Can Singleton

Before we go any further,  I need to point out that being married or even hooked up is not necessarily for everybody. People are free to choose the single lifestyle as they wish.  And there are many married people who wish their spouses, current and ex-, had availed themselves of the opportunity to remain unchained.

Apparently, though, it's a big deal in Denmark turn 25 years of age and not be married, and as common sense dictates, the only fitting thing for the family to do is to take you out and dust you in cinnamon like a raisin bagel.

I guess I shouldn't say "dust," because the friends and families of the single 25-ers make sure to cover their singletons from head to toe, and then they spray on water so the cinnamon can find purchase on your epidermis.

It could be worse! They could douse you in melted butter while forcing you to watch a Rob Schneider movie marathon....

According to a Danish folklorist, this goes back many many years, when spice salesmen roamed the world and never spent two nights in a row in the same place. They tended to remain bachelors just because they were too busy selling Cardamom in Calcutta and Turmeric in Turkey, so they didn't really have thyme to settle down.

A man who reached 30 and only knew how to cook for one was called a "Pebersvend," meaning "Pepper Dude." A single woman gets called a "Pebermø," or "pepper maiden..." because on one's 30th birthday, they swap out the cinnamon and use pepper. And sometimes they mix the pepper with a beaten egg.

Even with the threat of assault by spice (also known as "Getting McCormicked") the average age of men walking the aisle in Denmark is 34 and a half. It's 32 for women.

The great Danes, those funlovers, say this is not a punishment, just a game among friends and family.

I guess you'd have to be Danish to get it.

Bo knows

I've heard of long-term hiccups; have you? I mean, for most of us, two minutes dealing with what the doctors call "synchronous diaphragmatic flutter, or singultus" is plenty enough.

And now Bo Jackson, former great major leaguer in two sports - baseball and and football - is dealing with a case of hiccups that started almost a year ago! And USA Today reports that Bo will now undergo a procedure in an attempt to cure the chronic ailment.

“I’ve had the hiccups since last July and I’m getting a medical procedure done to try to remedy it,” Jackson, 60, said during an appearance on “McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning” on WJOX-FM in Birmingham, Alabama.   

A case of hiccups means you have repeated spasms of the diaphragm, and all of a sudden, your vocal cords close. The Mayo Clinic says that might mean an underlying medical condition. 

But they stress that hiccups lasting months is an extremely rare thing. 

Bo says "doctors have been probing me every way they can to find out why I’ve got these hiccups” but the cause of his condition remains a mystery. 

He's a man with the strength to snap a baseball bat in his bare hands! And now this... I wish him the best.

Wings

It's good to make a point of looking behind things, because...you never know...

Down at Tampa's International Airport, Airborne Maintenance Mechanics Cullen Johns and Shaun Brown did a very thorough job cleaning the lavatory in one of the Frontier Airlines planes.

To be specific, the plane in question is named “Orville the Red Cardinal” (I guess it also has some sort of number) and Johns and Brown found a letter and a photo behind one of the mirrors. The photo showed a little British girl named Grace Kelly riding one of those little airplanes at an amusement park.  

The note accompanying the picture said that little Grace, forever four years of age, had always wanted to fly in a real plane, but she had a very rare form of liver cancer that took her away oh so sadly.

 

Now, this particular airplane used to belong to Monarch Airlines in the U.K.  A family member slipped the photo and note behind the mirror so that little Grace "could have the chance to fly in an airplane."

Here is what the note said: “Our dear grandchild, Grace, 4 1/2 years old. Taken from us in 3 weeks with a very rare liver cancer. (November 2014). Our little angel had always wanted to fly – so she flies with Monarch – hidden away for as long as possible. Happy travels darling Grace, you made our lives just perfect for all too short a time. God bless. XXX, Grandma + Grandad.”

And Grace is still up there flying, because Messrs. Brown and Johns kindly slipped the items right where they found them.

