I just want to celebrate

Here we are on Labor Day, that union-inspired holiday where we celebrate our hard work by taking the day off. I can live with it. We are off today to celebrate at an end of summer pool party and cookout. A fine pork shoulder will be thrown on the smoker while we laugh and swim and have a beer or three to enjoy life, summer, and God’s glory. 

To make time for the festivities this afternoon, I mowed the yard yesterday. I trimmed the bushes out front.  I repaired the broken shelving in the wife’s closet. I watched several episodes of Mad Men. I even went to the store with the wife to stock up on groceries. 

You can get a lot done when you get up at 4:30 AM. 

You outta be truthin’

I have, on occasion, resorted to hyperbole. Yes, Dear Readers, you have said at least 1,137,000 times that I occasionally exaggerate. I know it is true. But believe me, the picture I shared of my foot yesterday was true and unadulterated. No photoshop. No trick angles like the one with the urban rattlesnake. The only thing modified from the X-Ray was I cropped it to remove my  personal information. I really have the equivalent of a deck screw in my foot. 

Yesterday was a damp and gloomy day. We occupied ourselves by buying some needed stuff, including a trip to Walmart. As far as projects, make that score Joe 1, projects 0. So it goes. I did watch some episodes of Mad Men. There is that. I was unsuccessful at getting the wife to do naked wrestling. I wasn’t surprised. It is supposed to be sunny today. I will get the lawn cut. 

Since the theme of the weekend is my ability to walk, let’s use that as an excuse to play some Boots.

You may have your own opinion, but I vote for the brunette in the olive green top. I have no evidence, but I always felt like after take 16, the director told Nancy to forget trying to dance with the other chicks and to just sway. But you have to dig the tune. Timeless.

These boots were made for walkin’, so I walk the line

Actual screenshot of my post-surgery x-ray

I’m free. 

I went to the surgeon Tuesday. My foot is well on the way to healed. Hooray. No boot. No crutches, no scooter! I can put my weight on the foot, I can walk!

I can walk slowly. I have a slight limp. By the end of the day I have swelling. But…who cares? That will get better in time.

Now I just have to get after the projects that have gone untended over the past 12 weeks of the air cast and crutches. My wife is thrilled I can now cut the grass. 

This new-found freedom means I have a busy weekend in front of me. I can live with that.

But I can walk again!

I can’t believe I forgot to tell you this big news.

Big old learning curve

I’m staggeringly ignorant about my new job. In no way can I be trusted to visit customers on my own. That notion leaves me more than a little overwhelmed. 

I’ve been to visit several customers with my boss the past few days. That is great. My lack of knowledge isn’t. 

When I took a job in the corrugated industry (read cardboard) a few years ago I picked that up fast. When I sold cold forgings, I learned that easily too. Of course, I sold widgets (OK, bearings) for more than 20 years before that for several different companies. That was a breeze. Here, there are so many products I’m just lost. Plus I’m now working distribution as opposed to selling OEM parts. That’s different too.

But it still beats working at the big box home improvement store.

An inspiring story

 Every morning, the CEO of a major bank in Manhattan went to the corner where a shoeshine man was always there. He used to sit on the chair, read the Wall Street Journal, and the humble shoeshine man gave his shoes a shiny, great look.

One morning, the shoeshine man asks the CEO: What do you think of the stock market situation?

The Director arrogantly asks him: Why are you so interested in this subject?

The shoeshine man replies: I have a million dollars invested in your bank and I am thinking about investing part of the money in the stock market.

The CEO of the bank asks: What is your name?

He replies: John Smith H.

The Director arrives at the bank and asks the Manager of the Major Accounts Department: Do we have a customer named John Smith H.?

The Customer Service Manager for Major Accounts replies: We certainly do, Sir! He is an extremely esteemed customer! He has a million dollars in his account.

The CEO leaves the bank, approaches the shoeshine boy, and says: Mr. Smith, I would like to invite you to be our guest of honor at our board meeting next Monday and tell us your life story. I’m sure we will have a lot to learn from you.

At the board meeting, the CEO introduces him to the board members:

We all know Mr. Smith, who makes our shoes shine like no one else. But Mr. Smith is also our valued customer, with a million dollars in his account. I invited him to tell us the story of his life. I’m sure we can learn a lot from him. Please, Mr. Smith, tell us your life story.

Then, Mr. Smith began to narrate his story:
I came to this country fifty years ago as a young immigrant from Europe and with a weird and unpronounceable name. I left the ship penniless in my pocket. The first thing I did was to change my name to Smith. I was hungry and exhausted. I started to wander in search for a job, but without success. Suddenly, I found a coin on the sidewalk. I bought some apples. Eat the apples and quench my hunger or start a business.

