No. I’m NOT ready for no stinkin’ football. Call me any name in the book you like. OK, get any book you like and call me names out of it, see if I care. I’m not afraid to admit it: I’m a US citizen and I am not fond of football. Actually, I’m not really fond of any sport when it gets right down to it. Sure, I know how to go to a game and support loved ones as they run out to the field and chase the ball. I mean, sheesh, I can play nice. On such occasions I’ll even find myself jumping from the stands and rooting for the home team. I’ll consider myself innocent on those counts due to temporary insanity.

You see, sports are basically against my religion. But then, religion is also against my religion. Both activities generate way too much ego driven squabbling if you ask me.

I know… nobody asked me. Well as Grandma Loftus used to say, “that’s my two cents. Nobody asked me fer it, but I give it to ya’s anyhow.” Not sure if she liked sports or not, but every once in awhile she’d belt out her rendition of “Take Me Out To The Ball Game.”

I really loved that lady.

Well wait now… I actually did have a rather enjoyable football experience recently.  Although many Michiganders remain what often appears as irrationally hopeful, the Detroit Lions have often been accused of impersonating a professional football team.  However, a couple weeks ago, I was flipping channels and noticed they were winning… against the New England Patriots!!  The Lions whomped the Patriots 26 to 10 !!  Now that was cool!!

Now baseball is OK. Yes, I know it’s a sport; one which I’ve actually played!! Ah, Little League… those were the days. Even though I’m originally from New York, I think the Yankees need to come in last place for a few decades. It’s someone else’s turn for crying out loud!! Here in West Michigan if the Tigers fall on their hineys we turn to Chicago and root for the Cubs. The Cubs have actually done pretty darn good lately!! I don’t really know any of the player’s names, so of course I have no idea about their records. And I guess the only time I really watch much baseball is during the World Series; and only then when I’m rooting for one underdog or another. And much of the time I don’t even watch the Series.

So OK, I don’t really care that much about baseball either.

So much money!! And all that merchandising!! Oy yoy yoy. Not to mention the interference with many of my favorite programs because a game precludes one of my favorite shows. We don’t really watch all that much TV as it is, so when one of “our shows” gets knocked out of the schedule by a ball game we get a bit annoyed. Some would say we’re still in the stone age because we get all our TV from our antenna. Mostly we find ourselves watching BS television: CBS and PBS (ha, ha ha, I make silly joke of BS) (ha). We have a few favorites that we watch consistently, so one can imagine the frustration when NCIS is delayed because “it’s a big game tonight!! The Packers are playing the Red Wings (or something).”

“Awww Mannn!!”

But WAIT!! There really IS some baseball I’ve always enjoyed; for as long as I can remember really. It’s a special team that Bud Abbott and Lou Costello talked about. The team was known for their strange names. Maybe you’ve heard of them…

Rather weird title to a story, right?? I mean, nobody has ever asked whether my car was a professional wrestler. Come to think of it, nobody has ever asked whether my cordless drill is a veterinarian; nor has anyone wondered if my antique radio is related to the Queen of England. And I have absolutely no idea what any of that is all about, but it was fun to write those silly things with my typing fingers.

OK… so one might (or might not) ask, why would I tell all of you that my car is not a professional wrestler? Well you see it’s like this: my car is a minivan named Sienna. I only recently learned that she is female; but when I went to the Google to look up her name, the photo of a woman from Detroit popped up on the side of the screen. Apparently, Sienna the wrestler is a “two-time Impact Wrestling Knockouts Champion.” I never met her, but I’m thinking I’d never want to make her angry.

No, my Sienna is from a factory in Princeton, Indiana. We recently found her sitting in a lot in Holland, Michigan. Her appearance was very timely; because my brand new 2001 Chrysler Town and Country was starting to behave rather badly. I don’t know if the Chrysler was a boy or a girl, but I dubbed it “Old Rattle-Bonken” because of the strange noises the suspension made when going over even the smallest bumps. I was hoping to drive it a couple more years, so we got the transmission rebuilt. Then the speedometer started dancing strangely and my brain started worrying about what was next. Therefore, Old Rattle-Bonken was traded in for Sienna.

When we first got the Town and Country, we thought we had something really special. Heated seats, leather interior, electric sliders, no rust… very clean. But then came this crazy Toyota thing. All kinds of bells and whistles, many of which I still don’t know how to use. It even warns me when cars are coming if I’m backing up!! Warns me if somebody is next to me in my blind spot!! Has a navigation system!! Moon roof!! VERY QUIET!! One of the quietest cars we’ve ever owned.

