Kakahead

Let’s hear it for global warming… here it is not even June yet and we’ve mowed the lawn pretty much weekly for the past month.  To all of you kids who say “bah, humbug” to global warming, let me say this about that:  94 degrees is NOT normal weather for Michigan in May!!

Of course, hot weather plus recent rains makes the lawn grow like crazy.  Then of course it must be mowed.  But hey, I’m sorry… I’m still convinced that this is a totally STUPID human custom! Lawn mowing seems so fruitless. We certainly spend a lot of time tending a crop we can’t eat! Well, I suppose you could eat it; but you can never be sure of whether it’s tainted with doggie weewee.

Perhaps the only reason our lawn gets cut is that I have a spouse. Left to my own devices, my yard would probably grow into the giant weed patch that God intended it to be. But our marriage contract would never allow this; so I have come to accept the weekly ritual of beheading the huge conglomeration of plants we call a lawn.

We don’t harvest the clippings or fertilize or anything, just mow. Fortunately, my wife and I agree that the less work a lawn brings, the better off we are. Sure, she would LOVE to have golf course quality turf; but she begrudgingly respects my organic gardening philosophies.  In other words, no chemicals are ever applied to our lawn.   Consequently, grass grows but so do lots of other green things.  Some people are very fussy though; and they water, fertilize, and carefully count the blades of greenery. They want to make absolutely sure that grass and ONLY grass is growing. I’d love to invite some of those types to inspect my weedy ground, and watch them go nuts. Then I’d invite them in for a grapefruit milk shake and rationalize the value of a weedy lawn.

Many of those “weeds” mingling with our grass are actually beneficial! Here are two examples: clover is a legume, so its roots make nitrogen (as all good legumes do), which feeds the lawn. Dandelion greens are rich in vitamins and minerals, and the tender young leaves have long been valued by the French and many other cultures as a vegetable.

Personally, I find myself grateful for clover and other weeds. They join together with the grass to form a nice carpet at my place; one that I’m not afraid to play Tackle The Kids on. If we go a little longer between mowings, we get some beautiful flowers, too! Hate to mow then, because the bees are feeding!

I mean, we must be doing something right, because the lawn is always nice and green, and we never water it. I’m beginning to think there are some sick puppies out there, because I see a lot of lawn watering. There is only one result of watering the grass. It GROWS. Then you have to MOW it. Are there really people in this world that LIKE mowing? If you’re one of this strange breed, lemme check your temperature once.

Some eggplant-headed folks (pardon my French) even post KEEP OFF THE GRASS signs! That’s more anti-American than flag burning if you ask me. How do they mow the stuff if you have to KEEP OFF? They’re probably the same guys who have their automatic sprinklers going full-tilt-boogie during thunderstorms.

Well, my kids are grown now, so long gone are the days when I could pass the job to them whenever I could get away with it. Ahhh those were the days… I could actually focus on much more productive chores like spending more time in the garden.  And as I pulled weeds and munched the occasional radish, I could daydream about them mowing down my baby trees and flinging rocks at the picture window at 87 mph. But I distinctly remember taking comfort in the fact that they finally understood why I freaked out about all those toys that used to hide in the lawn on mowing day. Nothing like the “ker-CRACK!” of a squirt gun being processed by the mower! Or the unmistakable “VOOOFF!” of a Nerf Ball disintegrating with a single pass.

Oh well.  In the interest of domestic harmony, I will continue to obey and help with the lawn.  These days my beautiful girlfriend (the one I married) loves to ride the tractor and sing out loud to the songs I put on her MP3 player.  Of course, she has noise reduction headphones on so she can’t tell whether she’s off key.  I confess I’ve had a chuckle or two listening to her Cub Cadet Karaoke sessions while I’m out running the trim mower.

Where else do you get a free workout PLUS entertainment??

Well, I simply HAD to find a video for this week, so here we go: many of you have heard of Red Green… here’s an episode where he illustrates an inventive way to put your mower to work.

Please do not interest yourself with any Happy Friday monkey business on this blog thing this week. That is because I am again on vacation, and you are not. Unless you are, in which case we can all vacation in different places together. In fact, I will be so grateful that I will gladly let you pay for gas and I’ll reciprocate by allowing you to pay for our food and lodging as well.

