I Say Old Bean

Old Bean!  New Bean!  Young Bean!  Eventually String-bean.  We have welcomed our precious, hopefully precocious Wee Bean great-grand-son into our lives.  He popped into our reality at 6:48 PM, on April 27th, weighing 5 Lb. – 6 Oz, 19 inches long.  Grand-daughter-in-law says that popped was hardly the word for it.  She worked hard for almost 24 hours to deliver this perfect bundle of joy.

He may always be Wee Bean to Grandma Ladybug, but his Dad and Mom seem to be leaning towards naming him Garion Archon-Scottish IV (Although Rowan hasn’t been ruled out yet) – forever to be known as Gary – second name to follow.  They have 30 days to complete necessary paperwork.

With a new baby on the horizon, the wife, the daughter, her BFF, and his mother all went into nesting mode, and transitioned from merely dedicated knitters, to OCD knitters.  There are piles of knit booties and blankets and moccasins and sweaters and socks and hats and play sets.  The wife knit the hospital hat in the above photo.   He may not realize that clothing comes in fabric until he leaves home.

Even before COVID, it was decided that, like his Father, he would be born at home, in a sterilized bathtub, under the watchful eye and careful care of two registered Midwives and a birth Doula.

HOLD ON A SECOND!

STOP THE PRESSES!

The best-laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglee.

Being their first child, he was in a hurry to be cuter than any kitten video you’ve ever seen.  Instead of waiting till his scheduled due-date of May 18^th to be born, he insisted on arriving almost three weeks ahead of schedule, necessitating a quick taxi trip to the hospital, with the midwives in hot pursuit.  Just in time too.  At that the wee bairn was almost a third the body weight of his tiny mother.  Soon enough, he’ll be tossing telephone poles…. uh, cabers, around.

I’m sure that you join us in happily embracing the arrival of the next link in the chain of my immortality.  You’d better, if you know what’s good for me.

I hope that he grows up to be tall and strong.  He may need to be…. to push me around in my wheelchair.  I’m sure that he’ll get the occasional mention in my posts.  He’s already capturing women’s hearts and wearing plaid diapers.  I’ll publish a notice and provide a link, when he starts a blog of his own.  😎

Edison On Religion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thomas Alva Edison:

…What I have denied and what my reason compels me to deny, is the existence of a Being throned above us as a god, directing our mundane affairs in detail, regarding us as individuals, punishing us, rewarding us as human judges might.  When the churches learn to take this rational view of things, when they become true schools of ethics and stop teaching fables, they will be more effective than they are to-day… If they would turn all that ability to teaching this one thing – the fact that honesty is best, that selfishness and lies of any sort must surely fail to produce happiness – they would accomplish actual things.

Religious faiths and creeds have greatly hampered our development. They have absorbed and wasted some fine intellects. That creeds are getting to be less and less important to the average mind with every passing year is a good sign, I think, although I do not wish to talk about what is commonly called theology.

The criticisms which have been hurled at me have not worried me. A man cannot control his beliefs. If he is honest in his frank expression of them, that is all that can in justice be required of him. Professor Thomson and a thousand others do not in the least agree with me. His criticism of me, as I read it, charged that because I doubted the soul’s immortality, or ‘personality,’ as he called it, my mind must be abnormal, ‘pathological,’ in other, words, diseased…

I try to say exactly what I honestly believe to be the truth, and more than that no man can do. I honestly believe that creedists have built up a mighty structure of inaccuracy, based, curiously, on those fundamental truths which I, with every honest man, must not alone admit but earnestly acclaim.

I have been working on the same lines for many years. I have tried to go as far as possible toward the bottom of each subject I have studied. I have not reached my conclusions through study of traditions; I have reached them through the study of hard fact. I cannot see that unproved theories or sentiment should be permitted to have influence in the building of conviction upon matters so important. Science proves its theories or it rejects them. I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God.

