

I put my phone in the washing machine and set it for SCRUB HARD.

Maybe Google already knows everything about me. It's all out there in cyberspace, right? But I didn't sign up for that. At least I don't think I did.

But, oh the hundreds of times I have blown right through the terms and conditions! Christ.

I'm screwed. My reputation is shot. They know what I did last night.

Peanuts

 Two days after my 11^th birthday*, my dad took me to a baseball game.  Maybe to some kids this would not be a memorable event.  To me, it was Disneyland and the Super Bowl with cherries on top.

I listened to the St. Louis Cardinal broadcasts pretty regularly.  Well, second-hand listened, anyway – stepfather Russel listened on the family radio, and in a small house that meant everybody listened.  The Cardinals certainly got in my head and my heart, and I rejoiced when my hero Stan Musial hit a homer.  The flip side of the same coin is that I moped when the “Birds” lost.

 

Sportsman’s Park was a place I’d only heard about.  Now I was there! Damn, was I excited.

 

On the way to our seats, we had to pass under an overhead walkway the players used to get from the clubhouse to the dugout.  Some of the players would linger there, signing autographs for the fans.  This particular day, a player I didn’t know by sight (there were many of those, it being before TV showed us what the players look like) was signing autographs, so I handed up my scorecard.  It came back with the signature of a little-known utility player named Peanuts Lowrey.  I wished it could have been Musial.  Oh, well.

 

The game was tied after nine, so the game went to extra innings.  In the bottom of the eleventh, Musial led off with a double.  With two outs and the bases loaded, a pinch-hitter – Peanuts Lowrey – was called on.  Lowrey hit a line drive to the right-center field wall, scoring the winning run.  Cardinals win.  I’m clutching the autograph of the guy who made the game-winning hit.  I’m there with my dad.

 

I didn’t come down from that high for maybe three years.

The Explanation

I think I need to provide an explanation in advance.

Someday, one of you will find me unconscious and/or dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs, and I won't be able to tell you what happened. So I'll go ahead and tell you now.

I was walking down those stairs, and one of my feet did not quite clear the edge of the step I was on, as I tried to step down. My heel came down on the very edge of the step, and the rest of my foot went down, hyperextending my ankle and causing my body to pitch forward.

If I had been holding the handrail, I might have kept myself from falling. But I wasn't holding the rail because I am not ready to give in to being so old that I can't walk downstairs without holding on.

If there is a memorial service, go ahead and read this explanation to the assembled throng of maybe 5 people.

Don't bother to treat my sprained ankle.

Bummer

People get attached to their homes. Having your home destroyed is a bitter pill. Blown away by a tornado, that would be a bitter pill. Watching the governing authorities flood your home slowly, well, that would be a BITTER pill.

This is happening right now to some people in Turkey. To build a hydroelectric power plant, the Turks moved thousands of people out of their town where they can watch their former homes slowly submerge. 

It's the saddest thing I read/saw today. Just passing it along to bum you out, too.

Needs More Study

I don't have a degree in it, but I have studied mannequinology a bit.

Some have heads.

Some do not.

Some heads have faces.

Some heads are chopped off at the cheekbone.

Some are just weird.

Speaking of weird, some get dressed up (not their fault) like this:

Largely attributable to bigger women protesting the skinny mannequins, there is a trend toward wider ones. I wonder whether the store has to pay more for these. There is more to learn. 

My studies are not complete. 

Selling Your Home?

 If so, you might want to call Cheryl. Or not.

There must be a segment of the population that would, right? 

Methinks Cheryl gets handicapped parking on account of being delusional.

Ya might think...

 ...it's going to be a 5-second job. Just grab a toilet seat and go.

And then I'm in Menard's and find this:

That just isn't fair. I didn't study for this kind of test.

Cardinals Christmas

When I observe a new trend, it usually turns out that everyone else recognized the trend 20 or 30 years ago. Such might well be the case with cardinals on Christmas cards. Is it new, or has this been going on for a while, escaping my notice?

Turning to Google, I find out that cardinals are the unofficial bird of Christmas. They can’t get free meals at Cracker Barrel, at least not now, not until they’re official. Why are they the Christmas bird?

 

Most “why” questions can be answered with this word: Money. But not this one. The cardinals are not bribing Hallmark.

 

They’re red, that’s why. Red equals Christmas. Plus, the campaign on social media – started by whom? – to have us believe that cardinals come around to show us that Aunt Bessie, who died last year, isn’t really gone. She sent the red-winged guy to remind us that she loves us.

 

We’ll be seeing more of these critters on Christmas cards in the future. Aunt Bessie will see to it.

 

And while we’re forecasting the future, there is this: If history has taught us anything, sometime soon we can expect the females to organize protests and chirp their way to equality. They’ve been underrepresented on Christmas cards and they’re just a bit pissed about that.

Makeover Santa

Comes a time when we take another look at the December cards we received, and that time came last night. Two piles: keep, recycle.

This one is in the keep pile because it’s unusual. I’m assuming the dude is Santa, although I have to allow for the possibility that it could be Jesus. 

 

Nah, it’s Santa all right. The long white beard nails that down. There are no photos of Jesus with a white beard.

 

But Santa isn’t delivering toys, and he isn’t wearing his red uniform. Instead, he’s taking a stroll through the woods in the snow, resplendent in his white robe, pale blue jacket, and pine cone necklace. His destination is unclear. Is he delivering a wreath (left hand), an owl (right hand), or a bunny (sack slung over his shoulder)?

 

Wait – I don’t think Santa has a destination at all. Just posing for a portrait. Those aren’t work clothes, right?

 

Kudos to the photographer for catching Santa, the owl, and two rabbits all with their eyes open. And kudos to the owl for pretending he isn’t aching to rip the rabbit’s throat out. Must have been a Christmas truce.

 

 

Memories

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

So spoke Macbeth. Well, Shakespeare said so anyway.

 

More than 6 decades ago, I was required by Mrs. O’Brien to memorize those lines for an English class. Today, I could remember most of those words; Google helped with the rest.

 

Excluding the short-term variety, memories are stored in the hippocampus, the neocortex, and the amygdala. The Macbeth quote must have been scattered around those 3 places, because I couldn’t quite extract it.

 

Another memory that sprang forth today, from whatever dark corner of my brain it has been lying dormant for several decades, is this one:

The angle of the dangle is proportional to the heat of the meat, if the mass of the ass is constant.

Back to Google, where I learned that there is a website called urbandictionary.com, and therein you will find several pretty cool variations of the dangle angle maxim.