So here I am, working at what I’ve always worked for all my life, being retired, not needing to take any jobs to make ends meet, and now that it’s been a little over a year I can really relate to what the “old timers” used to tell me: “I am so busy now I don’t know how I ever had time to work!!”; and now I wonder do I put the semicolon inside the quote or outside because this run-on sentence is big but I needed to include the exclamation marks because hey, I wanted to emphasize that I often find myself with no time!!

Whew!

I had no idea what retirement would bring. My only goal was to be able to coast as long as possible without “working for the man” (or the woman) (besides my wife of course) (and now there are too many parentheses) (but I don’t care). So far, I’ve been able to be just fine without doing any work stuff for supplemental income. I am very grateful!!

Something is wrong, however. The days are zooming past my nose with great zippy fast kaboom all gone the days of quick time passing already!! And that may or may not even be a good way to describe it!! But I don’t care because I enjoy using words to make funny!! So there!! I mean, yesterday it was COVID outside, and today I hugged several friends at a gathering. Another example of how time has flown.

I have been vaccinated… I hope all of them have been too!!

My career as a “techie” has paid off in many ways, but it has also posed some very interesting challenges during retirement. For example, have any of you had the splendid experience of teaching an 86 year old neighbor how to use an iPhone? Much repetition. Much repetition. Much repetition. Also, I find myself repeating the same lessons over and over again. Additionally, I’ve been showing him how to recurrently do the same thing he did 2.4 minutes ago over and over again. No, he doesn’t have dementia. He has just never played with such technical things. Have I mentioned that I’ve been helping him with repetitive lessons on the same stuff multiple times? And he didn’t even get his landline ported over yet!!

Oh God oh God.

On the other hand, you have the vegetable garden. Makes my hands very dirty and I love every minute of it. I am an organic gardener, meaning I do not use any manufactured fertilizers or pesticides. All the soil building materials come from the dump. Yep. I put garbage by the trailer load in my dirt and wait for it to stop stinking. NO!! No, that’s wrong!! I do go to the dump (the politically correct term is transfer station) for fertilizer: free mulch in the form of leaves and lawn clippings. After 39 years of adding these to what was basically beach sand under the turf, I’ve been able to convert very sandy soil into a rich growing medium. And no, there is no such thing as “bad leaves” for the garden. When the worms are happy, the soil is happy.

Anyway, gardening can be very time consuming if you want to get a decent harvest. It’s always been a labor of love for me; and before retirement I had grandiose dreams of having a picture perfect garden. Guess what?? Uh uh. Nope. Sure I’m gonna get lots of food: snow peas, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, beets, Swiss chard, garlic (lots of garlic), popcorn, hopefully some squash… to name a few. But there are some unruly corners of the garden that are infested with catnip, milkweed, lambs quarters, purslane, even some clover. But you know what? It’s very OK. If I had nothing else to do, my garden may (or may not) be free of weeds. People think I’m nuts when I tell them that “weeds are guardians of the soil.” It’s true you know. Their root systems prevent erosion while adding organic matter to the soil. Weeds provide habitat for spiders and other beneficial creatures. And when the catnip is flowering, pollinators of all sorts come a-runnin’. Ever see a hummingbird moth?? So amazing!! And not to forget the milkweed that feeds Monarch butterfly caterpillars. We’ve even enjoyed the fact that plants like lambs quarters and purslane are very edible.

Since we are social people, our calendar has filled up quickly. That’s good, right?? Better to be wanted and loved than to have people shudder at the mention of your name! Of course there are lots of other things that keep me occupied on this 5 acre homestead of ours. Maybe someday I’ll even get brave and clean up the clutter bomb that exploded (very slowly) in my garage!! Or do something really radical like declutter my office!! Are you picking up on a clutter pattern here?? Oh well, retirement really is awesome. And yes, “I’m so busy now I don’t know how I ever had time to work.”

And I really like it!!

We don’t have a lot of money, but we have enough. We are blessed really. Here’s one of my old favorite cartoons about a bad egg who got way too greedy.

Our poor trees here in Beautiful West Michigan. So many of them must be terribly embarrassed these days. That’s because this year we literally have acres and acres of naked trees. In the middle of summer no less!! This horrible phenomenon occurs every 10 years or so due to infestations of that nasty import: the European Gypsy Moth.

And yes folks, these little stinkers were actually brought from Europe on purpose; by a guy named Étienne Léopold Trouvelot. I did some digging on the interwebs and learned that he fled France with his family to Medford, Massachusetts during the ascent of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1851. Then in the 1860s he thought it would be really cool to raise some gypsy moth caterpillars in the forest behind his house. His goal was to raise a disease resistant caterpillar for the purpose of silk production. So he got some egg masses from Europe and brought them here for hatching. Unfortunately, several of the caterpillars “escaped” to nearby woods and the rest, as they say, is history.

