Kibbles 'n' Whine

2010-01-04T18:44:00.004-06:00

I read this * with mixed feelings.

First, I empathize with the folks who were stuck because some old fart fell asleep on the job. I mean, even though my age qualifies me for the position (fighting terror with a two-way radio while the cops threaten to tow double-parkers), I've been there: asleep on an airport floor waiting for shit to get right. It's less than ideal. So I'm there: I understand. I will not apply for the job.

But I've also done other things, and the most apt of those in this case may well be that I've bounced dice across the green felt in Las Vegas. Here's the letter I sent north-east a minute ago:

Secretary Janet Napolitano
Department of Homeland Security
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, DC 20528

Re: “Glass-eye” syndrome at Newark Airport

Madame Secretary:

I'm increasingly frustrated by people who don't know things that seem to me as obvious as my own nose, and I'm sure you are, too. But then, I'm wary of so-called common sense, as well, so maybe I'm getting ready to contradict myself...

If you haven't had a personal chance yet, send a staffer to watch the dealers at a craps table in 'Vegas: none of them stays in a single position more than 20 minutes. And none of them is actually at the table more than an hour.

See, the casino czars figured out decades ago that no matter how much money a dealer made, or how hard that dealer tried to stay focused, s/he'd go catatonic eventually, and miss something subtle. And the easiest way to avoid that was to rotate staff (my brother-in-law could name the positions at the table; he dealt the game to pay his way through college. I can't – but the point remains the same).

It's easy to see the (potential? No one is actually in line long enough to know) rotation at security scanners: ID checker, X-ray-watcher, wand-waver, bag opener-and-messer-upper.

But the poor hired hands that guard the periphery? It seems such a simple job: don't let anyone go the wrong way (Do they actually even get paid?), I can't imagine how mind-numbing that job would be, other than to compare it to watching dice bounce across a felt table.

And honestly? After about two minutes watching dice bounce I'd be looking forward to my next break. Unless I had chips on the pass line.

God bless you with strength, with wisdom, with patience and perserverance.

*Yeah, I know. It's a FOX link. But there's a sweet irony in that, given that FOX has spent so much of the last decade inflating the value of screw-the-little-guy. I say screw Murdoch.

Happy New Year to the Bill of Rights

2009-12-31T18:14:00.001-06:00

Just click.

Throw in your two cents worth

2009-11-09T20:28:00.002-06:00

That's what we're doing here in Texas in preparation for Veterans' Day: jfhc in a spray-painted bucket of donkey-shit. Or whatever obscene image comes to your mind.

The light with the dark

2009-11-06T19:45:00.003-06:00

This pisses me off on a number of levels:

This I share for reasons that will become obvious:

">

2009-08-05T17:47:00.002-05:00

I wish I had the resources to subscribe to everything I'd like to. If I had, I could read this Wall Street Journal article in its entirety. But while I may have enough bones stashed* to swap for the occasional bowl of beer at Lenny's, I don't have anywhere near enough to toss after every little whim that drifts through the fog between my ears.

Fortunately, I have friends like McBlogger who scurry like autumn squirrels and find other folk who CAN afford to subscribe to whatever they feel the urge to read.

The money quote from Alternet?

Between 1979 and 2006, the inflation-adjusted after-tax income of the richest 1 percent of households increased by 256 percent, compared to 21 percent for families in the middle income quintile.

The one from the WSJ (the little bit I could get to)?

Executives and other highly compensated employees now receive more than one-third of all pay in the U.S., according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Social Security Administration data -- without counting billions of dollars more in pay that remains off federal radar screens that measure wages and salaries.

The money quote from McBlogger?

As a shareholder who's been bled dry by overpaid and incompetent management teams for years, this came as a huge shock.

If you read McB, you know whether he's being sarcastic or not. Or maybe you can intuit it.

Me? I think I'll curl up on Alpha's bed, bringing my muddy feet and leaving tracks, until the sun comes up and stirs the squirrels. Life is good, as long as you realize how many bones you need doesn't always mesh with how many bones you want.

*I was gonna post a pic of some deer bones spread on a blanket of leaves. But the pic doesn't belong to me: it belongs to Julie Zickefoose, and you can find it here. And that's about as many bones as I ever get piled up at once anymore. I ain't as young as I used to be.

I can tell which neighbor peed on my favorite tree

2009-07-29T19:38:00.002-05:00

By now you've all long since read and digested the news from back in Yankee-land somewhere about the professor who found his front door jammed or something when he arrived home from a trip somewhere, called the cabbie up to help him force the door: a neighbor called the cops about someone trying to break into the house, the cops showed up, there was a confrontation, blah, blah, blah.

You know where you sit on it, and I know where I sit on it.

What the hell is going on with our society that we have a soul who doesn't recognize her/his neighbor? Have we brought the concept of a gated community right up to our very own eyes?!?

And what the hell is going on with our society that we have professors who don't say to themselves, "Damn. Front door's stuck. Lemme go try the back door..."

WTF?!?!

2009-06-27T21:10:00.003-05:00

It's been a long time. I'm back in the norseland, and squirrel-chasing is running right up against being a 24-7 job. That's cool. I can hang. Vigilantly.

And I'm sorry that pic up there is so tiny. I found it here, and for some reason the site favors "ensmallen" the image over "enlifesize-en" or "embiggen." But that's the Gummint for ya. Again, I can hang.

But for the link-lazy, here it is in blog-type:

"Is it okay for my Company / Organization to link to the Write Your Representative Service? -- The Write Your Representative service is provided as a public resource for identifying and contacting a constituent's elected Representative. There is currently no restriction on a link being posted to the Write Your Representative Home Page at Write your retard to facilitate constituents in expressing their concerns and issues to their Representative in Congress."

Did you catch that last sentence? There is currently no restriction on your ability to communicate with your elected representative.

We live in interesting times.

All year is the season, really.

2009-05-20T20:21:00.003-05:00

Barbeque smoke floating like silk on spring air caught me earlier today, and I was glad when we followed that rich scent of barely-hot post-oak down the street and around the corner to one of the best pits in Texas.

Chicken. Sausage. Brisket. Pulled pork.

We shared.

Not Lenny's

Needs

2009-05-19T20:28:00.001-05:00

I need a trip to Lenny's.

But now the lips need a cure...

2009-04-23T20:38:00.002-05:00

and those gums look I-don't-know - red?

Escalation

2009-04-08T20:59:00.003-05:00

Human behavior never ceases to amaze me. And these didn't even happen at Lenny's:

I read about this one this morning, and just found out about this one. Worse than that, though, is this one.

Virtually educated

2009-04-03T20:07:00.003-05:00

We headed north halfway early this morning, just to run some errands, and by the time we swung back around to the southbound homestretch, it was lunch time (or dinner time, depending on what part of this magnificent land you were raised in), so Alpha pulled in to the last slot in front of Lenny's Bar and Grill and Swapmeet.

Good thing there was still a spot in front, because to park in the lot down the street makes it a bit of a hike. Not a 5-K or anything, but a hike, nonetheless. So I was glad. Wagged my tail. Drooled a little.

Of course, I'm always glad to stop at Lenny's.

Alpha made my day. He ordered some bacon-wrapped sausage thing that Wendy had found a recipe for on the internet, and Lenny had made in the kitchen, and he carved me off a hunk of it. Was just a one-day noon special, according to the signs, but oh-my-momma, it was tasty. Very tasty. Bacon. Sausage. Together.

Heaven.

So while I'm snarfing and licking and inhaling, I'm listening to a conversation at the table in the corner to my right, and this young gal is telling her momma about the courses she's taking at school: speech and P.E. and blah-blah-blah, and I have about half an ear on it, and then I realize she's talking about on-line courses.

And from there, I honestly don't know what to say. To me, either one would be a little like taking a course in squirrel-chasing on-line: you can mash a mole, but you can't catch a squirrel. Nor can you speechify or exercise.

It took most of the ride the rest of the way home, but the bacon-sausage concoction did settle nicely.

(updated for photo and linkage)

'Bout time

2009-04-01T21:51:00.002-05:00

I want one

Dependable income in a dire economy

2009-03-16T20:31:00.004-05:00

According to The Onion, America's favorite source for the facts about what's going on, shooting hoops is now the most reliable way to make a living.

Now, I know that "The Tournament" starts in just a couple of days, so come Thursday, 32 people will have a chance to make their nut for the year, and I commend them.

But I have a critical holiday to get through tomorrow before I'm ready: 164 years ago tomorrow, the rubber band was patented. So we're going to drive out to Lenny's Bar and Grill and SwapMeet, and have us a couple of beige beers. And some fried potatoes that might have been green on the edges before they were dropped in the grease, to go with a couple of burgers that are red in the middle.

Rainy season in Texas

2009-03-12T17:57:00.003-05:00

We've had an inch and a quarter (or so) of much-needed precipitation in the last forty-eight hours, and we have the hint that more may come in the next few days.

Like I said, it's welcome: the stock tanks are filling up, the lawns are threatening to green a bit, and the mosquitoes are promising to lay eggs as soon as it warms up again.

But all the rain and the chill has kept us close to the furnace, so when Alpha suggested we head to Lenny's Bar and Grill and SwapMeet for a libation or two and a hamburger, I had to allow as that wouldn't be an all-bad idea: I bolted for the door and jumped up several times (I didn't jump up and down - I have no idea where that expression comes from, as gravity pulls me down after I jump up).

Anyway.

We got to Lenny's, and Alpha settled onto a stool at the bar; I curled up around my bowl at the door, and Wendy brought us our beers. We settled in to watch the Big 12 basketball tournament, which this year is abounding in upsets, and therefor made for TV.

About twenty minutes later, the hinges squeaked, and a guy walked in with a monkey.

Now this is the same guy that came in a couple weeks ago with (what I assume was) the same monkey and ordered a drink. While he was at the bar chatting and drinking, the monkey entertained himself by running all over the place and getting into everything.

Wasn't too long, and Wendy said to the guy, "Didn't you see what that monkey just did? He got into the fruit tray and ate up half of the fruit!"

"I'm sorry," said the guy. "Yeah, he's crazy and he'll eat about anything. Just put it on my tab and I'll take care of it."

About that time, the counter bell rang and Wendy went and grabbed our burgers for us. She set them down, obviously in more of a hurry than usual, and said to the guy, "Did you see what your monkey did this time? He jumped up on the pool table and swallowed the cue ball!"

"I told you he's crazy and he'll eat anything", the guy said. "Please just put it on my tab."

Not long after that (we hadn't even finished our burgers), the guy finished his drink, settled the tab, and left.

So we're there this evening, sipping and trying to decide whether to order curly fries or onion rings with our burgers, and the same guy comes through the door with that monkey on his shoulder and orders a drink. The monkey again starts getting into everything.

Not two minutes later, Wendy says to the guy, "Did you see that? Your monkey just took a cherry out of the fruit tray, stuck it in his butt, pulled it out and ate it!"

"Yeah", says the guy, "he's still crazy and he'll eat anything, but now he measures first!"

Now who'm I gonna call?

2009-03-09T20:24:00.002-05:00

I try to keep it light, here, most of the time. I figured when I started that most folks needed an occasional chuckle more than they needed a diatribe about the state of this or that or the other thing.

So I steal a joke off the inter-tubes, or I cast an old story in a way that I haven't heard it before. I have mixed success.

Especially when I look at it the next morning.

Sober.

And I go on and on and on some more about the marvel that is Lenny's Bar and Grill and SwapMeet.

But the humor corner of the inter-tubes lost a good friend and reliable contributor this last weekend. Some of you know it already from elsewhere: (Lowell) Gene Maudlin went to meet either Big Ernie or the dung beetles last Saturday, not even a week after "Rabbit, Rabbit."

Gene was better known to me and to most all of his 'tubin' buddies as Ol' Hoss, resident and subsequent escapee of the Old Folks' Home and curmudgeonly curator of the blog he called Old Horsetail Snake.

He held court there. And from there he touched the lives of more bloggers than I know or care to imagine. He commented actively with wit and with humor, not on mainstream blogs, but on tiny little out-of-the-way blogs like this one (most of the time, he had better taste, but he did swing by here once in a while).

So.

As of March 7, 2009, no more posts.

The internet will fill up the void soon enough, I suppose (dung beetles abhor a vacuum, and, as far as I know, Big Ernie does, too), but we've lost a quality that won't come back any time soon.

Microwave popcorn

2009-03-07T20:55:00.003-06:00

Something has always bothered me about the smell of microwave popcorn: it just smells "off," for some reason. Yeah, there's a distinctly popcorn smell there, but there's something else, too.

So this evening, when I came in from chasing that darned squirrel out of the ash tree into the live oak and up and over the shed roof into the neighbor's cedar tree, I noticed an odor - the odor of microwave popcorn.

And it was the eggs Beta was boiling in a pan of water with just a little vinegar to make 'em easier to peel. Same. Darned. Odor.

It's a good day when I sort out what bothered me about something that should have been so good.

Wanna be a general contrator?