Just like the Chrysler, Sienna has steering wheel controls for the radio. Also has even more… I can connect my smellphone to her brain with bluetooth. Haven’t done that yet. Oh wait, I did by accident once. Then the other day I noticed this strange picture of a face with its mouth open on one of the little buttons on the steering wheel. I pressed it… a menu came up on the dashboard, and a woman started talking to me!!

“Blah blah blah… voice recognition… blah blah commands blah blah help.” I was so amazed I only comprehended bits and pieces of what she was saying. Then she went silent and the menu disappeared from the display screen. My experience with computers started to kick in, and I pressed the button again. More voice command stuff… but this time after she quit talking I said, “play the CD please.” She replied “disk,” and I answered, “yes.” Then she said “yes;” and VOILA!! the CD started to play. Then I said, “FM radio,” and she echoed my command, and I said “yes” and she said “yes” and the FM radio started to play.

Was this cool or what??

Then I got more adventurous: “tune to 720 AM.” She replied, “pardon?” Hmm… ok let’s try FM… “tune to 90.3 FM.” “Pardon?” she responded. I guess some commands just don’t register. Tried to go to the Google again and look for a list of voice commands that work but came up dry. Oh well, I’ll just keep trying. Maybe I’ll scour the interwebs some more to see what I can find. I’ve often wondered how safe some of this high tech car stuff might be, but looks like it might actually be helpful. Unless I’m hungry.

“Sienna, where’s the nearest restaurant?”

“Pardon??”

——————————————————–

And now for something completely different…

I hope none of you can forgive me, but as some of you may know I missed the “Happy Friday!!!” deadline this yesterday; which was the day before today because today is Saturday now and I haven’t posted a new “Happy Friday!!!” until just now, which actually makes it a “Happy Saturday!!!” but I have a very good excuse in spite of this questionably punctuated run-on sentence.

Yes.

You see, Wednesday evening I snorked something jingly in my nose, and my throat started to raspify and also sorify, neither of which are words but they describe in pretty accurate detail the ouchiness of my throat place. I was getting a stinkin’ cold for cryin’ out loud. This was not something I deemed fair; so I tried to gargle some Listerine and HOLY ACKKK PTOOO that stuff is NASTY!! Didn’t help much neither.

Then I sucked on a zinc lozenge or two or maybe three and that didn’t stop the onset neither. OK, now it was time for the Holy Moly Vitamin C With Extra Goodies Fizzy Thing and the nasty bug didn’t let go. So… then I went to work Thursday morning.

Then, I came home from work Thursday morning. I had some Campbell’s Chicken Gumbo soup to which I added about 1 teaspoon of thyme, 1 teaspoon of sage (those open the sinuses) and heated it up to a bubbly wazoo. As soon as the boiling wazoo was blubbining, I took the soup off the heat and added the finely chopped VERY LARGE CLOVE of garlic that I harvested from the garden the other day. Covered it quickly, came back in a couple minutes and the garlic was cookified enough to be palatable but not harmed. Too much heating of fresh garlic reduces its cold whomping properties you see.

Too soon old, too late smart sometimes, but I’m getting better at listening to my body and my friends. On Thursday, a friend told me just before I left work, “you need to be warm and get some rest.” And my body said, “I’m sick, take me home now.” Then I called in sick for Friday too, and enjoyed more cold killing soup and much sleeping.

OK then! I feel much better now thank you. And although I’m a very huggy guy, we went to a large gathering tonight and I warned all my friends that I’ve been fighting a cold. Most ran away screaming and flailing their arms in terror (I exaggerate slightly perhaps). Others hugged me anyway. Well, only three hugged me anyway. But I don’t blame those who didn’t… I don’t want anyone to suffer. My Beautiful Girlfriend had me look it up today… you can be contagious for 5 to 7 days after the cold symptoms appear!! So, I’ll be warning my friends until Thursday because I love them.

There, that’s the story my friends. As I mentioned earlier, I’m getting better at taking care of myself when illness attacks. In the “good old days,” I would have taken cold medicine and tried to tough it out at work, and continue my daily routine. This would inevitably cause a cold to last for well over a week rather than a couple days. I’ll try to make this a habit when a cold knocks on my snotlocker.

I like ditching the bugs more quickly, thank you.