I earnestly believe that I am right; I cannot help believing as I do… I cannot accept as final any theory which is not provable. The theories of the theologians cannot be proved. Proof, proof! That is what I always have been after; that is what my mind requires before it can accept a theory as fact. Some things are provable, some things disprovable, some things are doubtful. All the problems which perplex us, now, will, soon or late, be solved, and solved beyond a question through scientific investigation.

The thing which most impresses me about theology is that it does not seem to be investigating. It seems to be asserting, merely, without actual study….Moral teaching is the thing we need most in this world, and many of these men could be great moral teachers if they would but give their whole time to it, and to scientific search for the rock-bottom truth, instead of wasting it upon expounding theories of theology which are not in the first place firmly based. What we need is search for fundamentals, not reiteration of traditions born in days when men knew even less than we do now.

’21 A To Z Challenge – B

Back in the old days, you young whippersnappers, I occasionally published ‘Remember When’ posts, to pump up my older readers’ nostalgia, and show the younger ones what they may be fortunate to have missed.

This year, for the letter B, I’ve decided to rant and rave about the

BANDERSNATCH

an imaginary wild animal of fierce disposition.

a person of uncouth or unconventional habits, attitudes, etc., especially one considered a menace, nuisance, or the like.

The word was coined, with the first meaning, about 1855 by the Anglican Deacon, the Reverend Charles Dodgson, hiding his identity as the author Lewis Carroll.  Hide he should!  He wrote about fantastical, imaginary creatures, and strange words that didn’t exist.  In his Alice in Wonderland books, he has poor Alice eating magic mushrooms, and drinking absinth-like liquids which distort her perceptions and cause hallucinations, making her to seem to shrink and grow.  The good pastor was a drug fiend.

From the original meaning has come the more recent value, and much of it may be due to recreational drug use.  Nostalgiac and déjà vu terms for these people might include miscreant, or ruffian.  Today’s paper printed three Op-Ed letters, and they were all about people who litter, especially the community trails.

One woman says that she and her husband go out (properly masked) for walks together.  Each of them takes a store-issued plastic bag.  They don’t get a block away, before both are stuffed full of picked-up trash.  There are garbage pails each block, where the trail crosses a street, yet these lazy swine can’t wait even that long.  Some clean up after their dogs…. and then toss the compostable bags into the undergrowth.  Some of them hang up on bushes, making them look like Bizarro Christmas trees.

Forty years ago, one of the city’s mottos was, Kitchener – Klean As A Kitchen.  More recently, one of the local newspaper wags has suggested, Kitchener – Klean As A Kow-shed.  Spanking unruly children is no longer allowed, but I’d like to take a few of these Bandersnatches out behind the woodpile, and introduce their posteriors to a good length of flat maple.  Would you like to watch the YouTube video?  👿

Flash Fiction #254

PHOTO PROMPT © David Stewart

DREAMS UP IN SMOKE

Cheryl offered to help him with his writing.  A couple who worked at the newspaper dropped by each Friday, and they often discussed the craft.  “Join us.”

The husband said the first thing they did, was smoke dope.  “It frees the creativity.”  He silently demurred, not for moral or legal reasons, but from skepticism.  He’d be the abstaining benchmark.  “I’ll get a beer and catch up.”

A Cheech and Chong blunt got passed around…. around…. and around.  Potatoes, motorcycles, redhead in sales, socks with sandals…. Bright topics bubbled into the conversation – and were immediately forgotten.

There was no creativity here.

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

He’s Come Undun

I’m coming unravelled, although I was never too tightly wrapped in the first place. 

A man encounters another fellow at a DC cocktail party.  “What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a naval surgeon.”
“Wow, you guys really specialize, don’t you??!

My Father’s family kindly passed down a gene which causes weak abdominal wall.  Excess weight is not the only reason that my tummy protrudes.  At 2019’s annual doctor visit, I had two small hernias, one in the left groin, and one on my navel.  The groin one was quick and easy to fix – day-surgery at the hospital – someone jabbed a hole in it with a sharp pencil, poked some window-screen in, under the skin, and super-glued me back together.

