Surprisingly Good

Saturday, the wife slept late then she messed around doing whatever she does. Finally around 1:30 I asked if she wanted lunch. She replied she wasn’t too hungry and since we were going out for dinner for my birthday, she was going to skip lunch. I wasn’t really hungry anyway, so I didn’t complain. 

Just before five she told me I had to put on something besides a T-shirt and jeans. She had made a reservation. I whined, told her we couldn’t afford an expensive dinner. I lost, she said it was my sixtieth and that was cause for celebration. 

We went to Harry and Izzy’s up on the north side. There I was surprised to find my daughter and son-in-law, my oldest granddaughter, and our best friends waiting! It was a great surprise. We had a great dinner. 

After dinner, the boys had a further surprise for me . We piled in my buddy’s truck and drove a block down the street to Blend cigar bar. There, I was treated to a very nice stogie and a beer as a nightcap. 

My wife in celebration of the evening gave me this hilarious statue of a monkey smoking a cigar:

It is about 6” tall and completely silly. But it will sit nice in my office. I probably won’t make it the background for the many Teams meetings we have at work though. 

In all it was one of the best birthdays I have had, even though it was technically a day early. 

Stuff I Did Not Know

My mom was sick and dying. I went to stay with my dad through the rough time. He told me a tale I never knew.

He was at work. Mom had driven him that day because she had errands to run. We only had one car. He got a call at work, mom was in the hospital. Pregnant with me, she started hemorrhaging. She called an ambulance and my grandmother to watch my older brother. Grandpa called dad at work. Remember, this was the days before cell phones. 

Grandpa came to get dad and take him to the hospital. Dad remembered the worry, sitting in the waiting room, no information to be had. It was March. I wasn’t due until May. 

Finally the doctor came out. He said the situation was dire. They had to deliver caesarean. Dad was forced to make a choice right then. “If it comes to it, and it probably will”, said the doctor, “who do you want us to save, your wife or the baby?”. 

Dad looked at me. “I’m sorry, Joe, I immediately said your mom”. 

I don’t know the details of the next minutes. I was born, put in an incubator for a spell and was good. I have a tiny scar on my left shoulder blade from a slip of the scalpel. 

Mom always said in later years that scar could have been worth a fortune had the ambulance chasing lawyers been a thing in 1962. Instead they were just happy to have me.

I never knew just how truly she meant that until a few years ago. 

Here we are today. I’m still here. Just think, sixty years ago today, I might not have been. 

LX

Number one song in March 1962

This tune appeared in the Animal House soundtrack and for years I thought the lyric was “dancing with the chicken slacks”. I never knew what chicken slacks were. Finally, one day it dawned on me, he was dancing with the chick in slacks. Aha! 

Despite rampant inflation we haven’t seen for forty years, despite record prices at the pump, despite a pandemic, and the possibility of yet another European war, Congress found time to tackle the most egregious subject facing Americans today — hair discrimination. 

Words fail me. 

If you discriminate against a black person because of their hair aren’t you automatically discriminating against a black person? That’s already illegal. 

What next, Federal protection for wearing your pants below your butt?

Defcon Whatever

 After seeing the President in a couple of different press conferences and speeches this week I am wondering, does anybody feel comfortable that guy has his hands on the nuclear codes?

Short term memories of early Wednesday morning

The full moon dances with high wispy clouds across the sky, giving soft illumination to the room. Open blinds make muted striped shadows slanting across the floor. A shape huddles in the drive. It moves smoothly across my line of sight, left to right. Not a dog. Too big for a bunny. It looks like a bobcat, more likely the elusive fox that stalks the neighborhood at night. The animal disappears into the darkness beside the porch.

I look at the faint numbers on the illuminated clock on the cable box. It is still some hours until daybreak.  It’s what Sinatra called the wee hours - that time between the living night and dawn. I stare in silence at the night sky. Light pollution blocks the stars; life in the suburbs.  Time rolls on. I doze in the chair. The moon moves lower towards the horizon, now doing an Astair solo in the darkness of the western sky.

A Serious Question

Can anyone explain why a colorblind society, one where the tint of ones‘s skin is irrelevant, is a bad thing? 

Can anyone explain why the “melting pot” ideal of America, where the many cultures have blended together to create a distinctly American culture, is also bad? 

It seems to me that such Balkanization has resulted in millions of deaths, civil war, and hate throughout history. Why would the liberal elite encourage such divisiveness? 

no title for this one

A man walks into his bedroom and sees his wife packing a suitcase.

He asks, “What are you doing?”