Ker-Choo!!

My Beautiful Girlfriend and her Beautiful Friends will soon be having a Beautiful Time “camping” in a cabin up in Beautiful Lelanau, and leave me All Alone with the Beautiful Cat Mr. Freddy The Freeloader and No Adult Supervision; as described by this Beautiful Run-On Sentence with Beautifully Superfluous Capitalization And That’s Just The Way I Roll.

Isn’t that Beautiful? Yes, it is.

This is PARTY TIME, kids!! That’s right, when the wife’s away, the husband will, well… EAT!! Yes, I know, this is something most people do every day. But when I party down, I don’t mess around. I go for the high-calorie, high-cholesterol goodies that give my mouth and flavor flingers great joy. Yes my friends, I plan to eat pizza and other nutritious snacks.

Perhaps I’ll have a Fried Chicken Night, with a Side Order of Macaroni & Cheese. These delicacies are Capitalized because I rarely eat them anymore. And our local Meijer makes some pretty darn good Fried Macaroni & Chicken Cheese. Not sure what Fred’s having… his “goodies” come in a can and it doesn’t look very appetizing to me. Sure, there are enticing labels like “Sea Captain’s Choice,” and “Mariner’s Platter,” but even though I love to eat dead fish it just doesn’t really give my sniffer anything to drool about. Unlike many of our previous critters, Mr. Fred has little use for people food. Oh well, that’s more for me!!

Of course, I suppose I could do something really silly like go out in the garden and pick some more beans. The scarlet runner beans are producing like crazy, and I don’t want any to go to waste. Got some greens that need picking too… Might even get ambitious and blanch and freeze some. I mean, hey, do I know how to party or what??

Well regardless of all that weird, healthy garden stuff, I’m looking forward to some alone time when I can have me some good eats. I believe my mouth will be very happy, and my belly will feel like I ate a wheelbarrow load of lead sinkers. I’ll watch my limbs very carefully to see if any large cholesterol molecules glob together and travel about under my skin. I’m sure I’ll pay for my fun when it’s time to step on the bathroom scale.

I have a feeling that when my Beautiful Girlfriend returns I’ll be really ready to behave myself. I don’t wanna croak from Lardening of the Arteries.

I’ll be eating at home mostly… and if not, you can bet I won’t be going to this restaurant!!

Hello, and thank you for tuning in to this week’s antenna ranching installment. Work has been removing my capillaries again, and although I was in a bit of an emotional slump recently I’ve decided to staple feathers to my cat’s pajamas and anonymously send ice cream to the corporate headquarters via parcel post. Surely these stress relief methods will result in at least two or perhaps even seventeen new buttons on Mrs. Jingledweeb’s radish basket.

Huh?? Not to worry… just letting off a little steam there…

Those of you who know me are aware that I am a geek by trade and a gardener by passion. The geek boy role pays the bills, the garden feeds my soul (and also my family!). In other words, computer support is what I do, but it’s NOT who I am. Today’s economy, however, can make one wonder what the future will bring. For the first time in my life I’m learning what it feels like to focus WAY too much on my job; especially the part of the job when I retire.

The result of focusing on retirement can be very detrimental to productivity. I’ve said out loud to my friends, “I’m really getting tired of this crap.” Not a very good attitude, really. However, the increasing workload can make a person frustrated at best, and at times even depressed. Too much to do, and I could literally live at work and never get it all done.  This situation is certainly not unique to me, many of my coworkers find themselves in the same or even worse boat. “Efficiency,” they call it. That’s a euphemism for “we’re gonna whittle the number of employees down to the bare minimum (or less) but all those who are left get to have all their work.”

Our upper echelon seems to have absolutely no clue what we peasants are going through… they just keep saying things like “right-sizing” and “cost effectiveness.” We working folk look up the corporate ladder and see an upper crust that is getting their pockets lined nicely each year; but we’ve had miniscule raises for several years now.

And guess what? This is a worldwide phenomenon over which I have absolutely no control. I’ve been taking my job way too personally lately. I’ve been trying to manage an unmanageable workload, and then I go home in a somber mood. “I just can’t keep up… people must be getting impatient,” I tell my lovely wife. “It’s not your fault,” she reassures me. “Just try to do the best you can… it will be over soon.”

Yeah, I know. Only 1 year, 5 months, and 19 days left to go before retirement.

