Soup, To Nuts

We often give one set of neighbors some Christmas gifts, in the hope that they won’t bother us the rest of the year.  It seems to be working.

He has IBS – Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and can’t deal with gluten.  We usually take over a variety of our home-made Christmas cookies.  He appreciates the gluten-free meringues and oat delights.  This year, her Father came for a visit from the Buffalo area, and remained longer than usual, perhaps because of the huge storm that area got.  We made sure there were enough extra cookies for him, too.

This year, she retaliated.  Just because one of her ancestors united Italy into a single country, she returned the cookie tin after New Year, full of home-baked anise biscotti.

Hubby would also appreciate an occasional beer, but most beers have gluten in them.  There is a brewery in Montreal that specializes in gluten-free beer. They give it the cutesy name of Glutenberg.  They make a variety – lagers, ales, lights, darks – even alcohol-free.  The only one available locally is the lager.  Specially-brewed, it is fairly expensive.  The son gets him a four-pack of king-cans that cost $18 Cdn.

Work-at-home employees, or people who are laid off, or quit because of COVID, many might like a nice hot bowl of soup, or stew, or pasta, beside them while they remote-slave for the boss at the computer, or couch-potato binge-watch themselves into blessed oblivion.

She sewed up the above quilted, cute, Bowl Buddies, and gave us three of them – two alike, for the wife and I, and a different inner liner for the son.  I need three two hands to move something like soup or stew without spilling it.  I can’t just cup it.  The work-from-homers should perhaps keep their hot meal out of web-cam range, and might need to turn off the audio while they’re slurping their hot lunch during an online Zoom business meeting.

I doubt that she thought up these things herself.  Have any of my crafty viewers run into anything like them??  What do you think of them – good idea, or not??  😕

***

Now that I’ve actually done my own research, rather than relying on the goodness of others, I find that they are available on ETSY, for $14.06/ea – I assume USD.  There are also Bowl Buddies that will help you clean your toilet, and Bowl Buddies that keep your dogs from slopping water on the floor, so accept no substitutes.  They are reversible – so you can slop up both sides before laundry day.  Like me, she was searching for something on Etsy, and came across them.  She’s working from home, getting her day’s work done in half a day.  She said that she’s bored, and has a sewing machine, so she made them herself.  Anyway…. Chili for lunch tomorrow.  😀

Sharing My World

Standing in for Melanie, pensitivity101 has sponsored a post, urging us to “Share Your World.”  Since I’m a selfish old bugger, I refused, and changed the title.  Always on the lookout for a good blog-theme, and being garrulous, loquacious, vociferous, talkative, voluble, gabby, thesaurus, and repetitive, I’ve decided to bare all.

Here are this week’s questions:
1.  Do you have family photographs on display in your main living room?

Yes, we do, finally. For years the living room walls have been adorned only with prints of artists’ originals, including one by a friend/artist, who turned it into a Remarque by painting an extension of a flowering Magnolia branch, out onto the matte.

The family pictures, including a water-color of the daughter, spinning yarn, begin at the half-landing, and extend up the stairway wall toward the bedrooms.  It looks like the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Gallery, caught in a stiff breeze.

Having run out of upwardly-mobile vertical space, the recent birth of the Great-grandson required finding space in the living room to hang a photo of Mr. Blue Eyes on one wall, and a montage of him and his parents, printed on fabric at Staples, on another.

2. What was the best vehicle you owned?
This could be a pushbike as a kid, your first car, a motorcycle, or something else.

I would be hard-pressed to pick any of the vehicles we’ve owned, as a Favorite. Each has been what we needed at the time. We started with a couple of sedans.  As the children grew, we graduated to a station wagon.  As we became more rotund, numerous and arthritic, we’ve moved up to an easier entry, 7-passenger sport-ute.

Automobiles are sedate and functional.  For cheaper, easier, more fun and freedom transportation, I owned 5 Jap-crap, rice-burner motorcycles, over 20+ years.  If I were forced to pick, I would probably choose the last – a Corvette blue-on-blue, Honda CB750K

3. Did you pass your driving test first time?

I did! I had to choose between two cities with examination centers, each 25 miles away from my home town. One possessed steep hills, and examiners known to reach over and turn off the ignition half-way up, to see how you coped.  I picked the flatland one.

I took the test in a left-hand drive Vauxhall, exported to Canada.  I lost four points, not once, but twice, for failing to gear down the manual transmission for turns, and lugging the engine.  I needed 90% to pass and ended with 92%.