This is by no means the first time people have transplanted invasive species from one part of the world to another; whether intentional or otherwise. One relatively harmless example is the introduction of mulberry trees into the U.S. in 1733, again with the intent of kicking off a silk industry. Mulberry leaves are a favorite food of silkworms you see. Well, the silkworms didn’t do so well, but the mulberry trees are doing just great, thank you.

Anyway, back to these doggoned gypsy moths. I admit that I mistakenly believed they only love oak trees. Well turns out they’ll readily munch on about 300 different species of trees and shrubs. A variety of control methods are being used with some success. One of the most important is not to travel around with firewood or other woody debris that may be infested with egg masses. Big no-no!! There are also sprays that target only the caterpillars; and there are traps that can be made. And yes there actually are a few natural predators like deer mice that actually love to eat the creepy crawlies. I’ll put a couple informative links at the bottom of this so you can educate yourselves if you like.

Don’t despair, this terrible sight of naked (and most likely highly embarrassed) trees will improve after a year or two when the populations collapse due to disease and other factors. Unfortunately, however, it looks like these boogers are here to stay. All we can do is learn to cope the best we can.

So here are a couple of very informative links for you:

https://www.canr.msu.edu/ipm/Invasive_species/Gypsy-Moth/gypsy-moth-around-home

https://fyi.extension.wisc.edu/gypsymothinwisconsin/

And now, as Mr. Cleese used to say, for something completely different:

We just watched Stephen Colbert’s Late Show from June 14, where he was able to enjoy his first live studio audience in 15 months. Being the mush ball that I am, I admit I shed a few tears of joy when I saw all the excitement. So much love, so much positive energy!! It was really refreshing. Almost like… normal!!

So what is “normal” anyway? Several years ago it was not unusual to hear someone say, “normal is just a cycle on the washing machine.” Ha ha… well maybe not… maybe actually profound. The pandemic has certainly turned pretty much everyone’s “normal” upside down. Now that it’s diminishing, in much of the U.S. at least, we can breathe a sigh of relief.

At least for now.

Here in Michigan, masks are still required in medical facilities, but most businesses seem to have removed their “No Mask, No Entry” signs. I’ve actually been to the grocer and other stores without a mask, and at first it felt rather strange. I’ve even eaten at a restaurant a couple times! Again, no mask. But I still sanitize my hands as soon as I get back in the car.

Still not ready to go to the movies yet. However, here in Beautiful West Michigan we have a very safe place to watch a movie on the big screen: The Getty 4 Drive In. That’s right folks, the drive in has been thriving here for some time, and especially during the pandemic. I actually have a date to go with my Beautiful Girlfriend tomorrow (I’m writing this on Thursday night).

We are both still pretty careful really. God only knows what kind of variants will show up in our midst; and whether the vaccine will actually prevent us from being infected. I certainly hope so… scientists have assured us and I feel fairly confident we’ll be OK. But just in case, when it comes to close personal contact as in hugging or even a handshake, our “normal” involves only people we know are vaccinated. And we pray for those who choose not to get the vaccine.

We pray for their safety.

Thankfully, I was able to retire just as the pandemic was beginning to rage. My Lovely Bride still works a couple days a week, but we are basically in retirement mode. Over the years, we talked about checking out Europe or maybe even just Hawaii when retirement came around. However, quarantine has blessed us with the ability to be grateful and content at home. So our dreams of foreign travel have been forever altered. Currently, our idea of a long trip is driving all the way to the distant land of Wisconsin later this summer. Although we’ve heard it’s fairly safe, neither of us is interested in getting on an airplane. We’ll probably drive to Florida some time, but I just looked at the latest COVID map and there are still some “hot spots” between here and there. Guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

So whatever “normal” is will continue to change for us I suppose. And that’s very OK. The bottom line is that we really are very blessed; and have learned to make gratitude our attitude. If anything, COVID has strengthened our resolve to be thankful for what we have, and our list of wants has lost importance. I mean really, who’s to say that there won’t be yet another pandemic down the road?

We certainly hope not, but God only knows!!

And now some more mush ball stuff. I would not be able to imagine what it would be like to lose someone close to me from COVID (God bless those of you who have).

This song tugs my heart. And this version is truly exquisite.

I am SO MUCH looking forward to Monday!! Why? Well I’m retired, so it’s not work… actually while working I don’t believe I was ever happy about Mondays. Unless I was on vacation.

