TODAY IS THE LAST DAY OF FEBRUARY – at least I think it is – let me check.
(Brief Pause)
Right! Today is definitely the last day of February which means very little unless you were born on February 29th. But it is still winter.
I know. I know, but you’re wrong. This is not going to be another of my diatribes against snow and cold. No. This is going to be a scholarly discourse on why the Calendar needs adjustment and realignment.
WHILE I SEE MYSELF AS A TRENDSETTER I am also the kind of guy who sometimes latches on to the latest fad. I’ve had Mood Rings, Roller Skates, a Pet Rock, and a Hula Hoop. And now I’m going along with another fun fad that is sweeping the nation. It’s in the News every day!
Allow me to present –
Fiction Saturday
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Horton Plaza looked like the love child of Rube Goldberg and M.C. Escher. Seven levels high with a hundred and forty shops, restaurants and touristy boutiques, all connected by stairs, escalators, ramps, and glass elevators. The entire structure was painted in a full palette of pastels, with multicolored banners, flags, and flowers fluttering in the soft ocean breezes.
High up on Level Seven, in a choice corner location, was The Captain’s Table restaurant. It had everything that a family on vacation from Nebraska could ever want—a six page menu offering seafood delicacies named for every exotic locale on the globe, several tons of nautical-looking adornments made in China, and decals on the front door promising the acceptance of all major credit cards.
WHO SAYS WE DON’T KNOW HOW TO BE SOCIABLE? We can be just as sociable as any other group of semi-civilized men who spend their Golden Years discussing the important issues of the day: Which was better – “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” or “The Bionic Woman?”
The “Usual Suspects” as I call them, or my “Play Group” as my wife, the lovely and sarcastically fine tuned, Dawn, calls them, hold our meetings in the Chapel at St. Arbucks almost every morning over coffee.
HAPPY! HAPPY! JOY! JOY!
The sun is back rising in the east. Up is up. Down is down and Baseball is soon to reappear and…
My favorite little hole in the wall Chinese restaurant is open again. It was closed last August when two “youths” decided to burn down the Dollar Store next door. A brilliant move it was not. Not only did the fire gut the Dollar Store, but smoke and water damage destroyed my favorite little family run restaurant. All of this just a bagel’s thrown from St. Arbucks. But now…
A FRIEND OF MINE recently posted a video on Facebook of her singing at a local bar on “Karaoke Night.” She was pretty good. She was also a bit tipsy by her own admission. Personally, I find the whole concept of Karaoke somewhat disturbing.
The entire thing that is “Karaoke” – Japanese for “Empty Orchestra,” is a fairly recent creation according to an article I read in a magazine. They date its beginning to 1970 in Osaka, Japan and a musician name Daisuke Inoue (which is Japanese for, “I can’t sing either.”)
For close to 50 years now slightly tipsy people around the world have been getting up and singing “Purple Rain” and “Let’s Get It On” in front of a room filled with other slightly tipsy people.
ON A QUIET MORNING LIKE THIS ONE WHEN IT’S JUST ME AND MY COFFEE I can feel the tensions of Life sloughing off like frost off the car’s rear window.
It is 16° degrees outside, but I don’t mind it right now because it keeps some people at home and away from me.
These days it seems like most people are screaming – at one another, at the government, at the world, at themselves. When things don’t go the way they like they start to scream thinking that will make things better – “Better” being the way they want things to be. It doesn’t work of course. It never has, it never will.
Self-Delusion is so much neater than Reality.
Fiction Saturday
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Laura gathered up the dishes as Davis toweled himself dry in the bathroom. She had showered first, standing under the steaming water for fifteen minutes, crying there so Davis wouldn’t see her fear manifested yet again.
“Davis, while you’re getting dressed I’m going to take the dishes back to Vivian.”
“Okay,” he called from the bathroom, “and thank her for me too.”
Vivian saw her coming across the parking lot and hit the door buzzer to let Laura into the small office.