2009-03-07T20:33:00.002-06:00

I don't, just because it would interfere with keeping the homestead safe from squirrels and passers-by, but if you have an extra half-a-grand sitting around, and feel the urge to build houses in your spare time from plans you ordered (I know you didn't steal them) off the internet, Texas has a deal for you. No test, no nothin'. Just fill out the application and pony up the cash, and you're set.

Keep in mind, there's some serious competition here:

I am not alone

2009-02-24T18:56:00.003-06:00

Someone came by here just yesterday looking for "j_jenny_patch@yahoo" (she's the one I posted about here), and I thought to myself, "That girl must get around."

Not that there's anything wrong with getting around - been out of the yard a couple times myself this last week.

In fact, just last Saturday we were down at Lenny's Bar and Grill and Swap Meet for a burger and fries and a frosty bowl, on our way home from running some errands. Lenny was working the bar like he usually does weekend mid-days, and Wendy was working the grill.

Lenny sips a bit while he's working - mostly sweet tea, which goes through a body pretty fast, and he had made a quick trip to relieve the pressure (which only put more pressure on Wendy, but of course that's a whole 'nother issue).

So Wendy is working the grill for those of us with our orders in, and keeping half a side-eye on the front, when in comes an obvious tourist: t-shirt, over-stuffed fanny-pack, the whole nine yards.

She pauses inside the door to let her eyes adjust from the Texas sunshine, then stalks over to one of the three empty tables left in the room and sits down.

Wendy brings her a menu and asks what she'd like to drink - the usual routine- and the gal orders a cup of coffee.

Now, Lenny is not known for his coffee. Morning with eggs, noon with a burger, Lenny is not known for his coffee. He makes his tea every morning fresh, boils up the sugar for the simple syrup to make it sweet, but Lenny's coffee is more likely made last week than this. Wendy writes the request down on her little pad anyways, and says, "You're not from near here, are you? Where're you from?"

And darned if that little tourist didn't suck herself up all upright before she said, "I’m from New England where we don’t end sentences with prepositions."

It takes more than that to throw Wendy off her stride. Quicker-than-you-can-blink she says, "So where're you from, Miss Holier-than-thou*?"

*I have heard of similar events occurring in other places. Not all of the waitresses in those tales have maintained their composure as thoroughly as Wendy did, and I have recommended to Lenny that he give her a raise.

I can't read!

2009-02-12T20:41:00.003-06:00

I thought about the peanut/salmonella fiasco a moment ago, which reminded me that I have some Girl Scout cookies in the freezer: the peanut-butter sandwich ones. And I'm starting to get hungry. Not famished, just I-need-a-little-something-to-take-the-edge-off. Not time for a Lenny's Bar and Grill and Swapmeet run; just a snack.

So I thought, "I need a photo of those cookies." And I don't take pics, I Google 'em. So I Googled "peanut butter sandwich cookies" and found this:

What a deal.

Which is it?

2009-02-11T20:59:00.001-06:00

Make up to $563 per day
Now anyone with a computer and basic typing skills can earn cash on Google for free. Make an easy $100-$563 per day on Google!

Make up to $672 per day
Now anyone with basic computer and typing skills can earn cash on Google for free. Make an easy $150-$672 per day on Google!

Gotta just love the ads on the social sites.

Heheheh

2009-02-10T21:54:00.003-06:00

This just in from MSNBC:

United to unplug number for complaints

United Airlines has decided that their customers get better results by writing or emailing customer-service representatives stateside, so they're shutting down the unit they out-sourced to India to handle the complaint calls.

They're finally catching on.

I chase squirrels, they run. That's sorta like an airline: they fly planes, people sit in 'em.*

I bark, the squirrels chatter. I ignore the chatter and keep barking. UA has the system figured out; they just have to erase the vestiges of pretending to care, one step at a time.

*Disclosure: I have never lost luggage belonging to a squirrel.

The end of the Nigerian scams

2009-02-07T19:33:00.002-06:00

Just got a message over at the social site, and I'm not at all sure what to make of it; I thought Tom took care of all the weirdos:

Not bad at all! Can you please tell me more about you sweetie? Well okay, to be fair, I should tell you more about me. This is not my profile, I'm borrowing this from my roommate. Not a member of this site ;-) I'm very cute, I have a few of tattoos, and I have long hair, a beaming smile and legs to die for! I have a great personality too! I'm open-minded and have a sunny disposition. I also enjoy watching tv, clips on youtube, playing pool and listening to music. I really like chilling out with friends. Why don..t you give me a shout? Just don..t reply directly to my message. Use my email instead at j_jenny_patch@yahoo.

later!

I'm tempted to set up a one-time-use yahoo account and let it be known that this sounds like a punctuation-impaired cocker spaniel until you get to the playing pool part, where it sounds more like a great Dane.

I got a better idea: I'll call 876-5309 and talk to Jenny.

Today is not the day

2009-01-27T20:39:00.003-06:00

At least, not if you were looking for the promised link.

It is, however, the day for Steamables:

I have nothing in principle against these things: nuke your veggies in the same bag they came home in from the store.

But unless you're eating 'em out of the bag, what are you actually saving? Zap your cauliflower in a bag and dump it in the bowl? or dump your cauliflower in a bowl and then zap it - either way you gotta wash the bowl.

Or have the dog lick it clean.

I just don't see what we're winning here. Sorry.

And strictly off the record, why are you eating cauliflower in the first place? Tastes like fluffier cabbage...

Oddities

2009-01-24T18:40:00.002-06:00

I neither encourage nor discourage traffic here - I more or less bay at the moon and let the visitors stop by randomly, but my post the other day about John Thain's choice of commodes generated a jump in hits. I trust it was only temporary, as I intend to refrain from commenting about his curtains (drapes - whatever) and could care less about whether they matched the carpet or only coordinated with it.

But that traffic spike got me to looking at what brings folks here, and most of 'em, historically, seem to come looking for squirrels. I don't understand that. Squirrels, ladies and gentlemen, are not like Bubba's shrimp. They do not, around here, come fried. Sauteed. Deep fried. Broiled. Saladified. Sandwiched. Boiled. Foiled. Poached. Whatever. The only squirrels you'll find here are "treed" or "on the other side of the fence." Not "fricasseed" or "on rice."

I chase those vile beasts off: you're more likely to find cheeseburgers and onion rings or fries here, leftovers from our latest trip to Lenny's Bar and Grill and Swapmeet*

*Yes. I still owe you a link. I'll get to it. Maybe tomorrow. Or the next day.

I thinks slow...

2009-01-23T19:32:00.003-06:00

...so y'all gotta be patient with me.

Well, no, you ain't gotta, but it'd be appreciated, if you'd be so kind.

After this evening's trip out to Lenny's Bar and Grill and Swapmeet*, having come home with a belly full of Lenny's finest and wanting nothing more than to curl up with a heavy thought or two, I got to browsing around Al Gore's fine invention (the internet, not global warming), and came across a story that sorta-kinda-mighta-maybe-coulda tied in to what I wrote last night about that fancy four-legged commode. Don't click through if you can't handle a couple pages of MSNBC meringue (more air than egg - but that's the MSM anymore).

Anyway, they prat on a bit about how the general public wants more bang for their buck from the top executives of financial institutions today than they did when CEO's got gajillion-dolla bonuses.

To that I can only say, "Thank goodness for a couple onion rings and a bowl of tap beer, or I'd get upset."

'Cause seriously? School teachers across the nation have known for a number of years that folks are demanding more bang for their buck.

I have a proposal: let the CEO's read the teacher blogs, the parent blogs, the home-school blogs, the grand-parent blogs. Therein lies the pulse of the country, and therein lies the handwriting on the walls of CEO's, CFO's, and of politicians across this great squirrel-chasing paradise, and some of those folks could 'prolly save themselves some jail time. Or at least some public humiliation.

Part of what I'm thinking is that they could get themselves a three-legged commode instead of a four-legged, and plant their backsides on it in the corner.

*It occurs to me that I ought to put up a link. I'll try to do that one of these days when I'm not procrastinating so diligently.

And yes. I apologize for having been so thorough a procrastinator that there's no hole in the commode. My bad.

Commode on legs

2009-01-22T21:34:00.002-06:00

Former Merrill exec John Thain has apparently resigned from Bank of America, and he's taking some press-flak from his decision to support the economy by remodeling his office prior to his departure. One of the items involved in the reportedly $1.2 million-bone remodel is a "commode on legs," for which he dropped $35K.

I'm chuckling, as I figure he ripped himself off, because when I search, this is the commode-on-legs that comes up first:

It's a long way to tip a rari.

2009-01-19T19:15:00.005-06:00

And a long way back home.

But we got off the road early enough Saturday to get unpacked sufficiently to head out to Lenny's Bar and Grill and Swapmeet (not pictured - that's Tipperary in the photo) for dinner. Was nice: a couple miles in the car with no suitcases stacked on top of laundry baskets beside coolers on the back seat. Burgers. Onion rings. Cold beer. Home.

We checked out the new stuff on the swap meet tables; didn't see anything we needed (we're hesitant about TV antennas just now - waiting on Congress), so we moved to the bar for dessert and a final beer and some conversation with the folks sitting there: Terry and Grace, Ron, Lynn - the regulars.

We'd only had a couple bites and a couple sips when a stranger came in carrying an alligator. Now, it's not like we live so terribly far from 'gator country that we haven't seen 'em before. But we're far enough off the coast so it's not an everyday thing, so we kinda perked up. More curious than anything.

And the dude says to no one in particular and to all of us in general, "Here’s the deal. I'll open this alligator's mouth and place my genitals inside. The gator will close his mouth for one minute, then open it, and I'll remove my unit unscathed. If it works, everyone buys me drinks."

Like I said, we live close enough to 'gator country that we mistrust 'em. We agreed by acclamation.

The guy opened his Wranglers and stuck his junk - all of it - in the 'gator's mouth. The 'gator closed its mouth. After a minute, the guy grabbed a beer bottle and rapped the 'gator upside the head. The 'gator opened its jaws back wide open, and the stranger removed himself unscathed.

So we all bought him drinks.

Then he said: "I'll pay anyone $100 who's willing to give it a try."

After a while (a long, quiet while) Lynn raised her hand. "I'll give it a try," she said, "but you have to promise not to hit me on the head with the beer bottle."

Now. I realize that versions of that tale have been floating around since before my grandfather was born, but I swear it's true in this incarnation (hat-tip to Miss Cellania for reminding me to tell it).

And somehow, with the inauguration tomorrow, the idea of a guy sticking his junk in a gator's mouth seems appropriate, except for the image. This will be the 44th President of the United States to do so. Some few, as did the man in the bar the other night, have withdrawn unscathed. Some haven't.

I hope the White House doesn't run out of longnecks.

Beer kills keyboards

2008-12-28T19:04:00.002-06:00

Kinda like rock-paper-scissors, only different.

In other news, Lenny's Bar and Grill and Swap Meet is still alive and well and just down the road.

We swung in the other day for what was either a late second lunch or an early first dinner. A cheeseburger, at any rate, because we were passing by and it's the best cheeseburger in the county. And the beer's cold (and for dogs, it's served in stainless steel bowls right inside the door).

At that time of day, Wendy was working the front while Lenny worked the grill. I seriously wish it were the other way around, so that having Wendy shill the burgers didn't seem so trite. But it was what it was. And it's always that way mid-afternoon in the middle of the week. Oh, well. At least this Wendy doesn't wear pigtails, and Lenny doesn't make the burgers thin and square: they're round and thick and juicy: worthy of mayonnaise. Like I said - the best burgers in the county.

So we ate our burgers and swiped our curly fries through the beefy-mayonnaisey residues, and we drank our beer, and an hour later we were ready to take our leave.

We wished Wendy a good day. She looked at her watch and said, "Yep. In forty-five minutes."

I wish that hadn't happened, because it tells me that as much as we enjoy her presence behind the bar, she'd just as soon she had moved on to something else.

I'm not inclined to deny anyone further aspirations, and Wendy beyond a doubt deserves success in hers.

It also reminded me that one of the things about retirement is that we no longer have quitting time to look forward to. And we don't get tips anymore, either.

Boneless birds

2008-12-23T18:14:00.004-06:00

Alpha grew up in a family where beinlose fugel (boneless birds) are a family Christmas tradition, and I love it when he and Beta spend an afternoon making them in honor of that tradition: there are scraps of meat to be harvested off the floor, and chunks of stray carrot to munch on.

Most of the recipes you find on the internet for boneless birds don't mention carrots at all, and I don't understand how that can be: how can you have a "bird" without that strip of carrot poking out to mimic a neck? Of course, most of those same recipes mention bacon, and that might be an improvement over the packaged sausage that A & B use. Bacon's even better than squirrel. And it doesn't run away. But I'm cool with sausage.

So I was excited when Alpha and Beta got back from the grocery store this afternoon with a bunch of tenderized steak. I knew immediately what was about to happen: even if the tenderized steak in Texas is destined for chicken-fried steak , in our house it's for the birds.

