God only knows what I'd be without you

 On this date thirty-nine years ago the most beautiful woman in the world decided I was adequate enough to actually marry me. 

I am a lucky man.

Do you remember?

 There were these two elderly people living in a Florida mobile home park.

He was a widower and she was a widow.

They had known one another for a number of years.

Now, one evening there was a community supper in the big activity centre.

These two were at the same table, across from one another.

As the meal went on, he made a few admiring glances at her and finally gathered up his courage to ask her,

“Will you marry me?”

After a dramatic pause and precisely six seconds of ‘careful consideration,’ she answered.

“Yes. Yes, I will.”

The meal ended and with a few more pleasant exchanges and they went to their respective places.

Next morning, he was troubled. “Did she say ‘yes’ or did she say ‘no’?”

He couldn’t remember.

Try as he would, he just could not recall. Not even a faint memory.

With trepidation, he went to the telephone and called her.

First, he explained to her that he didn’t remember as well as he used to.

Then he reviewed the lovely evening past.

As he gained a little more courage, he then inquired of her,

“When I asked if you would marry me, did you say ‘Yes’ or did you say ‘No’?”

He was delighted to hear her say,

“Why, I said, ‘Yes, yes I will’ and I meant it with all my heart.”

Then she continued,

“And I am so glad that you called because I couldn’t remember who had asked me.”

 

Smoke on the water, in the trees, obscuring the sun

From my windshield 

Yesterday was hazy all day as Canadian smoke clouded the atmosphere. Glancing out the office window, today looks to be more of the same. Yet the climateers  are trying to say wood-fired pizza ovens and gas stoves are one of the biggest threats to the environment. Is it a requirement one give up all common sense to join the climate change/global warming/we are all gonna die cult?

 

Day in Court

An atheist became incensed over Christmas holiday preparations.

He filed a lawsuit about the constant celebrations given to Christians and Jews while atheists had no holiday to celebrate.

The case was brought before a judge.

After listening to the long, passionate presentation by the atheist’s lawyer, the judge banged his gavel and declared, “Case dismissed!”

The lawyer immediately stood and objected to the ruling.

“Your honor, how can you possibly dismiss this case? The Christians have Christmas, Easter, and many other observances. Jews have Passover, Yom Kippur, and Hanukkah. Yet, my client and all other atheists have no such holiday!”

The judge leaned forward in his chair and simply said, “Obviously, your client is too confused to know about, much less celebrate his own atheist holiday!”

The lawyer pompously said, “Your honor, we are unaware of any such holiday for atheists. Just when might that holiday be?”

The judge replied, “Well, it comes every year on exactly the same date. Psalm 14:1 states, ‘The fool says in his heart, there is no God.’

Thus, if your client says there is no God then, according to the Bible, he is a fool.

April Fool’s Day is his holiday. Now, get out of my courtroom!” 

Aunty Em!

We dodged some storms yesterday. There was severe weather including large hail to the north and tornadoes to the south. Those tornadoes hit very near where there was  a major strike in March. Mother Nature must hate the south Indy suburbs. 

This one looked straight out of the special effects department for a modern Oz. We got a little rain in the morning and a few sprinkles in the evening storms, not enough to even wet the pavement. Luckily, no one was killed in the storms. 

I’m having a hard time getting excited about work this week. I’m looking forward to the long holiday weekend. I took off next Monday, so I will have four days off. I’m thinking about taking Friday too. Not for any reason, just because. The really sad part is if I do, I will be bored to death and will end up working anyway. Like many Americans, I have a work problem. 

That is enough of this nonsense for today. Have a great one! 

Flower

 

For Jean

What the bleep is wrong with people?

It looks to be a warm typical June-like Saturday. We have no particular plans until this evening. Back in March, my wife bought tickets to see Jeff Foxworthy for my birthday and the show is tonight. 