4. Does loud music from a neighbor or passing cars annoy you?

Thank an un-named (and possibly imaginary) deity for allergies and air-conditioning. We remain inside mostly, with the windows closed. Our nearest neighbors are quiet, and those who play music while they’re on their decks, do so at reasonable volumes.  The son works all night, and tries to sleep all day.

Idiots in cars, with their radios jacked up to 11, puzzle me, but usually don’t anger me.  At a light, some fool rolls up beside me.  My windows are up.  His windows are up, and I can still hear his stereo blasting and the bass just a-thumpin’.  I think it’s like buying a hot-damn car as a penis substitute.  They’re compensating.  And it’s often some young white dude, blaring Black rap.

Gratitude:
What has made you smile over the last seven days?

Grumpy Archon is getting soft and mushy in his old age.

“Happy/Smile” is not the same as gratitude.  Despite claiming to be grumpy, I am easily pleased.  Mining humor sites for future blog-post jokes, and interacting with fellow bloggers keeps me happy and smiling.  I am grateful that, even as I have reached the age of 78, I still remain reasonably strong and healthy.  I much prefer seeing the green side of the sod.  If that changes, I’ll let you know.

I WOKE To A Problem

Just a little rant observation about what life is like these days.

I rolled out of bed early, with a smile on my face, and a song in my heart.

8:00 a.m. I made a snowman.

8:10 A feminist passed by and asked me why I didn’t make a snow woman.

8:15 So, I made a snow woman.

8:17 My feminist neighbor complained about the snow woman’s voluptuous chest, saying it objectified snow women everywhere.

8:20 The gay couple living nearby threw a hissy fit and moaned it could have been two snow men instead.

8:22 The transgender ma..wom…person asked why I didn’t just make one snow person with detachable parts.

8:25 The vegans at the end of the lane complained about the carrot nose, as veggies are food and not to decorate snow figures with.

8:28 I am being called a racist because the snow couple is white.

8:31 The Muslim gent across the road demands the snow woman wear a burqa.

8:40 The Police arrive saying someone has been offended.

8:42 The feminist neighbor complained again that the broomstick of the snow woman needs to be removed because it depicted women in a domestic role.

8:43 The council equality officer arrived and threatened me with eviction.

8:45 TV news crew from the ABC shows up. I am asked if I know the difference between snowmen and snow-women? I reply, “Snowballs” and am now called a sexist.

9:00 I’m on the News as a suspected terrorist, racist, homophobe sensibility offender, bent on stirring up trouble during difficult weather.

9:10 I am asked if I have any accomplices. My children are taken by social services.

9:29 Far left protesters offended by everything, are marching down the street demanding for me to be beheaded.

Moral: There is no moral to this story. It’s just the world in which we live today, and it is going to get much worse.

Scottish Humor

The Irish think that they’ve got it all sewed up with St. Patrick’s Day.  Here are some Robbie Burns Day, Scottish jokes.  Not too many, mind.  We’re very frugal with them, too.

***

Callum decided to call his father-in-law the “Exorcist” because every time he came to visit he made the spirits disappear.

***

“How’s the flat you’re living in, in London, Jock?” asks his mother when he calls home to Aberdeen.

“It’s okay,” he replies, “but the woman next door keeps screaming and crying all night and the guy on the other side keeps banging his head on the wall.”

“Never you mind,” says his mother, “don’t you let them get to you, just ignore them.”

“Aye, that I do,” he says, “I just keep playing my bagpipes.”

***

Have you heard about the lecherous Scotsman who lured a girl up to his attic to see his etchings? …. He sold her four of them.

***

Winters can be extremely cold in northern Scotland, so the owner of the estate felt he was doing a good deed when he bought earmuffs for his farm worker, Archie.

Noticing, however, that Archie wasn’t wearing the earmuffs even on the coldest day, the owner asked, ‘Didn’t you like the earmuffs I gave you?’ Archie replied, not wishing to upset his employer, ‘Och, they are a wondrous thing.’

‘Then why don’t you wear them then?’

Archie explained, ‘I was wearing them the first day, but somebody offered to buy me a drink and I did not hear him.’

***

Jock walks into a bar one day and stammers, ‘Does anyone here own that South Doberman Pinschers outside?’

‘Yeah, I do,’ a tattooed biker says, standing up. ‘What about it?’

“Well, I think my little Scotty terrier just killed him.’

‘What are you talkin’ about?’ the biker says, disbelievingly. ‘How could your little runt kill my Doberman?’

‘Well,’ mumbled Jock, ‘it appears that he got stuck in your dog’s throat.’

***

After last night’s game between England and Scotland, 10,000 beer cans were left in Trafalgar Square by Scottish football fans. Both of them have been arrested.