It was a good afternoon. Spices flew around the kitchen, Alpha split carrots lengthwise (and made sure there were some spare chunks), Beta laid out chunks of steak and spread sausage on them (and made sure some of the trimmings fell on the floor).

But then, as I sprawled on the floor with my belly full, with visions of bacon and squirrels dancing in my head, I thought a think: what if we merged the Texas tradition with the Scandinavian tradition, and made Chicken-Fried Boneless Birds. Would that be cool or what?

Sweet

2008-12-21T21:29:00.001-06:00

Got my visits per day down close to one. Another couple weeks and I'll be able to just sort out my own thoughts for my own self, right here on this free typing platform.

More infrastructure

2008-11-18T18:36:00.003-06:00

As part of the infrastructure each of us relies on every day, we seek to maximize use of both available space and time. Inevitably, that causes conflicts, as we spend time trying to figure out how best to get one more t-shirt in the dresser: should we fold? roll? toss? It's an infrastructural dilemma.

Several months ago, I delighted both of you with the shirt-folding video out of Japan. Since I don't bother with searchable tags, I'll update that one with an English-narrated version (added bonus: includes long-sleeve tees):

Personally, I remember a time I'd've favored that method. It has a cold efficiency in terms of both space and time that even a roller would have difficulty arguing with. The tosser beats it by only a few seconds, but at a tremendous space sacrifice.

Like I said: I liked it. Liked it so much, in fact, that when we stopped at Lenny's Bar and Grill and Swap Meet the other night for a cold draft, a burger, some onion rings, and some shopping, I got to bragging on it.

OK. It was more than one cold draft, and the third one influences my personal infrastructure. Anyway.

I got showed up:

Aight

2008-11-10T20:00:00.003-06:00

If I'm gonna go back to this, I gotta get back in a serious way: y'all need to help me past this hurdle. See, part of my whole "epistolary laziness" sprouts from my need to keep a balance between stories about Lenny's Bar and Grill and Swap Meet and explorations about the meaning and extent of infrastructure in this fine land we all live in.

Of course, the fact that it's stories about a bar and grill and swap meet ought to tell you something: Lenny saw this economy coming, so he diversified. I'm thinking he should have opted for "Bar and Grill and Bank" or "Bar and Grill and Insurance Company" so he could have been at the head of the line for a handout, but the swap-meet bailout can't be too far over the horizon, so Lenny will get by.

I hope.

He does serve pretty decent food at pretty reasonable prices.

(Ouch. That sounded more like "Prairie Home Companion" than "Lenny's Bar and Grill and Swap Meet." Lenny should buy an occasional beer for a more imaginative writer...)

So lemme come back to this: your neighborhood bar/grill/swap meet is a part of the infrastructure that slides under the political radar. Many of us (sometimes most of us) go out and vote every couple-four years, and we most of the time don't look closely at all the issues or all the candidates. I understand, especially in a year like this when a brazillion candidates run for nearly as many offices, that we get electorally lazy. It's Too. Much. Information. To. Process. Maybe we should have a law mandating a ballot with no more choices than the menu at McDonald's has.

Because really, before any discussion of infrastructure begins, we have to acknowledge that our political system controls our infrastructure, however we define the rest of it.

Holy whatever

2008-10-29T21:03:00.000-05:00

Elitist

2008-10-23T18:30:00.001-05:00

Photo by Callie Shell/Aurora for Time

Yep

2008-10-14T20:10:00.002-05:00

Thanks to List of the Day for the needed tears of laughter.

Memorial Day

2008-05-26T13:02:00.003-05:00

The Ardennes American Cemetery and Memorial serves as the final resting place for 5,329 members of the United States military who died in World War II. The ninety and a half acre cemetery and memorial is in Neuville-en-Condroz, near the southeast edge of Neupré, Belgium. It is one of three American war cemeteries in Belgium, the other two being at Flanders Field and Henri-Chapelle.

If you click the photo to enlarge it, it becomes much easier to see the layout of the graves: a Greek cross.

Where'd my beer go?

2008-05-20T19:56:00.002-05:00

The squirrel kits are really getting much better at navigating the top of the fence without stumbling. Even at speed, even under duress. They stumble less, and even when they do stumble, they regain their footing quickly.

But we've gotten so wrapped up in their training and in supplying moisture to the gardens that we haven't been out in quite a while. Thank goodness that others have kept us fed: morels, crappies, asparagus - we've been in paradise a couple of times this last week or two.

I'm calming down (sort of)

2008-05-20T19:12:00.003-05:00

Picked this one up over at Grits for Breakfast. Keep in mind that Grits is focused more on criminal justice issues than anything else, and he's been giving the rest of us the links we need to understand the Eldorado raid better than anyone else. But this one talks to issues beyond his legal concern: it speaks to every parent of every child who has ever been medicated for behavior. It speaks to every teacher of every child medicated for behavior. It should speak to every politician that accepts medication before patience.

Busy season

2008-05-17T19:15:00.003-05:00

I have a hard time digesting that I haven't posted in six weeks or better; it doesn't seem like more than a couple weeks, at best (or worst). I guess the time has come to admit that I suffer from epistolary laziness.

In defense of that laziness, though, I'll admit to letting squirrels distract me: the momma squirrel who intruded on my yard all last fall gave birth this spring to four kits, and I've spent much of the time that I might have devoted to blogging to instead training them to not fall off the fence when they run along it. Next step? Train them to leave the yard rapidly. Fence, overhanging trees, the route matters not. Just bail when I approach. I don't look forward to the amount of barking (and subsequent hoarseness) that will entail. But I teach, and their success rewards me (no extra bones in my bowl necessary).

So which is it?

2008-04-01T07:39:00.003-05:00

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

T.S. Eliot, "The Wasteland"

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
5 Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
10 That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages.*

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

Two poets, separated by five centuries of both human experience and language development, with totally different takes on April. Which one's right? Or are they both?

*Click for Ronald Decker's translation

Gondo needs help

2008-03-17T14:05:00.002-05:00

Glen Gondrezic needs a new heart.

I first watched Gondo play for the Runnin' Rebels of UNLV in '77, just like the guy who wrote the linked article. I started a little earlier in the season than he did, as I actually got to watch him in the old Las Vegas Convention Center, before UNLV built their on-campus facility.

Go ahead - read the link. Then join me in praying for Gondo.

Lions and lambs and Freudian slips

2008-03-03T18:29:00.002-06:00

The odd, unpredictable season is upon us here in Texas, just as it is most other places in the northern hemisphere. Early spring has a decidedly fickle quality, bringing heat one day and frost the next. The former brings joy, the latter brings hope that the heat'll come back on tomorrow. The forecast says it will, for what that's worth.

That makes it the perfect season to wander over to Lenny's Bar and Grill and Swapmeet, where the weather's perfect, as long as no one forgets to close the door. Of course, the beer is always cold at Lenny's, and the food is always good. The hot food, anyway. Don't go too close to the potato salad late in the week. But the cole slaw is excellent, if you like a mayo-based cole slaw. I don't. But anyway, the food is good. Not spectacular. Good. With no parsley to cover up the fact that management was too cheap to put real food in that corner of the plate - Lenny uses that corner to give you more of what you ordered.

So we wandered over to Lenny's after yesterday's heat to psyche ourselves up (or down) for today's cold front. It was one of those nights that just cried out for something predictable, since the weather wasn't going to be.

Alpha sat at the bar and ordered us each a beer. As we sipped, we drifted back and forth between staring at the TV and listening to the bar-chatter, just kinda winding down and psyching up.

And then Doc came in.

You gotta understand that Doc isn't a doctor. His dad was, ran a local practice for years until he went off one pristine Sunday morning to cut firewood and had a heart attack. Paramedics saved him, but he wasn't the same after that, and retired. But that's where we got the name that we hung on Doc in high school, and it stuck.

Doc's the local independent pharmacist, struggling against the bigger-is-better, buy-your-scripts-where-you-buy-your-groceries-and-your-Halloween-costume mentality. He gets by, but in a wholesale world, he's a retailer. He struggles.

He doesn't do so well as his in-laws, the county judge and his wife. The judge did pretty well in private practice before being appointed to the bench (funny how that part seems to work), and he's done real well with some real estate investments in the years he's been ensconced in the court house. How he's done since the sub-prime stuff poked holes in the market, I don't know, but they've got a real big house on the south side of town, with a big yard and everything all neatly manicured and maintained.

My understanding from the gossip is that his missus needles Doc from time to time about not measuring up to her family standard. I can't speak to the accuracy of gossip. I figure gossip is like political ads - a whole lot of frosting on a tiny bit of cake, so I tend to take gossip with a large grain of salt.

But I guess it creates pressure eventually. Doc came in to Lenny's, took a stool at the end of the bar, and ordered a beer. When Lenny set it in front of him, he looked up, and said, "Lenny, I screwed up. I don't know if I can get over this one."

"What happened, Doc?"

"Ah, we were havin' the regular Sunday dinner with the family. You know - May and the kids and May's folks - just a regular dinner on a regular Sunday. And I grabbed a roll outa the basket, and I picked up my knife and looked at May's mom and I swear it was a Freudian slip." Doc stared down at his beer. And stared some more, as if he could find answers, or the hope of answers, in the glass.

Finally, Lenny, with infinitely more patience in his voice than I was feeling at the moment, asked, "What do you mean, Doc?"

"Lenny," Doc said, "I swear I meant to say 'Could you please pass the butter?' I swear it on a stack of Bibles. My roll was in my one hand. The knife was in other. That's what I meant to say! But I looked at my mother-in-law and what came out of my mouth was 'You ignorant cow. You've ruined my life'."

I'd have loved to have hung around for more, but Alpha had a choking fit, and we had to leave.

"

morphosyntactically singular

2008-03-03T07:58:00.002-06:00

I have a post in the works, waiting to percolate from it's original context to this one, but in the meantime, I just came across this over at Language Log:

The entire linguistic and educational system built up by a nation of 300 million people cannot be in danger of being flushed down the toilet because of a commonplace, centuries-old practice of occasionally and optionally using of a plural-reference pronoun with a morphosyntactically singular quantified or indefinite-reference antecedent, can it?

Someone (in this case Geoffrey K. Pullum) had a lot of fun writing that sentence, knowing that somewhere lurked people who would have fun reading it. I did.

Ruminations on LXII

2008-02-03T21:31:00.000-06:00

For the first time that I remember, the game was better than the ads. Not because the ads sucked - because the game was actually in doubt until the clock read 0:01.

If you look at the history, the economy does well if the NFC wins. I guess the sub-prime crisis is over as of this evening, and we can all look forward to increased economic health. I'm not suggesting anyone hold his/her breath.

The opportunity to be the first NFL team to go 19-0 is still available. Go Vikings!

The State of the Union

2008-01-28T18:44:00.000-06:00

You can access more background, more links, and bigger pictures over at Wikipedia But I bet he doesn't talk about the fact that constant-dollar income for the "bottom" half (half. as in 50% - as in 150 million plus human beings) hasn't budged appreciably since before Reagan.

To Boldly Go..

2008-01-27T13:18:00.000-06:00

Last week's clouds and gloom have given way to bright sunshine, but I haven't finished reading the intertubes yet, so I can't go out and enjoy it...

From today's NYT, an article in the Theater section:

“I used to recite Shakespeare from memory,” he (Patrick Stewart - more of us know him as Captain Jean-Luc Picard from "Star Trek - the Next Generation") said. “I just learned all these big speeches. That’s what’s so interesting about playing Macbeth this year, because I’ve known these speeches all my life.”

I never memorized much Shakespeare, but I did manage to collect some bits and pieces of the Bard along my road, to go with the American writers whose work sparkled enough that I picked it up to carry with me. I sense the incompleteness of my library, at least in depth. But I don't for a moment regret the breadth of it, nor the journey that let me collect so many shiny nuggets.

Go read the article - it'll take you interesting places as well.

Or don't. Get out in the day and enjoy that, if you'd rather.

Happy Hogmanay*

2007-12-31T08:01:00.000-06:00

I just (in the last couple of days) discovered TED, and only yesterday made a little time to poke around a little bit. I'm something of a word geek, so it should come as no surprise that I would choose to share this one:

Erin McKean: Redefining the dictionary (sorry. I played with the HTML long enough to get her presentation embedded here, but can't figure out why it locks up 14 seconds in and loses the sound. Just click over there (Warning: it's a 16 minute speech))

I don't know that I concur with everything she says, but I certainly agree that language is an evolving tool, and that our record of it should be as complete as we can possibly make it.

That's why I join her in loving the Oxford English Dictionary above all other dictionaries (except maybe the Funk & Wagnall's my paternal grandmother gave me on my eleventh Christmas). Of course, the full 20-volume OED has a sticker price of three grand and a shipping weight over 100 pounds, plus the cost of a new bookcase to replace the one that would collapse under the weight.

The online version is, unfortunately (though understandably) subscription only at 30 bucks a month or 300 bucks a year. I guess what it comes down to is that if you're a serious word geek, you own one. If you're only something of a word geek, you just kinda wish...