I sold the apples for 50 cents and bought more apples with the money. When I started accumulating dollars, I managed to buy a set of used brushes and shoe polishes and started cleaning shoes. I didn’t spend a dime on fun or clothes. I only bought bread and cheese to survive. I saved penny by penny and after a while I bought a new set of brushes and shoe polishes in different shades and colors and increased my clientele.

I lived like a monk and saved a penny after penny.

After a while, I managed to buy a chair so that my customers could sit comfortably while I cleaned their shoes, which brought me more customers.

I didn’t spend a dime on the pleasures of life. I kept saving every penny. A few years ago, when the corner shoeshine colleague decided to retire, I had already saved enough money to buy his point, which was a better place than mine.

Finally, three months ago, my sister, who was a whore in Chicago, passed away and left me a million dollars….

Simply Appalling

 The US has tucked its tail and sprinted out of Afghanistan. Our erstwhile SecState was bragging that we managed things great, only leaving a few hundred Americans behind. 

He advised them to hunker down, shelter in place, and make their way to the airport whenever commercial flights resume.

Seriously.

After Vietnam a whole industry existed regarding rescuing the handful of POWs the Commies did or did not release.

I guess we are going to have to call Rambo out of the VA retirement home to go get the Americans Biden left behind.

That queasy feeling in my gut isn’t from the chicken enchiladas with salsa verde I had for supper last night.

Trying on new stripes in the department store fitting room

I’m up early on this fine Sunday morning because reasons. No, I don’t know those reasons. Just because, I guess. I woke at 4:00 on the nose. I finally gave up on going back to sleep at 4:30 or so, and — ta da — here we are. 

To be precise, here I am. You will enter the picture at some further point in time. It may be minutes after I publish. It may be later today. It might be next week or month or next year. It could be decades in the future, provided President for Life AOC hasn’t declared me persona non grata and had all traces of me and this blog erased for badthink. Nothing would surprise me. 

It could be future me will repudiate every word I’ve written over the past 57 years at this blog after pain and torture at the re-education camp. 

I might change my opinions on my own.

In my training  at Big Insurance we did an analysis of personality types, so we could sell to the customer in a way they could relate. As such, we had to take a test of our own personality. They called it something else in Big Insurance training, but behold, I was the Type A-iest of Type A personalities in the class. By a wide margin. That may or may not surprise you.

What you might not know, is as a youth and even in college I was pretty shy. I had no issues giving a speech or even being in a play, but generally I was insecure and terrified around strangers in one on one situations,  especially girls. And even later, I had a problem picking up the phone and calling people. 

I got over it. I became the strong personality you have come to love and admire in these pages.

In the same fashion I could throw away all common sense, historical perspective, economic  understanding, lack of hypocrisy, and reasoning altogether and become a Democrat. 

Yeah, probably not.

Your Love is Fadin’

It is Saturday. Woot. It is going to be a hot one. Thank goodness our friends have invited us to soak in their pool this afternoon . It is good to have friends with nice things. I plan to get in for the first time in a while. It has been six weeks. I think my incision is healed.

My new boss dropped off my new company car truck yesterday. It has the company logo painted down the sides and on the hood like a NASCAR racer, but I’m not complaining. ‘Cause free F150. I’m ready to start Monday. It’s been a long time coming.

I’m not going to go on a political rant today. The incompetence is evident for all to see. My blood pressure doesn’t need it. Plus I’m in a good mood. I’m pretty sure my buddy and I will solve America’s problems over a beer and cigar this afternoon. 

1971’s Maggie May deservedly gets the love from critics and Rod Stewart fans. I’m no exception. Yet who can deny the power of Stewart and the Faces from their cover of (I know) I’m losing you? From the same 1971 album Every Picture Tells a Story:

Have a great Saturday.

Is anyone in charge?

Wait, we gave a list of our collaborators to the Taliban? Are you F-ing kidding me?

How did that go? Uh, Mr. Terrorist, please don’t kill our people as they try to get to the airport. 

Taliban: how do we know what people to not kill? 

State Department: how about we give you a list?

Taliban:  uh, OK. (Stifles guffaws)

Crap on a cracker, who’s in charge of this shit show? We give up Billions of dollars of arms and equipment, not even bothering trying to destroy it. Then we let them dictate terms. Finally, we give them a convenient kill list?

Do we need to check the emails to make sure we aren’t giving the treasury PIN number to a Nigerian Princess? 

I had to worry about my elderly mom and dad falling to scams. I never thought the senile old fart in the White House would be so gullible.

