I'm Thinking…No!

Checked my Powerball ticket this morning before posting this.  I had one number – that’s just under the threshold of winning anything.  Even two dollars would be a moment of delight. Almost a year ago, I informed my faithful readers that I felt really, really close to a big windfall.  Several possibilities loomed large.  Hourly updates were coming in from Publishers Clearing House – in fact a number from the president himself, who I presume doesn’t send to just anybody.  Last Friday was the day my big check should have arrived, but didn’t.  Once again, I practiced my happy smile (which almost inordinately stretched some muscles) and a passable squeal of delight, which they tell me looks good on camera.  Those that quietly acknowledge their winnings are not ratings makers.  This is a major disappointment as I’m now sneaking my purchases, which should not “increase my chances of winning”, surreptitiously into the house under veil of darkness.  I know what you’re thinking, but those big, bold, “YOU HAVEN’T ORDERED ANYTHING – YOU SCHMUCK.  HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO STAY IN BUSINESS AT THIS RATE?” announcements come across my computer screen ominously.  I feel badly – the person putting balloons all over the website might not get paid this month. How am I supposed to believe that they’re going to deposit a bundle in my bank account every week if I haven’t bought the floral canister set or the new miracle lug wrench that practically changes the tire itself?  It’s all a big mystery that they haven’t come because I know they have a map to my house.  It pops up on each announcement, surrounded by the entire PCH staff clutching fistfuls of cash.  I’ve even written to them offering to shoot the bat-signal into the sky on the morning of delivery.  Nothing. Continue reading “The Big Win – An Update”

I was standing third in line at Walmart recently, holding a toaster that I was returning.  The toaster was recently purchased and proved to be defective.  I’d had it long enough that the box and sales receipt were long gone.  But that’s not really the point, is it?  The man being served was an older gentleman who used two canes for walking, so that understandably took some time.  The young man ahead of me in line was cashing his paycheck, which it turns out, was his last as he was moving on to employment elsewhere.  Good for him. His new job would pay more and give him better hours.  I know all of this because I couldn’t help hearing the entire conversation. Maybe now he’ll be making enough to open a bank account. All to the good, but do we in line need to know that narrative?  I’m thinking . . . . . .  Continue reading “Who Tells Your Story? Just Not Now”

Several times, I’ve introduced Lady Peacock, a friend of ours who is delightful yet some might say just a little quirky in some of her outlooks. Her strongly held views would more than likely improve life and culture as we know it if only, as she lamented recently, “people would listen to me and do what I recommend.”  In the first episode, “Snacks Without Borders”, much was made of her eating habits, which she insists are fully compliant with a healthy, nutritional lifestyle.  Much like Donald Trump’s cheeseburgers, the experts no doubt would disagree.  I, as merely the scribe here, feel compelled to document this so that researchers in coming generations and centuries may come across these chapters and perhaps identify where society broke down.  It’s a mission. Continue reading “A Diet In Action”

Good morning, Everyone. I’d like you to pretend for just a moment that I’m standing, fit and impressive behind a podium, with the Great Seal behind me, or an enormous flag – something that says “Leadership and Greatness”.  Before I begin my prepared remarks, I’d like you to know something really, really important. As you know, many candidates have announced their intentions to run for the highest office in the land.  No, not chairman Starbucks, or even CBS, which has an opening right now, but nothing less than President of the United States.  We don’t actually announce for some time that we will be a candidate. We state that, in the public interest, we’re forming an “exploratory committee”.  What this committee explores is  whether or not we have a hope in . . . . . of winning, or even more important, we can raise a boatload of money.  So, my exploratory committee is small and ill-prepared, but none-the-less enthusiastic. We have our eye on one or two former members of the Dukakis presidential campaign, so insight and experience will come into play heavily here.  Despite their concerns, one might even call them violent objections, I still think that, all-in-all, my candidacy can be viable.  In fact, there could be a major announcement in the DIY Rake and Seed Catalog in time for spring planting.  Getting their endorsement alone is a coup in my book. Continue reading “An Exploratory Committee”