*The name given in Scotland (and some parts of the north of England) to the last day of the year, also called ‘Cake-day’; the gift of an oatmeal cake, or the like, which children expect, and in some parts systematically solicit, on that day; the word shouted by children calling at friends' houses and soliciting this customary gift.

And yes, it's the word-of-the-day from the OED online.

All is calm

2007-12-25T08:08:00.000-06:00

Well, at least sort of. We're impatiently awaiting the call that will send us down the road to spend the morning with cousin Gus and his humans.

I may have been lackadaisical...

2007-12-19T18:34:00.000-06:00

...in my postin' lately, but I have a couple of links to make it worth your while. The first one is from my read-when-ever-she-posts buddy 'stina The second is, of course, the story she links to in HER story. Use her link: I've done my work for the day.

But if you think you've read squirrel stories here, chase those two down. Seriously redemptive squirrel stories.

Finally, the long-promised garage door

2007-10-29T11:12:00.001-05:00

It was a little spendier than your average, run-of-the-mill overhead garage door, but we liked the look well enough to fork out the extra cash. When the weather warms up (and we head back north), we'll paint it to match the building. We may even seed the lawn, and do something about the mud driveway. I love works in progress...

Coming full circle

2007-10-26T19:32:00.000-05:00

If you double all the way back to the very first post on this blog , I was snarky about a survey from the Republican National Committee. Today one arrived from the Democratic National Committee, which means it's time for equal treatment. I mean, if it took the Republicans to get me started, it's only fair that it takes the Democratics to keep me going.

At least they had the sense to cross out the "Fellow Democrat" part of the salutation and scratch in "Amerloc" instead. Although that looks suspiciously printed rather than scratched.

And the letter from ~~Jimmy~~ Howard Dean is only two pages, as opposed to the four the RNC mailed. I admire frugality (except when it comes to the telling of stories - then a more substantial investment is justified). I'll skip over the part where he wants money - they all do. That's why they're called ~~bloodsucking~~ politicians, right? So of course they ask for money. Besides, it's the questions that make it fun...

The first question is one of those rank-these-issues-in-order-of-importance-type things, and they list ten issues, all of which affect people directly, and none of which affect dogs directly, but because so many dogs live with people they all affect dogs indirectly so I have opinions on most of them. Of course, once you've pondered those issues, and ranked them in your own version of appropriateness, they proceed to ask another batch of questions which address each of the issues individually. So let me add tainted dog food and choking-hazard Greenies to their list, and then I'll talk about the humans-only issues.

Tainted dog food This was never an issue here. We go over to Lennie's Bar and Grill and Swap Meet in the afternoon, have a beer to prepare our digestive tracts for more arduous tasks, come home, and have some kibbles. Or sometimes we eat there. Not a personal issue, as Alpha has unfailingly provided untainted kibble. But he pays top dollar for it, and he and I both understand that not everyone can do that. I've tagged along at the dog-food store (the smells, the aromas, the nuances...It's like heaven on aisle 3) and I've wondered about those bags that smelled like ground-up antique dishes.

But then I read about all the lead that folks are finding in human kids' toys, and I think to myself, "It's the same thing. Everyone is cutting corners, everyone is trying to do it on the cheap, and only the companies that realize that customers have to survive the initial purchase if they're going buy anymore are producing anything worth buying. Profit will cease to exist when the customers (canine or human) cease to exist. People have raised an entire generation who believe that today's dollar is more important than tomorrow's dollar, and that's sadly mistaken.

Choking-hazard Greenies Here again, I think it's an immediate-gratification issue. Please understand: I have nothing whatsoever against Greenies, at least in theory. The chlorophyl that sweetens my breath is a neat idea. The crunchiness that helps clean my teeth? Good stuff. But a Greenie lasts maybe two minutes, if it's one of the big ones. A medium rawhide bone lasts two days. Yeah, I gnaw it under the bed at night, so it's an auditory inconvenience for the humans, and sometimes I eat the thing so fast (I'm not immune to seeking immediate gratification, I just think it should be pursued in moderation) that other problems ensue. But I've never died from one.

So on to Question 2:

When do you believe there should be a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq?
-Immediately
-Sometime in '07
-Sometime in '08
-Other

Tuesday would be good. Last Tuesday.

Unfortunately, that would leave too many Iraqis stranded between Scylla and Charybdis (and one is too many if we value life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness at all). I hate to admit it, but the U.S. is also caught between the mythical/proverbial rock-and-a-hard-place on this one, and it's gonna end up a lose-lose situation because someone screwed up in the first place. Just for the record, it was not a canine who screwed it up.

Let me suggest instead, that we get Haliburton, Blackwater, and their colleagues out of Iraq immediately. Let's eliminate the private profit motive and pursue the establishment of democracy in Iraq on a level playing field. That is, after all, our stated motive.

3. Do you support increased defense spending to fight the war against terrorism?
The choices, of course, are either "yes" or "no." And I have no visceral objection to fighting the "war against terrorism." I do think it's as much a war against ignorance as it is anything, and I mean ignorance on both sides. But it's also a war against fanaticism on both sides, and I don't know how one wins those wars, or even if they can be won with "defense." Alpha fills my bowl with clean water every morning, and my other bowl with kibbles every evening, and we head to Lennie's most days. I sleep in a warm, cozy place every night, and nap on a comfortable bed during the day. Life is good. Give everyone else on the planet my life, and there'd be less fanaticism. And less need for defense dollars.

4. When decisions about the future of Social Security are being made, what do you think is most important?
The choices here are about guaranteed income versus individually-controlled investments or a combination. Pfffttt. Let's be honest. Social it may be, but Security it ain't. It's close (on the short side) to survival. A good family friend (she used to raise poodles) is trying to get by on $700 a month in "Social Security." She lives in a subsidized one-bedroom apartment. She picks up food at the food bank when it's open once a week, and buys whatever's on sale at the store (which leads to an interesting set of choices in her cupboards). So she gets 700 bucks, her landlord gets a grand of taxpayers money as "subsidy," and she still has to choose between her meds and her food (she's on a spreadsheet-full of different pills). But she makes it to church every Sunday that someone can give her a ride and blesses everyone there with her presence. Keep in mind that she isn't complaining about that situation - I am.

I'm gonna leave it there for tonight - only ten questions to go (eleven if I decide to go on about the folks who work 30 years and don't qualify for Social Security).

Maybe I'll get to the pics tomorrow. At least the camera is unpacked.

Home again

2007-10-25T22:13:00.000-05:00

Should probably be uploading the new pics of the garage door, or having a bite of solid food, but it's been a little busy here.

The washing machine decided that just a few minutes ago would be a good time to yank the drain hose out of the wall. Thank goodness it's one of those front-load, doesn't-use-hardly-any-water machines. Thank goodness. But there's still four gallons of water in the wet-dry vac. On the bright side, all that lint that collects on the floor around the dryer is gone now, sucked into the murky, sloppy entrails of the vacuum.

A word of advice: if you have a mini-fridge that you use as a beer cooler? Don't leave the top shelf full when you take off for a week. I'm not saying it'll freeze solid and explode beer foam all over the inside of the fridge, but it comes close: the cans wait till you open them to display their frigid glory. In your lap. On the table. On the floor. Just don't. Move the beer down a shelf. Just sayin'...

But it'll save Medicare millions...

2007-10-14T20:55:00.000-05:00

The single greatest threat to elder health in the US is child-proof packaging.

Voter Registration

2007-10-06T19:11:00.000-05:00

Tuesday's the last day to register to vote, at least here in Texas, if you want to vote in next month's elections, so for reasons that have nothing to do with me, personally, I was looking at the Texas voter registration form. You can find one here, if you want to follow along :)

What caught my attention was the second question: "Will you be 18 years of age on or before election day?" (and then one is supposed to check either the "yes" box or the "no" box). A couple inches lower on the form, above the line for one's signature, in bold-faced type, it says I understand that giving false information to procure a voter registration is perjury, and a crime under state and federal law. That paragraph goes on to talk about fines and penalties, and finishes up with several declarations, the last of which is that one is not mentally incompetent according to the courts. That leaves only the date and a signature (presumably one's own) to fill in.

Now maybe it's just me, but I see a Catch-22 there. If I were to fill it out truthfully, the way it's worded, I'd have to check "No." And I'd have to leave it at that, because there's no room on the form to explain that I was 18 before your mama was a gleam in anyone's eye, and I ain't never gonna be 18 again. Of course, if it said, instead, "Will you be 18 or older on election day?" I could very easily and truthfully check the "yes" box, but the way the words are printed right there on the pdf from the office of the Secretary of State of the Great State of Texas, I'd have to perjure myself in order to register to vote. Unless I were going to celebrate my 18th birthday between now and election day.

Now, I'm not so obtuse that I can't read between the lines and figure out what they mean, but this is not an instruction manual for a some-assembly-required-project manufactured in a third-world country where English is not the native tongue: this is an official document from the government of one of the 50 Great States. And it's a legal document.

Don't they teach lawyers in Texas to speak English?

Has anyone noticed?

2007-09-26T21:01:00.000-05:00

Maybe I'm the only one paying attention, but when I get into this frequent-posting mode, I get awfully preachy.

I lose track of the fun I should be having and passing along. Or maybe I just lose track of passing it along, 'cuz I'm still having all the fun.

It's like that post yesterday about the quiz - I got that score, but didn't bother to record the code (other things demanded my attention: a squirrel in the neighbor's pecan tree, and then one in our live oak, then two dogs came by outside the fence... It was a busy couple of hours). Anyway, I had to go back and take the quiz again to get the code. Could I duplicate the score? Well, yes, eventually. And it wasn't the affect/effect or the pound/kilo that got me. The quiz had a couple other questions related to average this or average that, that I had had to sort of take a ballpark on, and it took me a while to make my ballparks match up. Fenway=Fenway, and you can't confuse it with Candlestick, not even when you're second-guessing and confusing yourself.

That and it takes me a long while to get used to clicking the circle to the left of the correct answer. Maybe it's just me, maybe I've been away too long from standardized anything, but I always read left to right. Consequently, I prefer to check the dot after the response rather than the one before. I realize that's counter-intuitive for most test designers, but then most test designers don't let the answers flow as if they were a paragraph - they stack 'em. Stacked answers are cool - then I can check the dot to the left. But when it's paragraph-style? Fuggedaboudit - I have to wrestle with my brain.

I used to read Kimberly over at Number Two Pencil quite a bit, because she's a psychometrician - she's an expert on test design (if you click that link, there's a very nice picture of her getting married. She ain't posted squat since then and I don't blame her. Marriage is a fine institution. So was Folsum.

Anyway, Kimberly used to discuss testing and validity, and all that stuff, and I wonder what she'd say about paragraphing the answers rather than stacking them. Just seems kinda cheap to me.

Where was I?

Oh. Frequency = preachy.

Damn. What'd I tell ya?

Pfffttt...

2007-09-25T21:13:00.000-05:00

I stopped by to visit Doug over at Borderland this afternoon, and he had the results of a quiz posted. I don't take every quiz that hops down the intertubes, but this one sounded interesting, especially after I got the results:

Am-I-Dumb.com - Are you dumb?

It helps if you know the difference between a kilo and a pound, and between "affect" and "effect." Other than that, you're on your own.

I won the lottery

2007-09-23T13:03:00.000-05:00

I know. If I were a true American patriot, I would be watching the football game right now. And then the second half of the double-header, and then Chicago-Dallas after dinner. But I simply can't contain myself, for I am now rich. Check out the e-mail I just got:

Ticket No: 12033

Lucky No: 425448/7785
YOUR WINNING DETAILS
Ref No: CHN/2551256007/11
Batch No: 14/0017/IPD
serial No: GMLA2-003
Ticket No: 12033.
Contact Claim Agent: infostaatssec@netscape.net

Attn: Lottery Winner,

FINAL NOTICE NOTIFICATION.

We are pleased to inform you of the result of the staatsloterij.nl lottery programs held on 2th of June 2007 with your e-mail address attached to one of the winning ticket numbers. You have therefore been approved for a lump sum pay out of 500,000,00 euros (Five Hundred Thousand Euros) CONGRATULATIONS!!!All participants were selected through a computer ballot system from our sponsors databases, including over 50,000 companies and 150,000 individual E-mail addresses and names submitted by our agents drawn from Asia, Africa, Europe, North And South America and around the world.

To begin your claim, do file for the release of your winning by contacting our accredited agent:

Mr. Davide Hoofdall

Foreign Transfer Manager,
Tel: 0031-626-305-301

Fax: 0031-847-249-650
Email: infostaatssec@netscape.net

NOTE: All winnings must be notarized to complete the claim process; winners will be referred to a Foreign Transfer Manager, to have their winnings notarized, all winners are to cover the legal charges not STAATSLOTERIJ. NL,Please note that you will be required to pay for the issuance of your winning certificate and all winnings must be claimed not later than 13th of October 2007,after this date all unclaimed winnings will be null and void. In Order to avoid unnecessary delays and complications remember to quote your reference number and batch numbers in all correspondence. Furthermore, should there be any change of address do inform our agents as soon as possible.

