Tea For Two

Did you hear about the guy who went blind, drinking tea??  He forgot to take the spoon out of the cup.  😉

The wife and I watch a couple of English cop series on the Brit Box channel.  Wherever British detectives go to interview people, they request, or are offered, tea.  Anything from a cracked-mug ‘cuppa’ at the marina welding shop, to silver-service, delicate Royal Doulton china, with scones and clotted cream, and crust-removed cucumber sandwich triangles, at the manor.

British cops must have bladders as big as the Chinese spy-balloons that the Americans recently shot down.  I don’t know how any mystery ever gets solved, with the amount of time that they spend drinking tea with suspects.  According to these videos, the British have tea-trucks, the way western Americans have taco trucks.

I drank tea when I was younger.  As a good Scottish woman, my mother would boil water for tea before she put a roast in the oven for supper and started peeling potatoes.  By the time it came to drink it, you could tap-dance across the surface, and you couldn’t leave even stainless steel spoons in it too long before the tannic and other acids put some extra iron in your diet.

Rivergirl recently published a post about her husband’s latest quirk of drinking green tea.  Green tea is good for you.  It’s full of anti-oxidants.  It just has all the dash and body of No-Name facial tissue.  Most green tea tastes like a summer rain fell on a new-mowed lawn.  Her hubby managed to find a special (read – far more expensive) brand of green tea at the commissary, that promised ‘more character.’  It tastes like there was a grass fire before the lawn was mowed and the warm rain fell on it.

We drink just over two liters/quarts of iced tea/sweet tea per day.  I make it up and refrigerate it in a plastic pitcher, using a powdered lemon/tea mix.  I use enough to make 1 ½ quarts, and add two cups of green tea that has steeped for 12 to 24 hours.  It dilutes the sugar content and adds health benefits, while disguising the lack of taste.

I’m glad I finally got this post about tea finished.  I gotta go pee.  I’ll be back soon.  Feel free to pour yourself a cup of tea from the pot.  It’s Salada Orange Pekoe – which is a black tea that bewilders British ex-pats.  And don’t get me started on chai.  😕

The Ghost Of One-Liners Past

Jellyfish are just….
….wet ghosts.

Of all the things I’ve lost….
….I miss my metabolism the most.

Home is where dog hair sticks….
….to everything but the dog.

If you are being chased by a pack of taxidermists….
….do not play dead.

I do all my own stunts….
….but never intentionally.

I am a leader, not a follower….
….unless it’s dark, then you’re going first.

I’m staying home today….
….I have mood poisoning.

Procrastinators unite!….
….Tomorrow.

Bad decisions….
….make good stories.

Life is like a box….
….of terrible analogies.

My bed and I are perfect for each other, but….
….my alarm keeps trying to break us up.

Why aren’t I-Phone chargers….
….called Apple juice?

I love sleep….
….It’s like a time machine to breakfast.

I learn from the mistakes of others….
….who take my advice.

When I drink alcohol, everyone says I’m an alcoholic….
….but when I drink Fanta, no-one says I’m fantastic.

I had a life….
….but my job ate it.

Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel….
….go out and buy more tunnel.

Three symptoms of laziness….
….No.  1

Know how to get a sweet, little old lady to say, “FUCK!!” ?….
….Have another sweet, little old lady say, ‘Bingo!’ first.

Don’t worry what people think….
….They don’t do it very often.

The wife and I had a couple of ’Adult Beverages’ last night….
….Metamucil and Ensure.

Pre means before. Post means after. To use them both together….
….would be preposterous.

I’m entering The World’s Tightest Hat contest….
….I just hope I can pull it off.

Fibbing Friday 20/3

Instead of waiting for pensitivity101, I sent her a list of topics to lie about and share with others.  The email came back marked

Return To Sender
No Such Recipient
No such Address

So I guess I’ll just have to share these with lucky little you.

