What kind of resentment is this now?? Rodential?? What the… ??? Well you see it’s like this: there I was, minding my own business, stringing the Christmas lights around the rail of our deck. Pretty much becoming an annual thing. The strings go up shortly after Thanksgiving, them come down… um… later. Sometimes just before Easter!! Hey, we have them on a timer and they come on just after sunset and go off before midnight. Then they come on again at 5:30 AM for a couple hours so my Honey Pie can see better when she heads to work a couple times a week.

When the lights are done for the season, I stash them in an old woven wooden basket all nicely placed so they’re easy to pull out the following year. There’s also enough room for the timer and a couple extension cords. Convenient, right?? Well this year I plugged the lights in, and began to string them up. As I was running my fingers along the wires, I got a pretty good poke!! A shock!! Electric ouch awreddy!! I let go quickly, said some “magic” words, and then went in for a closer look. Looked like some of the insulation had been scraped off the wire. No problem, I thought, I’ll get out the trusty electrical tape and fix the problem. As I continued on, I got shocked again. And again I shrugged it off, saw the minor damage to the insulation, taped it up and continued on.

Third time is a charm, I’ve heard. Well it wasn’t very charming to receive a third shock. This time a substantial amount of wire damage was evident. Then I looked in the bottom of the basket where the remaining lights were waiting for their turn out of the basket. Shavings. Green shavings. The “scrapes” on the insulation were not scrapes at all, the wires were being nibbled by mice!! Rodents!! So I got rather annoyed.

Hence the term: rodential resentment.

Wasn’t sure if rodential was even a real word, so in my search for a catchy title for this week’s silly story I went hunting on the webbernets and found a definition.

Rodential: of or pertaining to a rodent.

Well my resentment definitely pertains to a rodent. Probably several. My Beautiful Girlfriend suggested I lay some traps, but hey, we live in the dingleweeds. Pretty sure the number of mice is far greater than any number of traps I might set. “No,” I told her, “the lights need to go in a mouse-proof container.”

A similar event happened earlier this year but with carrots. I love to grow vegetables, and after much labor I was able to convert a weed patch into a pretty nice carrot bed. But something was nibbling the greens… kinda weird because the greens were being snipped off about 8 inches or so above ground. I couldn’t see any varmint tracks, but I figured maybe chipmunks or squirrels were the culprits. A couple days and few more carrot plant munchings later, the small live trap I set in the garden proved useless. “Must be meeces!!” I said to myself, remembering that cartoon cat Snagglepuss. I set several mouse traps near in the carrot bed and sure enough, I got one! The next day, another! A grand total of 6 over the space of a week or so. Traps stayed in the garden until the mice quit coming.

I consider myself something of a veteran mouse trapper (if there is such a title). After trying several types of traps over the years, I’ve stuck with the old fashioned Victor snap traps. The key is to put something on the bait pan that reliably springs the trap. Nothing is more frustrating than baiting a trap with peanut butter only to find the bait has been licked off and the trap has not sprung. My tried and true method now is to take a hunk of walnut and tie it to the bait pan with several loops of sewing thread. Mice simply can’t resist that big hunk of walnut, and they have to tug at it to get their reward. Unfortunately for them, their “reward” is a quick trip to Mouse Heaven. I really don’t like killing them… but I really don’t like them eating the carrots I worked so hard to get!! So when I remove their little mouse bodies from the trap I say a little prayer of apology for them. I mean hey, they’re just doing what meeces do (as Snagglepuss might say).

The carrots are sleeping now… they get covered up with a healthy layer of leaves to keep them from freezing during the winter. Then I go out and uncover what I need and carefully put the leaves back to keep the soil from freezing. I’ve also learned (the hard way) to mark where I left off harvesting. Not much fun to dig for carrots in the snow only to find out that you had already dug there!! Not sure if the mice are sleeping… but I hope so.

So if any mice are reading this, please be warned: Christmas light damage is annoying… but if you mess with my food, I’ll be setting out a deadly surprise for you.

I just hope they don’t find a way to fight back like these did…

Grandkids are here for the weekend. Ollie is 12 going on 17, Gabe is 8 going on 12, and holy MOLY time is flying!!  We are horrible grandparents:  we buy them disgusting things like milkshakes on the way to our house, and then we torture them further by allowing them to play video games until 9 PM.  Then it’s time to brush teeth and settle in for our traditional ritual of…

CARTOONS!!