Last evening we went to the cinema, and yet again encountered members of the genpop who have no idea how to behave in public settings. From the lady a few seats down from my wife who clearly subscribed to the more is better theory when it comes to splashing on eye-watering amounts of perfume to the buffoon the row in front of us who could not understand the huge difference in viewing a movie at the theater and his living room couch. I have never wanted to smack someone about the race and head as much as this guy. He couldn’t shut his pie hole the entire movie, and he was not whispering either. *

As we were leaving, this jerkwad was telling his wife he would gather their trash, it is what he does, he is a mule. My sweet wife, who never says anything unkind muttered, “Well you are an ass anyway”. Score one for the spouse.  It took a great deal of self-restraint to not confront this ill-mannered moron as we left the theater. 

I listened to a combination of audiobooks and music during my 13 plus hours in the car this week. I cranked the volume when this tune came on my playlist. I haven’t heard it in ages.

Have a great Saturday. 

*This jerk actually shouted “Yes, Yes” and raised his arms as if he was Rocky at the denouement of the film. 

What the heck?

I wish I could claim I was on drugs. I am not sure where this came from, but this is a post from June of 2006. Comments, if any, are lost. This is some strange stuff.

If it weren't for bad luck...

I was walking through the woods, the smell of the black spruce and the sound of the wind through the aspen reflected the glory of Mother Nature. I crossed a small brook, the water swirling among the rocks and came around a bend in the trail to a small meadow. The edges of the glade were choked with huge blackberry bushes. The berries were as big as my thumb and sweet as candy. Soon my hands and face were purple with juice.

I reached up high on a bush for a particularly succulent berry and suddenly smelt a horrid odor. I wrinkled my nose as I heard a grunt and rustle behind me. I turned to see a huge bear rising to his hind legs with a tremendous growl and roar. He swiped his left paw towards my head. I remembered an old Boy Scout lesson that said to play dead in the face of a bear attack and I fell to the ground motionless.

My mom always said I was good actor. I can tell you Burton and Brando had nothing on me that day. Jack Nicholson would have asked me for lessons, even if it meant skipping a Lakers game. I was barely breathing as that bear pushed at me with his claws and sniffed my neck. He breathed his putrid breath in my face as I was the greatest corpse ever. The bear shuffled off a few feet to feast on my berry patch, occasionally returning to make sure I was still dead.

I was as good a corpse as you have ever seen still breathing. Maybe, I realized, I was too good, as I felt the claws sink into my legs and the sharp beaks of the buzzards ripped into the flesh above my kidneys.

Digging out the Dockers from the back of the closet

I’m off to do my Willie Loman thing, this time a quick two day sojourn into the Tennessee hinterlands. I have not been to this location of Really Big Customer, so I am looking forward to visiting and hopefully touring the plant. This is a friendly visit, no issues, no complaints. I have plenty of those going on at my other Big Customer. 

Yes? You in the back, what is your question? Not to worry, I will have a few minutes in the morning to put up content. You will be okay. 

I believe some country music is in order this morning.

Enjoy your Wednesday.

Setting the record straight

Look, if we are going to have Juneteenth as a federal holiday, fine. But in no way, shape, or form, is the day a commemoration of the date slavery ended. That date can refer to the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. (Jan 1st) or the date slavery actually ended (13th Amendment passed on December 6th). Juneteenth is the date slaves in Houston / Galveston learned the Civil War was over. 

If your favorite newsreader or network tells you the holiday represents the ending of slavery, they are uneducated, misinformed, or liars. Whichever the case, you should regard anything else they tell you with extreme skepticism. 

On a slow boat from China

No time to blog this morning. A work crises needs to be addressed. The plant has screwed up. If I didn’t know better I would swear Joe Biden was running the place. I am going to have to ask my boss to get involved, and that pisses me off. If this does not get fixed fast, I will look bad, the company will look bad, our customer will look bad to their customer. All to save a few bucks on air freight. I don’t get it, why risk nearly four million dollars in business to save a few thousand dollars? If I was in charge, someone would be fired. 