THE WEATHER IS BEAUTIFUL RIGHT NOW and I am longing for Springtime. You know what they say – “Springtime when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of Chimichangas.” No, that’s not right, but then again…
Las Vegas, the Disneyland for Adults, is always striving to top itself. It all started out as a dusty desert gas station and has transformed itself into the tangible definition of “Will you look at that!” It is the only town where Elvis, Howard Hughes, and Liberace all felt at home. And they’re all dead.
Throwback Thursday from February 2016
A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO my wife, the lovely and thought provoking, Dawn, posted a question on Facebook that made a lot of people stop and think.
She asked for, “Songs / musical pieces that bring you to tears or grab you and won’t let go.”
That was not as easy a request as I first thought.
I am a music lover. My tastes range through just about every genre that you can think of. What I have playing in the car could make you scratch your head. I have Hard Rock, Opera, Country, Oldies, Jimmy Buffett, Broadway, Blues, Pop, Classical, Jazz, and even a Folk number or two. I usually have it going in a Random Mode, but if one song or artist hits a nerve I slide into Repeat Mode.
I’M A CITY BOY. Well, a Small Town Boy who grew up in town. I’ve never been hunting. I’ve never been camping. I have no desire to do either of those things. My idea of roughing it is a hotel without room service. If I need food I go to the Kroger store. Stalking down a deer or a turkey is too much work and holds no appeal for me. If my turkey doesn’t come wrapped in a net bag with one of those little “I’m Ready” pop up thingys in it I consider it unnatural.
IN CASE YOU HAVE BEEN LIVING IN A CAVE for the last six weeks or so let me be the one to tell you – Today is Valentine’s Day. And you time is running out if you wish to live.
Valentine’s Day is a holiday dedicated to Love, Candy, and Greeting Cards. There is nothing else like it. Christmas may dominate when it comes to the cards and Halloween has a lock on the candy thing, but no other day – not even Opening Day of Baseball Season – can do Love like Valentine’s Day.
JOBS. WE’VE ALL HAD THEM OR WILL IN THE FUTURE. Some jobs lead to careers while others serve only to put food on the table and keep the wolf away from the door.
There are full-time jobs, part-time jobs, and jobs that are one-time things – like bank jobs. Not jobs for a bank, but in a bank – with a note, concealed weapon, and a getaway car.
Some jobs are better than others. That’s true whether you are just starting out or nearing retirement.
Fiction Saturday
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Both Laura and Davis slept late the next morning. Laura had planned on a day or two of rest before crossing into Mexico. She knew that they might need all of their strength and all of their wits. She hadn’t come this far just to get caught or killed due to some bonehead mistake brought on by exhaustion.
She also wanted to lay low for a while to—hopefully—confuse their pursuers. If there was no scent to follow for a couple of days they might think that Laura and Davis had already crossed into Mexico and that was that. Or they might think that the couple had pulled a fast one on them and was heading off in another direction altogether. Laura knew that at least for now, time was their ally.
Throwback Thursday from February 2016
I WAS WANDERING THROUGH WAL-MART the other day and I was surprised at the number of people in there who looked like Hell warmed over. I’m not talking about the choice of clothing, if you could call it that, but their faces and the look in their eyes.
There is a line from an old Steppenwolf song about a man walking around, “With tombstones in his eyes,” and that’s what I was seeing in the aisles at Wal-Mart.
Maybe it’s a product of the mid-winter blues, or post-holiday letdown, but there were a surprising number of people pushing carts around who looked like they were ten minutes away from either collapsing or going zombie. They looked unfocused and exhausted with a look in their eyes that said, “Why bother.” I found it unsettling.
Not that I’m full of pep and energy, but these folks looked like I should try to recall my CPR training.
SOME THINGS JUST DEFY EXPLANATION. Others don’t merit explanation.
“The Brightest Flash of Light Ever Recorded Now Has An Explanation.”
That’s quite a headline. I would have opted for something shorter like, “Say Cheese! Says Heaven.”
When I saw that long headline this morning I had to read what followed.
LIFE IS A SERIES OF CHOICES. The choices that some people make mystify me. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t have the right to make their choices – I just don’t get the why and the how sometimes.