And yes, for those of you who may be concerned, yes, they are required to put the video games down for several hours at a time and do really weird things like read books.  Ollie is pretty accomplished at reading; but Gabe is still learning so I decided to have a little fun with him tonight.   He was holding my Beautiful Girlfriend’s iPad, to which I can send messages from my phone.  While he was exploring the various apps I began to send him messages.  He very much enjoyed my surprising texts, a few examples of which are:

“Gabriel smells really bad.”

“I’m trying to lick my eyebrows.”

“Do not try to sniff the couch, it may bite you.”

“If I put potatoes in my ears, it may sound like potato chips.  Then my ears will be crunchy.”

“My legs are made of vanilla chicken worms.”  And of course,

“My nose is full of bedroom furniture.”

Gabe was able to read all these with very little coaching; and a hearty giggle erupted with the completion of each sentence.  Then it was time for The Brushing of the Teeth and The Going to the Bathroom; followed by funny videos.

We’re not talking Sponge Bob or Minions either… no no. Papa (that’s me) goes for the good old fashioned cartoons that were around long before computer animation. Superman. Popeye. Betty Boop. Gabe has become hopelessly hooked on Chip and Dale.  Ollie’s tastes are broadening as he matures.  Both enjoy pretty much any old cartoon I manage to dig up from my childhood on YouTube.  They have even had some good belly laughs from the likes of Laurel and Hardy.

Of course, slapstick and fake explosions were considered funny stuff back in “the old days.” I really loved “the old days,” primarily because I was able to live through many of them. Many of our favorite cartoons were made long before we were born; but these were the ones that were on the TV when we were kids. To some, the humor could perhaps be considered too violent. To us, the gags were outlandish and silly; and the cartoonists simply had a way of throwing them all together in impossible situations that made us laugh.

I like to interject a few funny music videos before the cartoons. The grandsons groan at first… Gabe asks, “is this a song??”  Then I explain that since Ollie is learning the saxophone, this is a really cool example of what he might be able to do someday.  The example came in the form of a rather entertaining group of folks who call themselves the Leningrad Cowboys.  Following the music, the cartoons must flow; and at least one Chip and Dale episode is mandatory viewing.  I watch the time during all this and try to get their hineys to bed at 10 PM.  Inevitably, when I announce that bedtime has arrived I hear the refrain, “one more Papa??  Please??”  And of course I give in.

So here are a few of our favorites for your enjoyment.  If you want more, just say “one more Papa!!”  and search on YouTube for something for your inner child.  OK… here goes.

‘Tis the season for monsters ya know. We’re pretty sure we are plagued by one. Things keep coming up missing around here and we’re not sure who’s to blame. I mean hey, we are gentle people; and as far as we know we haven’t done anything mean to anyone… at least not on purpose. Nevertheless, stuff keeps vanishing when we least expect it. While deep in search the other day, in exasperation my Beautiful Girlfriend proclaimed, “I think we have a monster!!”

I have never seen this monster. Neither has she. Haven’t heard any nasty groans or growls… although yesterday there was a shocking “CRASH!! BONK BOnk bonk!!” that we had trouble identifying. Scared the living hoodlemonkers out of me!! And I don’t even know what hoodlemonkers are!! I leaped up and went searching for what might be lying in pieces somewhere. I was ready to blame this destruction on Freddy The Freeloader (our cat, Fred); but I didn’t find any evidence of broken stuff lying around. After a couple trips to various rooms, I discovered that the horrible crash emanated from the hand shower that sticks to the wall of the shower enclosure. It had come loose (again), and although there was no damage it sure made one heck of a noise. We rarely use it, it works off a little valve off the main shower head and sticks to the wall of the shower enclosure with a very expensive (cheap junk) suction cup thingy. I’ve tried to make it stick better by putting a little water on the surface of the suction cup doomaflochy (pardon my technical talk). That worked for a little while. Then I used a tiny bit of olive oil. That worked for a few months. This time I tried some shampoo. Who knows?? Maybe it will stay put for a bit.