***

How many Scotsmen does it take to change a light bulb?
Och! It’s no that dark!

***

Alisdair Biggar, a Scotsman, applied to join the New York City police force.

The inspector glared at him and asked, ‘How would you disperse a large, unruly crowd?’

‘Well,’ replied Alisdair thoughtfully, ‘I’m no too sure how ye do it here in New York, but in Aberdeen we just pass the hat around, and they soon begin to shuffle off.’

***

A Scots boy came home from school and told his mother he had been given a part in the school play.

“Wonderful,” says the mother. “What part is it?”

The boy says, “I play the part of the Scottish husband!”

The mother scowls and says, “Go back and tell your teacher you want a speaking part.

***

Hamish McHarg, a Scottish minister, was making his rounds to parish homes to receive their tithes and offerings.

One of his parishioners gave, but had a distinctly stingy attitude when parting with his money without receiving something in return.

As he put the gift away, Hamish commented dryly, ‘Tha Good Book says tha Lord loves a cheerful giver, but the Church o’ Scotland canna be so choosy.’

***

At an auction in Glasgow a wealthy American announced that he had lost his wallet containing £10,000 and would give a reward of £100 to the person who found it.

From the back of the hall a Scottish voice shouted, “I’ll give £150!”

***

A Scotsman was out shopping on a busy Saturday and he had a set of bagpipes in the back of his car. It was so crowded he had to park three blocks from the store where he was going. As he got to the store, he suddenly realized he had not locked the back door of his sedan. He raced back to where he had parked. But it was too late. There were now two sets of bagpipes on the rear seat.

Fibulous Fibbing Friday

Each month, Pensitivity101 publishes a list of questions or statements that we are encouraged to provide creative, adventurous – if not exactly truthful – responses to.  The following is my most recent attempt.

1. A stitch in time saves……………………………………..
   2. Too many cooks…………………………………………….
   3. Many hands make………………………………………….
   4. A bird in the hand ………………………………………..
   5. Actions speak louder……………………………………….
   6. All that glitters………………………………………………
   7. People in glass houses……………………………………
   8. Fools rush in ………………………………………………..
   9. Don’t count your chickens ……………………………..
   10. Give them an inch…………………………………………

A stitch in time saves – me from having to complete this 5K “Fun Run” that I so unwisely signed up for.  If God had intended us to run, He wouldn’t have invented Uber.  😮

Too many cooks – add so many red-hot peppers, that you could die at a Texas Chili Cook-off.  😥

Many hands make – a complete game of bridge, although I don’t understand why anyone plays it.  I just don’t have the attention span.  😉  😆  See what I did there?  😕

A bird in the hand – can be quite messy.  Always use your COVID gloves.  The drunk said to the host, “If you don’t have any lemons, I think I just squeezed your canary into my drink.”  😳

Actions speak louder – to get the attention of members of the Woke generation.  Sometimes it takes a good slap upside the head to convince them that they’re not as right as they imagine they are.  😯

All that glitters – is impossible to vacuum out of the carpet.  Who invented that shit?  Chinese terrorists??!  Sawdust is guy-glitter, but at least you can sweep it up.  😎

People in glass houses – should buy thick curtains.  Clean windows are important, but so is privacy.  😛

Fools rush in – and guys like Trump get elected.  😳  😯

Don’t count your chickens – because I raided your freezer.  I came over last week to ‘borrow’ a cup of Zinfandel, but you were driving your husband to the airport, so I ‘borrowed’ an entire bottle while I waited for you.  (Don’t count on your wine supply, either.)  I didn’t have anything in stock for supper, and one thing led to another….   😯

Give them an inch – and the anti-vaxxer conspiracy nuts won’t be any closer to protecting themselves and the rest of society.  😳

I’ll publish another post in a couple of days.  I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth….ish.

The League of Sedentary Gentlemen

I have joined a prestigious, if none too exclusive club.  The League of Sedentary Gentlemen graciously offered me an honorary membership, just because I mentioned that my idea of exercise is a good, brisk sit.  I questioned accepting membership in a group that would accept me as a member

They all sit around (what else) texting each other with suggestions for the best way to get a wife, or grandkid, or a guilt-ridden neighbor to bring them another beer or a fresh mint julep.  Well, most of the rest of them do.  I’m an old technological Luddite, still trying to figure out the intricacies of these new-fangled touch-tone phones.

I tried to talk one or more of them into coming over to the house and explaining it to me, but none of them want to leave the safety and comfort of their living room or front porch.  They claim that if they relieve pressure on their butt-cheeks, their prostates will swell.