Meanwhile, Frontier Flight Attendants Amy “AC” Proctor and Lisa Gallegos got in touch with Jen Kelly, Grace's mom, to tell her that the family dream was still coming true.

“We lost Grace when she was just four years old. She never had the chance to fly in a plane. It feels so special to know that Grace’s photo has been flying for so many years and continues to do so, thanks to Frontier Airlines. We are so grateful they have tracked us down to let us know. Thank you so much to everyone that helped make this possible,” Jen said.

Maybe it's a coincidence, but many people believe that seeing a cardinal is a sign that a departed loved one is watching over you. Remember, the name of the plane is "Orville the Red Cardinal.”

 

D Day + 79 years

If December 7, 1941, was the day that lives in infamy as date of the attack that brought the US into World War II, then this day, June 6, 1944, was the day the tide turned, literally, as an Allied invasion of Normandy led to the liberation of Europe. 

We've all heard the names of the great military leaders responsible for the Allied victory in the war: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Patton, Nimitz, Higgins...

Higgins? That's a new one to me, but General Dwight Eisenhower once said, "If Andrew Higgins had not designed and built those LCVPs [the landing craft, vehicle, personnel], we never could have landed over an open beach."

Andrew Higgins was a lumberman by trade and a former officer from the Nebraska National Guard Infantry. He wound up in Louisiana and was in the business of importing lumber from the Philippines, Central Asia, and Africa, and exporting cypress and pine. Problem was, the back swamps of Louisiana have very shallow water. His early-1900s-era boats were running aground, so he developed a shallow draft boat and perfected the ship design over the decades to come, and just as the world saw the World War spread, he landed a contract with the United States to ship off 20,000 of what came to be called Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel ships. 

Try to imagine the bravery.

Without those boats, the invasion could not have worked as it did, leading General Eisenhower to call Higgins “the man who won the war for us."

Some of the valiant men aboard those landing crafts included author J.D. Salinger, actor Charles Durning, golfer Bobby Jones, and the one and only Yogi Berra, catcher and manager for the Yankees and other teams. Recounting his experience on a naval support craft, Yogi told  told Keith Olbermann that he wasn't fully aware of the dangers, which might have been the best way to face that horror.

“Well, being a young guy, I thought it was like the Fourth of July, to tell you the truth,” he said. “I said, ‘Boy, it looks pretty, all the planes coming over.’ And I was looking out and my officer said, ‘You better get your head down in here if you want it on.’”

We owe these men and the men and women in support roles our very freedoms and our way of life.

Warnings

Sometimes, we're just better off leaving things alone.

The Baltimore County Police have been warning parents to advise their children not to play this game that's going around called "Assassin."

Here's how this brilliant diversion is played: Kids walk around with water pistols and if they see someone on the other team, they squirt him. And that counts as a "kill" in this sport.

The problem comes in when someone sees kids with handguns and does not know if they are water guns or shoot-a-bullet guns. All it takes is some self-appointed hobby cop to neutralize the situation by bringing out his second amendment rights, and someone is shot, or worse,

Even the police, who are trained to deal with armed persons, say their only recourse is to assume that everything that looks like a gun is in fact a gun.

So, kids, just don't. Read a book, be my advice.

And when your Uncle Wilbur shows up with something he brought home from the war, tell him to put that away, too.

Here's why: Last week in Indiana, a father and his two sons were looking through their grandpa's war relics. 

They found a hand grenade.   

"Someone reportedly pulled the pin on the device, and it detonated," Sheriff Oscar Martinez reported.

The sons, 14 and 18, are in a hospital with shrapnel wounds. The father, 47-year-old Bryan Niedert, died.

It goes without saying, war materiel was designed to be dangerous on a battlefield, and that doesn't change when it's moved to another location.

Please be careful!

Sunday Rerun: Uncle Mark's Big Book of Recipes

 My boyish figure is the envy of dozens; well, maybe the envy of two or three.  But there's no secret, I like to eat and I like to cook and I like to share recipes.  