You are advised to call your claim agent and also provide him with the following information:

You Names:
Phone/Fax number:
Nationality:
Ref Number:
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Congratulations once more and thank you for being part of our promotional program.note: Anybody under the age of 18 is automatically disqualified.

Yours faithfully

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Contact your claims agent Mr.Davide Hoofdall at infostaatssec@netscape.net.

Dit Deze mail is verzonden via web.nl Web.nl Mail

Somehow, I thought all of this crap was supposed to originate in Nigeria, rather than in the pseudo-Netherlands. Of course, if there were an American scamster who actually understood or spoke a foreign language well enough to understand how they might butcher English if they didn't know it well, I might get nervous. This faker has no clue, and needs to spend some months studying under the Nigerians.

I can maybe save some time, though.

First, pick a name that might actually show up in an Amsterdam phone book. "Hoofdall" doesn't cut it. Let me suggest "Geldopsturen Alstublieft." See? That took very little imagination, and at least I had the sense to butcher the language while I was at it.

And maybe this person should learn how to punctuate monetary units, too. 500,000,00 is wrong everywhere: one of those commas should be a decimal point; which one is arguable, depending on your culture. Unless, of course, we're talking half a billion Euros instead of half a million. In that case, it's missing a 0.

Oh, well. They say we shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe I'm being too picky.

Good to be home

2007-09-22T21:38:00.000-05:00

We stopped at Lenny's Bar and Grill and Swapmeet this afternoon, on our way back from the barbeque cook-off and airshow that was held here locally. This combination event is held annually, with baked beans and sausage and ribs and brisket and helicopter rides and vintage warplanes all sort of rolled into one. It's a good time for the whole family, but (perhaps because there are so many family members of the underage persuasion running around) there is no where there to get a bowl of beer.

So we adjourned to Lenny's.

Now, I don't expect, when I go into Lenny's and grab my spot by the door, to see a man of the cloth, much less a woman of the cloth, but sitting at the bar, plain as the nose on my face, was the Reverend Miz Olivia.

Keep in mind that Lenny's isn't just a bar, and when we got there, Rev. Olivia was having an early dinner: chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes, and white gravy. With steamed baby carrots on the side. And a Coke. I think it says something about the food at Lenny's that some folks will ignore the bar part and come for the grill part. And it's not just preachers who do so. Which is not to say that I don't enjoy a bowl of beer once in a while.

Anyway, Rev. Olivia was sharing conversation over dinner with a young person whose name I never did catch, but it seemed she was telling of her struggles as a young preacher.

"As a young minister," she said, "I was asked by a funeral director to hold a grave-side service for a homeless man, with no family or friends. The funeral was supposed to be at Pilgrims' Rest cemetery, way back in the country the other side of Georgetown, and this man would be the first to be laid to rest there.

"I wasn't familiar with the area, and you know how MapQuest isn't always spot on, so of course I got lost, and by then there was no where to stop for directions. I finally arrived an hour late, and spotted the backhoe and the crew. They were eating lunch, but the hearse was nowhere in sight.

"I apologized for being so very late, and walked over to the still-open grave, where I could see the vault lid already laid in place. I assured the workers I wouldn't hold them up too long, but this was something that had to be done. They gathered around, still working on their lunches. I have to tell you, I poured out my heart and soul.

"As I warmed to the task, the workers began to chime in with 'Amen,' and 'Praise! the Lord,' and 'Glory!' in all the appropriate places. I preached, and I preached, and I preached like I'd never preached before, from Genesis all the way to Revelations.

"I wrapped things up with a prayer and headed back over to my car. I was opening the door and taking off my vestments, when I overheard the backhoe operator saying half under his breath to one of the other guys, 'I ain't never seen anything like that before and it's twenty years now I've been putting in septic tanks!'"

Think I've got it

2007-09-22T18:26:00.000-05:00

That didn't seem horribly difficult, and I think I have it working the way I want it to: the curious among you can see how we spent July and August.

The siding is cement composition board. The windows are vinyl. The trim is composite. The roof is steel. We were after low-maintenance on this one, for very good reason.

This is a recreational structure, not a year-'round dwelling (for us. It certainly could be for someone else if he/she wanted to make it so). But we've lived pretty-much year-round in recreational areas before, and felt bad for those who came on weekends or for a couple weeks in the summer, and spent all their relaxation time catching up with what the weather had done in their absence. We've watched people buy a place, spend a couple years of weekends pulling maintenance, then selling. We don't want to do that here.

We're comfortable with the fact that there will be dust to get rid of when we get back each year, but none of us wants to paint or stain or repair much of anything, and the exterior is one place we can minimize it. Plus, it's pretty much squirrel- and woodpecker-proof. I'd much rather chase squirrels up one of those oaks than around the living room.

Working hard at not working

2007-09-22T12:44:00.000-05:00

I'm supposed to be chasing squirrels about now, but instead I'm playing with Flickr, trying to get things linked here the way I want them. I think I've got some progress on the button/badge dohickey. Now all I need is more pics in the album. I appreciate your patience.

Here's the setup

2007-09-21T16:33:00.000-05:00

From free videos at Break.com

And here's the payoff:

Lantern Battery Trick Fails - Watch more free videos

That was before

2007-09-14T14:27:00.000-05:00

And this is after:

It made for an interesting summer - level ground to what you see here in about six weeks. The garage door is due to arrive next Monday for installation a day or two later.

Of course, working construction after a 30-year layoff wore me out some, so I'll use that as an excuse for the non-existent posting since however long it's been. Well, that and the dial-up connection, which I'll hereafter not mention unless and until I start rambling about infrastructure in this country.

Of course, it wasn't all work and no play. We had the boat on the lake most of the time every weekend afternoon and evening, just putzing around and enjoying the company of each other and friends. Most of the friends haven't yet joined the retired ranks, so they didn't want to drive nails or move dirt, and we were happy to oblige.

During the week, we were mostly too tired to do much of anything - even cook, so we ate out with disturbing frequency, at least to us. There's nothing in this neighborhood even close to Lenny's Bar and Grill and Swapmeet, but there are places to get a beer and a burger. Or a steak. Or some walleye, either pan- or batter-fried. For steaks or walleye, either one, I have to recommend The Bergen Bar & Grill. They don't have a website, so that link is to the phonebook so you'll have the phone number and the addy if you're ever in that neck of the cornfields. Of course, even the phonebook info is wrong, that's how far out in the middle of nowhere this place is. It's not in Windom, at all: it's in Bergen (d'uh).

Keep in mind that when strangers utter the words "small town" I tend to think of places like Bergen: under 20 residents, only two businesses (three, max), and maybe a stop sign. Streching it some, I could allow up to maybe 500 before it loses the "small" label and becomes an ordinary town. You get over 10,000 and I figure that to be a small city.

But let's not sweat labels, shall we? It's all relative, and it depends entirely on where and how you grew up.

Regardless, the Bergen Bar & Grill serves up some excellent food. I don't know anyone who lauds the atmosphere, but the place is always packed. Part of that is that they can only squeeze sixty people in the place, but most of it is the food. Friday and Saturday nights, when they're serving prime rib, it's not at all uncommon to see forty or fifty people waiting as much as ninety minutes to get in. No, you can't get a reservation. You can call for take-out, though, which speeds things up for the locals.

And it's not actually a bar, at least in the sense that most of us interpret the term. In the Minnesota vernacular, it's a three-two joint with a setup license. So the beer is 3.2% alcohol instead of 4% or 6% (depending on whether it's measured by weight or by volume), and you can't get a Morgan and Coke unless you bring the Morgan yourself. If you want a Marguerita, just fill a Thermos and bring your own.

All right. I have too many details getting in the way of a perfectly good story:

We ate at Bergen one night mid-August, and on the way home stopped at the bar that Bruce runs in Ormsby. It's a real bar, with mixed drinks and high-test beer on tap or in bottles, and sitting at the end of the bar farthest from the TV was Norb. Now I've known Norb for a kazillion years, since grade-school, I think, certainly since before he had all those incidences, his wife, and all those kids. Norb works at the grain elevator across the road from Bruce's place, and does a fine job, by all accounts. But this night he seemed patiently morose. He'd finish a beer, peer into his shirt pocket, and order another. Three times he did that, and never ordered one of Bruce's boneless chicken dinners. Like I said, he seemed morose.

Finally, Bruce (setting yet another beer in front of him) asked, "Norb? How come you keep looking in your pocket before you order the next beer?"

Norb said, "Bruce, that's a picture of my wife in that pocket, and I keep thinking 'one more beer and she'll be pretty enough to go home to.'"

I can't find the wafers anywhere

2007-07-18T10:08:00.000-05:00

Since photos are such a pain to upload on this connection (I know - you're tired of hearing that particular whine. I'll shut up and deal with it), I won't show you how our garage is progressing until I feel like sitting and waiting. Instead, I'll share a goody I found a few months ago, and hinted at a couple posts ago:

CHOCOLATE TRUFFLE TART

This is seriously delectable chocolate richness. It's rich, it's dark, it's melt-in-your-mouth heaven. I only wish I had invented it myself. You can view the complete recipe online at Epicurious.com, one of my favorite time-consumers. Or you can view it here, with my running commentary :)

For crust
28 chocolate wafers such as Nabisco Famous, finely ground in a food processor (1 1/2 cups)
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled completely

Now, as the title of the post hints, I have been unable to find those darned wafers anywhere, even after swallowing my pride and asking staff at the grocery stores. Yes, stores. I took this mission to heart and spent more time looking for the wafers than a honey-do procrastinator at a hardware store. I finally gave up and bought a package of Oreos, even though I like to follow a recipe EXACTLY, at least the first time.

Talk about a trip down memory lane! Remember c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y twisting the two disks to separate them and have all the filling on one instead of divided between the two? That may have been the hardest part of the whole process. I thought about using chocolate graham crackers, but having never tasted one, I went with the devil I knew, and scraped filling until I had the requisite 28 wafers

For filling
1/2 lb fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (no more than 60% cacao if marked), coarsely chopped
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

I don't know about you, but I looked at the bittersweet chocolate bars in the baking-goods section, and I looked at the bittersweet chocolate chips, and I thought "why get a knife dirty?" I used the chips made by that company in San Fransisco, which happened to be 60% cacao.

Special equipment: an 8-inch (20-cm) round springform pan

Oops. The only springform pan I have is a 10-incher. I used it. I may invest in an 8-incher before I make it again (which I will), just to make the tart thickerer.

Garnish: unsweetened cocoa powder for sprinkling

Make crust:
Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Wrap a sheet of foil over bottom of springform pan (in case of leaks). Lightly butter side of pan.

Stir together ground wafers and butter in a bowl until combined, then pat mixture evenly onto bottom of pan and 1 1/2 inches up side. Bake until crust is slightly puffed, about 10 minutes, then cool completely in pan on a rack, about 15 minutes. Leave oven on.

Make filling while crust cools:
Melt chocolate and butter in a 2-quart heavy saucepan over low heat, stirring until smooth, then remove from heat and cool 5 minutes.

Whisk together eggs, cream, sugar, salt, and vanilla in a bowl. Whisk chocolate mixture into egg mixture until combined well.

Assemble and bake tart:
Pour filling into cooled crust and rap pan once on counter to eliminate any air bubbles. Bake until filling 1 inch from edge is set and slightly puffed but center trembles slightly when pan is gently shaken, 20 to 25 minutes. (Center will continue to set as it cools.)

Cool tart completely in pan on a rack, about 2 hours. Chill, uncovered, until center is firm, about 4 hours. Remove side of pan and sprinkle with cocoa to serve.

Cooks' notes:
• Tart can be chilled up to 3 days. Cover loosely after tart is completely chilled (covering before may cause condensation).
• Crust, without filling, can be made 1 day ahead and kept, covered, at room temperature.

Gourmet
February 2007

There you have it.

Burned out

2007-07-14T10:11:00.001-05:00

We ventured away from the lake last night, and caught the action at a "burnout" contest.

Contestants take turns having their vehicles strapped down, with the drive wheels positioned on a wet steel plate. At the starter's signal, they accelerate. Of course, they don't go anywhere, but they generate noise and smoke prodigiously, and are judged on the amount of each they produce.

This entrant made the finals. Lest you believe this to be soley testosterone-based, the second-place winner was a 72-year-old grandmother (I'd post the picture I have of her in her truck, but the pic above took twenty minutes to upload. I hate dial-up).

Like the announcer said, where else can you sit in the shade and drink beer and watch people burn up hundreds of dollars worth of rubber?

And unlike Nascar, there are no left turns.

This didn't really happen today, but..

2007-07-13T10:18:00.000-05:00

some things just feel like Friday the 13th events: Charlie the black lab drives his owner's car into the river

I am SO not getting in the car today...