She answers, “I’m moving to Las Vegas. I heard prostitutes there get paid $400 for doing what I do for you for free.”

Later that night, on her way out, the wife walks into the bedroom and sees her husband packing his suitcase.

When she asks him where he’s going, he replies,

“I’m coming too I want to see how you live on $800 a year”.

Get a haircut

Living in the past today. Here is your humble author, taken sometime when I was ten or maybe twelve. Maybe younger. I always looked young for my age. Until recently. Now I look old.

This would be the early to mid-seventies. 

It’s not good, I zoomed in to cut out Mom and Dad and my brother, but you get the sense of boy-me. I think it was for the church directory, that’s why I’m wearing that spiffy clip-on bow tie.

Yeah, I never smile for pictures. It steals your soul. Why would  I be happy about that?

i want my hour back

I’m not going into my semiannual rant against changing the clocks. It is stupid, lacks purpose, and is an example of the waste perpetuated by government bureaucracies. Nothing more needs to be said. 

More light snow flurries are expected this morning before finally warming up to the fifties this afternoon. Of course with the time change it will be late this afternoon....

As my wife often tells me, “Let it go, Joe”. 

Tiny little Wabash College is heading off to the NCAA Final Four in basketball. You may have heard the school referenced in the classic sports movie Hoosiers. Maybe not. Anyway, they are back vying for a national championship. They last won it all 40 years ago, in 1982. When that occurred, there was literally dancing in the streets at the college. I know. I was there. Instead of tuning to see the big schools and high priced athletic budgets, root for all those small schools that never had a chance to get to the big dance. NCAA Division 3 really is made of student athletes. Cheer for the Little Giants Friday. A national championship this year would be a nice bookend. 

Not really in the mood for blogging today

 

The wife and I saw ole’ Hank back in the Eighties. It was at the old Holiday Star Theater in Merrillville, IN, up in Da Region. Some Internet research says he was there in March of 1986. It is possible that is the concert we attended. I might have related the tale, I’m getting old and repeat myself. No really, I repeat myself.. 

Hank wasn’t the best show I’ve seen. He was pretty wasted. He played only portions of his hits, getting half through a song then moving on when he stumbled over the lyrics. Towards the end they brought him a chair. He had a hard time sitting upright. 

While not from that show, this was more like what I saw:

Russia, Russia, Russia

The warm weather over the weekend kicked Ma Nature into action. The maple out front is showing emerging leaves and the big willow is starting to look a little green on the long tendrils hanging towards the ground.

MS Nature must be ticked about that margarine, though. Snow and temps in the teens are slated for Friday and Saturday. Insert sigh. Speaking of cold weather, remember that coat that was lost in shipment I posted about a few weeks ago? Well I followed Big River in Brazil’s instructions and asked for a refund. The money showed back in my account a couple of days later. The order was marked “returned” and “delivery cancelled”. The coat arrived Monday. I tried to return it, but according to the company it has already been returned.

Speaking of messed up systems, does Biden really expect Americans to blame the Russians for the high cost of gas? I paid $4.25 last night. Before Biden took office we were net exporters of oil. It is Biden’s energy policies that had already driven pump prices north of $3.50 before the invasion of Ukraine. The last time gas breached $4? Under Biden’s mentor Obama. It is Democrat policies that drive up the cost of gas, not Russ descendants killing each other.

Obama blamed everything on Bush. Since 2016 the Democrats have blamed everything on the Russians. Maybe they should take responsibility for their bad policies? 

Now go cough up $50 grand to buy a new electric car. You can use the extra money you are saving on groceries. Oh wait…

I is smart

 My granddaughter did a report in school:

So, Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia, Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So, basically, that’s wrong, and it goes against everything that we stand for.

Not bad for a first grader, you think?

Except those brilliant words aren’t from a first grader, rather from the Vice President of the United States. 

That quote is so achingly stupid, it is worse than any mocking skits SNL ever did on Sarah Palin.  Dan Quayle is reading that and saying “Boy, is she dumb”. 

A close second most idiotic things I have read is the Secretary of Transportation telling us we can beat the high cost of gas if we just go out and buy a new electric car. Translated: “Let them eat cake”.  

Does the administration understand that we can’t all just go buy a new car? That because they haven’t fixed the supply chain issues there are no new cars? That we don’t have the infrastructure to charge hundred of thousands of electric vehicles, even if we could find/afford them? That some people have driving needs that do not work for the limited range of electric vehicles? That if Biden and the Democrats would not have put policies in place we would still have plenty of cheap gas with enough left over to export — you know like we had a year ago?