So the monster probably did not make the shower head fall down.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here though and blame the clutter bomb fragments that adorn our garage on this invisible monster. Anyone else out there have a favorite tool, then go to actually use it, and it’s nowhere to be found? So what’s my solution? Go to the store for a replacement. This also happens with nails, screws, caulk, caulking guns, packages of sandpaper, paint… you name it. The monster hides all these things from me. Then when I come home with replacement stuff, I find the original “missing” things about a week or so after the project is complete. And of course they’re all right where I left them. We’ve embarked on a few cleansing missions though, and let’s just say that the local Rescue Mission Thrift Store has benefited from our accumulations of goofs.

My Lovely Bride came home from a short shopping jaunt yesterday, and said, “I bought 3 more pair of reading glasses!” “OK…,” I replied. “They keep vanishing!!” she explained. “Must be the monster!!” I said. “Yes!!” she retorted. Now I have to admit that I’ve made some big mistakes during our 48 years of marriage, but I wasn’t about to point out that she has approximately 174 pairs of glasses in the house already. I’m not as dumb as I look, you see. And OK maybe I’m exaggerating just a bit, but we do have several. Some of them are mine!!

We were watching the news today, and I looked across the room on the windowsill. I blurted out,“Hey Honey, there’s some glasses over there!” “Where the heck did those come from??” she wondered. “Maybe the monster put them there.” I responded. After the news was over, I was soliciting ideas for this week’s “Happy Friday!!!” We were both on the same wavelength regarding this mysterious monster as a main topic; but I was looking for a name. “The Private Eye Monster,” my Dear Honey offered. “How did you get that?” I wondered; thinking aloud that it sounded like the monster was a detective or something.

“No,” she explained, “it keeps stealing my private eyes!!”

And now for some seasonal monster cartoon fun.

Although summer is my favorite time of year, autumn rates a very close second when I consider what’s happening in the garden. Most of the warm weather crops will get frosted to death soon; so the remaining harvest is, in large part, greens.

My beautiful girlfriend and I got hooked on greens as a result of living in Florida while I was in the Air Force. Southerners do love their greens: collards, turnip greens, beet greens, mustard greens…   We tried all of them and were smitten pretty much instantly; and when we moved up north we added Swiss chard to the fold. I recently surprised a lady at the grocery store when I noticed the beets she was buying had some very nice greens attached to them.  “Those are nice beet greens!  Do you eat them?”  I asked.  She was completely unaware that they were edible; and seemed interested in actually trying them.

Greens of one variety or another have been a staple in our garden for over 40 years. They are easy to grow and packed with nutrition. And of course, while we are eating our greens, we recite the Greens Eating Poem:

Greens!! Greens!! They’re good for your heart!!

The more you eat ‘em the more you’re smart!!

The more you’re smart, the better you feel,

So eat your greens with every meal!!

 (And eat clam chowder to make them louder!!)

Well maybe that’s not how the poem goes…

Anyway, greens are one of the most versatile vegetables for the simple fact that you can eat them just as soon as they start growing; and continue to harvest right up through winter. I garden intensively; meaning I grow a lot of food in a small space. I often purposely sow seeds for collards or kale a bit too thickly and thin them out as they germinate. The remaining seedlings are then allowed to grow a bit more, and I continue to harvest by thinning as the plants grow. The sprouts and / or young plants are a wonderful addition to any almost any dish, salad and stir-fry to name just two.   Just snip off the roots, rinse a bit, and toss them into whatever you like. I’ve even been known to use them as a substitute for lettuce on a sandwich.

Eventually my beds of greens will be thinned so there’s about a foot between plants. Many of them, like collards and kale for example, will thrive throughout the entire gardening season.   I often plant root crops in the beds with the greens.   The combination of leafy vegetables and root crops keeps weeds at bay while the vegetables thrive. Beds are also a good habitat for toads, spiders, and other beneficial creatures who keep pest insect damage to a minimum.

Swiss chard is a big favorite of ours.  It tastes very similar to spinach but will produce right up to winter. It’s frost hardy, but after the temp falls below 20 degrees F for awhile it will die. Therefore, the Swiss chard has to be completely harvested before the weather stays bitter cold. Kale and wild cabbage (ancestor to collards), though,will survive the entire winter. These two are among our favorites.  They’re good, hearty fare at the table either by themselves or mixed up in other dishes.  The flavor is pretty strong in summer but mellows nicely when the cool weather comes.  And besides, aren’t they just plain pretty?

