Month: October 2013

You have a boo boo?

Ah Halloween.
It didn’t feel much like Halloween to me really. The weather was good for it. But we don’t get Trick-Or-Treaters here. I didn’t dress up or go to any Monster Parties. In fact, I didn’t go anywhere to see anyone in a costume. Nary a Witch, or a Goblin, or a Ninja… or Princess. In fact, I wouldn’t have known this was the Spooky Day… except for seeing Matt Lauer in walking out in drag on the Today Show at 8 a.m.

But I like Halloween. I do. I think it is a good time to sugar-up little kids, and let them run around crazy… like little hobgoblins, and such. They shout out scary phrases and such…. like “Give me more candy!”

And speaking of scary phrases….. that now brings me to the word BOO. I can’t really figure how it got started. Did people start booing bad performances, and athletes… back in the days of old? And somehow it got associated with the whole “Ghost” thing…. and saying “Boo”? Or was it the other way around? Ghosts first, then sneering. OR is it short for something… like Booyah. WHAT?

Now…. I’ve met a couple of ghosts. Neither said BOO. Period. In fact…. they didn’t say boo.

Now… back in the day when I did stand up comedy…. I got booed from time to time.
They just hated my Ghost Jokes…. like…. Where do ghosts go on vacation? …. Why….. Lake Eerie, of course.
OR…. What happens when a ghost gets lost in the fog? ….. He is mist.

Yep. Booed right off the dang stage.

But back to Halloween. It got its start with the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows’ Day. Succinctly… it initiates the triduum of Hallowmas. That means…. the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead…. which includes saints (the hallows), and martyrs, and all the faithful dead departed believers.

Which still doesn’t answer the Ghost-Vocabulary BOO-thing. Maybe because it rhymes with Witches’ Brew… and someone penned it poetically.

I guess this is one mystery I can’t solve for you. Good thing it is Halloween…. the perfect time for unsolved mysteries.

“The ghost practiced scaring people night after night. He was finally ready for his day boo.” – Morgue Freeman

 

Push, don’t pull?

The old saying goes…. “You shouldn’t put the cart before the horse.” I heard this when I was a little kid and I couldn’t figure what it meant. The cart before the horse. Well, why in the world not?

I know that the idiom suggests that you shouldn’t put things in the wrong order. But who is to say really. Maybe horses would rather push… than pull. AND …. it just so happens…. that the first Farmer Jones imposed his way of doing things on the first horse that was assigned to pull a cart.

Take this for example. The automatic popup bread toaster was patented in 1919. Yay. Toast! However…. the bread slicing machine didn’t get invented until 1928. So people sliced their own bread to pop in the toaster for almost a decade before sliced bread was sold. Seems a little wrong-orderish to us….. but it worked just fine and dandy for ten years.

Talk about wrong order.  Imagine my surprise when I found out that there is no butter in buttermilk.

Yep.  And.  If…. the ants were pulling those carts… they would be pushing for sure. Ants can pull about 30 times their own weight…. BUT they lift and push about 50 times their own weight.

So there you have it. There are no wrong orders… just dumb answers.
Or something along those lines.

 

Back to when I was a little girl.  I was at the grocery store with my Mom.  She was probably still in the checkout line…. and I went to the front of the store where the little “Horsey Carousel” was.  You know the kind with the plastic horses… and you pop a quarter in the slot… and the thing turns round and round…

So I didn’t have a quarter… but I was on the carousel and riding the thing anyway.  Like crazy.  I felt like it was going a hundred miles an hour… I hollered “Giddyup”…. and for all I know… I could have been on the back of a wild horse on the plains in Wyoming.  Just then… someone walked by and said, “The sign says ‘OUT OF ORDER’ stupid kid.”

It sure didn’t feel out of order… at least… not to me.

That said…..   I’m sure not going to tell anyone else how to slice their bread… toaster or no.

And when we are tired of always pulling…. maybe all we need to do is give a little push….. instead.

“A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?” – Albert Einstein

The Big Cause

When THOSE sorts of things happen. You know the ones. You just can’t quite explain it, but there it is. Like when you get three flat tires in nine days time, and then the furnace breaks down at home. Or… you can’t remember your sister’s first name when you are introducing her to someone at the grocery. Those times when you can’t find your car keys… and they were just, RIGHT HERE…. on the counter. Or when people start finding huge 20-feet-long oarfish…. out of the ocean…. two in one week. No explanation. Blame it on the Monkey.

You see…. Way out there…. I mean.. WAY out there….
are things we can not even imagine. That infinity of it all… goes on and on and on and on.
We can’t measure the immeasurable. We do not see it, or smell it… and right now… we cannot even think it.
But. Smart humans, we think we are.

Yet, for all we know, there is an entire universe of monkey people, three billion years ahead of us…. hanging around out there. You know. Just monkeying around. They are the ones responsible for the mishaps. Working us this way and that. A bunch of real swingers, I’ll tell you.