Lefties are always telling me how dumb people in red states are. If this administration is an example of the Democrat brain trust, then I guess I’m the smartest guy in Mensa. 

Choices

So last April I started having significant pain in my right foot. This wasn’t the first time I have experienced this. It has struck several times over the years. This time it didn’t pass after a week or two. 

In early May I broke down and complained to the doctor. He sent me for X-Rays and after the film showed a clear break I was sent promptly to an orthopedic specialist. I had what is known as a Jones Fracture.  The root cause was severely high arches. I did the walking boot thing, finally I had surgery in July. A screw was placed in my foot drawing the break together. I spent 12 weeks total in a boot including 4 weeks off the foot completely; getting around on crutches and a scooter.

That’s the recap. 

I returned to the Ortho Surgeon yesterday. My foot remains broken. It will not heal. It is not going to heal. It is not going to get worse. 

I can live with the pain discomfort or I can have another surgery. The next surgery will involve a bone graft and at least six weeks or more recovery — off the foot completely. Back on the crutches and scooter. A complete reconstruction of my foot may be necessary. If so, the healing will be even longer. 

I’m going to have to live with it for a while.  Taking a long time off without the ability to see customers on a new job is not a great option.  Maybe I’ll do it in the fall. None of the choices are good. 

Man of the House

 The husband had just finished reading a new book entitled, “You Can Be THE Man Of Your House.” He stormed to his wife in the kitchen and announced, “From now on, you need to know that I am the man of this house and my word is Law You will prepare me a gourmet meal tonight, and when I’m finished eating my meal, you will serve me a sumptuous dessert.

After dinner, you are going to go upstairs with me and we will have the kind of sex that I want. Afterwards, you are going to draw me a bath so I can relax. You will wash my back and towel me dry and bring me my robe. Then, you will massage my feet and hands. Then tomorrow, guess who’s going to dress me and comb my hair?”

The wife replied, “The damn funeral director would be my first guess.”

The dog ate my blog post

The wife and I started binging on the latest season of Ozark last night. We got through three episodes before I called it quits and shuffled off to bed a little after one ayem. 

Shortly before three the phone squawked and outside the tornado sirens wound to life. The thunderstorm watch in effect when I climbed into bed had turned into a full on tornado warning. 

I decided staying upstairs in a tornado might not be wise, so I grabbed my phone and went downstairs. The wife was still up watching HGTV like many middle aged, middle class white women do (nothing racist there, just the TV demographics). The broadcast was interrupted by the warnings. We flipped over to a local channel and the radar was a mass of reds, oranges, and yellows boring down on suburbia in a long line stretching northeast to southwest; the normal tornado flow. 

I headed to the front windows fronting squarely southwest. I opened the door. The air was calm, the night warm. Lightning lit the distant sky behind the houses across the cul-de-sac. As I stood there I could hear a low moan as the wind started to rise in front of the advancing storm. I pushed the door closed.

I could see my neighbor across the street come out on his porch and look around the corner at the coming tempest. As the rain arrived in wind-driven sheets he went back in, likely to his basement, a luxury I do not have. 

The winds were high. The rain was heavy. The gutters overflowed. Thunder boomed. There were no dangerous twisters to throw my house upon unsuspecting witches. As is often the case with volatile storms, this one was in a hurry to get somewhere else. After fifteen or twenty minutes it had resolved into hard rain with windy gusts. 

I went back to bed with the sound of rain lashing the windows. 

This morning a weak sun lights up soaked pavement and saturated dead grass in what will be my weedy lawn in six weeks or so. The wind is still gusting.

I slept later than usual this morning. Late to bed, very early to premature rise, back to bed, doesn’t make a man wise, just tired.

And that is why I’m turning in my blog post late this morning.

The sky is clearing and the night has cried enough

A new day dawns bright and clear and I am alive to see it. If that isn’t enough to offer thanks to the Lord, I don’t know what is. 

Poor grammar aside, it is going to be a nice early spring day here in central Hoosierland. Temperatures are forecasted for the very low seventies, albeit a bit windy. I can live with that. My excitement that spring has sprung is tempered by the long range forecast that shows a high of thirty degrees next Saturday. There was a robin in the maple tree outside my office yesterday. Spring is coming.

I woke up with a political rant in my mind, but you know what, I’m not going there. I’ll leave my thoughts to two sentences. Not everything you disagree with is fascism or nazism. Learn some definitions. 