On more than one occasion I’ve picked wild cabbage, kale, and also kohlrabi out of the snow. Although they appear to be dead in the garden they’re still green. When brought inside the effectiveness of their natural antifreeze shows up as they magically “come to life.” A good snow cover is welcome in the kale and wild cabbage beds, because snow protects their leaves from getting wind burn during the cold winter weather.  However, I’ve learned the hard way that it’s a good idea to mark where the beds are with some long sticks. It’s no fun shoveling snow around looking for your greens!

For those of you who are old enough to remember, Granny used to cook up a mess of collard greens pretty regularly on “The Beverly Hillbillies.”  I went hunting for some video of that;  didn’t find any.  However, I found this and rather enjoyed it.  Hope you do too.

Once upon a time, in a land far, far, away, there lived a boy named Me who amused himself for hours on end with old movies and short comedy films. The land was an obscure place called Long Island, New York. Due to the proximity of a very large city, our family enjoyed many TV stations that broadcast many entertainers, both very new (for the time) and very, very old.

Back then you could buy 3 candy bars for a quarter, dinosaurs sold gasoline; and if there was any mention of cellular phones, it would have been some strange communications device used by atomic monster amoebas. Radio programs would entertain whole families; but while listening one could do lots of other things while listening to shows like Fibber McGee and Molly or the Green Hornet. I arrived on this planet about 6 years after commercial TV came into bloom. By the time I learned English, though, I was completely hooked by all the cool stuff on the magic glowing box.

Looking back, I consider it quite a privilege to have grown up where I did. Local stations from New York City of course had nationally televised network shows, but they also had their own very entertaining local programs. All of these were broadcast live; which often made for interesting viewing. On top of all that, the New York stations had access to extensive collections of both silent movies and movies with sound.

Our parents did the best they could to encourage us kids to play outside. However, when it got dark early or if the weather was icky we’d be in the house. Often in desperation our Mom would say, “go watch television!!” Didn’t take much persuasion… and we enjoyed many hours of shows like the Three Stooges, Abbot and Costello, Looney Tunes, Marx Brothers, and Laurel and Hardy. The laughter from all these was a great escape for me. Things at home weren’t always pleasant (every home has its moments I suppose). I won’t go into any gory detail… but suffice it to say that comedy films gave me the healing touch of laughter I often desperately needed.

Fast forward to my own journey into parenthood; and of course I shared the joy of the “old guys” with our kids. Both our daughter and son know, for example, that Stan and Ollie were the first names of the famous comedy duo, Laurel and Hardy. Not sure if that had any bearing on what was to come, but our first grandson was named Oliver. Ollie is now 12, and we’ve already begun a second passing of the torch, so to speak. Both Oliver and his brother Gabe have had many laughs while watching some Laurel and Hardy shorts. Even a couple silent films! To my great delight, they both enjoy them greatly (thank you, YouTube).

Our daughter and son in law also have two dogs; Arrow and Stanley. Both are beautiful, loving creatures who greet us warmly every time we go to visit. And now of course, their family have their very own Stan and Ollie!!  So… long story longer; not only did Stan and Ollie warm my heart when I was a kid; but they continue to do so now that I’m older than compost.

In more ways than one!!

For those of you who have read this far, please enjoy this Laurel and Hardy short film. I have a feeling Stan and Ollie will lift your spirits, too.

A very horrible, high-class, terrible yet luxurious thing happened to us about a month ago. Our oven died!! I was gonna cook something very important (in other words, I can’t remember want it was), and when I checked on the oven after the preheat, the oven just sat there with that silly room temperature look on its insides. I’ve dubbed all this sadness a “horrible, high-class, terrible yet luxurious thing” because all I have to do is turn on the news and I can plainly see that I am a very spoiled American. Much of the world would LOVE to have their only problem in life to be a broken cooking appliance!

Anyway, I cried and rolled on the floor for a few hours, thrashed about, filled my mouth with soapy water and sprayed it everywhere while yelling great howls of boo-hoo and ickety-boo; and of course none of that is actually true but it was nice fodder for a run-on sentence so I just threw all that in there for the halibut and any other fish that may wish to be included.

Then called our friendly neighborhood repair folks to come to the rescue.

