Weekend Funny

 The first applicant of the day at the Pearly Gates explains that his last day was not a good one. “I came home early and found my wife lying naked in bed. She claimed she had just got out of the shower. Well, her hair was dry and I checked the shower and it was completely dry too. I knew she was into some hanky-panky and I began to look for her lover. I went onto the balcony of our 9th-floor apartment and found the guy clinging to the rail by his fingertips.

I was so angry that I began bashing his fingers with a flower pot. He let go and fell, but his fall was broken by some awnings and bushes. On seeing he was still alive I found superhuman strength to drag our antique cedar chest to the balcony and throw it over. It hit the man and killed him. At this point the stress got to me and I suffered a massive heart attack and died.”

Saint Peter thanked him for his story and sent him on to the waiting room.
The second applicant said that his last day was his worst.
“I was on the roof of an apartment-building working on the AC equipment
and I stumbled over my tools and toppled off the building. I managed to grab onto the balcony rail of a 9th-floor apartment but some idiot came rushing out on the balcony and bashed my hands with a flower pot. I fell but hit some awnings and bushes and survived, but as I looked up I saw a huge chest falling toward me. I tried to crawl out of the way but failed and was hit and killed by the chest.”

Saint Peter couldn’t help but chuckle as he directs the man to the waiting room.
Saint Peter is still chuckling when his third customer of the day enters.
He apologizes and says, “I doubt that your last day was as interesting as the two fellows that arrived here just before you.”
“I don’t know,” replies the man. “Picture this, I’m naked, hiding in this cedar chest…”

Old Groaner

 Oly was working at the lumberyard, pushing a tree through the buzz saw, and accidentally sliced off all ten of his fingers.

He rushes to the emergency room. The doctor who examines him is really disturbed at such a tragedy. “Oh, yuck! Well, that’s all right, Oly, give me the fingers and I’ll see what I can do for you.”

“I haven’t got the fingers,” Oly said, gasping through his pain.

The doctor said, “What do you mean, you haven’t got the fingers? It’s 2021. We’ve got microsurgery and all kinds of incredible techniques. I could have reattached the fingers. You’d be as good as new! Why didn’t you bring the fingers?”

“Well, geez, Doc,” Oly groaned, I couldn’t pick ’em up.”

Tuesday afternoon

Yeah, I really don't have much to say. 

Thank you for all of your kind words. I mean it -- it touches me that my internet friends, strangers really, care enough to comment upon my life's tragedies.

Mostly, this is an effort to move that post down. 

Done.

We are in the midst of a big warm up. Temps are in the forties today, The snow is finally melting.  

I guess this is going to be a post of random non sequiturs. That is nothing new either.

The only good thing to come from my dad's passing is my son is coming home from Colorado for a couple of days.  It has been more than a year since I saw him last -- when he surprised me for Christmas in 2019. It will be very, very good to see him.

Is it strange that I find the posts I think are among the best (grading on a curve, obviously) are those that I have written regarding the deaths in my family since I started writing this blog -- my grandmother, my mother-in-law, my grandson, my mom, and now my dad? Your opinion may vary. My opinion of this notion may change upon a whim. Memory is a strange thing, I don't reread my writings often, and I usually skip the painful ones, so my viewpoint could be more than a little skewed. They have certainly been the hardest to write. Perhaps I equate effort with quality? 

Bippity, boppity, boo. I should have put up the bad joke I intended when I started typing. 

Now you know what to expect tomorrow.

Counting Down

One......two......three.....each labored breath was accompanied by a low moan on the exhale....six.....seven.....the timer on the phone counted down the seconds from the minute timer as  the slow shallow breathing continued.....twelve.....thirteen.....fourteen.....one minute was up.

There was no breath number fifteen. I had just counted my Dad's last breaths on Earth*. I looked at my brother. "He's gone", I said. Dad's pain was done. He had gone to join my Mom in Heaven. 

I had made my peace with it in the previous days.

He called me at precisely two am Friday morning. The conversation was short. "Joe, I need you to come stay with me"

"I'm on my way. I'll be there as fast as I can".

It was just a a few days more than month ago, on his birthday, when he went to see the doctor about swelling and fluid leaking from his leg. Two days later he was back at the Doc, and on his way to the hospital where he was told it was the Big C, a mass filling his whole abdomen, more spread through his body. Go home. Call hospice. Make arrangements. 

He was vomiting in a bucket when I got there. Uneaten food sat on the tray beside his recliner. He was weak. Throughout Friday I helped him get up, brought him water, watched westerns on TV with the volume turned way too loud. He slept on and off, more on than not. Hospice came. A hospital bed was ordered. He moved into the bed. Friday night was rough. He was up every ten minutes or so. Saturday saw my family come to see him. The hospice nurse came by. The end was getting near. Morphine was brought into the picture. Saturday night was restless, but better than Friday as the drugs held him down.

Sunday my brother came. The hospice nurse administered stronger cocktails to ease his pain. Death came to visit too. 

My Pop was gone. I choose to remember him sipping beer, laughing, his good humor evident. Not as the shrunken, broken shell that held on to me as I lifted him up in the hospital bed in his living room.