Biden says we are gonna get those terrorists who bombed the airport yesterday. With what, and who is going to do it? 

We are pulling out pronto. Does he think anyone is going to help us? After we left them swinging in the wind? 

Biden really has been wrong about every foreign policy decision in the last fifty years.

Dodging the speed bumps on memory lane

Yesterday we were reminiscing about the old days when we didn’t have air conditioning.

Remember when white people sometimes were in commercials?

That queasy feeling

Charlie Watts, the great drummer from The Rolling Stones has passed. The musicians from my youth are dying off. 

The heat wave continues. Heat index temps will top 100 again today and are expected to continue through the weekend. It is August. Hot temperatures should be expected. At least it isn’t like when I was a kid, we didn’t have air conditioning. We just sucked it up. Now I have AC. My electric bill is going to be ugly. 

I finally get those who say they are embarrassed by their country. I’m sure embarrassed by this administration. We are being run out of Afghanistan with our tails between our legs by dudes in Toyota pickup trucks. The President thinks this is great. The rest of the World, especially China, just laughs at us. I’m glad Biden is bringing American respectability back to the world stage. At least he doesn’t tweet mean stuff. 

I don’t possess the vocabulary to adequately express my anger and disgust. 

If Trump did this the Dems would already be having impeachment hearings. Now, they are more interested in spending trillions on Green New Deal boondoggles. Afghanistan and the spending bills reflect typical Democratic Party half-thought policies. Do it half-assed and depend on magic to fix the myriad problems the policy causes. No big deal — it is just American lives at stake. 

Spit.

Cockpit Chatter

 A jumbo jet is on its final approach coming in to Toronto Airport. The pilot comes on the intercom.

“This is your Captain speaking. We’re on our final descent into Toronto. I want to thank you for flying with us today and I hope you enjoy your stay in Toronto”.

He forgot to switch off the intercom. Now the whole plane can hear his conversation from the cockpit. The co-pilot says to the pilot, “Well, skipper, what you gonna do in Toronto?”

“Well,” says the skipper, “first I’m gonna check into the hotel and take a big crap … then I’m gonna take that new stewardess with the huge tits out for dinner….. then I’m gonna wine and dine her, take her back to my room and give it to her big-time all night.”

Everyone on the plane hears this and immediately begins looking up and down the aisle trying to get a look at the new stewardess. Meanwhile the new stewardess is at the very back of the plane. She’s so embarrassed that she starts to run to try and get to the cockpit to turn the intercom off.

Halfway down the aisle, she trips over an old lady’s bag and down she goes.

The old lady leans over and says: “No need to hurry, dear. He’s gotta use the bathroom first.”

A Monday full of complaints.

My garden has been a disappointment this year. The rabbits ate the first fruits. Then it rained. A lot. Too much. Then it got cold. Very cold for summer. Then came the drought. We got maybe 0.25 inches of rain in July. Now the ‘maters have stalled. The bell pepper just blooms. The cucumbers are white. The jalapeño has put out 10 or 12 nice tasty peppers, but that is it. I still have a dozen or more golf ball-sized green tomatoes. Same as I had a few weeks ago. 

Others have the same complaints. Gardens are bad this year. 

I could just say a quick “so it goes”. I could just blame it on climate change, ignoring the notion that increased warmth and CO2 is good for plant growth. Hey, let’s not let science get in the way of hysteria. Who knows. I’m on the verge of just foregoing the watering and telling the recalcitrant tomatoes they are on their own. Put out or else. 

I sat helpless in the air conditioning yesterday as the wife mowed, pulled weeds, and cleaned off the patio in blistering heat. I clumped out on my crutches a few times to offer non-existent help. Each time I hobbled back inside to the cool air. It was too hot for moral support. 

I’m going to drop a roast in the crockpot for supper. I can manage that.

Sunday Morning Coming Down

Sunday. The littlest granddaughter spent the night. I hear her stirring in her bed, always slow to get awake.  My coffee steams beside me as I type away on my iPad while perched on an end of our broken down couch. I wish I could go for a walk. 

About another week and I can get back to training for the next Olympics and a new season of American Ninja Warrior. OK, maybe just walking. I can’t wait to shed these crutches and knee scooter. I don’t even care about wearing the boot anymore. The doctor is going to have to have a really compelling reason for me to remain immobile. A very good reason. 

In other news, I have none.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Edit Why Joe, what raciiiist foods did you fix the little one for breakfast?

One of the last boxes in existence of the most horrible racist THING ever

It is gone. The empty box trashed. No one needs cower in fear any longer. Except for the Mrs. Butterworth syrup I dumped on top of my stack. That is still triggering people from my pantry. 