1. How many years bad luck do you get if you break a mirror?

It depends on which one you break.  Knock something off the counter and break the one in the wife’s purse, and the tornado should dissipate by tomorrow.  Break a Hepplewhite one when she drags you out antiquing, and you’ll see a shattered image of two years’ savings disappearing.

2. What shouldn’t you walk under?

15.000 steps a day, if your wife put you on an exercise program, bought His and Hers Fitbits, and registered as your Friend.  When she goes to bed early, I lie on the couch watching Netflix, hang my leg over the edge, and tap the floor.  Next morning, See honey!  Quota achieved!

3. Why are black cats crossing your path considered unlucky?

One of the reasons that we bought this marvelous old mini-mansion, was the big, stone fireplace in the main room….  Until a bat got in down the chimney, and our previously-white cat chased it through the ashes, and back out onto our new, previously-ivory Persian rug.  😳

4. Why do we ‘knock on wood’?

To be closer to our Maker.

Jesus was helping St. Peter at the Pearly Gate one day.  A very old man shuffled up.  St. Peter asked him what he had been on Earth.  He replied that he had been a woodworker.  Jesus looked closer and said, “Dad?”  The old man peered back and said, “Pinocchio?”

5. Why are horseshoes considered lucky?

Know how to stop a runaway horse?  Bet on him.  I don’t know how they can run with those heavy steel things on their feet.  Couldn’t we get them a couple of pair of nice, light Reeboks?

6. Why do we cross our fingers for good luck?

To keep the stupidity and gullibility from leaking out.  This superstition stuff is all fake.  I’m a Virgo.  Us Virgos are highly skeptical and don’t believe in any of it.

7. Why is 13 considered an unlucky number?

Because there are only 12 slices in an extra-large pizza.  Sorry bro, you got here too late.  You’ll have to order another one – and while you’re out getting it, pick me up a six-pack of Heineken Dark, k?

8. On the other hand, why is 7 considered lucky?

If 7-11 is open 24-hours, why are there locks on the doors?  7 is the end of the overnight shift.  If Apu hasn’t been beaten and robbed by some junkie by then, he considers himself lucky.  I’ve never been robbed here at the Archon’s Den during any of my late-night shifts.  I see those ne’er-do-wells slinking by in the dark.  They look up and see me watching them, and put their dog between us.

9. What is signified by itchy hands?

You’ve been doing too much shopping, and slathering on that disinfectant at every store.  I’m glad this COVID is almost over.  My hands have absorbed more alcohol than I have.

10. Why should you not put shoes on the table?

With my wife’s cooking, the roasts are always so dry and tough, shoes could get sliced up and eaten without anyone even noticing.

***

It’s no wonder that Christian Apologists get their Bibles in a knot with me.  It’s not that I’m an Atheist.  It’s that I keep breaking the Thou shalt not tell a lie Commandment.  Which one is that anyway??  The 14^th??

 

Objectively Speaking

There are no objective morals, but there are ethics that work well with civilization and we should follow them for our benefit and the benefit of others.

So, your argument is that there are no objective moral standards, that we each conduct ourselves according to our own desires at the moment.  Presumably you want people to treat others with respect, the way you do, right? Why should anyone do that?

Let’s ignore “morality”, because it’s a concept invented by the religious, particularly, recently, by the American ‘Christians,’ but about the specifics of which, no two Christian groups totally agree with each other, and go with the Secular Humanist concept of The Greatest Good For The Greatest Number, which benefits the individual, their society, and the human race at large, and which is empathetically NOT according to our own desires at the moment.  If you don’t want the greatest good for the greatest number I don’t even want to know why not, just a previous warning. If you want to know if slavery is immoral – ask a slave.

What an original thought! The dictatorship of the wise and just majority. The majority won’t enslave anyone. That’s never happened before.

Yep! We will just declare the majority our god and take a poll every time we need to make a decision about anything.