Even though I’m growing older, I’m still a child in old man’s clothing. I’m usually the one who likes to be silly and help people at work laugh. I do my best to stay grateful; and I verbalize that to my friends. Needless to say, when I’m down, they are often alarmed. Some of them remind me of things I would normally be saying to them; and believe me, that’s a very good thing for me.  I just need to adjust what’s going on between my ears.

The reminders all basically boil down to these simple guides:

A) Don’t sweat the small stuff.

12) EVERYTHING is small stuff.

7) Maintain some boundaries – balance the job with your real life.

p4) Don’t take this work stuff too seriously.

*@) Try to smile. It is much more pleasant than frowning; and

Red) There are many in this world who are much less fortunate than me.

So, the last couple days I’ve been reprogramming. Funny how the older I get, the less I know. If I can stay in that frame of mind, I can survive this work stuff by learning new ways to cope. I can let go of the things I simply can’t control. I can have a life outside of work even! I can raise a nice garden and get my hands nice and dirty! I can take time to laugh! I can even stop using so many exclamation points!

Or not!!

And, I can include a video that is very silly indeed… and laughter is very good medicine.

So there I was, minding my own business when the Marvelous Company For Which I Work (MCFWIW) changed the vacation policy again and when I left my previous employer I had 4 weeks but could only negotiate 2 weeks and then I was starting to earn more vacation and they changed how quickly you can earn it so I had to wait for my 15^th year anniversary to get my 4 weeks again but even though I was hired in February I have to wait till 2019 to take the 4 weeks and now they’re telling us that in the year I retire I no longer have 4 weeks at the beginning of the year; but because I’m retiring in March of 2020 I can take a whopping1/12^th of 20 days which boils down to 3 1/3 days I can take before I retire and that makes me just a little bit annoyed; to the point where I even added yet more words to this run-on sentence which is beginning to fill the whole stinkin’ page.

Harrumph!!

Yes, I know I’m supposed to be grateful; and believe it or not, I really am. The job pays well and it’s close to home. Even though it’s a factory job, the place doesn’t stink. I’m not ingesting dangerous chemicals or licking any radioactive fence posts; I don’t have to run between furnaces that are running at 1400 degrees (I actually did have a job like that before) (the furnace things I mean). Nope, it’s just a lowly computer support job with lots of nice people who are doing their best to earn a living like me.

So I’m going to start playing the lottery and also take lots of quarters to the casino and maybe even try selling my nose hairs (I’ll tell folks they are clippings from really famous people) so I can get rich quick and not have to go to work anymore. Then I can afford the very best macaroni and cheese for dinner accompanied by a nice glass of vintage of Bear Swamp Tap Water (we really do have very good water); perhaps polished off with some Dingleberry Surprise for dessert with lots of fluffy cream and chocolate covered broccoli.

There’s only one problem with this plan: whenever I gamble, I lose. I’ve bought lottery tickets, and never even get close to the magic combination of numbers. I’ve also gone to the casino a few times. In those cases, I may as well just put some money in an envelope and leave it at the front desk or something. I haven’t tried selling my nose hairs; but I’ve never been very interested in bamboozling anyone so the “famous people clippings” idea would just be a lie that I’d probably suffer for somewhere down the road.

Nope, I’m just supposed to work a bit longer. There simply is no magical way out for me; and I’ve come to accept it. And that’s very OK… but I’ll still joke about it until I’m done. A nice young man once asked me, “hey Ken, how’s the job going?” I replied, “well, I’m too proud to be a bum; and I’m too chicken to be a criminal so I guess I’ll do this.” We both smiled a bit and went on our merry way.

It’s likely it would happen, but if I had a million dollars… well… I’d be rich!!

These guys elaborated on that point very nicely…

A couple weeks ago, my Beautiful Girlfriend (you know, the one who let me marry her 45 years ago) asked me, “what do you want for our anniversary?”

“Nothing,” I replied. Well OK, I pretty much jiggled my eyebrows at her right after that, and she knew exactly what that meant. “You want that all the time,” she snorted. Yeah, I probably do. Hey, what man wouldn’t want to “tango” when you’re married to the Most Beautiful Woman In The Universe? Anyway, I reiterated that I really didn’t want for anything; so we picked out a ring for her and left it at that.

For a while…

Then I thought, well yes I think I do want something… a little getaway perhaps. Labor Day weekend is coming up, and and I had already put in for Friday as a vacation day. I thought it would be rather nice to spend a night at some local motel on the Lake Michigan shore. As luck would have it, Google helped me find just such a place. It’s called the Lakeshore Motel in Manistee, and the only thing between your room and Lake Michigan is sand. Considering the location, I was amazed at the price of a mere $110 for a night.