What I’m talking about today is People and their Pets.
Don’t get me wrong. I love animals. I love pets. I have been a pet owner many times and cried like a baby when they died. I’ve had dogs, cats, fish, and, for a short time, a parakeet. That bird and I just didn’t get along. I’d give him seeds and he’d throw them back at me. I got him to perch on my hand only once. He called me an obscene name, bit me, and went back into his cage, slamming the door. I gave him away to a friend who owned a cat.
NEWS FLASH!
Terre Haute (That’s French for “99¢ Shrimp Cocktails!”) is seriously considering leaping into the 21st century!
The local Chamber of Commerce, a body with all of the power and influence of a grilled cheese sandwich, has expressed its support for the idea of having a casino open here. This is an idea that gets floated about every two years. So far that’s all it has ever done – floated – like a dead fish.
I’VE BEEN WEARING A SWEATSHIRT today that trumpeted my old college alma mater – well, one of them anyway. It took four different schools for me to finally earn my degree. I attribute that high body count to
1) Moving from one state to another.
2) Not going to class, and
3) Finally getting serious about it all.
My sweatshirt is from Baldwin-Wallace University. Never heard of it? It is one of those school that ranks at the top of the list nationwide, but to most people, it might as well be the University of Neptune.
Throwback Thursday from February 2016
A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO IN NEW YORK CITY the Mayor decided that he needed some positive coverage in the media. His idea was to stage his very own Groundhog Day Festival. Whatever Punxsutawney, PA can do, the Big Apple can do better – or so he thought.
At the Staten Island Zoo, not exactly the best known zoo in America – or even in New York City for that matter, Mayor Bill de Blasio (The name he is currently using), with much fanfare and with cameras rolling, was handed “Charlotte the Groundhog.”
Charlotte — (An artist’s rendition.)
The Mayor was obviously not an experienced Groundhog Wrangler and Charlotte may have taken his fumbling and groping as an improper advance. Charlotte squirmed, the Mayor went sissy, and dropped Charlotte. It is unknown if Charlotte ever saw her shadow on the way down, but it is for sure that she hasn’t seen much of anything after she hit the pavement.
Last year (2015 for the chronologically challenged) the Mayor agreed to try the event again, but he refused to touch the replacement Groundhog – “Chuck.” It is quoted that the Mayor greeted the suspicious Groundhog by saying, “What’s up, Chuck?” Now that Charlotte has gone to that Great Groundhog Lair in the Sky I doubt that Chuck took much consolation from, “What’s up, Chuck?”
Chuck
What’s up?
Certainly not Charlotte.
The New York Times noted the occasion of the Mayor’s return to the zoo with the headline, “Mayor Bill de Blasio Did Not Kill the Groundhog This Year.”
There was so much sarcasm dripping off of that headline the paper should have come with a roll of paper towels.
There was another Mayor vs. Groundhog encounter last year in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. The Groundhog picked for their show was in no mood to fool around with some strange humans. When the Mayor picked up “Jimmy the Groundhog”
the unhappy rodent took a chunk out of the Mayor’s ear.
This year the Mayor has already announced that he is not going to have anything to do with actually touching the Groundhog. I bet that “Jimmy” is cool with that.
He probably heard about what happened in New York.
The Word spreads about Charlotte
I imagine that both of these Mayors are now Groundhogaphobic after their bad experiences. Imagine how the Groundhogs feel. Every February 2nd their sleep is disturbed, they are grabbed and shoved in front of crowds of humans. There are bright lights, yelling media types, and all without so much as a “Please” or “Thank you.” In the human society that kind of stuff is called either a “Home Invasion” or the arrival of the SWAT Team – and often gets people shot or arrested.
The people in Punxsutawney have been doing their thing for over a hundred years and they have it down pat. The rest of these clowns are the worst kind of amateurs – they think they are cooler, smarter and more capable than the experts. And what happens? Groundhogs die and Mayors qualify for Vincent Van Gogh Look-Alike contests.
Charlotte — taken by the Paparazzi
Down the Hall on Your Left 