I hope your Monday is better than mine.

Happy Fathers Day

Best wishes to all you dads out there.

I miss you Pop.

When it comes to brains he got the short end of the stick

Like every day this week I woke up early. I don’t know why. I am sure you do not know either. That means the opening to this post is mere complaint. I have become the Karen of blogging. I would like to see the manager about waking every day at 5:30, please. 

I will have to pause in my one-fingered typing on the little iPad keyboard a little more often this morning. My favorite Yeti cup is dirty, so I am drinking from a ceramic travel mug instead. The ceramic cup does not keep the java hot as long. I do not enjoy cold coffee. Yes, I could have washed the Yeti cup. What is your point? 

We are heading off this afternoon to our friends’ to hang out at their pool. Beer, cigars, and laughter are all in the plans. I can live with that. It is good to be me. It is better to have friends with nice stuff who are willing to share. I will, of course, bring my own beer and stogies. We will also bring snacks. The wife is not a heathen, and she has trained me to behave in polite society. Mostly. 

A new cookie store opened nearby. We decided to stop and try out the place the other evening. Two girls/young women were in front of the store posing with their open box of cookies for pictures. I suppose it was an Instagram post. My first thought was “why?”, who cares what you are going to eat. My second was “so what, it doesn’t affect me at all”. Whatever, girls, whatever. The name of the franchise is a bit strange; Dirty Dough. I don’t think they paid a marketing expert a lot of cash to come up with that moniker. It doesn’t make you want to rush out and grab an overpriced treat.

I am in a country frame of mind this morning. 

Have a great Saturday.

Sure Fire Father’s Day Gift Ideas

For those of you who are long time readers you know I always offer well-reasoned opinion and sound advice. If I am wrong, I readily admit it. 

I will, should it happen. 

This year I am going to tell you exactly what your man wants for Father’s Day. He wants some biscuits and sausage gravy for breakfast. He wants some nookie without asking. He wants a steak for dinner, should you forego making the B&G in order to get him the nookie before the kids get up. 

That’s it. Do that and you are golden.

Trust me. 

In dreams I walk with you

I had some weird dreams last night. I will not detail them here; dream accounts are monumentally boring. Frankly, I don’t know what Freud was thinking when he studied dreams. Why, just why? Perhaps that is why his theories are so much nonsense — gibberish in, gibberish out. 

Yesterday was a good day at work. I won the business on a new project and received a request for quotation on another very large one : three million pieces per year! 

The weather has turned nice and seasonally warm. I can live with that. 

In all, a boring post, but so it goes.

To liven up the old blog I think I’ll post some music relating to dreams. Several choices come to mind. This tune won out:

If you don’t like Roy Orbison, you probably shouldn’t read this blog. 

Okay, that was probably a little bit extreme. You are all welcome to read here, but I will think a bit less of you.

apples and history

I stood at the kitchen counter this morning dumping pills from brown and white bottles in my morning ritual. I swallowed all five at once, then put a steroid drop in each eye. I fed a Walmart-brand coffee pod into the machine. There was an apple on the counter and the smell brought forth a long-dormant memory. 

My great grandparents lived in a tiny four room house on the west side of town. The house always smelled of coal oil and apples. Grandpa never said much. He sat on the porch swing, a grey railroad engineer’s cap perched on his bald head. Every now and then he would lean forward and spit a stream of tobacco juice into the bushes in front of the porch. The back of the shrubbery was dead, the front green. The side yard was littered with lumps of discarded chew. The smell of that apple reminded me vividly of that house. 

Thoughts of my great grandparents makes me appreciate the ties of history. My great grandfather’s father was a civil war veteran. Ponder that.  Man I wish child me had asked some questions. Mostly, child me was bored silly sitting around at the old people’s house. Great Grandpa did let me swing on the porch with him though.

Doctor Visit

 An elderly couple visits a doctor

The doctor says to the old man,

“I’ll need a urine sample, a feces sample, and a blood sample.”