My music is streaming on the evil Amazon Overlord listening device. So far, while composing this post we have heard the Stones, CSN, Jimmie Buffet, and Simon and Garfunkel. That fifteen minutes or so marks this as a long time to compose for the poor quality of the writing. You get what you pay for. No refunds, no exchanges, all sales are final. No warranty is expressed or implied. 

Have a great Saturday. I intend to.

Back here at home there’s nothing to do

I have a small bowl of Raisin Bran under my belt - literally - this morning. I’m on my second cup of coffee. The day is sunny, but chilly. The temperature is right at freezing as I hunt and peck one-fingered on the iPad keyboard. I’m optimistic about the weather. We should hit the fifties today and might even creep into the low seventies Saturday. That is cigar weather! I may drag out the smoker and make some BBQ. 

I am staring at my computer screen. I am having a hard time getting motivated this morning. I have to answer why Big Customer sales are below forecast through the first two months. My gut response is “Hey, I just started in January” and “I didn’t make the forecast you are holding me accountable for”. But stuff doesn’t work that way. I’m getting big boy pay for big boy responsibilities. Mostly I’m looking for answers that don’t sound like excuses. 

Wasting time here doesn’t get my work done. 

A little Friday music to reflect my mood:

I’ve told the story here before about seeing the Go Go’s live back in the early eighties. You can look it up if you want. 

Or you can just have a great Friday.

Animals

 A teacher asked her class, what do you want out of life?" A little girl in the back row raised her hand and said, "All I want out of life is four little animals."

The teacher asked, "Really and what four little animals would that be, sugar?"

The little girl said, "A mink on my back, a jaguar in the garage, a tiger in the bed, and of course, I'll need a jackass to pay for all of it."

The teacher fainted.

In or out of the club?

The root cause of the Civil War was slavery. There is no serious argument about that. One of the key questions arising from the issue of slavery was State’s Rights and if a State had a right to succeed. 

I don’t want to get into the idea of the US as a union of Sovereign States right now. It is only marginally germane. This is a blog, not a monograph or book. What I want to discuss is faulty logic.

Wake up! Yes, I know history bores you.

After the Great Rebellion there was discussion as to if the recalcitrant States ever left the Union. We touched on this in the recent Benjamin Wade re-run. Lincoln and his faction argued they never left, they were just in rebellion. Others, like Wade, argued the States had to be readmitted. 

Lincoln’s unfortunate play date and Johnston’s impeachment put the radicals in charge. The Republicans were the Democrat Squad of their time. They let no obstruction stand in their way even hypocrisy of monumental proportions.

The Constitution says 3/4 of the States must ratify an amendment to make it part of the Constitution. There were enough votes for the Fourteenth Amendment among the Northern States. It wouldn’t pass if the former Confederate States were part of the country.

Wade insisted the Southern States ratify the Amendment before the could be re-admitted. 

How could they ratify a law if they are not part of the country? 

When it came to putting the Army in charge of Civil Government, the former Confederate states were not full fledged members of the union. If it comes to passing Amendments, then it was hey brother!

Too bad, because as written the Fourteenth Amendment has done more to weaken the Ninth and a Tenth Amendments and made the Federal Government the strong force the founders never intended. That Amendment has been perverted to give rights  even its authors never intended. To keep southern States from finding creative ways to deny former slaves their rights, it was written so broad as to cover everything. 

What is sad, is civil rights were abridged throughout the South anyway.

I hated studying Reconstruction when I was in school (including college). Now, like the Middle Ages (another subject I had no interest in) I am starting to find it fascinating.

Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with more of this stuff.

Wake up! I’m done now.

Darkness on the Edge of Town

I read an article this morning in USAToday claiming more Americans than ever are afraid of the dark. I’m not going to link because I’m lazy. 

If you are one of those people then I’m sorry. I’m terrified of snakes. We all have our fears. 

What I’m skeptical is the claim that the reason more people are afraid of the dark is because of the Wuhan Flu pandemic. COVID, is there anything it can’t do? It is the catch-all and blame sponge for everything. Government overreach? COVID. Rationale to steal trucker’s bank accounts? COVID.  High gas prices, inflation, Brandon’s memory lapses? COVID. Some have even claimed the virus is racist. But then what isn’t these days? 

I went to the bank yesterday. I was in the drive-through because you cannot go in since Bat Flu. The nice teller lady came on the camera. She was wearing a mask. I bet she agrees, that corporate policy is dumb. I can’t infect her through electronic medium, but there you have it. 

Unless she is one of those people who drive around masked up in her car, even when she is alone. If so, I guess she totes a flashlight around after dark too.