Do Secular Humanists agree about everything? Does any large group of people? Would it not be a miracle if they did? Would it be a good miracle? Without some sort of basis for judging the matter, how would we know? Because everyone is in agreement? Would that be it?  I can explain why something is right and why something is wrong. Do you have an answer? Nope! All you do is make unsupported assertions.

Oh dear!!  You do seem to expend considerable time and energy, putting words into other people’s mouths.  Us ignorant Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists, and Secularists don’t declare anything to be God(like).  There is no compulsion – which far too many Christians ignore, anyway – but you are expected to think for yourself to make informed self-interest decisions.

Perhaps you have heard of Secular Humanism under its other name – Representative Democracy and Rule of Law.  It is the absolutely worst system of governance – except for every other one.  You might give it a try.  A few minor, unimportant World Nations have, and surprisingly, it seems to work.

This is where the populace selects wise and capable leaders.  They tell them what they want their country to look and act like.  They trust their elected officials to deal with the BIG moral issues, like assault, theft, and murder.  They know that the legislature will enact laws to forbid certain acts and actions, and provide penalties for those who do.  That way there’s no need for a referendum for every moral decision.  The answer to the basis of right and wrong, is mutually-agreed-on enacted laws.

Sadly, far too many Good Christians fail to join in.  They clog up divorce courts, rehabilitation clinics, and prisons.  Per capita, there are ten times as many Christians in penitentiaries, than Atheists.  In States like California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas, every second inmate is named Jesus.

This then leaves individuals free to personally judge the finer moral points, like….  Should my bodily autonomy be violated, and I’m forced to carry a fetus to full term, if I’m told that I must, by a priest with no ovaries, or wife who has them??

Should I hate fags and homos, if ordered to do so by a priest/preacher who is raping altar boys??
Should I take marriage advice from an unmarried priest??
Should a priest (Who isn’t supposed to be having sex) be allowed to dictate how, when, how often, what position, whom I may – and may not – have sex with??

Why do you look at the mote that is thy brother’s eye, but do not see the plank that is in thine own eye?  👿

’23 A To Z Challenge – E

The Sound of silence…. Music…. Language

Each language has its own sound – its own tempo – its own delivery.  Even if you don’t know what the foreign speaker is saying, you can often tell what language it is, simply by the sound of it.  Italian and Spanish sound like the machinegun chatter of chickadees on meth.  French sounds like the speaker is trying to evade being charged with child luring.  German sounds like someone is training a dog, and Russian seems spoken by a crew of cesspool cleaners.  I often know the area where an English native is from, just by the local accent.

Most languages don’t change much, or very quickly.  Spanish-speakers can read El Cid in the original, while Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, written at the same time, requires a translator.  English evolves, and its sound has changed over time.

It’s not just the new words, and the new meanings and usages of old words.  It’s that the world, and therefore the language, has grown larger, and more complex.  We have less time, to say more.  The construction is getting shorter, quicker, tighter, and wider, but not as deep.

A century ago, or two, we had the time – at least the privileged, educated,  upper crust – to converse and orate, using grandiloquent, polysyllabic words, often from Latin or Greek bases.  Those idyllic days are gone.  The grand old days of the unhurried Romance-era are long past.

I recently read a piece from another archaist like me – someone who likes to throw the occasional impressive antique usage in.  He used the word

EFTSOON

Soon after, before 950; Middle English eftsone,Old English eftsōna.See eft², soon

While it was a sweet, caramel-sundae kind of word, we just don’t have the time for it anymore, in our fast-paced, frenetic lives.  The leisurely, imposing sound of it has been replaced by curt, businesslike words like ASAP, or stat.

The Good Old Days were only good for the cream of the social crop, but their relaxed, melodious language usage was pleasing to the ear.  Hurry back ASAP stat soon for another helping of blather.

List Of ‘IST’ Fibbing Friday

Last week, Pensitivity101 wanted to know what our suggestions were for this list of ‘ists,’ please.