The belly-button is a little more complex.  They don’t like to work on it unless absolutely necessary.  She told me to keep an eye on it, and report if it increased in size.  After the fiasco of last year’s visit, which I chronicled in I Have Never Felt So Alive, I let her have another look.  Last year, it was the size of the last segment of my baby finger.  This year, it’s as big as the end of my thumb!  😯

They will not act unless the opening is more than 2.5 cm (1 real inch).  She gave me a requisition for an ultrasound scan just as COVID19 arrived.  It took me three months to schedule a clinic appointment.  I find that I am six months pregnant with twins.  😉

She has, properly, been chastising me about my weight.  Something like this has finally opened my eyes.  I don’t want to explode like that obese wight in the Monty Python sketch.  I asked about liposuction, to relieve the immediate pressure.  She refused, because, without a basic change in my lifestyle, the weight would just pack back on.

A maintenance man at a plant where I worked, took more than a year to lose over a hundred pounds.  Then he spent another year, gradually putting it all back on.  😦  Slowly we forge the chains of our obesity so, slowly we must cast them off.  In the three months that I waited for the scan, I managed to lose 15 pounds, with lots more to go. 

No more snacking from boredom, as I stay up all night.  It’s as simple – and as complex – as that.  I was appalled at the number and variety of goodies I had available – regular chips, salt and vinegar chips, corn chips, cheese twists, mini chocolate bars…. Three kinds of peanuts, one Honey-Roasted, one Caramel-Coated, for extra calories – and cut back on the sugar-laden soft drinks.

No more 4 or 5 snacks per night!!  Now I must choose – and limit myself to – one snack per evening.  Carefully rationed, I have eliminated several of them, and vowed not to replace them.

COVID19 further delayed already slow medical specialists’ appointments.  Something must have shown in the ultrasound.  On August 1, I received an email appointment notice with a Surgical Oncologist, on Oct 22 – Wow, only another three months!  I only hope that he can ‘knit up the ravelled sleave of my care,’ before I come completely Undun.  Click here, if you’d like to hear the Canadian band The Guess Who, tell you about a girl that it happened to.

I’ll tell you what transpires.  (EW! EW!)  I’ll still be as big an opinionated asshole as ever.  It’s just that, hopefully, there’ll be a lot less of me doing it.

***

So, my Oct. 22 appointment has come and gone.  The specialist took one quick look at it and told me to get out.  At least I now have a direct line to him if it grows any larger. I told him that my weight loss was up to 20 pounds, but he only speaks Metric (9 Kg.)  Very good….keep at it.  It can be caused be something as simple as a sneeze.  With my allergies – do you know how many times I sneeze per day – and how strongly??!

I picked up some meds after the doctor visit.  The pharmacy tech asked me how the visit went.  I told her the doctor was busy, and had just put a strip of Scotch Tape© over it – and got out while she was still reaching for the phone.  If the wife doesn’t have me committed, she might.   😉   😳

Phoning The Jokes In

I tried having my mother’s phone disconnected, but customer service told me that since the account was in my dad’s name, he’d have to be the one to put in the request. The fact that he’d been dead for 40 years didn’t sway the rep. Then a solution hit me: “If I stop paying the bill, you can turn off the service, right?”

“Well, yes,” she said reluctantly. “But that would ruin his credit.”

***

The village blacksmith finally found an apprentice willing to work hard for long hours. The blacksmith instructed the boy, “When I take the shoe out of the fire, I’ll lay it on the anvil; and when I nod my head, you hit it with this hammer.”

The apprentice did just as he was told. Now he’s the village blacksmith.

***

There once were twin boys, age six, who had developed extreme personalities. One was a pessimist and the other a total optimist. Concerned, their parents took them to a psychiatrist.

First, the psychiatrist treated the pessimist. Trying to brighten his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to a room filled with toys. But instead of yelping with delight, the little boy burst into tears. “What’s the matter?” the psychiatrist asked. “Don’t you want to play with any of the toys?”