Oops

2007-07-12T10:24:00.000-05:00

It seems I confused a little the other day with my reference to getting settled in, phone lines, etc. Ms Whatsit concluded that I had moved, and in a way, I suppose that's true, but it was our annual, temporary move from wherever we live to the shore of a lake in Minnesota. We've been doing it for thirty years or better, leaving most times the day school got out (sometimes even from the school parking lot). Of course, now that we've retired, we get to play a little looser with the timelines. This year we took off the last week of June.

The drive was 1133 miles, The SUV was packed to the windows - I could barely turn around in my seat. But here we are (if I can get this photo to upload in less than threee days):

As always, click to biggersize.

We're far enough from the nearest town that DSL nor cable are available, and wireless requires line-of-sight; we're not about to cut down the oaks to provide that, so until we raise a permanent structure worthy of supporting a satellite antenna, we get by with dial-up. Slow dial-up. Shared airport-to-airport... At least it's faster and more reliable than fifteen years ago, when we limped along on a modem hooked to our cell phone.

Every year we try to add to the comfort level of our summer home: the deck went up fifteen years ago or so, and was expanded when we added the gazebo/screen porch (even with doses of Frontline and heartworm pills, I'd rather avoid mosquitoes when I can). This year we hooked up to a rural water system - now we use the well to wash the car or water the lawn, and just enjoy the heck out of the improved quality of the water in the shower.

We anticipate a garage for the boat this year as well, but given our affection for over-kill, it will also have a storm shelter below and primitive (for now) living quarters. Eventually we hope to say goodbye to the trailer. For a price :)

Thanks. I think I needed that.

2007-07-06T11:49:00.000-05:00

Ms. Whatsit was kind enough to rattle my cage a little by tagging me with the eight-random-things-about-me meme, and now that we're settled in and the phone lines are working again, I've caught up with my blog-reading, and it's time to procrastinate while I try to decide what to do next, I'll try to tackle it.

The Rules
1: Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves which others do not know about them.
2: People who are tagged need to write in their own blog and post these rules.
3: At the end of your 8 random facts post, you must select 8 more people and leave a message at their site that they have been tagged….

1. I think eight-random-things-about-me has come to mean instead eight-things-about-me-that-I-bet-most-folks-don’t-know-but-I-think-might-be-interesting: it’s lost the quality of pure randomness that the term implies, because we don’t dare write down every little thing about ourselves on uniformly tiny slips of paper and then just draw blindfolded and share the first eight of them out of the hat.

2. I love the way that people from different parts of this country use our mostly-common tongue differently. I admire that Mark Twain spoke and wrote fourteen distinct dialects of English, and that he did it to such marvelous effect. Jeff Foxworthy has an appreciation for the way language serves us, and I appreciate that flexibility. When I was younger, I could fall into approximations of the way people talked fairly easily. I lament the increasing difficulty I have doing that as I grow older. I am glad that I was immersed in French at an early-enough moment that I was able to acquire the language with some depth and fluency without a ton of effort.

3. I’d rather think or talk about projects than actually sweat over them to complete them. Maybe that’s why I don’t post so very often.

4. I grew up with close family ties to rural Minnesota; in my extended family my father was the only one who didn’t make his living on a farm. Consequently, I have kind of a I-can-do-it-myself attitude about projects of all sorts; I truly can’t fathom why anyone would call a plumber or an electrician or a carpenter when it would be cheaper to just buy the tools you need to perform common-sense tasks yourself. Of course, that means that I sometimes realize two years later that I should have put a trap in the drain from the washing machine, so that the guest shack doesn’t stink like unvented sewage so bad when the wind blows out of the north.

5. Common sense isn’t. I totally understand that a predicate nominative requires a nominative pronoun. It’s common sense. So’s the fact that an adverb can serve equally effectively after the verb as before. It just has to be close, and most of the time, the closer the better. Common sense. And I understand that water flows downhill unless it’s under pressure, and that makes plumbing entirely accessible. Again, common sense. (Except the part about the traps and the vents: I have to go back and retrofit a trap.) And electricity is just as simple. Common sense. I firmly believe that there’s no such thing as common sense: there is a community of knowledge. And I am blessed to be still enthusiastic about acquiring more parts of it. I am even more blessed to have had that enthusiasm encouraged.

6. I make a truly melt-in-your-mouth-delicious chocolate truffle pie, but I haven’t shared the recipe with anyone because if you seek it on Epicurious dot com, you shall find it. The only part I don’t like is trying to find the chocolate wafers – I generally end up scraping the white out of Oreos and using the black cardboard parts for the crust. I have shared the results with friends, and they like it, I like the fact that it only takes an hour or so (not counting unstuffing the Oreos).

7. I like hyphens, colons, semi-colons, and the word “anyway.”

8.I despise Microsoft Word’s writing tools. They’ve flagged two words in this post as misspelled and only two of my sentence fragments.

I have every intention of ignoring the last rule. The dogs I would tag have demonstrated an aversion to playing these games. They'd rather chase squirrels and rabbits and the neighbors' cat.

2007-06-22T16:49:00.001-05:00

Signs of aging

2007-06-03T18:09:00.000-05:00

I suppose it was inevitable that some day I would need to trim my nose hairs. But with a mustache-trimmer? Some things are just unfair.

For my friends of a certain age...

2007-05-15T09:35:00.001-05:00

None of the people I know seem to be aware of the controversy behind the scenes, though: two bands claim the same name.

These guys are not the same as these guys; the latter having been together making music about a year longer than the former, who were apparently brought together under that name for a BBC documentary.

You can read more about it here.

It doesn't take away from how fun the video is.

Uff da

2007-05-02T16:59:00.000-05:00

That title should throw Google off, but my friends of Norwegian extraction will get it.

I was hoping that a morning spent chasing the squirrel off the bird feeder would be followed by an afternoon of freedom from the critters, but such was not my luck: I came across a whole gang of them writing this site. Fortunately for me, they're French-Canadian squirrels, not at all likely to range this far south. Unfortunately, for those of you who don't at least read French (and their French is slangy (or slangish, or something. Definitely not Academie Francaise-style) it'll take a more sophisticated translator than is available on the free-use market to make it comprehensible.

So, if you don't read and/or speak French, don't bother, because even if you find an on-line translator that will handle the text, the cartoons won't get translated, and you'll miss some of the fun. But the most recent cartoon is a VERY clever retelling of a certain joke widely circulated here concerning a monkey and a tiger. And the photos of the authors have a certain appeal.

You know, I take a certain pride in having been born a mutt in mid-America, and having achieved a level of fluency in French and English both. I just wish I were as fluent in Windows as I am in Mac, so I could do all the diacritical marks on this machine.

I was born in Minnesota, and I know how to talk Minnesotan well enough that most of the people there still understand me when I visit.

I came of age (sort of) in Nevada, and never had a language problem. That may be because Nevada's population is growing as much by immigration from other states as it is by increases in the native population, which process mixes and flattens the dialect, but still.

But now I find myself living in Texas, y'all. And I understand and appreciate both the meaning and the value of that term. It's an extraordinary adaptation of language, in that it enables an English-speaker to differentiate between a singular and a plural "you." I can yap at a single squirrel with "You! Get off the bird feeder!" or I can yap at the three who chase each other in the neighbor's cypress tree with "Y'all better stay on that side of the fence!," but it will never flow trippingly from my tongue.

Uff da.

My kennel gate got rattled

2007-05-01T13:02:00.000-05:00

I've been away at the doggie hotel for a bit while Alpha and Beta shipped out on a cruise. They're back, well-fed and rested, and trying to find someone to fix Beta's broken vertebrae (long story, unrelated to the cruise, but she's been on pain meds for a while), and I'm trying to get caught up on my regular reads.

It turns out that back toward the beginning of the month,
ElementaryHistoryTeacher mentioned in this meme that she stops by here regularly.

Now there's a coincidence. I stop by her place too, far more often than I come by this particular slice of the intertubes. She always has interesting new material - I don't. If ~~you're~~ I'm lucky, I find an amusing story to recycle...

Jim and Jerri, the nice folks who run the doggie hotel, raise Newfoundland hounds - great big lumbering, friendly beasts who would as soon drown you in slobber as anything else. It's a nice place, tucked away on a dead-end road out in the country. One of their neighbors raise horses, and the next neighbor over raises sheep. It's not related to this episode, but sheep are seriously stoopid. Seriously. Stoopid.

Anyway, the folks that have the sheep recently invested in a Sheltie to help move them from pasture to pasture, and as Jim and Jerri were visiting over the fence with the neighbor couple, the neighbor sent the Sheltie to count his most-recently purchased flock. It didn't take but a couple minutes before the Sheltie came back to report that there were 30.

The neighbor expressed his surprise, having only purchased 28 new sheep.

"I know," said the Sheltie. "I rounded them up."

A friend has passed

2007-04-13T08:42:00.000-05:00

Not Anna Nicole, though I understand that she is still dead, and that Hugh Hefner is not the father of her baby.

Kurt Vonnegut. I've read most of his writing, which makes me "of a certain age," I guess. I started with Breakfast of Champions, and devoured the rest as I came across it. My favorite? "Tom Edison's Shaggy Dog." I wonder why....

Another two-legged story I couldn't resist

2007-03-15T10:08:00.000-05:00

Why Men are Rarely Published in Dear Abby

Dear Abby,

I've never written to you before, but I really need your advice on what could be a crucial decision. I've suspected for some time now that my wife has been cheating on me.

The usual signs... Phone rings but if I answer, the caller hangs up.
My wife has been going out with the girls a lot recently although when I ask their names she always says, "Just some friends from work, you don't know them."

I always stay awake to look out for her taxi coming home, but she always walks down the drive. Although I can hear a car driving off, as if she has gotten out of the car round the corner. Why? Maybe she wasn't in a taxi?

I once picked her cell phone up just to see what time it was and she went berserk and screamed that I should never touch her phone again and why was I checking up on her.

Anyway, I have never approached the subject with my wife. I think deep down I just didn't want to know the truth, but last night she went out again and I decided to really check on her.

I decided I was going to park my Harley Davidson motorcycle next to the garage and then hide behind it so I could get a good view of the whole street when she came home. It was at that moment, crouching behind my Harley, that I noticed that the valve covers on my engine seemed to be leaking a little oil.

Is this something I can fix myself or should I take it back to the
dealer?

Teaching to the math test

2007-03-08T17:53:00.000-06:00

As Janet noted in her (second) comment to my last post, I have not updated this blog in some time. I'd like to pretend that some valid reason exists for that, but the truth is that I was trying to avoid that meme that was going around the edu-blogo-sphere about blogs that make you think. Early in my time here, I accidentally said some things that may (MAY - I'm not entirely certain, but those words MAY) have encouraged lucid thought, maybe even cogent thought. I apologize.

But now that the coast is clear, I can return to telling tales out of school.

This town I live in is small by most people's standards - gaining on 15 thousand people. To me, that's pretty damned big, as I grew up right around three highway corners from Grogan, Minnesota. Grogan has more cats than people, and only seventeen cats. There is no Pizza Hut in Grogan. No PetSmart, either.

Anyway....

As big as this town is, the back streets don't go on forever. Instead, they lead to the open road, to the lure of new worlds to explore. So I clambered into the truck with Alpha the other day, and we followed that lure east. I know that Lenny's Bar-and-Grill-and-SwapMeet is north, so I paid attention. No Pizza Hut. No PetSmart. Just a Dodge:

I was delighted to finally know the answer.

Too good to pass up

2007-01-02T19:10:00.000-06:00

Sometimes, I come across stuff that is poetic in its punchline, and even if there are no dogs involved, I feel an irresistable urge to relay the tale. Such is the case right now, though my nature says the moon needs howling-help on its journey across tonight's clear sky.

This is courtesy of my friend Dodge, who has no blog (poor pup - at least he has e-mail):

A couple is driving along a highway doing a steady 60 miles per hour. The wife is behind the wheel. Her husband suddenly looks across at her and speaks in a clear voice, "I know we've been married for twenty years, but I want a divorce."

The wife says nothing, keeps looking at the road ahead but slowly increases her speed to 65 mph. The husband speaks again. "I don't want you to try to talk me out of it," he says, "because I've been having an affair with your best friend, and she's a far better lover than you are."

Again the wife stays quiet, but grips the steering wheel more tightly and slowly increases the speed to 75. He pushes his luck. "I want the house," he says insistently..

Up to 80 . "I want the car, too," he continues.

85 mph. "And," he says, "I'll have the bank accounts, all the credit cards and the boat!"

The car slowly starts veering towards a massive concrete bridge. This makes him nervous, so he asks her, "Isn't there anything you want?"

The wife at last replies in a quiet and controlled voice, "No, I've got everything I need," she says.

"Oh, really," he inquires, "so what have you got?"

Just before they slam into the wall at 85 mph, the wife turns to him and smiles, "An airbag."