1. Philatelist

These are OCD people like my loony-bin neighbour, who will only associate with men named Phil – like Phil Collins, Phil Silvers, “Dr.” Phil McGraw, golfer Phil Mickelson, and his dentist, Phil McCavity
.
2. Botanist

A botanist is any one of a gaggle of teenage girls, set loose with daddy’s credit card, in a retail mall.  A negativist is a person who warns that bricks-and-mortar stores will soon be extinct, and we’ll buy everything online and have it delivered.  Not while these frenetic females exist, and they want to try on every top, in every store, and test every shade of lipstick, before bragging, “See what I bot.”

3. Naturalist

A naturalist is a person who frequents a clothing-optional beach, or nudist colony, to acquire a tan without tan lines.  Many of them are strippers exotic dancers, but you’ve already met Dick Brown.  Just wait until he gets skin cancer, then he’ll be Spotted Dick.

4. Taxidermist

He’s one of the new urbanites, who works from home in one of those giant housing densification buildings, complete with its own retail/service area.  He doesn’t own a car because there’s only 100 parking spaces for 12,000 residents.  He very seldom physically leaves the building.  Most of his ‘trips’ are digital and electronic.  When he does go out, he relies on Uber, Lyft, buses, and cabs.

5. Anthropologist

‘Anthropo’ – a prefix indicating “manlike” An anthropologist is someone who expends time and energy, trying to prove or disprove the likes of Sasquatch, or the Yeti.  If they’re searching for hairy, ill-mannered, sub-humans who utter incomprehensible noises, they’d be better advised to frequent any Glasgow pub on Saturday night.

6. Scientist

“Science” means knowledge. A scientist is a person who asks questions of the Universe, to know how it works.  I tried doing that, but the Universe said, “Hold on!  I’ve got a question for you.  After tilting against the windmills of Disney and the Florida teachers, how the Hell does Ron DeSantis think he has a ghost of a chance to be president?

7. Strategist

A strategist is a person like Phil Harding, of the Time Team, who digs through the layers and tiers of rock and dirt, to find historical relics and ancient fossils.

8. Protagonist

A protagonist is an adult who wishes to get some exercise and fresh air, and shed some of the stresses and strains of modern busy and complex society by once again embracing the childhood games of yesteryear.  There are also promarblists, and prohopscotchists.

9. Pharmacist

Use your imagination!  I’d use mine, but it’s still stunned by that Ron DeSantis story.  I told you that I would someday post a three-legged dog – (or a nine-armed squid) – of an FF list.

10. Biologist.

A biologist is someone whose job it is to prove that you’re a hell of a nice person – as long as you’re dead.  It’s up to them to sift through your life, and assemble a quarter-page newspaper blurb about your achievements and successes.  Very seldom does it mention that the featured fictional character lived in a multi-million dollar mansion because they were a shark of a lawyer who created six acrimonious divorces, and four bankruptcies.  😦

.

 

RAPE!

Rape has disappeared.  It is no more.  Sadly, not the act, that’s still all too common, but the word – the term.  Woke insists that no-one’s delicate sensibilities shall be offended, and I am offended by that.

As a ten-year-old, after I had read for the third time that some young female had been raped, I just asked my Mother what “Rape” was.  It never occurred to me that any male would force a female to have intercourse.

Caught completely off-guard, she went into some embarrassed, her-sensibility non-offending story about, “Well, you know when a man doesn’t want to have a baby….” which just left me totally bewildered.  Not wanting to have a baby didn’t seem to have anything to do with it.  I knew what sex was.  I understood the mechanics.  Flap A went into slot B, even if I didn’t yet have a rigid Flap A.  One of my more street-wise friends soon set me straight.

In every medium, “Rape” has been replaced with ‘Assault.’  If the newspaper or television station is really daring, it might be “Sexual Assault.”  C’mon!  Call a spade, a spade!  I think that this just trivializes the concept of rape.  (Sexual) Assault is one thing.  Rape is something completely different and far worse.