And. I’ll bet you a bunch of bananas this is incredibly true.
What else could explain the all the lost socks…. and Donald Trump’s Hair… and the mystery filling in Hot Pockets.

I’m telling you. There are Monkeys in the Universe. The ones with the wrenches.  Right now, they are having WAY more fun then when they were in the barrel. Trust me…. You can blame it ALL on them.

“Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.” – Kahlil Gibran

 

When a Leaf Leaves

Barry? Do you know what your purpose is in life?
Well, Floyd. I thought I was supposed to hang here and be green. You know…. Photosynthesize…. and all that. Now…. obviously… I’m not so sure about any of it.
Yeah Barry… I totally get it. With the change in color and everything.
Honest to goodness Floyd. I mean…. look how dry my skin is getting too. And crumbly.
Yeah. Me too Barry……
… …. ……
…..Hey Barry? So what do you think it is now.
What?
Your purpose.
Oh. Floyd. I’ll tell you. I’ve been hanging on to this limb for so long now… maybe my purpose it to let go. Just let go… and let the autumn breezes carry me… floating and flying on the wind…. to my next place. My next new purpose.
Dang Barry. That’s beautiful. But I’ll miss you man.   

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them. – Dalai Lama

 

Once Upon A Time….

1923 was one heck of a year. A gazillion notable things took place during those twelve months.

For instance…
Yankee Stadium opened its doors in the Bronx, NY.

Louis Armstrong made his first recording, “Chimes Blues”

The Hollywood Sign was inaugurated in California (it originally read….. Hollywoodland).

Roy and Walt Disney founded The Walt Disney Company.  Hello Mickey.

Time Magazine hits newsstands in the United States for the first time.

And. My Mom was born. On October 27th.
Now….Maybe that is not as “notable” as the other things. She didn’t make the Google cut, after all.
But it was notable to me.

 

Yes indeed.  Quite.

 

“In every phenomenon the beginning remains always the most notable moment.” –  Thomas Carlyle

Learn to be Catty.

The ability to learn. I truly think life and learning go hand in hand. Like peanut butter and jelly. Eggs and bacon. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.

Essentially, we as humans, GROW when we LEARN. Hopefully to become better people.
With all of that in mind, tonight’s entry is a Public Service Announcement… I guess…. sorta’.

CAT Facts. C=Covering A=All T=Topics CAT Facts.

Get out your Sneakers. “The average person walks the equivalent of three times around the world in a lifetime.”I am not sure how far I have gone… but I am feeling pretty worn out from it.

Just when you thought the world was in the 21st Century…..“One-third of Russians believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth.”(Ever seen the movie “Fiddler On The Roof”? ‘Sunrise…. Sunset….’)

“46% of American adults believe that the world is less than 10,000 years old”Again… welcome to the 21st Century.

Lighter subject.
“A burning candle creates 1.5 million tiny diamonds per second.”We are talking teensy weensy itty bitty diamonds. It is just a bunch of carbon, after all.

Now… to the REAL ice. “Most diamonds are at least 3 billion years old.”(See the above notation about 46% of Americans. I hope none of them are wearing diamonds.)

“Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh, and King Charles I all had pierced ears.”(I am guessing they wore diamonds.)

Finally….. THOSE were the days.
“Until 1913, children in America could legally be sent by parcel post.”
Depending on the kid…. that could be a LOT of stamps.

Oh… just one more… since most of you may think this is all rubbish.
“On average, every square mile of sea on the planet contains 46,000 pieces of rubbish.” Now THAT IS rubbish.

 

“A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.” – Mark Twain

 

Let’s make a toast.

Tonight we had dinner with a couple of old friends.

Spending time with an old friend is sort of like finding two yolks in one egg.

You feel as close to them as ever… like two peas in a pod…. or two yolks in a shell.
There is a lot of cracking up going on.
Your troubles seem to melt away… like butter.
And when it is all send and done… you come out with your sunny side up.
Even if we all are a bunch of dips.

 

“A friend should be one in whose understanding and virtue we can equally confide, and whose opinion we can value at once for its justness and its sincerity.” – Robert Hall

Deer Me.

Deer.
Oh Deer.
Okay. I know I am going to get my hunting friends all ruffled. But don’t get you panties in a bunch over this one…. I mean… I eat meat. So I am being a bit hypocritical here. But it’s on my limited brain… so here it goes.

They say there is an over population of deer in certain parts of the United States. The “They” who says this are…. humans…. of some sort or another. And, Ohio is one of those places of “over population”.

But let’s consider it, eine moment, bitte.
Large mammals…. including deer…. and predators such as wolves and bear were wiped out here in Ohio.

Now this whole pluckiness happened during the nineteenth century by hunting and deforestation. Who do you think did the hunting and deforestation? Yep. And guess what. By 1904, there were no deer in Ohio. Zippata. None. Zilch. Nadda.