So Sunday I begin the prep for a most wonderfully enjoyable procedure known as a colonoscopy. I think it’s pronounced co-LON-o-scope-eeee. Maybe not, but doesn’t that sound like fun? I can hardly wait to drink 430 times the normal dose of laxatives to clean my guts out. I had to do this before… and I “fondly” remember the happy intestinal volcanic rumbling that ensued during The Big Cleanout. I’ve always loved Intestinal Volcano. Has a way of letting you know you’re alive.

All this wonderful fun was prescribed as preparation for some happy probing of my southern torso by aliens on Monday. My exciting dining regimen for Sunday will include clear liquids and PKP (Poop Kaboom Powder). Around noon Monday they will clunk me with the anesthetic sledge hammer and have their way with my colon. Those medical people think they have me fooled… they think I am not aware of their little game. This is all an excuse for them to do pole vaulting experiments with my hiney hole. You see, when we are zonked out, they play funny games with our bodies and we just lie there with that anesthetized look on our faces. Perhaps while I’m there, they could take some of the hair from my back and plant it back on my head where it used to be. Or possibly they could do a little liposuction while they’re in there with the garden hose thingy that has the video camera on the end of it. I’m unreasonably sure the hose is what they use for the Happy Colon Scoping.

Perhaps they have a trained snake or eel that they use to climb inside and look around for clingons, or whatever else they hope to find in there. I’ve heard about polyps being removed during the procedure, and I figure that snakes and / or eels would be very good at biting those off from the inside. Of course, a snake would need some sort of breathing apparatus during all this. Maybe a snorkel or some kind of miniature aqualung. Eels probably would need something too, because although they can breathe in water with their gills, I would never send a trained eel into a poopy environment and expect it to try to breathe the kaka water. That would be cruel and inhumane treatment, even for an alien-trained poopy probing eel.

Or maybe this “procedure” is actually a ploy to extract methane from unsuspecting visitors. With all the tooting I’ll be blasting during the prep, I’m betting the gas could power a generator for the day. That would certainly help those medical folks curtail their energy bills. That’s probably it… they need the gas! I’m sure they don’t want the fertilizer from all the trips I’ll be making to the potty, because otherwise they would have specified that I collect it as I go. I believe enough fertilizer will be made to cover several acres.

While I’m sedated I’m sure they will have fun drawing cartoons on my belly with magic markers, or maybe they’ll be taking provocative photos of me posing with food and non-clear liquids. Pretty sure I’ll be craving a nice burger and a shake afterward!! All this in the name of prevention. Ya, right. Whatever. If nothing is wrong, I get to stay clear of this happy time for ten years. By then, technological advances will make a big difference. They’ll probably be able to zonk me out with a little zapper the size of a pencil. No prep, they’ll just use a machine to purge all the goodies out of my booty. Finally, rather than trained snakes or eels, they’ll be sending in the robot snakes and eels.

OK, maybe what I described about the Happy Colonoscopy Day is not what really happens. But I’ll never really know for sure now will I??

And now for something completely different…

Some things in life are very wonderful, but some are very strange indeed. Take time for example. Go ahead, take some. Have you had enough time to enjoy the time you took? Well I certainly hope so. I know I have, at least most of the time. One thing I’ve noticed, though, is that the older I get, the faster time seems to fly. I am not sure why; but I’m pretty sure that it’s not really fair. I mean, I am finally a retired person, but that also means I’m an older person. And for an older person, it seems a bit weird when time whizzes past your nostrils during an ice cream storm, because just a couple years ago it was 1972 when I just met my Beautiful Girlfriend and now we’ve been married almost 48 years and the kids are grown and the grandkids are growing fast and I think maybe tomorrow they’ll be asking their Mom and Dad if they can use the car and HOLY COW this run-on sentence could get REALLY BIG with all this time stuff but I think maybe it’s time to stop already!!

With the run-on sentence I mean.

Tomorrow is the 1^st of May. Then we can all go outside and shout at the top of our lungs (or the entire lung region): “Hurray!! Hurray!! It’s the 1^st of May!! Outdoor fun begins today!!” This was uttered by a friend of mine many moons ago; and it’s fun to say, but here in Beautiful West Michigan we’ve been playing outdoors for a while now. But again I say the HOLY COW thing because as of tomorrow, I will celebrate an entire year of being a retired person!! How is this possible?? I mean, I just handed in my badge and computer to the HR lady at work like a few months ago. Yeah, a few months right?? Like twelve months!! So how does one celebrate their first year of retirement?? I know, I think I’ll celebrate by not going to work… again. Ha ha, I laugh to you who are not retired yet.

Ha!

I remember the many moons leading up to retirement… I even tortured myself (and all my coworkers) with a countdown timer I installed on my computer. “What’s the count, Ken?” my friends would ask me. “Two years, 142 days, and 12 hours,” I’d reply. And yes I think I really did go back that far. Can you tell I was eager to retire? “Whatchya gonna do with all your free time?” they’d inquire. “I dunno, maybe try to sell some of my writing, hopefully grow a nice garden, maybe do some dabbling with solar energy…” and I’d trail off with some other ideas that were floating around inside my noggin.