“Yes,” the little boy bawled, “but if I did I’d only break them.”

Next, the psychiatrist treated the optimist. Trying to dampen his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with horse manure. But instead of wrinkling his nose in disgust, the optimist climbed to the top of the pile, and began gleefully digging out scoop after scoop with his bare hands.

“What are you doing?” the baffled psychiatrist asked.

The little boy replied, “With all this manure, there must be a pony in here somewhere!”

***

In surgery for a heart attack, a middle-aged woman has a vision of God by her bedside. “Will I die?” she asks.

God says, “No. You have 30 more years to live.”

With 30 years to look forward to, she decides to make the best of it. Since she’s in the hospital, she gets breast implants, liposuction, a tummy tuck, hair transplants, and collagen injections in her lips. She looks great! The day she’s discharged, she exits the hospital with a swagger, crosses the street, and is immediately hit by an ambulance and killed. Up in heaven, she sees God. “You said I had 30 more years to live,” she complains.

“That’s true,” says God.

“So what happened?” she asks.

God shrugs. “I didn’t recognize you.”

***

Two salespeople approached the wife in a furniture store.  She followed the one who called her ‘Miss.’ The ‘Hello Ma’am’ one should take notice.

WOW #70

I was recently reading an historical novel.  In it, a commoner performed an uncommon act of intelligence and bravery.  As a reward for this selfless act, the Grand Panjandrum – or Grand Poobah – they both indicate a pretentious or self-important official, like a High Muckedy-Muck, bestowed upon him the reward of a

Carucate
[keyr-oo-kate, (yoo)]

Because I was reading a dead-tree book, I couldn’t just tap the Kindle screen to find out what a carucate was.  I had to play Twenty Questions until I got upstairs to the computer.  Was it a gem – a jewel, like the Blue Carbuncle in the Sherlock Holmes novel?  Was it a lavish dinner in his honor?  Was it a warm, if not willing, bed-companion?  Was it a mani-pedi down at Omar’s Tent and Sail Shop, and Spa?  Don’t ask – don’t tell.   😉 

It turns out that it’s another archaic measurement quantity, equal to 40 acres of land, or a quarter-section – one quarter of a square mile.  It was the amount of land that a team of oxen could plow, and the amount of tilled land that it took to produce enough food for a farm family.

While the measurement is described as square, especially those with water frontage, were a mile long, and a quarter-mile wide, farming spaghetti, or rhubarb.  It was hard to turn an ox-team and unwieldy plow around. It was easier to let the team catch their breath, and just start another furrow in a straight line, for eight furlongs, and this gave more tenants shipping/travel access . Quebec’s Eastern Townships, in Canada are like this, only larger, all fronting on the St. Lawrence River, and looking like a bowling alley on a map. 

Was it possible that this Grand Vizier – Why do all these $3 potentates describe their titles as Grand??! – wanted this potter…. or leather-worker…. to leave the city, and become just another subsistence farmer??  He could sell it, or lease it to a share-cropper.  At least he took his dictionary along, and I learned a new old word.  😀

What’s It Worth?

I was just lounging in a big tub of nostalgia.  (Do I still have any on me?) 
When I was a kid, a dollar meant something, and there weren’t very many millionaires.

First, the farthing (quarter-penny) disappeared – then the half-pence – now, Canada’s penny is no more.  As inflation lops off the bottom, it piles more on top that we soon get used to.

I recently had the chance to re-watch the old movie, The Girl, The Gold Watch, And Everything.  The hero is accused of absconding with$27,000,000.  At first, I couldn’t understand the fuss that was being made.  Now, twenty-seven million is a nice piece of pocket-change.  As the embezzling Congressman said, “A million here – a million there – pretty soon it starts to add up.”  Pretty soon, mere millionaires are a dime-a-dozen.