Recently, I stumbled over two new ways to whip up old favorites.  And I thought, as soon as I get over the resultant contusions and abrasions, I'd write them down so that others might share.  One's for breakfast and one is for dinner.  Lunch, you're on your own, although Peggy will make you a wonderful PB & J if you like.

If you like a nice omelet for breakfast, but you can't stand all the flipping and the flapping, here's a nice way to make a French Country Omelet.  Oh, now, like you, I found the name daunting.  French Country?  What's that, Monsieur Porter Wagoner et Les Wagonmasters, eh?  But it's good and easy.

Let's begin by finding that large cast-iron skillet .  Heaven knows where that is.  Did Edna bring it back after she took it to the pancake breakfast that time?  Once you find it, heat it up on the stovetop and throw in some olive oil, and then bacon, mushrooms, potatoes and onions, as you see fit.  Let it all fry up nice and brown.  While it's frying, turn the oven on to 350° and break four or five eggs into a suitable bowl, whisking them just ever so with just a schkosh of milk.  When everything is fried up to a turn, dump in the eggs right over everything, toss on a little grated cheddar if you wish and definitely shake some chives over it all, put it in the oven for 6 - 7 minutes, and, like the old Esskay commercial used to say, "Put it on the table and stand back out of the way!"

It's gooooooooooooooooooood!

Everyone loves pulled pork barbecue, and yet it's hard to find a good pork puller up in these parts.  Is that what's troubling you, friend?  Are you tired of driving all the way to China Grove, NC, to get a mess of barbecue from Gary's place?  'Cause if that's what's been making you toss and turn in fitful bursts of sleep all night, your problems are over.

Grab yourself a pork shoulder roast over at the Try 'N' Save, a bottle of beer and a bottle of cider vinegar.  Toss the pork into your Crock Pot with some garlic and onions, and then fill the crock up over the pork shoulder's shoulder with some water - about a 1/3 of the way - and fill the rest with vinegar.  Turn on the Crock Pot to LOW and go find something to do for the next 7 hours.  Hint: that's what the beer is for...

Ok, so you put it in the crock at 9 in the yawning.  At 4 that afternoon, get a big bowl down from the cupboard - the big yellow one where you used to soak Navy beans all night until the Air Force started to complain.  With tongs, take the roast out of the crockpot.  The bone will tenderly fall right out.  Take two serving forks and go to town on that roast, shreddin' and pullin'.  Once it's all torn to bits, put it back in the crock, cover it with decent barbecue sauce, stir it all, and let it go on LOW for another hour.

Then at 5, get your cole slaw and your Miller High Life and gather the family around, 'cause you're fixing to love your dinner!

The Saturday Picture Show, June 3, 2023

 

There's nothing so clever as natural camouflage. Owl bet you agree!

We have all known sadness from time to time, but do you know what it's like to be truly melon collie?

You can find these in Goodwill stores anywhere:  An old TV stand with shelves for the DVD player or the VCR, and plenty of storage down below for video games and VHS tapes of "Kindergarten Cop." Now with just a few changes, it's a dog-or-cat den!

A woman with a lot of important things on her mind.

We used to grow this stuff, and maybe we should again. It's peppermint! Really adds zest to your tea, and chewing on just one leaf will settle your tummy better than a dozen Tums.

You have to wonder...who would just abandon a perfectly good roller coaster?

We have covered bridges here, but in Kansas, they have really deluxe ones with clock steeples!

From an elementary school which should be ashamed of its cafeteria: my entry for the world's worst grilled cheese sammy ever.

Doctors advise eating lots of walnuts in order to live longer. There's something in there that's good for us.

With water shortages and droughts popping up, here's a new umbrella that allows you to take home a couple of gallons of water with you!