So now it’s time to look back over the past year and list my accomplishments. Let’s see… I cooked a lot of meals. Oh and I cleaned up after a lot of meals too. Did a little laundry (not much, my Honey Pie hates when I mix stuff that’s not supposed to be washed together). Oh, and I took care of most of the household chores during the recovery time my Lovely Bride had to endure after she fell and broke her arm exactly one week after I retired. I did get some stuff planted in the garden but other chores kept me busy so the garden became a bit of a mess. “We always get food,” my sweet Honey Pie reminded me. And we did get plenty of food.

No solar projects, no selling of writing, no nothing new.

But you know what?? I wouldn’t trade this for anything. We are very fortunate people at our house. We have no debt, and have some extra cash in the bank. My wants have always remained simple. I’ve told folks numerous times that I only had three wants in life: the love of a beautiful woman, a house on enough land to grow some food, and a kick-ass stereo. I’ve been blessed with all those and much, much more. Time continues to zoom along much more quickly than I’d like; but I’m doing my best to stay grateful and actually enjoy every moment, one day at a time. And of course, I also enjoy having some fun describing that strange time-zooming aspect of the universe. I love reciting little ditties like, “Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.” And my favorite came from one of my bosses from long ago. He’d smirk and say, “Hey you know what the frogs say, right? Time’s fun when you’re having flies!!” Pretty sure my old boss guy was right. We live in a swamp, and there are many frogs.

As far as I can tell, they’re having a really good time.

Spring is springing here in Beautiful West Michigan, and I even got some radish seeds (already up!!) and parsnip seeds in the ground.  Got my beds tilled, just waiting for a little warmth and rain to get cracking with the planting.

Friends and family know that organic gardening is permanently embedded in my soul.  Some of them think I’m a bit off when they learn that oak leaves are one of my primary soil building materials.  I also put all our coffee grounds, egg shells, veggie and fruit waste in a compost pile along with more leaves and garden waste.  Compost has become a very valuable fertilizer.  Gardening is a lot of work, but it’s a labor of love you see.  And there’s absolutely nothing more yummy than home grown food.

I simply love all of it to pieces.

I’m a bed planter.  No, that does not mean that I dig really large holes and put bedroom furniture in them.  What it actually means is that, because I like to make the most of my miniature farm, I plant in beds about 3 feet wide rather than many single rows.  Walkways between the beds are usually 2 feet wide.  I do a lot of companion planting; which involves a little “reminder research” each year; during which time I read up on what plants like to live with each other.

Rows are nice and tidy, and relatively easy to maintain.  However, I can get much more production from beds once they get established.  Of course, bed planting also invites weeds, and for the first several weeks of the garden season it can be a challenge to keep the “uninvited guest” plants out.

Most of you call these uninvited plants weeds.  No, I’m not talking about “weed,” although I’ve grown some of that in my time too (hey, I’m a child of the sixties) (and no, we don’t grow it anymore!!) (and yes I know it’s legal, but I guess I’ve “outgrown” weed) (anyway, enough of the parentheses awreddy!!).  I guess a weed, by at least one definition, is a nuisance plant.  Many weeds are useful and even edible, however.  My Dad introduced us kids to “sour grass” when we were very small.  It’s actually called sheep sorrel, and is sometimes used sparingly in salads to perk them up a bit.  I still munch on sheep sorrel occasionally, but one mustn’t eat too much because of its high oxalic acid content.

After my Beautiful Girlfriend let me marry her, my interest in natural foods grew and I started gathering books on native plants and such.  Friends still think I’m a little off when I stop in my tracks and pick some wild greens for munching.  One of my personal favorites is lambs quarters, which is actually quite nutritious.  Actually tastes pretty darn good too.  Then our friend Pam introduced me to purslane, another common “weed” that is packed with nutrients including omega 3 fatty acids.  And yes, we harvest it for food.

I know now that many weeds can be yummy and useful, but I have to admit that for many years I focused on keeping “weeds” like lambs quarters and purslane OUT of the garden.  Hey, I figured if I really want to eat them, all I have to do is do a little weeding, or else venture outside the garden a bit and find all I want.

A couple years ago however, our lovely, tree-hugging daughter (the nuts don’t fall far from the tree, so to speak) informed us that she spent $4.50 on a one gallon bag of lamb’s quarters at a local organic produce market.  Upon hearing this, I had to chuckle a bit.

“You bought lamb’s quarters?!?!?” I snickered.  “I’ll have a bunch soon… how much can I get for them?” I wondered aloud.  “Yeah,” she said a bit sheepishly.  “It’s the only fresh greens they had.”