I hate to disappoint, but sometimes I just gotta

2006-12-13T18:32:00.000-06:00

A Sunday or two ago, I posted something that I found somewhere on the internets that I thought was funny. Not har-de-har-de-har- har-oh-sweet-chihuahua-I'm-gonna-piddle- on-the-leather-couch funny. Just hmmm-that's-interesting funny. Apparently, right about that time, Hoss caved in to my relentless commenting on his b**g and gave me a visit. I feel bad, as that post hardly represented my best work (hmmpphh. I'm retired. By definition, I don't work. No wonder you don't get the best of anything here. Though chasing squirrels is harder work and more exercise than you humans might think. And while you're thinking about that, look at how short your dog's fingers are, and imagine those stubby things typing. I take it back. This is work).

But old Hoss didn't escape the Old Farts Home by being anything but pure-D stubborn, and he kept reading into my archives.

This is the part where I have to seriously question his judgement. He said that I am "pretty funny. Possibly VERY FUNNY." Unless he has actually seen me bark at the tree the squirrel went up two days ago even though I just chased that same squirrel along the fence and into the neighbor's yard, he has no reason to accuse me of that sort of thing. I am not funny. I am persistent. I am not consistent, but I am persistent. (That's a couple syllables long of being a Haiku.)

I have very nearly backed myself into a corner here, but I will duck away from its confines and run across the back forty with an idea: Red Skelton was funny. The Three Stooges were funny. Chris Rock IS funny. Gene Maudlin IS funny.

And the rubber-tired bitch in it all is that now that he's wandered over here, I can no longer steal his stuff with impunity.

I knew the eye was quicker than the hand

2006-12-11T19:11:00.000-06:00

Made it to Lenny's last night for a curl-up inside the door and a bowl of draft. I think humans miss part of the beer experience when they eschew the sweet sound of a bowl sliding around on the floor. Doesn't really matter if the bowl is plastic or stainless, as long as it's not rubber, it slides. There's an element of the chase in the sound. Sweet, I say.

But when Lenny rang up the beers, his fingers purely danced, and I didn't think about that particular magic until just now, when I read this piece over at The Agonist.

Most of the time, I skim through that site like a chased squirrel up a live oak, but I had to drop back to hunker-speed to read about the gal Ian wrote of: she knew the inventory and pricing so well she didn't need that glass-pad-with-the-red-lightlines that you see at Walmart and Tru-Value and HEB and so many other places anymore (including the place where Alpha buys my Kibbles).

I think it's too easy anymore to get so caught up in the magic of the technology, the magic of cutting costs, that we forget the magic of the dance, and we forget that the dance saves us even more.

And somehow, I think all this ties back into my post yesterday about infrastructure...

When you stay close to the ground, you see things differently

2006-12-11T08:11:00.000-06:00

Another slow day here, while the crew (can I call the only guy who showed up a "crew"?) works on the remodel out back. No where near time to head over to Lenny's yet, so I'm indulging my favorite sunny-day sport, surfing, and I came across a couple of stories that may or not be connected from anyone else's perspective, but from where I stand with all four paws firmly on the ground, they trigger a caution.

First, there's the weather in the midwest: according to this story on CNN, it'll be another ten days before some of those folks get enough power back to heat or light their homes, because they rely on someone else's infrastructure (just like we do here - my kettle's just as black).

Then, another CNN story, this one about the free web-based software that Google is making available: a word-processor, a spreadsheet, etc. Some of the people quoted in the article are enthused about the built-in capacity to work cooperatively, since the documents are stored on Google servers rather than locally and can be accessed from any on-line computer. Others are concerned about privacy issues. They're both right.

But having the two stories right there in front of me on the same day got my fuzzy little head to wondering: do we really want to rely on someone else's infrastructure for documents we feel are vital? Especially when Mother Nature can be so fickle?

Chasing my tail

2006-12-03T08:48:00.000-06:00

1

Number of new blogs created each second of every day, according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

1

Number of readers that the average blog has, according to Schmidt.

Ode to koi

2006-12-02T18:53:00.000-06:00

I'm guessing that most literate humans know
They each have 46 chromosomes.

Which makes them the most intelligent
Critters on the planet.

Except for goldfish,
Which have 94 double-helixed strands.

Imagine.
Twice-plus the gene-power,
And they can't even climb out of the toilet.

Enough already

2006-11-10T15:24:00.000-06:00

I'm stuck in the house while two guys dig up the back yard - some project that Alpha and Beta are paying too many bones for. Since Alpha's out back playing "sidewalk superintendent," I've had time to check some things I don't ordinarily have or take time for.

As I browsed my stats, I realized that people show up here looking for "artesian bread." The entire point of the original post was that THERE'S NO SUCH THING!!! Of course, I probably buried that point in my obfustactory prose, but still, ARTESIAN BREAD DOES NOT EXIST!!!! You're not out there searching for unicorns, are you?

Artisan bread exists. It's real. It's bread made by artisans, people who practice a trade at the level of art. Under the medieval guild laws, one had to create a masterpiece to advance to the rank of artisan, so what we're talking about with artisan bread is REALLY DAMNED GOOD BREAD.

I will, of course, continue to argue that "artisan" is a noun, and therefor can't describe anything - that the term should properly be "artisanal bread." But I won't let my willingness to continue that argument distract me from my just-generally-pissed-off state that humans don't recognize what this mere dog does: there's a difference between the two words "artesian" and "artisan." Notice how the vowels are different? See it? As in "e" is not the same as "i" and "ia" is not the same as "a"? Why do you suppose that is? Could it maybe be because the two words are not identical in either orthography or definition?

Here you go:

artesian

adj : (of water) rising to the surface under internal hydrostatic pressure; "an artesian well"; "artesian pressure" [syn: flowing] [ant: subartesian]

artesian. (n.d.). WordNet® 2.0. Retrieved November 10, 2006, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/artesian

artisan

n : a skilled worker who practices some trade or handicraft [syn: craftsman, journeyman, artificer]

artisan. (n.d.). WordNet® 2.0. Retrieved November 10, 2006, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/artisan

Now. Can any of you help me with a definition of "overkill"?

Black Thursday

2006-11-09T12:08:00.000-06:00

Yeah, OK, we had a Blue Tuesday. Whether that plays out as good or bad depends in large part on the people elected and their perception of their mission(s). Frankly, right this moment, politics is not high on my list of priorities.

Neither are squirrels. Or Greenies. Or beer. Even micro-brews.

Ankle-Biter didn't make it. The congestive heart failure which slowed him for so long finally won, and he won't wake up anymore in this life. Family and friends, both canine and human, await him on the other side, though, so we take some small comfort in that.

I want to thank him for what he did to welcome me to the family all those years ago. Even blind in one eye as he was, he taught me to retrieve sticks, to bark at doorbells (even on TV, and even when we didn't actually have one in the house), and to ride calmly in the car. And oh, so many more things...

In his memory, I'll remind you of this.

God's speed, little fella.

Damned squirrels

2006-11-02T17:30:00.000-06:00

I took a break just now from chasing the long-tailed, four-legged, fence-runnin', tree-climbin', pecan-thievin' squirrel in the back yard, and I settled in to peruse the newspaper from up north. Getting the paper on the internet is better than getting it on the driveway, as this way it never turns into Ankle-Biter's bathroom.

Anyway, I came across this: Squirrel attacks mail carrier.

So you see, when I'm out there wearing a path between the trees and jumping nearly as high as the fence, and racing back and forth, and even barking occasionally, and just generally raising Cain, I'm not doing it to annoy anyone. I'm actually performing a public service; that squirrel had time to bite that nice lady because there was no dog chasing it.

That said, I guess I better get back to work, protecting the citizens of this fine town from those vicious terrorists. Let your dogs out to do likewise :)

Argue either side: taxes kill

2006-10-27T17:20:00.000-05:00

Teh funny, at least during attack-ad season.

Artesian bread

2006-10-16T18:34:00.000-05:00

After the rain this morning, and after Alpha got done working on today's phase of the Great Bathroom Remodel of 2006, he and Beta and I went for a quick run to the butcher shop for some necessaries, then to the Farmer's Market and bought some beets. The summer squash were smallish (can you pickle them when they're little like that?), so we didn't get any. We passed on the other stuff as well, and headed to the grocery store (I've given HEB enough links. If their traffic from my readers isn't overloading their servers by now, it's not my fault. Well, maybe it is, but that's a different story altogether).

HEB is a friendly sort of store to shop. Three or four different spots there in the store, kind of scattered around, they have folks cookin' up or cuttin' up samples to toss to us as we go by. I suppose it's designed to get customers to deviate from their lists, but that's just a battle of willpower. Can't blame the store for trying. Plus, it makes the place smell better.

We'd grabbed our greens (no spinach, dammit) and our butter and cheese, and were headed for the beerandwine aisle (can't go to Lenny's every night), when a nice lady offered us a sample of "artesian bread". It was tasty. But I couldn't help feeling that it was more probably "artisan" bread than "artesian." Of course, it's technically more grammatically correct to refer to it as "artisanal bread," but who am I to split hairs?

I would like to see a picture of genuine artesian bread, though. I just wonder if it comes out of the ground in loaves or in slices...

On creative boredom

2006-10-11T19:16:00.000-05:00

Alpha and Beta, now that they don't live in the middle of nowhere, take frequent trips to stores that are actually less than fifty miles away. Most of the time they leave Ankle-Biter and me here at the house, to protect us (so they say) from the Texas heat. I take advantage, much of the time, to peruse the internet and read blogs. Some I read every chance I get, some I read less frequently.

One of the blogs I read regularly is written by Bob, a self-described reluctantly-retired long-haul trucker. Bob's good people. He likes dogs. He even puts a picture of one up once a week.

In this morning's post he refers to bananas as "monkey pickles." The reference is embedded in a story that has nothing to do with either jargon or the development of same, but the term got me to thinking about both.

Some of you may well be old enough to remember stories and songs about truckers and CB radios, and the lingo that evolved. I'm not that old, but the people I live with are. So I've heard it. Believe me. I've heard enough "What's your 20?" and "Smokey's taking pictures again" to make my stomach crave relief from the churning. And I've ridden past the dispatch yard in Omaha with all the baby-blue trucks-and-trailers enough times to make all of you feel the same way.

But just yesterday, Alpha and I rode out together to pick up some stuff, just around the corner at the H.E.B. (that's Texan for "grocery store, for you novices). As I sniffed that rolling belt that carries the beer away from us and toward the person that pushes the magic buttons that tell Alpha which card to wave at the other magic machine, I noticed that the guy on the other side of the counter was moving his pen along the belt. And every time it got to a certain spot - close to the end and right by a little glass dot on his side - the belt would stop moving. Alpha noticed, too, and the guy noticed that Alpha noticed, and said, "I mess with kids that way."

And I thought, "Boredom. This guy is less-than-challenged by his job, so he's inventing games."

And then, when I saw Bob's post this morning,I thought, "I wonder if it's all related."

Sure, there are other reasons that truckers would invent their own jargon: they need to be able to talk around the Smokeys, for one thing, or they'd collect more trading stamps than would be good for them. But that doesn't explain the creativity of "monkey pickles." That, I think, needs the ability of a creative mind to both navigate 60 tons of rig and load down the highway and at the same time wander the paths of creativity.

I wonder what they'd do with "achievement gap"...

Gotta love it

2006-10-10T08:21:00.000-05:00

It's a beautiful day:
Thunder and lightning, mostly in the distance, rain falling in surges, hard, then soft, then hard again. Thank goodness for the covered patio, so there's a comfortable place to curl up and watch it all while Alpha and Beta work their way through a pot of coffee.

We all went down to Lenny's bar-and-grill-and-swapmeet last night after supper. Someone had tied his Rottweiler to the lamp post outside for some reason. Maybe because of the "No Dogs at the Bar" sign, but that just means we can't actually sit at the bar - we have to keep our feet on the floor. Maybe to guard his motorcycle. Guess I should have asked the dog, but he looked grumpy, even after I gave him a sympathetic shrug on my way by.

It developed typically: Ankle-Biter and I curled up on the floor inside the door, Alpha and Beta sat at a nearby table, Lenny brought us each a beer, we watched the talking box on the wall, and we talked with some of the others who were there.

About twenty minutes later, a man in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt came in and asked, "Does anyone here own that Rottweiler outside?"

"Yeah, I do!" the tatooed guy at the bar said, standing up. "What about it?"

"Well, I think my chihuahua just killed him..."

"What are you talkin' about?!" the tatooed guy says, disbelievingly. "How could your little runt kill my Rottweiler?"

"Well, it seems he got stuck in your dog's throat..."

Roast beef and race horses

2006-10-04T09:41:00.000-05:00

Beta, bless her very much, has a pot roast in the oven already at this early hour, and rather than lie on the floor in from of the stove and drool, I thought I'd stop by here and blow off some steam. Besides, I can still smell it. Dog-drool doesn't jam the keyboard anyway. (Side note for humans: pizza sauce very effectively glues keys together. I had to do without my "g" key for a couple of days until Alpha realized what had happened and cleaned up after himself.)

Back to road-musings (and yes, Bob, you're welcome to join us at Lenny's anytime):

As you roll south out of Oklahoma and on into Don't Mess with Texas on Interstate 35, you travel some beautiful territory: steep enough grades to slow the eighteen-wheelers down, limestone outcroppings - some amazing habitat for things a dog just loves to chase. Oh, the human imprint is there, too, or there wouldn't be any I-35 to let us sail through: we'd have to actually slow down enough to filter through all the glorious smells.