All the online reviews were stellar… very clean, very nice people, very comfortable. And we found out for ourselves that all that was indeed the case. One review cautioned that if you’re looking for a 5 star motel, this is not it. And we found out for ourselves that this was indeed the case. And yes I know I just wrote the very same sentence twice.

I’m pretty sure the motel was built around the time we were… meaning it’s gotta date back to at least 1960. And although it was very clean and comfortable, I’m not sure anything has changed much since that time. I was pointing out some of the more interesting “features” of the room to my Lovely Bride; and she says, “yes, this is called ‘shabby chic,’ it’s really popular these days.” “Dunno,” I retorted, “I’m thinking this might be just plain shabby.” So of course I had to go to Google and search for this “shabby chic,” and yes, my Beautiful Girlfriend was right, it’s a thing!! But I mean hey, check out this lamp (click on the picture for a better view)…

Weird…

Anyway, we really did love the location. And we really did have a comfortable, clean bed; and a cozy “shabby chic (?),” very clean room. And some interesting little melmac cups for coffee in the morning.

Who knows? We might just do it again!!

After all, it was nothing  “The Cobweb Hotel”…

It’s August outside, and if you have read any previous “Happy Friday!!!” snippets, then you might well be able to guess what I’m going to write about tonight.

Hints:

A) It’s August outside… hot weather… dog days of summer.

9) Tuesday will be the 21^st of the month…. getting warmer?

Blue) The writing will be about what I believe is something really cool; and

6!) It’s something that always makes me happy.

OK… give up? Let’s see… August, hot weather, really cool… makes me happy. Hmm. Must be…

ICE CREAM!!

Ummm… No. Although My Beautiful Girlfriend just came back from the movies and we did get ice cream on the way home. Yes that’s right boys and girls, we still go to the movies. And we even like movies about comic book characters. Tonight it was “Ant-Man And The Wasp;” a simply marvelous Marvel film. Lots of fun. Oh hey, and if you’re a Marvel movie fan, you know that there’s always some fun little clips that follow the movie; and there’s often something after all the credits have rolled though completely.

Yes. We went on a spontaneous date. I came home from work, and was reminiscing about the little tiff we had the night before. You see, we inherited this rental duplex thing where our son lives and the rental side had The Tenants From Hell in there for way too long and their animals forgot that carpets are not for potty and maybe the people forgot that too we don’t know but it stunk to high heaven so we got some cleaner folks in there to try to make better and they tried their best but the carpet turned out to be too far gone so now we’re having flooring folks put new carpet and also some vinyl floor in and gee it sure would be nice if we could spend some money on our own doggoned house but first we gotta do this and it sure is making us both crabby and we start harrmumphing for no good reason and get a bit pissy and then we kiss and make up and HOLY COW I’m sure glad that kind of crap doesn’t last very long anymore like it used to when we were only a couple days / months / years married but we basically grew up together and I REALLY HOPE nobody is reading this run-on sentence in one breath because if you are we need to call the Guinness Book Of World Records People RIGHT NOW!!

Whew!! That was a big one.

So yes, our marriage flows much more naturally now; and our harmonious times are about 99.9% and our “leave me alone or I’ll bite you” only lasts for about 0.1 % of the time.  Probably less. I guess that’s what 45 years of marriage will do if you work at it.

WAIT!! That’s it!! The thing I was gonna have you guess about!! The 21^st of August is our anniversary, and this will be 45 years for us!! Sheesh!! Where did all the time go??

“God Only Knows.”

I capitalized “God Only Knows” and put it in quotes because it relates not only to my bewilderment at the very fast passage of time, but it also happens to be the title of a song we’ve been singing to each other lately. The lyrics are very simple, yet profound; at least in my professional opinion. I was reading about the development of the song by Brian Wilson (of Beach Boys fame) and Tony Asher; and they were worried that because the word “God” was in the title it would never get any air play. Brian Wilson believed that “God” could mean any interpretation of our Great Spirit; but the concern was that there would never be any popularity of a song with such a title.

Boy am I glad they were wrong.

The song was recorded in 1966; and here’s a more recent but very nice BBC music version I found on the You Tubes recently.  Sing along with me if you like… but I warn you… sometimes I get mushy.