Couple days later, I called her while I was weeding out in the garden.

“Hi, this is K&K Hansen Farm calling.  I have lamb’s quarters coming, I can sell you them for $2.50 a pound.  That’s a bargain  you know.  I have a produce scale in the shed… just weigh up what you want and leave your money in the jar.”

After the joking  and poking, I asked seriously if she wanted them (for free of course).

“I’m weeding right now… if you want some of these I’ll forget to pull them out of the ground and save them for you.”

So I did.  And I did something historic:  I ACTUALLY MULCHED AROUND THE LAMB’S QUARTERS TO HELP THEM GROW BETTER.  Never in my living life would I have guessed that I’d be mulching “weeds.”

Here’s a photo to prove it!! 

Then to make things even more interesting, we brought some rhubarb to one of our favorite local restaurants, Mia and Grace, and were talking to our server.  A nice gent, probably around the same age as our lovely daughter.  He mentioned that he enjoys eating both lambs quarters and purslane.  So, I approached the owners, and by golly they actually welcomed my lambsquarters and purslane.  “Yeah, nobody else is doing that around here,” Chef Jeremy remarked. The restaurant closed down a couple years ago… we really miss their food and the staff.

To this day I cultivate these “weeds.”  I already showed you the lambs quarters, but here’s a picture of some of my purslane:Maybe I’m on the cutting edge of a burgeoning market!!  Planting could be pretty simple next year.  Just make my planting beds and water, then watch the food sprout!  Actually if you go looking about on the interwebs, you’ll find gobs of recipes for both plants.  We eat both lamb’s quarters and purslane raw as well as cooked.  They both make great additions to things like green salads, soups or stir fry dishes.

OK, maybe I’ll also plant some beans, corn, and squash and such too just for the halibut (we also love fish) (but we don’t plant fish in the garden) (they don’t grow well in the dirt) (there he goes with the parentheses again).

We have a nice sized garden that provides lots of good food; but we have no livestock.  But if we did, I’m sure they’d all behave exactly like this…

Words can be funny. Four egg sample, eye in joy you sing words that sound like they should bee OK to gather, butt their really knot. And then you have words that people make up; which can be really funny. However, it’s probably not polite to laugh at folks when they do it; especially if it’s unintentional.

I enjoyed just such a scenario some years ago. A friend and I were talking at work… I remember work!  Work is the opposite of retirement!!  Anyway, we were commiserating about work and then we thought that instead we should be trying to help each other stay grateful and not allow negative things to rot our souls and Holy Moly are we fortunate or what and although I didn’t talk to him with a run-on sentence you can bet your bippy I’m doing it now to illustrate this event; and anyway he says that we both need to stay positive and push the negative garbage away and I said,

“Yes, it’s poison.” And he replied, “YES!! You know, I just love the way you terminologize things!”

So!! I just kind of brooped and houted and said “aw shucks,” and off we went to our jobfulness. Then, when I was looking for something to write about for “Happy Friday!!!,” I thought this would be fun. Just to be sure I did a search on a dictionary site for “terminologize,” and the result was “Word not found in the Dictionary and Encyclopedia. Did you mean: terminology. And I yelled with great varnashification at the screen, “NO!! DIDN’T YOU SEE WHAT I TYPED IN THE SEARCH FIELD? I WANTED TO KNOW IF TERMINOLOGIZE IS A WORD!! SHEESH!!

And of course the screen just sat there with that silly screenified look on its face.

Now in olden days, when I was much younger and much more crelbified with “Mr. Know It All” disease, I would have told my friend, “umm, I don’t think ‘terminologize’ is a word.” No, I’ve learned that kind of correctification only serves to demean my fellow humans. I’m trying to be a recovering Know It All, in addition to some other recovery stuff I try to practice.

Conversely (that’s a real word…), I enjoy making up nonsense words to make people laugh. Sometimes they don’t get and say, “huh??” but most times folks chuckle a bit and repeat the word back to me while smiling.

Had that very thing happen a couple weeks ago. I was at the gas station, and came in to pay for my fuel. Then I spied some of those yummy 2 for a dollar sausage thingies in the little dispenser. I went to get the little paper sleeve they provide to put your links in, and had a heck of a time getting my fingers to do my brain’s bidding. “I’m a bit clumsy this morning for some reason,” I chuckled. Then I added, “I think I need to declumsify. Don’t think that’s a word, but maybe it is now!” The nice cashier lady laughed and said, “hmmm… declumsify!! I like it!! Sounds good to me!” Then we bantered more pleasantries back and forth as I paid my bill. “My puppy loves these things,” I said, pointing to the sausages. “Thanks, have a nice day.” She smiled and answered, “thank YOU. And thanks for the new word!!”