Later, Liz

John Carreyrou wrote a book called "Bad Blood," which is about the chicanery that Elizabeth Holmes pulled off to get people to invest in her Theranos company. With Theranos, Holmes promised she had developed a machine called Edison that would perform "immunoassays" to look for antibodies or antigens in blood or fluid. Armed with this information, a patient and his or her doctor would then be able to plan for long healthy lives.

You know what else is long? Eleven years in prison is a long time, and that is where swindler Holmes finds herself today, at the slam in Bryan, Texas, because she was convicted on four fraud-related counts for duping people into investing in her magic testing box. 

You know what else? There is a copy of "Bad Blood" in the prison library at Bryan, so Holmes can check it out if she wishes. 

She just can't check out of prison.

What she can, yea, must do, every day is haul her lanky shanks out of bed at 0600 and make her own bed, mop her floor, and take out her trash. Or there will be more trouble.

No longer the darling blue-eyed blonde with a gargly voice, Holmes will be working at some occupation in the Ironbar Hilton for a salary ranging from $0.12 to $0.40 an hour.

No more black turtlenecks and red lipstick either. She will be sporting a fashionable prison uniform for the next few years, one of 650 fellow white-collar criminals.

She recently went on a media blitz, trying to convince the world that she did not deserve to be imprisoned and should stay home with her two children and her partner because she is like totally sorry for cheating people out of their money and lying and all that.

As a nation, we maintain prisons for two reasons: to punish bad people and to set an example for others who might be inclined to pull off billion-dollar hoaxes. Once they see Holmes in there scrubbing pans and just absolutely massacring her manicure, well, they will think twice.

That's the plan.

Bagels with cream cheese and locks

If you feel you need more intense discussions in your life, just turn off the classical music channel for a minute and check out places such as Reddit and the like. People can get into brouhahas online over all sorts of things.

I saw one the other day about a particular point of office etiquette concerning the use or theft of food, dairy products, or condiments left in shared office refrigerators. And this round robin didn't even touch on the bugaboo that drives so many people crazy, namely, the habit some have of putting a 1/2-filled carton of milk in the icebox one sunny Monday morning and leaving it there until the next May. Or until it becomes a science project, with green fungi oozing out.

No, this was about whether it's ok to swipe the property of others. Like, if someone leaves their unfinished fried rice in the Kelvinator, is it fair game for anyone else to take it, nuke it, and eat it?

Before you gasp, I'll tell you about a former co-worker named Frank who swore that it was accepted policy that any food in the office Whirlpool was up for grabs. Many people came in to take out their frozen Banquet banquet, only to find an empty bag, and when you have thirty minutes for lunch, there is no time to parade on down to the Sem-Elem and get something else. So you make do with a bag of Andy Capp's Hot Fries from the machine and you seethe. And meanwhile, Frank really enjoyed your lunch.

On this Reddit thread I saw, someone showed bottles of milk  - and one of them was padlocked!

"Peak pettiness or justifiable security in the office kitchen,” they captioned the photo. And most commenters said that was a totally justified use of a lock. 

“As someone who used to buy 2 pints of milk every week, only for it to be completely empty by Wednesday morning, I totally understand the rationale,” Silver76 said. “I vote not petty.”

“I’m always happy to share my milk in the office, but the amount of times I have found that MY milk which I bought is completely empty with no replacement offered/available makes me feel this is completely justified. Nothing worse than making a cuppa only to find that someone finished the milk and left you high and dry (of milk),” Williamblair shared.

The picture below says all that needs to be said about the way people think of their right to grab anything anywhere that strikes their fancy.

 

That brass security system is called an Udder Lok.

What a shame, that it's come to this.

Doggie Degree

I think it's safe to say that our animal friends do more for us than we do for them, and they don't even have good cable or WiFi service in most cases.

So when we have the chance to pat a furry friend on the back, we should take it! 

We take you now to South Orange, New Jersey, just 14 miles from New York City, where a young lady named Grace Mariani was graduated the other from Seton Hall University, and as he has been all along, her service dog, Justin, was there at her side.