It is a game show

Now the Wokabees have come for the game show hosts. For some it was inexcusable that a non-POC was chosen to host Jeopardy. So in retaliation they poked and prodded until some dirt was found from the new host’s past and forced him to give up the gig. 

Richards wasn’t my first choice, but I was able to put things in perspective. It is a half hour game show on television. It really makes no difference in my life who hosts it. I will watch or not watch. Whatever. 

I’m not sure I want to live in a society that is totally unforgiving. Where we are all subject to purity tests we are doomed to fail. 

It is time corporate America stood up to the chattering mob. The Twitter universe is not the real public. How many of the perpetually outraged watched Jeopardy anyway? 

I have said and written plenty that I regret. I like to think I’ve grown over time. I prefer to believe we can be forgiven for our sins. What is hope without redemption? 

We need to quit holding people to impossible standards we couldn’t meet ourselves. 

Olly Olly Oxen Free

Come out of hiding, Joe.

Were I a leader in South Korea or Taiwan, or even A NATO ally in Europe I would be looking to my own defenses. If you think the Biden Administration is going to save you, look no further than the latest headlines. Hey, Biden was part of the team that brought us Benghazi, remember? He didn’t want to go after Bin Laden either. 

Now, in true fashion he has run off to hide, hoping his lapdog press will just let all this go away if he waits it out. He is probably right.

But at least we don’t have mean tweets to worry about. 

Men without honor

The fact that General Miley and SecDef Austin are still employed says everything you need to know about Sleepy Joe’s weakness as president. Honorable men would resign. Weak men wait to be fired. Simps refuse to fire their employees for complete failure like the debacle in Afghanistan. 

If Biden doesn’t fire them it means he agrees with their performance. That says tons about him as an executive.

Even Jimmah Carter thinks the President looks weak. 

This is not about politics. If the Pentagon didn’t correctly predict that the Afghan government would fall in days, then they should be fired. If they didn’t have a just-in-case scenario in place, they should be fired.  If we leave ANY Americans behind, they should be tried for dereliction of duty. This…blunder…has left America as weak politically as we were in 1975. It took a decade to rebuild our military then. How long will it take now? 

But hey, our 455th Transvestite POC Battalion looks spiffy in their berets and matching rainbow tunics. 

Things that make you say “hmmm”

It’s funny how things work. I took the car over to the tire store across the highway to get a leaky left rear fixed. $26 or so later I was on my way home. They said everything looked great. I found that strange since the dealership insisted when I was in there a couple of months ago my tires were shot — dangerously so. 

That proclamation instigated a most difficult conversation from me since I was promised by the lying salesman the Escape had new tires when we bought it in November. Oh, and I needed new brakes too. At thirty thousand miles. After much discussion and semi-unpleasantness (but no raising of voices) I got the brake job done gratis. I was presented a quote of nearly $900 for tires. I said I’d think on it. 

Somehow, a store whose very existence depends on replacing tires thought my tires looked fine. The dealership said failure was imminent.

My initial response to the dealer service department remains confirmed. I’ll never buy a car from them again. Either they are incompetent or they are crooks. There is no other option. 

I doubt I’ll even take it back to the dealer for the next oil change. 

Love and marriage

 Fred and Mary got married, but can’t afford a honeymoon, so they go back to Fred’s parent’s home for their first night together.

In the morning, Johnny, Fred’s little brother, gets up and has his breakfast.
As he is going out of the door to go to school, he asks his Mom if Fred and Mary are up yet.
She replies, “No”.
Johnny asks, “Do you know what I think?”
His mom replies, “I don’t want to hear what you think! Just go to school.”
Johnny comes home for lunch and asks his mom, “Are Fred and Mary up yet?”
She replies, “No.”
Johnny says, “Do you know what I think?”
His mom replies, “Never mind what you think!
Eat your lunch and go back to school.”
After school, Johnny comes home and asks again, “Are Fred and Mary up yet?”
His mom says “No.”
He asks, “Do you know what I think?”
His Mom replies, “Ok, do tell me what you think?”
He says: “Last night Fred came to my room for the Vaseline and I think I gave him my airplane glue.”

What a waste

 In the coming days we will be flying the last of the Americans from Afghanistan, reminiscent Saigon circa 1975 style.  The Taliban will again be in charge. 

What did we get for our twenty year mission? How many lives were lost and destroyed? How much treasure did we take from the wallets of taxpayers, current and future? What did we accomplish? Much like our nearly two decade involvement in SE Asia, it seems all for naught. 

I suppose we can take solace in the idea that unlike the British we didn’t spend a century plus trying to tame that region. 

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