One word that I didn’t make up, is doable. What a stupid word!! It’s pronounced as if it were three words: “do a bull.” Well that can be construed as being a bit naughty if you’re, say, 14 years old or above. When I look at it and apply pronunciation rules, I think it should be pronounced “doh – bull;” because when I see “o” and “a” together in other words, it’s pronounced with the long “o” sound. Four egg sample: coat, or boat, or foal.

Anyway, pleas enjoy your words, whether imaginary oar knot. Eye no eye dew!! I try to make at least one incroflabious word every day.

I think…

These two guys mastered the silliness that can be found with words that sound the same but take much different meanings…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRs37ugCxyM

Once upon a time, during a prehistoric era where no smellphones or even personal computers roamed Earth, there was a fine young couple who bought a house with a very nice unattached two car garage. They marveled at the amazing amount of prospective storage space that was found in this garage! They liked it so much, they slowly but surely filled it with very important things like motor oil, a wheelbarrow, a garden tractor, a 30 gallon drum for used motor oil, nails, screws, scraps of lumber, coolers (in the rafters), bicycles, a tent, some lawn furniture, more nails, nuts, bolts, washers, old electronic things that were “way too good to toss out,” brooms, rakes, paint, bags of concrete mix, a snowblower, saws, axes, splitting mauls, hammers, socket sets, drills, and many, many other doodads and thingamabobs that, if listed, would just serve to make this run-on sentence even more ridiculously long than it is already.

So then winter came.

“Hey, it sure would be nice to put cars in the garage during the winter!!” the Beautiful Wife proclaimed. “Yeah, it would,” the Sheepish Hubby murmured. However, there was simply no room for such a practical ideal to be implemented. “We’ll need to move some stuff out of the garage to do that,” he continued. “Not sure where we can put all the stuff!!”

Several years passed, and the fine young couple (OK, the Sheepish Hubby) finally got their hineys in gear and cleared enough room for cars to actually be inside the garage!! And they got a new garage door with an automatic opener and everything!! Wow!! What a cool thing to wake up on a frosty morning and not have to scrape either frost or bird poop off the windows!! Amazing!! Boy are we glad we did this!!

One might ask, “what happened to all the stuff??” Well I wish you hadn’t asked that. You see, being the frugal (or maybe fanatical) person I am (more like was, I’m better now… kinda), I did take lots of stuff to Goodwill, and some stuff went to the dump. But all the “useful” stuff got crammed into every nook and cranny. I carefully placed all these “goodies” in the shelves, on top of the shelves, under the workbench, on top of the workbench, on the shelf above the workbench, in the window sills, between the studs, and in the rafters above the cars. Initially it looked OK, but after several years of stuffing things, using things, and rearranging things (sometimes just tossing things), the innards of our poor garage looked as if a giant clutter bomb was detonated; scattering “useful” thingamabobs and doodads in every direction.

I’m retired now, and one of my goals for retirement is to clean the garage. Sounds like a commendable goal, right? Sure!! Great plan!! I can only imagine all the cool stuff I’ll find that I’ve completely forgotten about!! It will be awesome when it’s all done, even if it takes me a month or more (be nice now, it’s been a bit of a mess for several years).

Then a horrible thing happened: I left the garage door open last week, and an intruder decided to invade. I knew this was true, because I got up to go pee and saw that someone (or something) had tripped the light beam at the bottom of the garage door opener, which turned the light on. “Oh fobblecronk!!” I said to myself. OK, I may have said something stronger. I figured it was a stray cat or dog or something in there, so I pressed the button on the remote by the kitchen window (so we can open the door from inside the house) to open and close the garage door a couple times. I was hoping someone would come zooming out, but nothing.

The next day, I opened the garage door, and walked outside to hop in the car. My eyeballs popped out of my head, twirled around my ears a couple times, went to my stomach and came back to my eyeball sockets. The invader had obviously been trapped inside all night, and in an effort to escape, it knocked all the stuff off the window sills. Oh, and the stuff on the workbench was tossed around. Well, suffice it to say that pretty much everything that could have been disturbed had been. It was very apparent to me that we had a raccoon problem. I figured it must be hiding under the workbench, but no. I looked up, didn’t see anything. Moved the crap out from under the car so I could get out, went to the store, came back, parked, closed the door.