School President President Joseph Nyre, handing out the sheepskins, awarded Ms Mariani her B.S. in education, magna cum laude.

And then! The crowd came alive when Nyre handed a diploma right to Justin's maw. The doggie diploma was in a white cylinder and Justin happily glanced at Ms Mariani as he clamped on it (but not too hard.)

He wagged his tail and his human smiled really widely as they left the stage together. The crowd cheered, and some of them were said to have barked.

Justin is 6 years old, a mix of yellow Lab and golden retriever, and unlike most of the other graduates of Seton Hall, he did not skip a single class for the entire four years.

Ms Mariani is from Mahwah, NJ, and will work in elementary and special education.

I know who's going to be right there in the classroom with her! Good boy!

Walk a mile in her shoes

Among the cultural references I never got until someone put me wise was this "Horse of a different color" piece from the "Wizard Of Oz" movie. I didn't pay much attention to the film when I was a kid because it made no sense to me that a girl could be knocked unconscious and then start dreaming in color. In a world where there are countless billions of facts worth learning, I never saw fiction as a good use of filling my three available brain cells. 

I knew that lions and tigers and bears could not coexist, though.

So now I read that an "elderly" (76) (!!!!) man has been charged with stealing one of the four pairs of red sequined shoes that Judy Garland wore in the picture.

In Grand Rapids, Minnesota (not to be confused with Grand Rapids, Michigan) there is a Judy Garland Museum. It costs $12 to go through the place and see the memorabilia, but if you click your heels together really fast they will let you in for 1/2 price. 

Up until 2005, the museum was able to boast of displaying one of those four pairs of slippers, but they were ripped off that year.

And in spite of many people claiming that the shoes just up and walked away down some yellow brick road, they were taken by a human, and the US Justice Department is charging one Terry Martin with being that human.

In one of those stings that the FBI is so famous for, they recovered the shoes in 2018, and it took until now to nab the guy they say is the crook. The charge against Martin is one count of theft of major artwork.

The Justice Department offered no further details about this Martin, and they are not saying how he came to be suspected of shattering a glass case in which the shoes were displayed. It was the Minneapolis Star-Tribune newspaper that reported that Martin lives 12 miles from the Garland museum, and that he offered the following quote when they called him: "Gotta go on trial. I don’t want to talk to you."

The Justice Department certainly has many shortcomings, but they are all over these red shoes, which they describe as being "widely viewed as among the most recognizable memorabilia in American film history."

Grand Rapids Police Chief Scott Johnson, no average gumshoe, helped bring the heel to justice. He said of these magic shoes, "They're more than just a pair of shoes. They're an enduring symbol of the power of belief."

I guess I believe him.

Memorial Day 2023

 

Please remember, the purpose of this holiday is to honor those who died in combat. 

Sunday Rerun: Ask Anything

 Hey Mom.....?

Mom, what's this?


Mom, are you there? I wonder what would happen if I put cheese in the microwave for 10 minutes...?


A British survey has shown something that every mother in the world knows. Mothers are THE most quizzed people, and on a veritable panoply of topics.

Mothers of three-year-old girls will be chilled to learn that girls aged four ask an amazing 390 questions per day. That's one question for every 1 minute and 56 seconds they're awake.

82% of kids go to dear old Mom first with a question, although only 24% of them will admit to the obvious reason: their fathers would just say, "Go ask your mother."

Four of the leading questions in England, and probably here, as well, are:

• "Why is water wet?"
• "What are shadows made of?"
• "Why do we have to go to school?"
• "Why are you so old?"

Assuming the kids don't ask any of these four again, they will still find a way to say 105,120 sentences that end in question marks per year.

And, if four-year-old girls ask the most questions, nine-year-old boys ask the fewest. 

As someone who once was a nine-year-old boy, the reason for that is simple.  They already know everything.

The survey showed that 82 % of moms admit they can't answer everything, and 90% admit to Googling the answers, leaving 8% of mothers standing in the kitchen with a PB&J on a plate and a perplexed look on their face.