Is that a deal or what??

So off we go to Winedance. Well that’s what Grandma Loftus used to call it. It’s actually Rhinelander, Wisconsin; home of the hodag. Do NOT be caught alone in the woods with a hodag! OH GOD OH GOD! Go ahead, Google “hodag;” I double-D dare ya.

Not only are we gonna visit family but we will be staying in the very resort where, 38 years ago this day, my lovely girlfriend and I became official sweeties. Long story there… anyway after a year of that fun we got hitched and now we even like each other!! Anyway, it’s late outside and I must post this and run away sleeping. Long drive tomorrow.

Peace, Love, and Cheese Curds;

Kenny Kakahead

Corporate greed.  That’s what my friends and I have been talking about at work lately.  Recent events at work have slammed home the awful truth that the people who call the shots in corporations like ours live in a different universe.  They really don’t care much about the average family person who is trying to make a living.  They may say they do, but they really don’t.  Otherwise, jobs in this country would not be moved to other countries.  Sure, if we kept the jobs here it would “cost more to do business,” which mostly seems to mean that the big shots wouldn’t get their millions.  Well maybe they don’t need millions.  Does anybody really need more than a million dollars??  Not me… so they can just give me a million and I’ll quit complaining about corporate greed.

Or not…

Anyway, since I know people whose jobs are in jeopardy I thought maybe I’d try to be a helpful with this week’s Happy Friday thing.  I have been the victim of corporate downsizing in the past; so I’ve been there and done that.  It wasn’t the end of the world.  Actually it was the beginning of a pretty cool journey.  I explored some alternative career ideas and got to know myself and my family better.  And finally after many moons of being out of work, I got a job.

One thing I’ve learned is:  probably the most important ingredient of a good job hunt is a resume.  Keep it to a single page.  Emphasize your strengths and achievements, and especially focus on the skills you have that an employer needs.  What I ended up doing was keeping a general resume “on file” and modified it to suit the particular job I was targeting.

Another good tool is an introductory cover letter.  For a guide, I dug one of my old ones out of my archives and thought I would share it with you.  You have my permission to steal it and alter it in any way you see fit.  This one may (or may not) be the exact same letter I sent to Ludmilla Sunkenchin, who was HR director of Blammo Manufacturing.  So without any further ado, here it be:

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To Whom It May Concern,

This is in response to the advertisement for a Working Type Person. I understand that you were accepting money up front, to get people jobs and stuff like that. I intended to respond sooner, but a small cow has been telling me things and forced me to listen. Please consider this as a letter of application because I need a stinking job.

The jerks I have been working for at XYZ Industries these past 27 days have laid me off ; and I’m sure I don’t need to tell a person like you how that makes me squirm inside.  However, I believe that I the skills I acquired there were probably useless, but that doesn’t really matter now does it??. I’m really good at taking breaks, and I know how to impress the best of them. I figure that if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull manookey. I worked on various types of equipment during my career at XYZ, but most of it was pretty old and always screwing up, so I don’t really know how to run anything without a large hammer in the immediate vicinity.

I have computer experience… after all, I do own a Sony Playstation.  Them video games have really increased my ability to react quickly under stress. There goes a fly! HA! Got it!!  See what I mean? As for my ability to interact with others, I enjoy meeting new people, especially when they give me money. Those are the nice ones, ya know?

Please let me know the exact date upon which I can expect to apply my skills at your place of employment. I am available for an interview, and would enjoy the opportunity to give you $20 up front and more if I get the job. I will be “checking in” frequently with you to keep tabs on your progress in hiring me.  Get back to me soon, or else you may soon find some “souvenirs” from my kitty’s litter box in your mail slot.

Ha ha, just kidding I think maybe.

Thank You,

ME (you will learn more about me during the hiring process, and especially when I have learned of my start date)

P.S.: I can’t work where women are present, because I usually have pretty offensive gas.  Also, if there are men around, they should stay away from me, because they normally have even worse gas than me.  Other than that, I can do work real good unless I don’t feel like doing what you ask me to do.  In cases like that, just ask me what I feel like doing that day and I’ll probably get right to it.