Sexual assault is an over-ardent teen boyfriend, managing to unhook a bra-strap in the backseat of a car.  It is a handsy restaurant manager patting waitress’s butts.  It’s even Donald Trump “grabbin’ them right by the crotch, ‘cause you know they want it.”  It’s not “Rape” until it gets to FHRITP, or, until the check bounces.

Rape is degrading, and the result of expressed power and anger.  While not wanted or consented to, sexual assault is usually the result of overactive hormones.  Show some restraint and control, guys, or you could end up in prison, where you might find out what rape is really like.  😛

Elementary School Comedy

The children were lined up for lunch at the cafeteria of a Catholic Elementary school.  At the head of the line was a big pile of apples.  A nun wrote a note that said, “Take only one.  God is watching.”

At the end of the table was a tray of cookies.  A young student made a note that said, “Take all you want.  God is keeping an eye on the apples.”

***

Most people don’t know this, but you can eat organic, gluten-free food, without telling everyone around you.

***

Police in Utah released video of an incident where a 4-year-old fired a single shot at them following an altercation involving the child’s father at a McDonald’s drive-thru. The restaurant manager said his Utah location had mistakenly received Happy Meal toys intended for Texas.

***

Three doctors were playing golf. The heartless cardiologist led the gutless gastroenterologist by 3 strokes. The dermatologist didn’t care because he had no skin in the game.

***

Funny, In Spite Of Everything
A farmer was standing by a fence along his property. Suddenly God appeared before him. God said “George, you have been a good man during your life. As a reward, I’m going to grant you one wish. But you must know that I will grant the same wish to your neighbor.” The farmer thought about it for a moment and said “kill my cow.”

***

A blonde complained to her friend, “It was terrible at the movies last night! I had to change seats five times.” “Why? Did some guy bother you?” “Yeah. Eventually.”

When my kids text me “plz” because it’s shorter than “please,” I text back “no” because it’s shorter than “yes!”

Joe answered the knock on the door. Some kids in costumes said, “Give us candy or we’ll bad mouth you on social media!” Joe was taken aback. “Huh?” he said. The kids concluded, “Sorry, man, it’s trick or tweet!”

My new blonde girlfriend got all angry on me last night when she saw my phone. “Who in the hell is this Amber Alert?!”

I purchased a Senior’s GPS. Not only does it tell me how to get there, but why I wanted to go there in the first place.

***

Face The Music Fibbing Friday

It was Pensitivity101’s birthday last Friday so she was having a ‘day off’ and glad to post another set of questions provided by Jim Adams.  Thanks Jim.  It’s okay.  Since I turned 70, I’ve had a lot of ‘off days.’

Music

Why did Don Mclean drive his Chevy to the levy?

That whole American Independence thing began with, “No taxation without representation.” So there was no Levy.  Instead, Don expected a big party – a soirée – a levee, but there was only some damn dam, keeping the trout stream out of his basement.

Who will stop the rain?

Homosexuals!  Some Fundamentalist preachers claim that droughts are caused because of the existence of too many gays.  Other Fundamentalists claim that hurricanes, giant thunderstorms and floods are caused by the presence of too many gay guys.  If we could just get all the gays spread out over the world in the right proportions, we could probably defeat Global Warming.

Where does the love go?

Over to Wembley Stadium.  Rafael Nadal stores it in his racquet case, because he almost never needs to use it, the oaf.

Who shot the deputy?

Mr. Johnson shot the deputy, even though he insisted that he was just working his side gig as an Uber-Eats driver, delivering egg fu yung to Mrs. Johnson on Mr. Johnson’s Rotary Club meeting nights.

Why was nobody getting fat except Mama Cass?

Did you ever see her eat??!  After last week’s big society gala, it was her that I followed to the buffet.  That woman sure could suck back the food.  If she’d been British, their vacuum cleaners would be called Elliots, instead of Hoovers.

How did the blackbird break its wings?