And as far as this "why is water wet" question, I wanted to help the young moms in my life, so I asked the good people at the Univ of Southern California, Santa Barbara.  Their learned scientists were good enough to hop off their surfboards for a minute and say this:

"Being a liquid, water is not itself wet, but can make other solid materials wet."

Water is not wet. I'm sorry I asked.

The Saturday Picture Show, May 27, 2023

 

You don't expect to see the chairperson of Ford driving around in a Camaro. Pepsi drivers can be fired if they are seen drinking Coke. So why is the floor at the robot vacuum store being cleaned with a Swiffer?

I'll bet this snow leopard doesn't enjoy dental work any more than we do, but he got his tail in that chair, don't you know!

For your climbing pleasure: Jacob’s Ladder in St. Helena is 699 steps. This is the most English sentence I will ever write: This is a main route to Kinder Scout in the Derbyshire Peak District; it's on the Pennine Way just beyond the small hamlet of Upper Booth, close to Edale. 

Today's Free Wallpaper looks out on a hydrated world.

Lots of weeds are prettier than lots of flowers.

These new pictures of the Titanic are really...titanic.

Pal's Diner in downtown Baltimore offered a decent meal for a fair price in 1930.

I am certain that the people on the Sign Squad at the Homeowners' Association have no idea why you and I are laughing right now.

My library card expires in 2105. I will not be around to get it renewed, but whoever does can eat this energy bar, or save it for another 930 years.

Hellmann's Mayonnaise (pronounced MAY-o-nnaise, not "Manaise") is now available in the convenient lifetime supply tub at all leading groceries.

Don't Overdue It

Funny. We were just talking about overdue library books here the other day, and now comes this story from Northern California about a really REALLY overdue book finally coming home.

Chris Kreiden, the director of the Saint Helena library, says, "I’m afraid to touch it, but I can show it to you. Let’s see. Oops, it's falling apart so it doesn't have a spine anymore.” 

Of course it's falling apart! You will be too, when you reach 141 years of age. 

This tome is entitled “A History of the United States,” by Benson Lossing, and it was published in 1892, and found a safe home at the Saint Helena Library until...

"All of us are just, you know, wondering where the book could have been for so long, you know, from being checked out in 1927,” Kreiden said. “And actually, none of us have seen a library book that was checked out in 1892 or anything else. And to have it be from this library from that far back is really incredible."

A history book from the 1800s, checked out in the 1900s, returned in the 2000s! Now that's history, doggone it, or whatever they said in 1927.

A mysterious man (isn't it always?) sidled into the library the other day, and returned the book "with little explanation," according to the staff.

I mean, if someone asked you what you had been doing during the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean and Viet Nam wars, and man's exploration of space, what would you say?

That man's explanation is also overdue.

 

Soggy

Someday, you'll recognize the name "Joseph Dituri" as being that of the researcher who broke the world record for...living underwater.

Dituri has been down at the bottom of a 30-ft deep lagoon in Key Largo, Florida, in a lodge that does not use depressurisation.

He plans to remain there for at least 100 days. The count right now is 80-some days.

"The curiosity for discovery has led me here," he says. "My goal from day one has been to inspire generations to come, interview scientists who study life undersea and learn how the human body functions in extreme environments," he went on.

Two professors hung out in the same undersea "lodge" for 73 days in 2014, but Dituri is looking at 73 in the rearview mirror, if there is one.

This "lodge" - named the Verne Lodge, after Jules Verne, author of science-fiction classic "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" -  does not adjust for the increased underwater pressure.This does not help us understand why someone would want to be down there, but whatever.

Professor Dituri,55, is running a study called Project Neptune 100 to find out how a human's body reacts to that sort of underwater extreme pressure. When he finally surfaces and towels off, medical doctors will evaluate his physical state and the psychological of being isolated and confined for a long time.

But it's not like he's down there watching "The Blue Lagoon" on cable or anything...he is still teaching his biomedical engineering classes online for the University of South Florida.