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Well my friends there you have it.  As I said, feel free to use this cover letter in its entirety if you wish.  Or maybe tweak it a little… but I think it stands on its own merit.  If you find it useful, please let me know very soon; as I also have some bridge property for sale at reduced rates for special people like you.

Or perhaps you’d go for some yummy, roly-poly fish heads!!

When writing about something as important as Mother’s Day, the task pretty much mandates a little research.  Alright, maybe it’s not a mandate. But as I sat staring at the title that jumped out of my keyboard and onto the page, I couldn’t help being curious about where all this Mother’s Day stuff originated.  Turns out there have been several holidays over the eons devoted to mothers; dating back perhaps thousands of years.

Here in the US, the holiday as we now know it was created by Anna Jarvis in 1908.  Her efforts resulted in President Woodrow Wilson proclaiming it a national holiday in 1914.  Unfortunately, the occasion quickly became commercially “interesting” to merchandisers; to the chagrin of Ms. Jarvis.  Even she reportedly began to refer to Mother’s Day as a “Hallmark Holiday.”

Even so, God knows there is no more deserving soul to be honored than Mom.  Your Mom, my Mom, Mother Nature, and so on.  In the case of me and my siblings; I’m amazed that our mother made it through the ordeal of raising the four of us without completely going bonkers.   We grew up in the late 50s and through the 60s, where Dad was “king of the castle” and Mom was the keeper of the household.  In other words, Dad earned the money and Mom did the best she could to keep us fed and clothed.   Considering some of the “challenges” my Dad introduced into that equation she did a remarkable job.

Mom was the cook, bottle washer, laundry attendant and mending master.  She knew how to comfort us when we were sad; and she knew how to put us in our place when we acted up.  We were raised on Long Island, New York during a time when “The Honeymooners” was still on TV.  Even if you didn’t live in Brooklyn, people were not afraid to yell to get their point across.  I once had a fond remembrance of when the four of us were driving her nuts; and Mom shouted, “YOUSE GODDAMN KIDS!!”   When I mentioned it to my mother many years later, she quickly replied, “I never said that!!”

Of course not.

Anyway, she raised us the best she knew how.  Did a darn good job of it too.   Although she was not really the touchy-feely type; we knew that she loved us and would do anything in her power to make life better for us.

She must have been heart broken when I ran off with “that girl.”  At the time, that was how Dad referred to my beautiful girlfriend.  Relations with my Dad were usually tense, so leaving home seemed like the natural next step.  I joined the Air Force and was married to my sweetie all in the course of a year after graduation from high school.  It would be many years before I would really understand how difficult it had to be for both of them.   My lovely wife and I raised a daughter and son and we get restless if we don’t see them for a week, much less a year or more.

Mom did the best she knew how.  She was the product of a generation where the woman bowed to the husband, regardless of how deep the BS puddle became.  We didn’t tell each other “I love you.”  There was very little hugging, and if Dad was around, whatever you do, don’t cry “or I’ll give you something to cry about.”   Deep down, however, we knew we were loved, albeit the methods at time seemed a bit harsh.

Just like any new parents, my beautiful wife and I were determined to “do a better job than our parents did.”   The words “I love you” were uttered every day, often multiple times.  We had plenty of hugs to go around, plenty of time spent.  And when I would get up on my high horse, my lovely wife would get a stick and knock me down from there.   Well OK not literally, but you get the idea.  I probably presented the same “challenges” into our new family that my Dad interjected into family life when we were being raised.  One thing for sure, if you are interested in growing up, try having kids!

My Mom and Dad have both been gone for several years.   Dad and I managed to patch things up before he left this life, thank God.  And Mom did her best to cope with losing the love of her life until she finally left also.  Funny how things evolve… as of this writing I can honestly say that I’ve learned to flush the bad memories and cherish the good ones.

So to my Mom, and to my lovely Wife Mom, and now to our daughter who’s also a Mom, and to all the Mothers in the Universe:

THANK YOU.  GOD BLESS YOU.  I LOVE YOU.

So there.

Here’s a cute video I found that pretty much sums up a day in the life of Mom.