I’ve spent a good chunk of my life, fetchin’ and totin’ for other folks.  I just thought that it was time to sit back, take it easy, and deeply cogitate about… sittin’ back and taking it easy.  There are no problems that are too deep or complex, that they can’t be addressed with the judicious use of a remote control, and/or an intercom or walkie-talkie.  I’ve got this COVID ‘sheltering at home’ thing down to a fine science.

I have so impressed so many of the group, that I am considering standing for election as President of the League, but standing can get you tossed out of this loosely rational knit organization.  I expect to sit, comfortably, both before and after I achieve total control.  My dynamite campaign trick will be to distribute a NSFW photo of my ass, showing the corduroy marks from the extra pillow that I added to my computer chair.

I have a lot of great ideas for the League, that don’t involve strenuous movement.  I’d like to set up a group of online webinars, with titles like, ‘Leaving the Rocker/Recliner To Go To Bed: Good Idea, or Bad?’ – ‘How Do You Know When You’ve Had Enough Nothing?’ – ‘Door-Dash, Skip The Dishes, and Uber-Eats: Pillars of the Republic! and ‘Screened Front Porches: Salvation Of The Nation!’

I might become so famous and well-known that I could sit on the Supreme Court – as long as I get an aide who will wheel me into the courtroom.  What is your position on abortion?  Recumbent, on the couch.  The sun can rise every day, but I am not that motivated.  I have an irresistible force to remain an immovable object.

I wouldn’t object if you expressed your unwavering support for my plan.  I’ll take your word for it.  It’s not like I’m going to actually get up and check.

Another labor-saving position

 

I Smell A Rat

I trapped, and poisoned, and locked out all the rats.  What I smell, is something completely different.

Twice, last summer and fall, our two new Scottie Terrors Terriers came back into the house at night, smelling of skunk (….only, not).  They didn’t get sprayed, but were nearby when it happened.  A quick bath for each of them and their collars, and everyone slept peacefully.

Everybody knows what a skunk looks like, and what one smells like.  The odor is sharp, acrid, bitter, nasty.  This smell was none of those; it had more like a ‘husband crawling into bed, after a baked bean dinner’ stench – almost a sweetish tinge to it.

After the second occurrence, I was in the back yard, picking up what dogs put down and – What’s this??  A chunk of dried hide, as big as my hand, with black and white fur on it…. and over there, a second piece, just as big,,,, and yet a third piece, half as big.

The wife insisted that her little angels wouldn’t eat a skunk, and we found no bones, but I don’t see any cat-sized animal losing that much skin, and surviving.  It’s a pity, too!  Skunks will eat rats, and garden slugs.  As the snow began to fall, I noticed cat-prints in it, across my driveway, up my front walk, across in front of my porch, and disappearing, because the house kept the nearby snow melted.  Probably a cat that a neighbor allows to roam.

As winter progressed, and the snow piled up nearer the house, I realized that these ‘cat-prints’ led to a hole under my concrete porch.  😯 Uh-oh!  This can’t be good!  My resident skunk was no fool.  It roamed both my neighbors’ yards, usually keeping 8-foot wooden fences between it and the too-often yappy dogs.

Skunks are nocturnal.  I flicked on the light, and opened the front door one night at 4 AM, to retrieve my ‘morning’ newspaper, and there, six feet away, was the skunk!  I quickly and quietly closed the door.  The wife went out for a coffee date with an ex-co-worker.  Just as the women returned at 3 PM, the “nocturnal” skunk retraced that earlier path, right in front of them.

They both got a good look at it.  It was definitely a skunk…. only, it wasn’t marked like a ‘skunk’, and it didn’t move in that hoppy, undulating way that skunks move.  When she got in and settled, the wife grabbed her laptop, and researched “Skunks.”

Has no natural habitat, only un-natural, like its own imagination, and Ego-sphere

This is the American Mac-and Cheese-Head skunk.  It is continually raising a big stink, but it’s usually restricted to the Washington DC, or Mar-a-Lago areas.

 

Spotted Skunk

Apparently, there are 12 kinds of skunks, several of which can exist where I live.  It couldn’t be a European Polecat.  At first we thought that it might be an Eastern Spotted Skunk that we’d spotted.  More careful study revealed that it is most likely a Hooded Skunk.

Hooded Skunk

This explains the difference in the smell of the spray.  More recently, I opened the front door again at 4 AM, and heard squeaking and squealing beneath my porch.  Either it was complaining about the new Wi-Fi password I’d installed, or I have a female, raising a litter.  👿  It’s gonna be an interesting spring.  Besides a husband who likes spicy burritos, 🌯 what do you have that creates a stench where you live?