And it's not like he is being deprived of earthly pleasures! He gets out of bed at 0500 and exercises, and loads up on proteins (eggs, salmon, etc) that he prepares in a microwave oven.

And he knows what he misses about Life On Earth: The Sun. "The thing that I miss the most about being on the surface is literally the sun," he told the Associated Press.

He should really slather on the SPF when he gets to the beach. After all this time, he's probably a little pasty.

 

Hey Mister!

I don't read The Wall Street Journal and I don't think I would wrap fish in it, either, but I have to give them this credit: Their editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, is changing the way they write about people. Ms Tucker said the bible of capitalism is "dropping the routine use of honorifics, or courtesy titles.” 

That means they will no longer preface someone's name with titles such as Mr. or Ms. in news stories. After the first time they name someone who just embezzled 35 million dollars from a widow-and-orphans trust fund, just their surname will do.

Tucker (notice, I stopped calling her "Ms") says, “The Journal has been one of the few news organizations to continue to use the titles, under our long-held belief that Mr., Ms. and so forth help us maintain a polite tone. However, the trend among almost all newspapers and magazines has been to go without, as editors have concluded that the titles in news articles are becoming a vestige of a more-formal past, and that the flood of Mr., Ms., Mx. or Mrs. in sentences can slow down readers’ enjoyment of our writing.”

And what's more, "Dropping courtesy titles is more in line with the way people communicate their identities. It puts everyone on a more-equal footing.”

Here's Tucker, headed to work with cellphone, lunch, topcoat, and coffee.

Most newspapers and news organizations in general, such as The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today and The Associated Press, do not use those titles.

The New York Times will continue to use Mr Ms Mrs Mx for news stories, but not for sports stories, which will make it possible to read on page C-1 that a certain wide receiver named "O'Hoolahan" caught four touchdown passes on Sunday, and then on the front page that "Mr. O'Hoolahan" was charged with four counts of handgun possession and aggravated battery that same Sunday. 

Thank you, Ms Tucker.  I mean, Emma.

 

Shoe fly

I like to read the "Asking Amy" advice column in the paper. Anyone who can get people writing to them to ask what to do when their son-in-law borrowed $3700 and now claims it was a gift, or how to handle the sticky situation of guests who will talk the legs off all your chairs and won't go home has my total respect!

The other day in her blog, she mentioned the great "Shoes on or shoes off" debate. 

Amy is a "shoes on" woman. She says she is not all that fastidious about cooties in the house ("I have middling standards when it comes to cleanliness") and she grew up in farm country, where she would pull a carrot out of the ground or pluck an apple off the tree, and eat them without more than a quick wipe on her jeans.

Plus, she lives way way up in New York State, where it's often cold, and shoes are good for keeping the feet warm.

She said to Mo Rocca on CBS Sunday Morning, “If Erin Brokovich (sic) comes to my house and says I have dioxin on my shoes, I’ll take them off — otherwise … I’m good.”

On the other foot, I was raised in a house where the woman in charge waged a relentless battle against grit and grime and dust and dirt. The wooden floors were polished to a gleam like that of a fresh Baldwin apple; the carpets were shampooed with clocklike regularity. Shoes were taken off wherever one entered that house, and woe betide he who tried to slip back into his bedroom for a forgotten textbook (laughter) or pack of Kools and left a mark anywhere.

Maybe that's why they named me Mark!

So, all these decades later, I kick off my kicks in the garage and I could no more wear shoes in the house than I could walk down Belair Road without any pants on.

I was going to say "walk through the mall," but there is no one in the mall to see me pantsless, so what's the diff? 

 

Sherlock's New Part

However cool I thought Jonny Lee Miller was for being so great as Sherlock in "Elementary," that just went up at least a billion times with the news last week that the British-born actor is now doing the most American thing ever:

He's a volunteer firefighter! And when you are one, you are one forever!