Day number 2: more mess. Bigger mess. MUCH bigger mess. “OK, where are you??” I thought out loud. Looked again under the workbench. Nope. Up above? Nothing obvious. Got on a step ladder for a better look, there he (or maybe she) was. Got down off the ladder and grabbed a fish net. Ha, ha ha on me! No way. Very silly idea. Instead, the critter easily evaded me and decided to curl up into the rafters next to where the roof meets the studs. Went inside and got my extra set of welding gloves. I’m gonna grab this thing and let it go. Ummm NOOO!!! BAD IDEA!! Yes, I did try to grab it, but it instantly started to bury its head and growl. Instantly, I envisioned my face being eaten off my skull by an angry raccoon; so I decided to step down and step back. Baited a live trap, set it in the garage, left the side door open. Checked in the middle of the night, no Rocky Raccoon. And yes, by this time I started calling it Rocky; after the Beatles tune you know. After a second late night check, still nothing in the trap. Took the trap outside, left the side door open, went to bed. Morning came and Rocky was not in the trap, but Rocky was gone!! Yay!! And for those who are not aware, Rocky is not necessarily a gender specific name: we have a dear friend named Richelle, and she goes by Rocky.

Our cars are not currently sleeping in the garage at night. I have my work cut out for me: oil spills, nails, screws, tools, cans scattered everywhere. The clutter bomb debris from days of yore would be a welcome sight right now. Oh well. I think maybe I’ll try to keep the garage door closed from now on.

Good plan, yes?

Well this week’s video contains some rather corny humor. This one is from 1970, back when many homes still had TVs from the Stone Age which only rendered two colors: black and white.

So there I was, 639.8 feet above sea level (yes, I checked), no plane, no parachute, throwing firewood into the basement because I was trying to beat the rains and get the dry wood into the house so we could be nice and cozy warm and fuzzy with fireplace warmth and loveliness; when suddenly the guy on the radio stops between songs to tell me that there are bugs in my coffee, and of course that was a good excuse to write a long overdue run-on sentence because I haven’t done that in at least 14.82 milliseconds or maybe even more.

The announcer guy told me something I really didn’t want to know: when you buy a bag of pre-ground coffee in the store, you can expect to have a little roasted cockroach deliciousness added. Then my brain went straight to childhood (as it often does), and I remembered the chant, “crybaby cocka-roach nyaa nyaa na boo boo!!” This of course was used to taunt someone who was likely brought to tears from some cruel trick that was played on them. Now my childish adult brain is taunting me by repeating (albeit silently): “crybaby cocka-roach roasted in your cawww-feeee!!”

Gack!!

My wife and I became “coffee snobs” some years ago, or at least we thought so. Turns out there are many who are way more fanatical about coffee than we are. We bought a somewhat fancy grinder… did you know you can spend lots of money on those things?? Once we acquired the grinder we started seeking out all different whole bean coffees to see what we liked the best. Then one day we bought some 8 O’Clock whole bean coffee and loved it!! Very nice flavor and a pretty fair price. After several grinding sessions, we thought what the heck, might as well try the pre-ground variety. And guess what?? Tasted just as good. Upon that discovery we shelved the grinder with the reasoning that hey, why put miles on our grinder when the pre-ground is just as yummy?

Then I get this stupid announcement about the cocka-roaches. And yes, I know they are normally called cockroaches; but where we grew up on Long Island it was not at all uncommon to hear the much more endearing term “cocka-roaches” uttered instead. Anyway, I’m going to continue to buy the pre-ground coffee; and just keep telling myself, “8 O’Clock is a very good brand. They probably keep out the cocka-roaches… I hope.”

Before sitting down to write about this phenomenon, I hopped onto the interwebs for what was really a refresher course. Pretty much everything we eat has some kind of hitchhiker bug (or parts of them) in it; and it’s actually allowed by the FDA. There are various allowable percentages of insect parts and even rat hairs for many foods. Doesn’t that just make you hungry?? Mmmmm me too!!

Of course, food packagers don’t advertise this; ever. I am a dedicated label reader when I go to the grocery store. Because of this, I’ve changed some of my purchasing habits. For example, I rarely by shredded cheese, or the plastic cans of parmesan or Romano cheese you can shake onto your spaghetti or whatever. Why? Because packages of both shredded and grated cheeses usually contain an “anti-caking agent” which is often powdered cellulose, also known as sawdust. Hey, at least they fess up!! But in all my years of perusing food labels, I have never once seen any mentions like “may contain ‘2 or more 3 mm or longer larvae, cast skins, larval or cast skin fragments, the aggregate length of insects or insect parts exceeds 12 mm in 24 pounds’ ”; which, according to Wikipedia, is the allowable content of corn borer larvae in canned sweet corn.

Even though all this sounds gross, anyone who believes we humans can grow and eat as much food as we do and never eat any of the bugs that live on it is fooling themselves. It’s just a reality of being at the top of the food chain!! When we were kids, if our half eaten apple hit the ground, Mom would give it a quick rinse, hand it back to us and say “you gotta eat a peck of dirt before you die!!”

She never mentioned we’d also be eating bugs.