When our daughter, a former Weight Watchers session leader, lived in DC, she’d come home four or five times a year.  That left ample time for us to consume, freeze, throw out, or hide all the things we should not have been buying and eating.  Not that she was judgmental at all, but guilt could somehow get the better of us.  Now she’s in Boston and pops home regularly.  This requires a whole different strategy.  We have to keep a regular stock of fruits and vegetables in the house to create the illusion that it’s all part of our healthy daily lifestyle. What’s happened since then has been evolutionary. It’s a shame to just dispose of it all when she leaves, we do actually eat some.  I know, right? Continue reading “New Approaches to Living Healthy”

Here it is again.  A news item in which students from, of all places a Catholic high school, wearing “Make America Great Again” caps were verbally confronted by a group of activists, but, and here’s the part that sticks out in my mind, they mocked and ridiculed a Native American gentleman with a simple hand drum that tried to separate the sides and restore peace. Has “turn the other cheek” never come up in these young men’s religious studies?  How about the 21^stcentury version of that – “don’t engage”? Perhaps these students were poorly prepared to descend on the nation’s capital, and clearly didn’t understand that wearing MAGA caps can be perceived as divisive symbols among diverse segments of the population.  As they were attending a rally of their own, clearly the irony of “respect life” was lost on them. Continue reading “National Anger Management”

A recent comic strip, having to do with prayer in the midst of a computer crash, provided inspiration and guidance for this writing.  It implied that there is no “patron saint” of technology. It therefore seems truly fitting that new patron saints be appointed or designated to handle changes in society and culture, while others, whose spheres of influence may have subsided over the years.  Not that we want to “vote them off the island”, Survivor-style, as that seems rather harsh, particularly as they are saints. For example, St. Benedict is the patron saint of poison sufferers. Benedict was probably a nice guy and was very busy during the Borgia pontificates, but possibly is less so now with the ease of concealed firearms. Also unbusy is St. Lazarus, the patron saint of leprosy, or St. Anthony of Egypt, the patron saint of gravediggers. Not much call to poor Anthony in the backhoe era. At the very least, it’s time for an update. We need to have a chain of command so that we don’t place all of the prayer responsibility on the tried-and-true patrons and patronesses of the past. Here are my recommendations. I know some will argue that a few of these appear to be made up.  Not so, as I’m able to relate a number of histories buried deep in the Vatican archives that lend support to their respective causes, while others have been freshly cited on the internet and on Fox News.  How much more substantial can you get? Continue reading “Patron Saints – An Update”

Here it is in today’s paper: “Ex-Uber Driver Pleads Guilty to Killing 6”.  You read that and you’re thinking – New York, LA, maybe Chicago.  Nope, Kalamazoo, Michigan.  I know, how is that possible?  The fine folks in Kalamazoo must be as shocked as I am to read about this. First, I didn’t know there were Uber drivers in Kalamazoo, and second, that Kalamazoo isn’t a place that comes to mind particularly as a hotbed of anxiety and angst or a pocket of mental health issues, although it really can happen anywhere.  Here’s the interesting part.  These victims weren’t passengers.  This guy was shooting people at various locations – parking lots of a car dealership and a Cracker Barrel. Something in the grits for which he needed to revenge? In between these apparently random shootings in outside locations, he was driving fares.  He must have felt that blood splattered all over the back seat of his car would be bad for business and possibly hurt his ratings. Can you imagine reading about his exploits in the paper or seeing it on the news later, and  realizing that he’d driven you home from the bus station?   Holy crap, Batman!  That could have been me.  And I was wearing my seatbelt, so I couldn’t move very fast if he pulled a gun.  About the best I could do was soil my underwear. Continue reading “Torn from the Pages II – Uber Drivers”

By now, my faithful readers will sense a theme running through many of my ramblings.  It is that everyday items – things we use routinely – are often out to get me.  I know this sounds implausible, but it is in fact true.  The incidents are just too many and too frequent to be explained in any other way.  Oh, I know some nay-sayers will attribute it to sheer coincidence or even personal clumsiness. Not so, I contend. We all think that inanimate objects don’t have feelings, desires, that they’re not feeling rejected when we put them in the basement or set them out at yard sales. Not true – they’re nursing grudges and plotting revenge.  They’re telepathing instructions to something else I’m about to use. Continue reading “Inanimate Objects Thwart Me”

Every so often, I feel a need to write about something a bit more serious than “how my computer thwarted me today.”  This is one of those moments.  I guess that the recent passing of Former President George H. W. Bush got me to thinking about his vision for a “kinder, gentler America”. Continue reading “The New Year”