Actually crossing the border raises a question for me, though, because before you come to the official Texas Travel Information Center" north of Gainesville, before you come to the first H.E.B., before you even get to the first business with "Lone Star" in its name or the first church or school, the first real-estate agent or pawn shop, you see right there on the west side of the interstate, DW's Adult Video "store." I should have made Alpha stop and take a picture, because words don't easily do it justice. Standing on the Oklahoma side of the border, anyone could snap a shot of DW's semi-trailer with the hand-painted sign, the wooden steps up out of the gravel parking lot into the trailer, and the handful of cars and trucks parked there anytime, day or night.

It just strikes me as odd that a state that has forty-six dry counties (entire counties where you can't even buy a bowl of beer, for those of you unfamiliar with the term), a state otherwise so staunchly Bible-Belt, would have a porn shop right on the border. It is, of course, Laissez-Faire Capitalism at its very best.

Closer to home, though, wide open ranch country begins to appear, and with it a number of horses, mostly quarterhorses.

Now I happen to think they're pretty critters, but they do get a bit full of themselves sometimes. Case in point:

Three of them were standing in the barn, chewing oats and chatting, just generally staying out of the midday heat. The first said, "You know, of seventeen races, I've won twelve."

The second, feeling his oats, insisted he had won eighteen of twenty-four. And the third, securely superior, insisted that she had won twenty-six of thirty-two.

The greyhound who shared the barn with the horses, somewhat tired of the attitudes, piped up, "Hmph! Brag all you want. I've won forty-five of the forty-seven races I've been entered in."

The horses looked at each other for a second before the middle one exclaimed, "I'll be darned. A talking dog!"

A long summer is finally over

2006-09-04T10:25:00.000-05:00

I know, I know. I've been away an unconscionable amount of time. I've missed so many Friday's I've lost track myself. Of course, I've also chased so many squirrels that I've lost track, but the yard has been safe, due in large part to my ferocious efforts.

Ankle-Biter and I have covered thousands of miles this summer, comfortably sitting in the back seat while Alpha drove. We've seen many things, and marked much new territory, most of it along I-35 and its connectors. It's nice to be home again, where we can wander down to Lenny's bar-and-grill-and-swapmeet to sit in the air conditioning and share a bowl of beer (A-B doesn't care for beer, for which I am grateful).

Like so many of the humans at Lenny's, we talk while we sip. The only difference is that we curl up by the door instead up on the stools at the bar.

We reminisce about the places we've been, the things we've seen, and the people we've met. It's been a long enough trip that I dare not try to cover it all at once: I'll try to spead the highlights out over a few days.

On the way out, and again on the way back, we passed through Wichita, Kansas. Outbound, we took I-335 toward Topeka. It's a pleasant enough run from there up into Nebraska to visit family (and from thence on through Iowa into Minnesota, to visit more family, and friends as well).

Homeward-bound, we came south farther west, dropping down to hook into I-135 north of Salina and on down into Wichita.

There are some important differences between I-335 and I-135. For one thing, I-335 is the United States Submarine Veterans' Memorial Highway and I-135 is the World War II Veterans' Memorial Highway (a stretch of I-135 is also the Ben E. Vidricksen Highway. He served several terms as a senator in the Kansas legislature, earning the nickname "Mr. Highways," and twenty-plus miles of interstate named after him). Another is that I-335 is a green line in the Rand-McNally, and I-135 is a blue line. This means that I-335 is part of the Kansas Turnpike - a toll road, and I-135 is a freebie. So, as a result, the submarine vets have to pay about four cents a mile to travel "their" road, while the War II vets travel on "theirs" for free. That seems a dubious way to honor the submariners.

Of course, declaring highways to be veterans' memorials seems gratuitous to me anyway. It's like frosting with no cake - they'd be better served by a closer V.A. clinic, whether it cost a few bones or not. At least at Lenny's we can buy them a beer.

Enough pontificating.

There's a story floating around the internet, one I saw first at A Smile a Day, and then just recently at G'Day Mate, so it's covering the planet pretty thoroughly. Thing is, both of those places are treating it as a joke (and yes, they've stripped out some of the details), but I happen to know that it's a true story, because I was there at Lenny's when it happened:

Len's mom, Ellie, came into the bar the other afternoon and found Len wandering around behind the bar with a fly-swatter.

"Lenny," she said. "Whatcha doin'?"

"Swattin' flies, Mamma. Just swattin' flies."

"Get any yet?"

"Yep, five. Three males and a couple females."

"How d'you know what sex they were?!?"

"Three were on beer cans and two were on the phone."

Rewards exist

2006-07-14T07:22:00.000-05:00

Alpha and Beta have started walking. For two reasons, I guess, the first being that Beta's doctor told her to after her most recent hospital visit, and the second being that retirement can drain all the fitness out of you if you opt for the rocking-chair version.

I go along, and the walks are getting longer, so I've seen some new territory and made some new friends.

Several blocks away, the neighborhood goes decidedly upscale, and that's where I met Crystal.

Crystal, in spite of all the money floating around, is a regular dog, more like Gus and me than hoity-toity. She'd fit right in down at Len's bar-and-grill-and-swap meet.

When we went by the other day, she was sitting on the front porch chuckling.

It seems her humans had just fired their maid, who, on the way out, had tucked a fifty-dollar bill in Crystal's collar. Her human, of course, asked why, and the maid said, "Because I never forget a friend. That, Crystal, is for doing the dishes all this time."

Back in the Day

2006-07-07T07:37:00.000-05:00

Alpha and Beta, the humans whom I adopted and have spent these years training, used to teach school. I had to let them leave the house early in the morning, and often they wouldn't return until late in the day. I'm sure it was hard for them, but it was hard for me as well, letting them go off into the big world unsupervised like that.

They took off again yesterday to reunite with some friends they had made over the years and across the internet, friends from T-Net. A & B have haunted the chatboards there for quite a while, and developed almost blogosheric friendships with some of the people in the main live chatroom.

In between worrying about how they were representing me in the wide world in Austin, TX, and hoping they would look both ways for traffic on the road there and back, I had time to reminisce about our time together. Alpha likes to tell stories, see, even if he doesn't always remember the punch line. It's sometimes like reading that Mark Twain story "Grandpa's Goat," where you get to the end only to find yourself back at the beginning. Oh, well, at least the journey is entertaining. Besides, sometimes it's better that he not remember the punchline, as it's not terribly funny anyway.

A case in point (and, since he taught, he tends toward teacher-stories):

Mrs. Jones, the third-grade teacher, was having some difficulty with young Billy, a student in her class. He wasn't mean, he wasn't refusing to learn, in fact, he was learning everything rather quickly. But he didn't pay much attention to detail, and he could be disruptive with disturbing frequency.

Mrs. Jones determined to make a home visit, and speak with Billy's parents.

She parked her car in front of the address she'd been given, and sure enough, there was Billy playing with a puppy in the front yard. "Hi, Mrs. Jones," he shouted.

"Good afternoon, Billy," she said. "Where are your parents?"

"They ain't here." Billy rolled the puppy over.

Mrs. Jones added a note of sternness. "Billy! Where's your grammar?!"

"Oh, she's out in back weeding the tomatoes."

Ed. note: I added the part about the puppy. Alpha doesn't tell it that way.

A New-York-City Carnival!

2006-07-05T10:29:00.000-05:00

This is not a salsa commercial: This is the 74th Carnival of Education, hosted from the BiG Apple by NYC Educator with his usual panache.

Because it chatouieth myn fancie

2006-06-30T16:10:00.000-05:00

I'm no writer of Middle English, but by the Great Dane and St Bernard, I can puzzle my way through it when I come across it.

For several months, now, I have availed myself of the opportunities at Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog, where Old Geoff his own self holds forth somewhat sporadically.

I'll admit right up front that it isn't necessarily up everyone's alley (or the alleye of everyoune), as it sometimes requires rolling over, barking, and scratching one's right ear simultaneously to get the gist of it. However, he's currently sorting through the characters he's created to participate in a fictional pilgrimmage tentatively titled Tales of Canterburye. I hope he doesn't end up leaving these guys crumpled up in the recycle bin:

An INDIAN CHIEF, a COWBOYE and a COPPE
A WERKERE and a LEATHER MANNE (a toppe)
Did marche togedir in fraternitee
Al thogh thei were of varyinge lyveree.
Thei knewe sum auncient magicke remedye
For “Y M C A” dide they ful loude crye,
And lifte ther armes lyk vnto menne gone woode.
And eek yt semede their mappe was nat too goode:
Thogh Canterburye-warde we headede Est
In unison thei seyde to us ‘Go Weste.’

Imponderables

2006-06-30T08:23:00.000-05:00

I finally got Alpha out of the house long enough to take him for a walk. He's been complaining about a sore back, and I think it's mostly because he hasn't been using it much.

We went down Maple, east on Pine, up Lilac, back west on Birch, and around the corner to home.

The whole time, I kept wondering why humans name their streets after bathrooms.

Feeling Flat on Friday

2006-06-23T08:35:00.000-05:00

I'm suffering from a severe lack of inspiration this week: nothing has struck my funny bone as particularly entertaining. That might, of course, be related to the fact that the humans haven't been around much: Alpha's been back and forth to the hospital visiting Beta. They're back now, so I'm getting caught up, but I'm still not really up to speed.

It'd be different, I suppose, if Ankle-Biter were better company, but with his being blind and his congestive heart failure, he mostly just sits. He's taking his diuretics, so he also pees, but really, that's hardly what I call "good" company. And he barks. At nothing. Whenever he feels like it.

Well, let me rummage around in my attic and see what I can throw up here. How about if you take me for a ride?

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Friday again already?

2006-06-16T07:44:00.000-05:00

The days just fly by, I guess, and before I know it, it's Friday again. I can tell because everyone in the neighborhood has their trash out on the curb.

Some of you may know that Czechs settled this area shortly after the original immigration dispute with Mexico was settled. That explains the large number of names in the local phone book that end with -cek or with -ska.

Len, who runs the bar-and-grill-and-swap-meet up the road, is a descendant of Czeck immigrants, which makes no real difference, except that it's what reminded me of that bit of historical trivia.

Len's mother, Ellie Strmmiska, went on vacation just a few weeks ago, and boarded her flight home with her purse over her shoulder, her carry-on bag in tow, and her little dog in his box. She found her seat, stashed the carry-on in the overhead, and set the dog-in-the-box on the seat next to her.

Almost immediately, the flight attendant came by and said, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but the flight is going to be full and we'll need that seat. I'll have to take the dog and put it in baggage."

Ellie agreed. What else could she do?

During the flight, the flight attendant looked in on the little dog, and said words I cannot repeat, for the dog was dead. She informed the pilot who notified the airport who told the director who decided that they would get an other dog to replace this one. The little old lady would never know.

When the plane landed and Ellie went to baggage claim, they brought her a box with a new dog, an exact replica of her old dog.

"This is not my dog", Ellie stated.

"Why, yes, it is," the manager said. "See, it has the same markings."

"This is not my dog", Ellie insisted.

"How do you know this isn't your dog?" asked the manager.

"My dog is dead!"

Melting pot

2006-06-09T08:21:00.000-05:00

Around here, Len's bar-and-grill-and-swap-meet is the true social melting pot. The folks who work at the gin stop by on their way home, as do the town lawyer and doctor and mayor. The people who just come out to their hobby ranch to escape from their high-pressured, oh-so-important jobs in the big city come in on weekends, and everyone kind of rubs shoulders with everyone else. I think it's the hand-made margaritas.

Whatever the cause, it makes for some interesting listening, as many of those people bring their best friends along. Sometimes there are nearly as many dogs lined up along the wall as there are people lined up along the bar.

Len doesn't let the dogs sit at the bar. He used to, but someone complained to the health department. I wish I knew who it was, because I did enjoy those days. Maybe it was Milt, but I doubt he's been to this corner of the planet yet. And I don't think he really objects to dogs as much as he does to overflowing toilets.

Last weekend, the heat brought sane people off the street and into the cool of Len's place. I took my spot, three over from the door - not quite the corner, that's Sadie's spot (she's Len's hound, for those of you who don't know). I circled a couple times and then sat.

A few minutes later, Gus came in. Now Gus is like me: mixed breed, a rescued-off-the-streets kind of dog. He's good company. And right behind him comes a snow-white poodle with a diamond-studded collar. I never did catch her name, but she started right in whining about the operation she was recovering from.

"It was horrible. And SO painful. I couldn't even walk for two whole days," she complained.

Gus, conversationalist that he is, asked, "What kind of surgery did you have?"

The poodle sniffed, and said, "I had a hysterectomy."

Gus said, "Good grief, girl. Why can't you just call a spayed a spayed?"

Time for a ride

2006-06-07T09:07:00.000-05:00

The 70th Carnival of Education is up and running over at the Education Wonks. The rides are free, even the good ones.