When the guy arrived, I showed him what was going on: everything seemed like it wanted to work, but no heat from the electric ouch elements. “I dunno… maybe a fuse or something??” I offered. Then I stepped back and let the guy do his thing. After about 20 minutes, he said, “looks like your computer is dead. I’ll have to go back to the shop to see if I can find one.” The retired electronic service guy who still lives inside my brain was somewhat in disagreement, but hey, I called the experts for a reason (the reason: I didn’t wanna mess with it!!) so I let it go. I mean hey, the oven is 15 years old and anything is possible.

Got a call a couple days later. “Ken, we can’t find that oven control computer board anywhere. I mean, it’s supposedly still available but nobody has stock.,” my trusted repair guy told me. “Oh flarn..,” I sighed. And yes maybe I used a stronger word, but hey, flarn is pretty powerful, right?? “So the stove is 15 years old, time for a new one?” I asked. “Yeah probably,” he replied, “but because of the chip shortage, everybody has been waiting for months to get parts. I can order you one but I have no idea when it will come in.” “OK, please get one on order for me,” I responded.

Joni Mitchell sang “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone.” Ain’t that the truth? Grandsons came to visit; and a regular favorite is frozen pizza. My Beautiful Girlfriend lamented, “oh crap!! We don’t have an oven!!” “It’s OK,” I reassured, “Pizza Hut has an oven.” And they do!! So we did what any other spoiled American would do, we ordered take out pizza. Then came the time when we were hankering for some chicken. Lee’s has chicken!! Pretty darn good too!! And if you go on Tuesdays, you can get two, 2-piece senior meals with mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, and biscuits for ten bucks!! Oh and have you had their pot pies? MMmmmm….

Well nearly a month went by, and no word about a new stove. So again, this spoiled American guy took the high-class route and went hunting for a new stove online. Of course I was being picky… I wanted to stick with American made; and our service folks recommended GE as the top choice. Then we wanted the same basic style: a white drop-in range with glass cooktop. Several places said they had stoves, but when I called to verify stock, there was a resounding NOPE each time. Again, I exclaimed, “FLARN!!”

Finally I decided to break down and put my electronic service guy pants back on and went hunting for an oven control board. Several sites in the U.S. said there was stock, but again after following up it was a big goose egg. My last-ditch effort involved hunting for alternate part numbers and BINGO!! There was an outfit with one in stock, in Ontario, Canada!! I called and the very friendly guy on the other end reassured me that yes they did indeed have one; and offered to take my credit card info over the phone (never do that, folks!!). I thanked him profusely and told him I’d order online. “Oh, OK, perfect,” he said. I ordered the $330 part (way cheaper than a $1500 stove), and it was at my house in less than a week.

With much grunting and wondering I was able to pull the oven out and replace the board. Feeling pretty good about myself, I turned the breaker back on and did a quick test. No heat. I cried again, weeping buckets of tears which I collected and tossed into the air while howling my sadness to the tune of The Funeral March. After a few milliseconds of this whining and saying FLARN a few more times, I turned the breaker off and commenced to remove the back covers to hunt for that blasted fuse I thought might be the original problem.

Yep!! I bypassed the fuse by using a plastic chip-clip to squish the leads together and did another test. This time when I touched the electric ouch element it lived up to its name I just made up! Houston, we have HEAT!! Called Alex Appliance in the Heights. Those folks have always been there for us in a pinch. “Yes, we have the fuse. But we only have the Whirlpool one. It’s fifty bucks.” Got the part, slapped it in, and did the electric ouch test once more for good measure. Success!! I told my eagerly waiting Lovely Wife Lady the news as she sat on the couch, “OK, we’re good!! A little expensive… I don’t remember ever spending $380 on a fuse.” “Huh??” she queried. “Well, $330 for the control board, and $50 for the fuse…”

Called my friends at the repair shop and told them the good news. The nice lady who takes the phone calls asked me how upset I was… and I blatantly and (not even) forcefully said, “not at all!! This was a completely human mistake. Just wanted you to know so that isn’t overlooked if you ever run across it again.” I went on to explain that hey, even though I considered myself pretty good while I was working, I made my share of mistakes. I really was not at all upset.

She was very relieved and then asked me, “Ken, would you like a job??”

I told her no thanks, but if I did want a job, it could be fun to work here maybe. As an observer anyway.