Flash Fiction #233

PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz

LESS IS MORE

In some ways, under-population is the bane of the developed world.  When I was a child, I thought that inheriting this house would be marvelous.  Now that it’s happened, I own a white elephant.

When it was built, 150 years ago, the normal 8-10-12 children were needed to maintain it.  Older sons mended the shingles. Middle teens cut the grass and pruned the trees.  Daughters tended flowers and vegetables.  Young Tom Sawyer-types whitewashed the fence.

Medicine improved, and families shrunk.  Now, I don’t have the time, energy or income to keep it presentable.

***

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

’19 A To Z Challenge – S

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The judge asked the accused in a paternity suit, “Have you ever slept with this woman?”
He replied, “Not a wink, Your Honor! Not a wink!”

Without even thinking about it (and that’s what causes problems) most people expect social conformity.

Despite my liking for archaic language, there are just some 19^th century insults that should not be brought back. Have you ever been called a

SLUGABED

a lazy person who stays in bed long after the usual time for arising

Neither have I. Not quite.

Late one Sunday night (by my calculations), about 4:30 AM, I walked down to the end of my driveway to pick up Monday’s newspaper. I arrived at the same time as my neighbor across the street, who was putting out Monday’s garbage.

Full of perk, and perhaps perked coffee, he brightly said, “Oh, I see that you’re up early too. I have to drive to Ottawa today (5/6 hours), so I thought I’d get an early start.”

I told him that I wasn’t getting up. I was about to go to bed at 5:00 AM, and would be back up at 1 PM. “You sleep in till 1 o’clock??! How in Hell do you get anything done?” I had just spent four quiet, productive hours – half a workday – on the computer. It was fine for him to modify and set his sleep hours, getting up at 4 AM, rather than at 7:00, to suit his needs, but he felt that I was wasting time by doing the same thing, to fit my schedule and my usual time.

There was no ASSUME here. The only ass was the one trapped in a car for hours, while I recharged my energy in a nice soft bed. He didn’t make me into one. 😯

Now that I’m awake again, feel free to comment.   😀

Involuntary Loner

I lost my brother recently. Thanx for the condolences, but he’s still alive. I just don’t know where the Hell he is.

I am content to be surrounded only by immediate family, and a tiny group of online friends. This is a cautionary tale about seniors growing older, isolated and alienated from society. (Visit your Grandma in the home!)

My grandson is getting married, and we tried to invite my brother to the wedding. His landline number had been disconnected, and his cell phone number had been assigned to someone else.

My daughter contacted his daughter through Facebook, and a sad, protracted tale of woe came to light. He had turned into a grumpy old man with no friends, although it wasn’t clear whether he was grumpy because he had no friends, or had no friends because he was so grumpy – perhaps a bit of both.

His wife left him and divorced him some years ago. He moved 25 miles, to a small village, to be near his older daughter. Within a year, she disappeared, moving out without telling anyone where she went.

The younger daughter admitted that she had been preoccupied with kids going into teenage-hood, and a small, retail business that she runs. His old buddy, “24 beers in a case/24 hours in a day” Norm, hadn’t stopped in to see him in over 5 years. We didn’t improve things, because, despite the wife’s nagging gentle reminders, I hadn’t phoned him in almost 3 years.

He had a lady friend-with-benefits for several years, but he was retired, with time to drive to Florida, and spend some time there in the winter. She had just started a home-cleaning business, with a growing list of clients, who she couldn’t leave hanging, so she also left him.

He had a guy that he’d gone to school and worked with, who would split on gas and motel rooms to attend curling bonspiels in Ottawa, and North Bay. But he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, and brother finally called him a God-damn asshole, and dumped him.

There was a pair of male twins his age who used to give him some time, but neither one was interested in curling, and no longer wanted to car-pool and drive 500 miles to watch a NASCAR race. He never read, and he didn’t own a computer.

There was mention of “some trouble with a neighbor” (or neighbors), and apparently what passed for a village council, couldn’t, or wouldn’t, solve his problem. Suddenly, one day, he put his house on the market, sold it and just moved away.

His younger daughter says that she knows physically where he is, and has a telephone number. When she found out about his decision, she tried to contact him. He felt betrayed and abandoned. He said, “Screw all of you! If you weren’t there for me when I needed you, I’m not going to be there for you. The Government knows where I am. The rest of you can go to Hell. I don’t want to be bothered. Don’t give my contact information to anyone.”

My Mother used to say, about his sulking moods, “He just wants to go out in the garden and eat worms.” I am sorry that he feels betrayed and abandoned, and the situation that he’s in. He and I have led very different lives. For obvious reasons, we were never close, but I’ll still miss him.