Whose Hot Idea Was This?

 

SWEET DAUGHTER OF DARKNESS, IT’S HOT! I haven’t been this hot since my junior year of high school and this girl from…never mind.

It has been in the mid 90s and above since what seems like the day after Christmas. I like warm weather, hot even, but this hot spell has pushed my limits right off the table.

I love it when the Weather Bunnies on TV say things like, “It is 96 degrees, but the Heat Index is 187,” or whatever number they toss out. After “96 degrees” the rest is as relevant as chocolate sprinkles on a Hershey Bar. It doesn’t change anything, add anything, or make it any better. When life has been reduced to sticking your head in a pizza oven to cool off something like “Heat Index” is not all that important.

I Would Never Lead You Astray

DESPITE MY CURMUDGEONLY REPUTATION I really do try to be a helpful sort of person. Like yesterday afternoon when a stranger asked me for directions. He was passing through town and wanted to have lunch at his favorite restaurant – “Chili’s” and he needed help finding it.

I was proud that I could give him simple and accurate directions. Follow my directions and an imbecile could find that restaurant.

“Just go down this road. When you get to the big courthouse-looking building, turn left. Keep going for a few minutes, then go under the Interstate. Keep going until you see their sign. It’ll be on your right.”

Simple, not too complicated, and absolutely accurate.

I Was Only Trying To Help

 

I’D HAVE BETTER CHANCES STANDING IN FRONT OF A FIRING SQUAD. Jumping out of an airplane with a fried egg for a parachute. Having a surgeon who feels it necessary to sacrifice a chicken before operating. Any of those, please, but having to deal with a plumber about a leaking pipe.

Just shoot me now.

The only good part of that scenario was that it wasn’t our house. I was being helpful.

My Sister-in-law who really is, but isn’t my Sister-in-law, but is (long story) was the one with the wayward water.

Down in the basement of her circa 1920 house there was a pipe coming up out of the floor that had water creeping higher and higher…and overflowing. Not a good sign.

She had called a local plumbing cartel and made arrangements for them to come by the house the next day (It was not a geyser, so…)/ the snag in this plan was that she had to be in Chicago the next day.

Enter Krafty – the obvious choice to face the Buttcrack Brigade.

Moving On

I CHECKED MY EMAIL THIS MORNING and among the spam and other stuff was a blog posting from a man who was just starting retirement – and he wasn’t happy about it.

“It’s Retirement Day and I finally understand that I mean no more to them than the corner trash can.”

That stopped me in my tracks.

This was a statement from a man who is feeling lost.

From the power of his words I would guess that he was forced to retire, either by circumstances such as health or by a mandatory retirement policy. Either way his world has just been turned upside down. He is being made to enter a new and, it seems, frightening period of his life.

Do You Believe In Miracles?

A SATURDAY MORNING IN THE RAIN. While you are reading this on a Tuesday I wrote it a couple of weeks ago. And it’s raining again. We could seriously use a miracle.

The past two weeks have been very wet here along the Banks of the Wabash – and those banks are a lot closer than they were before all of this rain. We have had over 7” of rain in the last week or so. Everyone and everything are waterlogged. All I can say in a positive sense is – At least it’s not snow.

I Do Not Have Any Answers Before Coffee

FOR SOME REASON BEYOND MY COMPREHENSION the people on Facebook are in a philosophical mood this morning.

Facebook? Philosophical? Two words I never think of being in the same sentence.

I crawled down the street to St. Arbucks, turned on my phone and the first thing I saw was not another cute cat picture or a snapshot of somebody’s breakfast, but someone asking the Universe a question.

“What if it is my destiny to be alone?”

A Pain In The Neck

THE LAST PERSON WHO HAD A STIFF NECK like mine was back in 1873 and hanging from a tree in Arizona for being a “Hoss Thief.”

I woke up this morning when a lightning bolt of pain shot through my neck when I rolled over in bed. I did a quick check – no rope, no pair of gnarled hands around my throat, and my head was still attached to the rest of my body.

The Verdict: I slept funny.

Fiction Saturday Chapter 29- “And Pull The Hole In After You” – Continued

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.

Do It Yourself Justice

SOMETIMES PEOPLE MISBEHAVE for no real reason other than to prove that they are stupid. A perfect example of this has been imposing itself on a friend’s family.

Some idiot has been breaking into our friend’s garage as well as smashing car windows. Some things have been stolen, but this harassment is really being done out of sheer meanness. How do we know this? Because this fool has said so. He has left behind notes saying that he is doing these things just because he can. He has said that he can do whatever he wants without fear of the police because he is “Connected” with the Law and that the police will do nothing to stop him.

Nice guy, huh?

Grab Some Pine, Meat!

I WISH THAT WE COULD HAVE PINCH HITTERS IN REAL LIFE. Just like in Baseball. Wouldn’t it be great if, when a situation arises that you know you won’t handle well, you could send in someone else to deal with it?

For Example –

You’ve been working long and hard on a project and you’re just spent, wiped out – then word comes down that you have to make a detailed presentation to your boss’s boss – in 10 minutes.

“Time out! It looks like someone is coming in to pinch hit.”

Oh, yeah, I like this concept.