The son dug out and lent me the John D. MacDonald book that the movie was based on.  He had the 1980, movie-novelization copy, but the book was originally written in 1962.  An online conversion site showed me that One 1962 Dollar – is worth $9.83 today.  The missing 27 million would be worth over a quarter of a $BILLION in 2021 – now that’s worth getting upset about.

This all reminded me of a television show that aired from 1955 to 1960, titled The Millionaire.  Each week, multi-millionaire John Beresford Tipton, had an agent GIVE a cashier’s cheque for $1,000,000 to someone he had chosen.  Tipton’s socio-psychological curiosity was the reason that the show then followed each recipient, to see what they did with the money.

One man who had lost his wife, was despondent, and convinced that he would never find such a love again.  He took a round-the-world cruise, met a sweet, young, available thing onboard, and it all worked out with soap-opera predictability.  One million, back then, would be the equivalent of $10/12 Million today.  The interest alone would accumulate so fast that they never need get off the ship, except to purchase a Rolls-Royce for each port.

The running gag in this show was that, like Charlie, in Charlie’s Angels, except for a hand passing off the cheque at the beginning of each show…. We never saw Tipton, and yet, when I went to research the show, there was a listing for Peter Frees – as Tipton

I had forgotten that voice actors get credits also.  Peter Frees is the most famous person that you’ve never seen.  He actually did three unseen voices during this series.  He has lent his dulcet tones to dozens of video games and dozens of animated movies.  His list of voice credits is longer than the late, great Mel Blanc – Ehhhhh, what’s up with that, Doc?

’21 A To Z Challenge – A

April’s First Challenge Post – And So It Begins.

Here’s a word that dictionaries insist doesn’t exist – but really should.

ASSHOLERY

There’s something about the X-Y chromosome that fouls many males up.  They don’t know whether they’re coming or going, so it applies mostly to boys (of all ages), although some of the fairer sex qualify.

A nearby 19-year-old was caught doing 221 Kmh in a 100 Kmh zone.  He was late for a Darwin Awards presentation.  Daddy’s Lexus was impounded for a week, and the repair bill for an overstressed engine might be as much as the hefty fines and impound fees.

A local man went downtown, to deal with a department in City Hall.  When he came back out, he could not find his white Mercedes…. with his 4-year-old son in it.  😯  He called the police.  Within minutes – and a short walk – they located…. his wife’s red Jeep, and the child safe.  He has been charged, public intoxication, care and control of a vehicle while impaired, driving over .08 (local alcohol limit), and endangering a child.  His wife is gonna be thrilled!

A man in Toronto duplexed his house.  His upstairs tenant called 9-1-1 because a carbon monoxide detector kept squealing.  Three-tiered response – police, fire and EMT – discovered 100 pounds of carfentanil, 31 pistols and two “rifles”, although one of them was a Tech-9, like the one above.  More an overgrown handgun, than a real rifle.

If guys like this had any real brains, they’d have a real job.  If you’re gonna do something that creates carbon monoxide – stop doing it – ventilate the area – disconnect the detector!  Duh!!  🙄

Donald Trump still insists that he won the 2020 election.  Of course, he also insists that he has more Grammys than Beyoncé.  Women have to own some of this assholery, because far too many of them voted for Trump, and also for Canada’s wunderkind pretty-boy Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.  They’re the answer to Kojak’s question, “Who loves ya, baby?”

Bungling Burglars

Phone a Bungling Burglar!

A bungling burglar in the USA has been arrested after he left his mobile phone on charge at the house of one of his victims. The man was disturbed while rifling through rooms in the house in Washington DC and jumped out of a window to escape. Police searched the house later and were surprised to find a cell phone that didn’t belong to anyone at the house, charging in a socket. Officers called one of the numbers in his contacts, told them the phone owner had been involved in an accident and asked for his name. That led to the 25 year old man being arrested and later charged with ten burglaries.

Dutch Bungling Burglar

A stupid criminal was caught after he fell down a chimney while escaping over the roof of a house he had just broken into. Police in Maastricht, Holland, arrested the 33-year-old after being called out by the house owners who heard his calls for help. The man had tried to flee out of a roof window with his booty of cash and jewellery, but tumbled in the dark and got stuck inside the chimney.