So… the humans said… WHOOPS. And they decided that white-tailed deer needed to be reintroduced to Ohio (via a government stocking program) in the 1920s and 1930s.

It worked. Since their re-introduction to Ohio……deer have been living happily in the Buckeye State. They are found in every county in Ohio. Today, the deer population in Ohio exceeds 750,000.

But now the geniuses are saying that the growth of the deer population has created problems. Here is “why” they purport there is an over-population. The natural predators of deer have been eliminated from the state. This has allowed deer populations to grow unchecked. I ask them … who’s fault is this? Again…. humans. We are the ones who “offed” the predators.

They say…. that large deer herds have destroyed plants and small trees. They also say that deer will damage local farm crops. Not only that …. they are like… well… a deer in the headlights. You see…. they are involved in over 23,000 deer / car crashes each year. Guess who is driving the cars? It ain’t the big bad wolf.

Well… the “THEY” established a hunting program. Ohio hunters take over 200 thousand deer each year and generate more than $10 million in deer permit revenue for the state.

This is how and when they are hunted….. this year in Ohio.
Archery – Sept 28, 2013 – Feb 2, 2014
Muzzle-loader (antler-less deer only) – Oct 12-13, 2013
Youth Gun – Nov 23-24, 2013
Gun – Dec 2-8, 2013
Muzzle-loader – Jan 4-7, 2014

If we hadn’t jerked around with the whole balance of things in the beginning, we wouldn’t have to be killing them now.

But we did. And now we do.

I understand that now there is a “need” to control this. But I don’t like it. I don’t want to lose the likes of my friend Emaline the Doe… here in this photo…  I just don’t.

You know…. when I told her about all of this… she stuck her tongue out in all earnestness.

And take one more moment to consider this. The planet is over populated with a lot of things…. including more than 7 Billion people. I hope the “THEY” don’t put an Open Season on us…

… but you never know.

“Hunting is not a sport. In a sport, both sides should know they’re in the game.” – Paul Rodriguez

 

Simple….but it’s knot.

Life sure is complex.
The Great Spiritual people in the world….. the ones who are truly enlightened….. seem to find life’s ultimate simplicity. They are incredibly in tune with the energy of the Universe, or the energy of God, or whatever you may or may not call it. It is quite remarkable when a human reaches this point.

But it can all get so dang complicated.
Yes…. as you might have imagined…. there are the likes of me. In my little brain, everything about this blue ball seems incredibly complex, complicated, and affected. Every which way I turn, it seems like the molecules are spinning faster than what I can keep up with. Everything is all hitched up together in this huge complex whirligig of existence.

For example. When you make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich… should the peanut butter side go above the jelly side, or vice versa? Do you eat all the crusts off first, or just have at it?

Putting on shoes and socks. Do you put both socks on first, and then both shoes? Or one sock, one shoe… the other sock, other shoe?

When paying at the pump, do should you say “yes” or “no” to the receipt.

How about things you don’t do all the time… like changing the furnace filter… or lighting the water heater pilot light? It is like reinventing the dang wheel every time I go to do those sorts of things.

Different people have different challenges. A young person recently told me a certain situation was “complicated.” I am sure… for them… it was. You see, when you are in the thick of it…. you just can’t see the forest for the trees. Or does the saying go… the fortress for the keys?  Oh….I’m hopeless.

Other times… it is the “topic” or “thing” that is smudgy.
Some folks find that computers and technology are complicated. But for me…. it is a source of enjoyment.

Yet….have me sew on a button? Or work on a car? Holy smackerels. Now THAT is impenetrable.

The complexities of life are astounding. It can all get knotted up and convoluted sometimes. Like a barbed wire fence. Or is it barb wire fence? Again…. the intricate mysteries of life.

Just remember…. If there are four slices of pie…the PIE is still the same size… as if there were eight slices. And a slipped-buntline knot… is not nearly as strong as the trucker’s hitch knot. Whatever the hell  all that means.

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” – Confucius

She’ll want a 10-Carrot Ring.

There is more than meets the eye in the pasture. Something is afoot.

Fred, Fred, ….. Fred.
Holy HorseJockeys Fred. Hide me. You have to hide me. I think Margaret is trotting over this way. Oh… I’m pretty sure of it now.

You KNOW I can’t stand that old nag.

Oh gawd Fred. Puuuhhhhhllllleeeeaaassse.. you have to hold still. Maybe she won’t see me. Please hide me.

Oh great. Lookit. She IS coming this way. Oh, and she’s all-out galloping now. Fred…. I’m ducking behind you. Try to look like an eight-legged horse, will you man? I owe you for this one buddy. Oh my gosh. Is that a BRIDLE in her mouth. Oh… this can’t be good. What a night mare.

John. Just talk to her if she comes over.

Wellll…. that’s a big nay, Fred. Margaret is SO lame.  She is going to try to saddle me into going on another dang date. BIG NAY on that Fred. Big Nay.

The Traumas of Horse Speed Dating.  They can’t all be studs.