So long Dad. You are back with Mom, where you belong.

* the hospice nurse said tracking the breaths per minute was a gauge of his status

Do you remember?

Once upon a time there was a huge, once in a hundred years natural disaster. Weather played havoc with electric power and people ran out of food, water, and everyday basic needs. The President was universally condemned for his failure to respond in a timely manner as it took a few days to declare a Federal Emergency and get FEMA involved. The Katrina deaths were blamed on President Bush and we still mark the anniversary in some circles every year.

Remember when President Buden* was held to the same standard as people die in weather ravaged Texas? 

Yeah, me neither.

Revenge of the astrix

 The weather cognoscenti all agree we are getting a big dose of Climate Change today with frigid temperatures, sub-zero windchills, and up to a foot of snow. I call it winter.

We were advised to cut back on the thermostat and throw on an extra sweatshirt because natural gas prices are on the rise. Seems there is a developing shortage. 

Biden* has put a moratorium on fracking and drilling so the once so plentiful natural gas supply we were exporting it is starting to dry up. Who saw that coming? I suspect we will see $4 gas by the end of the year. But the pouty Scandinavian teenager will be less unhappy, so there is that. More importantly, Trump can’t tweet mean things any more. 

Thanks for that Biden* voters.

Thoughts XIV

 I spilled spot remover on my dog

Now he is gone 

Oh, Happy Valentines Day

Karma Komodo Dragon

When I was eighteen I was still getting into movies at “child” prices.

I was routinely carded when I was well into my thirties when buying beer.

Even in my forties I looked young for my age.

Today? I’m not even sixty and I look ten years older. 

I don’t feel old. Most days. The mirror tells the truth, though.

Life is sure funny.

Fact

 The Godfather is undoubtedly the greatest movie ever made.

You may argue in the comments. If you put forth that The Godfather II is better, I might listen. Otherwise you are wrong in your opinion (my statement is fact).

Don’t even think about proposing that weak Rosebud the sled movie. 

Thinking again

I keep hearing the impeachment advocates arguing that Republicans need to have open minds. They say they need 17 GOPers to vote guilty. 

No one mentions that every Democrat is assumed to vote guilty. 

I guess open minds only works in one direction 

Dear Bruce

 After four years of your decisiveness, hate, and general assholery, I refuse to listen to you lecture me on reuniting the country. Kiss my ass.

And Jeep you can pucker up too for paying for that piece of crap ad.

Why would any company go out of its way to antagonize fifty percent of its prospective customer base? 

Slouching Towards Banana Republicanism

James Madison wrote the Constitution with remarkably clear, concise, and simple prose. It remains eminently readable some 230 years later. Consider Article I Sections 3.6 and 3.7:

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

So to parse just a bit (even a non-lawyer like me can read this plain English) : "shall not extend further than to removal from Office". Since Trump is no longer holding public office, impeachment is not available. To disqualify Trump from future office is included only through the "and". It is not an either/or/whichever we choose option*. The text is clear. You cannot impeach someone is is not in office. Further, the Chief Justice is not presiding, making the entire affair extralegal. 

I will not even get too deep into other issues with the impeachment. For instance the notion that Trump incited the riots when the justice department has charged some of the participants with "conspiracy" -- meaning they had advance plans for a crime, thus Trump could not have incited the riots. Nor the totally un-American notion of justice when the supposed "Judge" gets to vote on the conviction. I don't se a lot of justice there. 

Trust me on this, the Democrats will rue the day they have taken this unprecedented act of political revenge. Biden participated in the unlawful spying on the Trump campaign with Obama. His dealings with Ukraine and China are still suspect. Can we go back and impeach Clinton again? No future politician will be safe. Jackson and Wilson and LBJ used the N-word with abandon. Several owned slaves. Are we going to go full Stalin and erase the history of any predecessor whose politics we do not like? Is the mere expression of one's First Amendment Rights a crime now?

This is a sad farce and politics at the most evil basic level. I spit on all concerned.

* Don't even start with the morally bankrupt Cabinet Officer from the Grant administration. He should have been allowed to resign and charged with the full might of the law for his malfeasance.  First that guy was not the President, besides, precedent is not set in stone.  I'm looking at you Dred Scott and Plessey vs. Fergusson. Do not waste my time on that specious argument.

Thoughts

 Seems there are two types of people: Those who love Tom Brady and decent human beings.

Cowboys

 A lady went into a bar in Waco and saw a cowboy with his feet propped up on a table. He had the biggest feet she’d ever seen. The woman asked the cowboy if it’s true what they say about men with big feet being well endowed. The cowboy grinned and said ‘Shore is, little lady. Why don’t you come on out to the bunkhouse and let me prove it to you?’

The woman wanted to find out for herself, so she spent the night with him. The next morning she handed him a $100 bill . Blushing, he said, ‘Well, thankya, ma’am. Ah’m real flattered. Ain’t nobody ever paid me fer mah services before.’ ‘Don’t be flattered… Take the money and buy yourself some boots that fit.’