Another Bungled Chimney Burglar Story

A burglar who got stuck in a chimney while trying to break in to a Los Angeles home has been jailed for two years. Bungling burglar Marco Antonio Espinoza was also ordered to pay the owners of the house more than $10,000 to repair the damage done when fire fighters freed him. When he was caught, he told the police that he was doing building work on the house.

Bagging A Burglar

A ‘would be’ robber had to drop his bank looting plans after he forgot to take with him a bag into which the stolen money could be put. Apparently, the young man in his 20’s, entered a local Chase Bank branch early on Monday morning and passed the cashier a piece of cardboard on which was written ‘Give me your money,’ reported the Detroit News. He told the bank teller to ‘hurry up,’ but when she asked him if he had a bag to put the money into he became flustered and confused and ran off without the cash.

The Bungled Get Away

The two criminal masterminds planned their heist carefully. They knew the courier would have a suitcase full of cash.  They waited for his car to pass, then pursued him at high speed, shooting at the vehicle until the courier was forced to pull over. Armed robbers made off with what they thought was a suitcase full of cash – they were in for a surprise. Back at their secret hideout, the bandits prepared to force the locks and spring the cash.  That’s when they noticed their plan had gone horribly wrong; instead of taking the money, they made off with a first aid kit. Police spokesman Johann Steinlitz said, ‘If there was an award for the dumbest crooks, they would certainly be in the running. ‘

Car Thief – Loser of the Week

A car thief who ran out of gas in rush hour traffic was arrested after police helped him push the stolen vehicle to the side of the road reports The Moscow Times.  Helpful officers in Moscow, Russia, were about to leave the scene and let Alexei Ashurin wait for breakdown services when they noticed the red 15 year old Volkswagen’s lock was broken and a screwdriver was sticking out of the ignition. After checking the number plate, they discovered the vehicle had been stolen and that Ashurin was wanted for a string of other motoring thefts.  He admitted to stealing the car and this stupid criminal is now facing up to two years in prison.

A Funny Magistrates Court Story

This hilarious story may make you laugh at the stupidity of some crooks.  We cannot, however, vouch for its veracity. A man arrived the magistrate’s court, he was charged with impersonating a policeman. On arrival he was wearing a blue baseball cap with the word ‘police’ on it; a fluorescent yellow jacket, with ‘police’ on it, he was carrying a truncheon, a can of CS spray, and he had blue flashing lights in his car. You will, no doubt wish to know how he came to be arrested. It apparently happened like this: he flagged down a car with two men in it, pulled them over and said ‘Police. You’re nicked.’ They answered, ‘No mate. You’re not police – we are.’ Funnily, he had stopped two off-duty detectives in an unmarked police car and so ended up in court. You could not invent a story like it.

Bungling Burglar From Mexico

Robbers broke into the Telefonica Movistar cell-phone store in Morelia, Mexico recently with the aim of stealing some mobile phones. In their haste to get away they grabbed the first phones that came to hand – hollow replicas, used normally for display purposes only. Employees explained that the bungling burglars overlooked real cell phones and cash in another part of the shop.

Surely One of The Dumbest Criminals:

A man who had spent 20 years in prison for bank robbery back in 1963 thought he would try again in 2003 in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, USA. He demanded and received several thousand dollars from two surprised bank cashiers and as he fled he spilled $100 notes in his wake as he attempted to stuff the cash into his pockets and get away. When he reached his hired getaway car this stupid criminal realized that he had locked his keys inside. This bungling burglar promptly took to his heels and fled the scene on foot followed by two passersby who grabbed him. The fleeing felon attempted to pull out his gun but failed, and shot himself in his leg but kept fighting his would be arresters; one of whom shot the suspect. The local police have charged the robber with 8 felonies, including robbery and 2 counts of attempted murder. The suspect was attended to in hospital and recovered. No, you couldn’t make it up