It inadvertently flew in an open window of the home of our local meth lab.  It flew out again, a few minutes later.  Observers report that it was travelling at 130 real Miles Per Hour, and gaining altitude quickly, when the catastrophic failure of both lift surfaces occurred.

What did the Traveling Wilburys find at the end of the line?

A prince, calling all the way from Nigeria, to tell them that he had $200 Million U.S. that he would give them 10% of, if they would just provide their banking information so that he could transfer it out of the country.

What instrument did Mr. Bojangles play?

The spoons!  After also following Mama Cass to the buffet, and finding it as empty as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard, Bill Robinson decided to use some of the now-useless cutlery to do a bit of busking and make enough coin to order a pizza.

Who lived on Desolation Row?

Bob Dylan’s mother.  So, Mister Musician, are you proud of yourself?  Your Father and I worked our fingers to the bone, and scrimped and saved so that you could go to a nice school, and get a profession, like a doctor, or a lawyer, but do we get any thanks??  Oh, no!  You want to play a guitar, and blow a silly harmonica.  At least you changed your name.  Maybe no-one will know.  You should have got a nice job, like an undertaker.

Why couldn’t the Rolling Stones get any satisfaction?

It was probably because of all the drugs that they ingested – any, or all, in combination.  I mean…. Keith Richards, snorting his father’s cremated ashes??! – And he wouldn’t even share a line with Mick and the rest of the boys.  Ron Wood looks like he stocks his bar with formaldehyde.

’23 A To Z Challenge – D

Don’t be a horse’s ass!  Use some horse sense.  Someone once decried steam locomotive trains, saying that travelling more than 40 MPH would drive people insane.  Sorry!!  They came in that way.

The 20^th Century and the 21^st have been a period of great, rapid, technological advancement and development.  Some people are able to keep with part, or all of it, better than others.  Bigots sometimes denigrate middle-Easterners, by calling them camel-riders.  That sometimes is a good idea – the camel-riding, not the name-calling.

A scientific expedition to research a geographic anomaly in the Sahara, hired a Bedouin guide who was reputed to know the desert well.  They loaded him in one of their jeeps, and tore off into the sand.  After a day of driving they stopped, and asked him where they were, and where their destination was.  He had no idea!!  He knew the desert by how long it took to get to any part of it, by camel.

Trafficking in stupidity!

There are waaayyyy too many car drivers who should be restricted to horse-drawn carts, pulled by

DOBBIN

a horse, especially a quiet, plodding horse for farm work or family use.

A horse would be smarter than many drivers.  I don’t drive much anymore, but I DO watch some “Idiots in Cars” YouTube videos.  A horse would get out of the way of a lot of these accidents.  I’ve bitched that some people don’t drive past the hood of their car.  The worst of them don’t drive past the end of their nose.  These are the ones who should take a bus, a cab, or an Uber.

Oh, the road lanes separate ahead, and there’s a concrete divider with buttress at the end.
I’ll just keep driving right into it.
I’m going so slow, that someone is making a left-turn in front of me.
I won’t bother to swerve to avert a collision, or put on the brakes.  I’ll just drive slowly right into them.

A small rancher in Wyoming rode his horse several miles into what passed for a small town one evening.  He hitched Lightning outside a roadhouse bar, and went in and got snozzled.  At closing time he managed to clamber back into the saddle, smacked the horse on the rump, ordered Home, and slumped over the saddle-horn.

Lightning was happy to head back home, where there was food, and water, and other horses, so off he trotted.  Just outside town, an ambitious, officious State Trooper pulled the pair over, and charged the rancher with drunk driving.  Sometimes it’s just best to pay the damned fine.  Sometimes it ain’t.

He went to court, and argued to the judge that his horse was not a motor-vehicle as defined by law.  Also, in his condition, he was not in care and control of his autonomous transport.  The judge agreed, and dismissed the charge, saying that he felt the horse was the smartest of the three.

Saddle up and ride back on Friday, to meet Lyin’ Brian, my evil Fibbing Friday twin.  😉