The old man says, “What?”

The doctor repeats himself.

Once again the old man says, “what?”

So the doctor yells it,

“I NEED A URINE SAMPLE, A FECES SAMPLE, AND A BLOOD SAMPLE!”

With that the old woman turns to the old man and says,

“He said needs a pair of your underwear!”

Jane, you gnorant slut

I am remarkably uninspired to address anything on the old blog today. Sorry about that. Feel free to send a request and I will gladly refund today’s portion of your subscription. That is simply good customer service. 

I read a remarkably self-righteous political commentary on a blog this morning. A quick rebuttal, or more accurately, an attempt to point out the author’s rank hypocrisy sprang to mind. I dismissed the notion before even clicking on the comment link. Laziness or maturity? Who knows. Who cares?

Do not forget to send in those refund forms. The offer is only good until 11:59 PM June 12, 2023.

How about that

I thought the Unabomber died a long time ago.

If you go chasing rabbits

Not yesterday

Yesterday evening I moseyed out to the back patio to read a bit of John D. McDonald. It is not one of his Travis McGee adventures, but interesting nonetheless. John D. is always good. Something caught my attention; a movement, a sound. I looked next to my chair and there’s a rabbit, not two feet away, on the concrete. It looked at me and slowly hopped off to the flower bed. It stood on hind legs, watched me and hopped off without a care towards the gate. I must have shook my head in wonder. I looked back down at my novel.

It was only a few seconds later that I heard a rustle in the flower bed behind me, on the other side of the grill. Another bunny ran up, stopped  beside my chair and looked around. I did not move. He followed the first hare but stopped to nibble beside the playhouse. 

A third rabbit ran past my chair, startled the second one, and ran behind the playhouse. The second rabbit ran towards the back fence. The third bunny sat in the grass, looking around. At one point he too stood on his back legs to stare at me.  I went back to my book. Finally, a few pages later, the third rabbit hopped off in the path of the first rabbit. 

And that, my friends, is exactly why I did not bother to plant a garden this year. 

The spotlight's hitting something That's been known to change the weather

Yesterday was the wife’s redacted birthday. The grandgirls helped me bake a chocolate cake. We did not do much celebrating, the girls had their dance recital last night. Both did great. I did take the wife for a steak dinner on Wednesday. 

The baseball season is about a third of the way complete. The Cubs are ten games under .500. I cannot look forward to the NFL season, I have no hope the Colts will be competitive. So it goes. 

It looks to be decent weather Saturday, so I hope to get some more yard work done. Sunday may bring some much needed rain. In the meantime, I have work today. The paying kind. 

I had a couple of professional writers take a look at the opening portion of my someday novel. Both gave me valuable insight. I think I may start a new blog and publish it in sections. Stay tuned and watch the sidebar. BTW, it is mostly complete. Now it needs significant editing. The end needs a bit more flesh, but it is done in principle.

Here is some music for your Friday. Since it is apparently some sort of law we must acknowledge the alphabeters, here is the Queen himself:

Head Scratchin’ here boss.

One of the issues of the “woke” crowd is cultural appropriation. We are told that a person of one race adopting the culture, dress, or language of another culture is wrong. Pale skin red head with dreadlocks? Nope. White guy playing a Native American in a Western? Uh-uh.

But then why is okay for a person of apparent African American decent to portray Cathryn of Arygon in the Broadway musical Six? 

Can only White People be guilty of cultural appropriation? Is there a list of rules somewhere, so I can keep up?

That old guy across the street came over today

The wife’s day lilies are starting to bloom. The pop of bright yellow always makes me smile. There are buds on the tiger lilies, those plants I can see. That flower bed in the back is getting swallowed by weeds and stray mulberries and is in need of serious work. I should have pruned and dug in the fall and weather and laziness prevented it and now that flowerbed is just ugly. Maybe this weekend. I will have to trample some of the flowers to get at the weeds. There is some kind of metaphor there, but now we are back to that laziness thing. 