This week’s cartoon has nothing to do with food or bugs… but it’s one I’ve never seen.

This past Monday marked my 67^th trip around the sun. That’s right folks, I’m starting to approach the older-than-compost mark of the big 7-0. Weird!! I mean where did all the time run off to? I distinctly remember when The Beatles came to the U.S. on the Mayflower… seems like just a couple years ago. Then suddenly I got married, had kids, and now we have grandchildren!! One grandson is 12 awreddy, and the other’s gonna be 8 next month!! Time is flying so quickly… this is a horrible thing to happen to gentle people like us (my Beautiful Girlfriend and me).

I’m told this is a common anomaly among seniors. And no, I don’t mean the high school variety. Well OK, during senior year of high school my Lovely Bride and I were planted next to each other in study hall. That was in January of… holy mazamookah!! 1972!!??!!That’s like 49 years ago!! This time whooshing phenomenon is lamented by many folks our age. We are all wondering who stole all the minutes. Gives a whole new perspective on the mantra, “try to live life one day at a time.”

I’m catching myself referring to my Sweet Honey Pie, me, and many of our friends as seniors. As in senior citizens. Old farts. Well OK, the men are the old farts, because everybody knows the ladies simply do not fart, right? Ummm… well never mind. So yes, we are senior citizens. We get discounts at restaurants, but since the nasty COVID came along we are not really interested in dining inside. Many of us are retired; and of course most of us are “enjoying” all the physical changes that make getting older so doggoned much fun.

Took a friend of mine to go get hearing aids at the Veteran’s Hospital today. He’s ten years older, and of course my mind started spinning about if (or more likely when) I’ll need hearing aids. I’m a veteran, so I was thinking maybe I could qualify for some assistance with such extravagantly expensive devices. I dropped him off at the door, parked the car, and went back inside to use the tinkle room. There’s another anomaly… old people tinkle. A LOT. Well some of us do. And even weirder, we talk to each other about it!!

So anyway, there I was, walking back inside to go tinkle, when I’m greeted by some folks behind a table. A nice lady lunged at me with a temperature doohicky and waved it near my forehead, and she began to quiz me: “Have you been sick?” “No,” I replied. She continued…

“Have you been near anyone who has been sick or has had COVID?”

“No.”

“Have you had or needed a COVID test recently?”

“No.”

“Do you walk to school, or carry your lunch??”

“No??”

Well OK maybe that last question was a fib. I mentioned that my friend (who had long left for his appointment) was getting hearing aids and that I might need some later on. Of course, I know I’ve had some hearing loss due to many rounds of ammunition shot during target practice when I was a kid, all of course with no hearing protection. “Better start the paperwork!” the nice lady said. Then she described what sounded like a few thousand pounds worth of forms that would be needed. Oh well, I don’t need them right now; at least not today. When I got home, my Beautiful Girlfriend was in her rocking chair, facing away from me, playing a game on her iPad when she uttered something like, “jermla brib da cam makka jaboo gleg HEARING AIDS??” “What’s this about hearing aids?” I replied. She repeated and asked if I thought the VA could help me get hearing aids. “I dunno, maybe,” I answered. “Don’t quite need them yet…”

My friend insisted on buying me lunch on the way home, and I had a nice Double Bacon Death Burger from a well known fast food joint. It was delicious but I was fully aware that I would soon fall victim to yet another senior anomaly: Instant Obesity. Something very unfair happened some years ago, when I noticed that whatever I ate almost instantly added pounds to my body. Not fair, not funny.

My favorite joking anomaly though, is the brain – hiney connection. I joke about it because I find it amusing, but it’s also a bit annoying at times. I’ll be sitting down, reading the paper or maybe watching the news, and then it occurs to me that I need to go to the pantry to get something for dinner. I get up, walk to the pantry, open the door, and stare blankly inside because I forgot why I needed to go the pantry. I go back to my sitting place, and as soon as I sit down I remember what I needed!! This strange brain – hiney connection is not limited to trips to the pantry, either. Sheesh!! Funny, but also frustrating at times.

Guess I’ll just keep being grateful for each successive trip around the sun. I really am fortunate, after all. I can still do pretty much everything I was able to do when I was 27; but often physical motion is accompanied by some snap-crackle-pop noises, and sometimes it hurts. My wife and I have some health challenges, but we are still basically doing very well. As far as material success, I’ve had all my wants fulfilled. Some of you have heard me say this before, but when I was a kid (20s or so) I stated to many friends, “all I want in life is the love of a beautiful woman, a home with enough land to grow food; and a kick-ass stereo.”

I have all those. Life is good.

One thing cool about being an old fart, I remember when they actually played movies like this on TV when I was very young. Still fun to watch in my professional opinion!!