From his Instagram:

Today I qualified as a Firefighter 1 after a 5 month course at Suffolk County Fire Academy. Huge thank you to all the instructors, but especially Chief Sicilian, who took great care of class 2, and never got mad at us (externally). Can’t wait to serve the community I love on Fire Island NY.

Miller, 50, also starred in "The Crown" and "Trainspotting," and no one is saying he is giving up acting, but he will respond to calls with the Ocean Bay Park Fire District on Fire Island, Suffolk County, New York.

 

He's in the picture somewhere!

Jonny started the training program five months ago and now he has qualified to serve. He announced this last winter when he posted this picture of his gear, all ready to go, the night before his first class session.

The Suffolk County Fire Academy instructs teaches volunteer firefighters, career firefighters and emergency responders.

Miller graduated from Firefighter 1 training, described as an "initial entry program for firefighting personnel, introducing concepts, practices and techniques necessary for success within the fire service."

He had to complete hands-on performance evaluations covering emergencies, tools, search, victim and firefighter removal, ladders, hose handling, fire behavior and vehicle operations, with a practical exam and written test.

I mention all this to say that this isn't one of those Hollywood deals where an actor is handed a crisp new uniform, poses for some "action" photos, and that's the end of that.

Having passed all those steps, Miller is now taking his role in the noble avocation of volunteering to help in fire and emergency medical operations. I wish him success and the proud, happy feeling one gets from such pursuits.

Sunday Rerun: I don't like dreamin'

Sunday morning at 2:38 AM (but who's counting?) I was awakened from a hitherto wonderful sleep by a nightmare.  

Forces beyond my control force-fed to my thumpin' and mumpin'  brain images of deer, wolves and other wild four-leggers, injured, wounded and charging at me with hooves flying and manes tossing and growling and howling going on.  The scene of this nightmare was my grandparents' house, not too far from where I work now, but a house I have not visited for over thirty years, what with my grandparents both being gone.  Somehow I drove a car into their back yard, having been sent there to check on the animals, and this dreadful scene unreeled before my sleeping eyes. 

Now, I'm not much of a dreamer, and hardly a night has ever gone by that found me involved in a nightmare, unless you'd apply the term to that dream in which Sarah Palin shoots me with a deer rifle, drags me to her shed and spreads an unpleasant ointment on my forearms. I guess I dream, like everyone else, but I don't seem to remember any of them when I wake up, and as I have told Peggy a thousand times, nothing I say between 11 PM and 5 AM is to be taken as anything but the ramblings of a sleepyhead. 

I used to follow a blog called Pepperoni Dreams but it disappeared, and now that name has been taken over by a guy who chronicles his hegira across Charlotte, NC, looking for that town's best slice o' pizza.  The old blog by that name was written by a group of people who would deliberately gulp down spicy pizza right before bed or nap and then wake up to write about the disturbing images that danced across their somnolent brainpan.  Some PRETTY weird stuff went on there, I tell you.  

And by the way, the dinner before the crazy animal dream was stuffed shrimp and salmon, and the only spice on that was lemon, so who knows?  And I had eaten seven hours before hitting the old sackaroo.

Peggy is fond of dream interpretation.  I think that ranks up there with horoscopes as an example of science gone horribly awry.  My problem with astrology centers around my sharing a birthday with boxer Mike Tyson, jazz bassist Stanley Clarke, tv hostess Nancy Dussault and swimmer Michael Phelps.  How can my fate be tied to any of theirs just because we share a birthday?  And we are all Cancer the Crabs - moonchildren - supposedly crusty outside and warm and soft inside.  Uh, yeah.

Peggy has dozens of books and pamphlets that interpret dreams while you wait.  So she'll come down and say, "I dreamed I was driving a Pontiac" and look it up in the book, to be told that "driving" means you want to go somewhere and "Pontiac" means you are so desperate to go that you will drive a Pontiac to get there. 

I don't understand.

Maybe I should look that up!