One of my neighbors sold his house and moved last month. He was the longest resident of the cul-de-sac and they were a great family. Some new people moved in. They appear to be a young couple; late twenties, early thirties. Yesterday while grabbing the mail I saw the wife out moving her trash cans from the curb. I sauntered over to introduce myself.

Close your jaw and get rid of that shock face. Yes, I attempted to be neighborly. 

I told her I was Joe and welcome to the neighborhood. She said nice to meet you. She never offered her name or anything. I uttered some nonsense about it being a good neighborhood as she stared at me with disinterest. I told her I work from home if she ever needs anything. It was a total throw away statement implying neighborliness. She said no, her husband works from home too. Dismissed. Ok then. I walked back home. Message received. 

Boy, are the new neighbors going to be surprised when the whole court stages a Fourth of July block party in a few weeks. 

A mea culpa. I did not put up a D-Day post yesterday. It is one of the few times in this old blogs history I did not mark the occasion. WTH, Joe?

Edit. Said new neighbor is out there at 7:30 AM mowing his yard. I don’t find that too neighborly, either. 

The Picture Diet

I remember one time when I was home visiting my folks. My mom asked me to set the table for dinner. I opened the refrigerator and taped to the inside of the door was a risque picture of a lovely, slender, perfectly built, but scantily-clad young woman.

“Mom, what’s this?” I asked.

“Oh, I put that up there to remind me not to overeat,” she answered.

“Is it working?” I asked.

“Yes and no,” she explained. “I’ve lost 15 pounds, but your dad has gained 20!”

this week is starting out crappy

I had a busy day yesterday. I cut the lawn and power washed the front porch and the back patio. And of course, later in the evening when I went to sit on said patio, I noticed a bird had crapped all over the place. It is as if he sat on the gutter and dropped diarrhea right outside the patio door. 

Now it is on to Monday.

How many more days?

My wife’s birthday is in June. So is Father’s Day and our anniversary. It is generally a pleasant month kicking off summer and lots of great memories. 

That said, I wish it was over and done and July was upon us. I am already sick and tired and disgusted with Pride Month. 

when the sun beats down and burns the tar up on the roof

So that is how it is. I usually have about 12 readers here at the old blog. I guess yesterday’s effort was more boring than usual since only about six tuned in. I guess I cannot hit a home run every time. That said,  I have  even less to say today. It will be hot. We are taking the kids to the public pool to play in the chlorine and pee soaked water with the gen pop. I will pretend to have a good time. 

In my youth, I loved the public pool. I went pretty much every day in the middle school years. There is even a post over there in the archives about those memories, should you care to search for it. Here I did the work for you. You are welcome. No, no, I am no hero.

This tune always evokes summertime memories.

a little bit of nothing

I will fire up the old laptop n a few minutes to deal with work stuff. Technically, I am on vacation today and tomorrow, but that is how things go usually. I was replying to emails from China at eleven last night. That is common too. That is certainly not a complaint, but a statement of fact. That is why I did not feel bad for not working when I got home from Detroit last Friday afternoon. Besides, I left home early on the previous Sunday.

We are watching the grandgirls all week while mom and dad are out of town. So far I think everyone has had fun. We went to the zoo on Monday and the wife took them to the pool on Tuesday. I am not sure of the activity schedule for the next two days, but I am open to whatever. Those girls are sweeties.

I have had issues with my phone lately, the screen will not kick on with e home button and it has battery life problems. I wanted to wait to replace it for a few months, but so it goes. I have a new iPhone 14 arriving today. It will take some time to get adjusted to Face ID instead of my thumbprint, for sure. And this means reconnecting with all of my Bluetooth devices. What a pain. But that is modern technology.

Go forth, and have a great Thursday. I will take recommendations for Not Friday Music in the comments. It is likely I will ignore your suggestions, but you never know.