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| Speaking of county employees, it seems that about half of the retirees have decamped for sunny Florida. Not I, and this is why. The closest we come to this beast is some of our larger mosquitoes. |
When you think about the creation of the universe (and you should!) remember that decision was made as to how many gills (or lamellae) should go under the head of a mushroom. 
The guy who got between me and my goal (the checkout line at LIDL) wanted to bend my ears awhile about how man disrespects God by thinking we are as smart as He is.
I don't think that. I don't even think I'm as smart as the Pope, but I saw no point in having a theological discussion with this guy, so I took a clever shortcut around him and started piling my goods on the belt.
He pulled out all the greatest hits ("God will not be mocked," "Judge not lest ye be judged") but he found no willing dialog partner in me. I was there for paper supplies, foamy hand soap, bacon, and toothpaste, and I paid for all that and scooted out the door. Loaded up the car and went to back up, and there stood a woman directly behind my car. I did that thing where you put it in park and back into reverse to catch her attention, but then I noticed she was intently listening to that same man. After he stowed his purchases, he took her cart and put it right in the middle of a parking spot. Together, they piled into their car and creaked off, presumably in search of more people to annoy.
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| Not the actual cart! |
God never told anyone to leave their cart in the middle of the consarned parking lot, either. It's annoying that people who have so much to say about everything can't abide by the simplest of niceties.
Donkeys know what I, and countless others who dodder around on aging legs, know, and that is, you can't beat a nice pair of support socks. Soccer players wear special socks that prevent slipping, wick away sweat, and cushion the feet to prevent cramping.
Donkeys would also agree that the Arsenal Football Club is not only a perennial winner but also a generous group of humans. They saw that they had tons of unworn socks sitting around in the locker room, and donated them to the Redwings Horse Sanctuary, the largest horse welfare society in Britain. Donkeys now clamber around wearing socks that both protect their legs and help them to heal from injuries.
“It’s really one of the most unusual donations we’ve ever had,” said Nicola Knight, the sanctuary’s head of communications and campaigns. She deals with around 1,000 equines, none of whom have indicated a preference for socks other than red ones. Horses rarely complain!
And besides the comfort of having the leg muscles wrapped up tightly, donkeys and horses don't have to worry about horseflies biting their legs, or keeping bandages on tight, or holding their leg hair back when they go in for a nice hoof trim. AND employees at the Sanctuary hide bananas and ginger cookies in the socks as treats for the herds.
So, Ms Knight says, “We hope they’re going to make a real difference."
So don't look a gifted horse in the mouth!
You know, they say the French are the greatest gastronomes among us. They love their chow, and they are proud of the way they cook it, even though it's all glopped up in goo that leaves no room for hot sauce.
But even the French are subject to the laws, both of traffic and of physics, which brings us to the case of a French guy who was tying on the old McDonald's feedbag last week in Sydney, Australia, and paying more attention to the food in his bag than to the fountain he ran into down under.
"Strangely, he was still eating Macca's there", said Police Inspector Anderson Lessing. The article I read did not specify whether the unnamed man, 21, was charged with culinary crimes or just with traffic offenses. He reversed an SUV into the Archibald Fountain in downtown Sydney's Hyde Park in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and the sad results of the driving mishap are to be seen below.
"Half of it was sticking inside, and half it was sticking out, with the driver still inside," Lessing told local radio station 702 ABC Sydney. I suppose he meant half of the car.
The man was uninjured, except for whatever pride he had before he drove off. Police refused to say what he was delivering.
Jeeves, I am sorry, we forgot about you, and now you are gone!
Back in the wacky 90s, when we wanted to find out the capital of Brazil, or when the next Die Hard movie was coming out, or how many cups of sugar to add to a recipe, we hooked up the computer and Asked Jeeves, the online butler and keeper of all information.
Jeeves, and his home, Ask.com, are now shuttered forever. Things come and go in the world of commerce, and to be honest, most of us forgot ever going to Jeeves, since Google, and to a lesser degree, Yahoo, came along.
“To you — the millions of users who turned to us for answers in a rapidly changing world — thank you for your endless curiosity, your loyalty, and your trust,” the company said in a notice posted on its now-defunct website.
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| Remember him? |
It was 1996 when the screens first lit up with a character that could help us find answers. Jeeves was a character in a series of books by P. G. Wodehouse. David Warthen and Garrett Gruener were a couple of early-PC days smart guys. They saw a need for what came to be called a "search engine," and they developed Jeeves for us.
I think I can remember switching over to Google because it felt like giving up the toy tools we all had to fix things - wee screwdrivers, tiny tack hammers - for real professional gear. Google does us fine, but I am sitting here wondering if Jeeves's feelings were hurt when we abandoned him....
People ask why I love to donate blood to the Red Cross. I am now in the 13-Gallon Club, although I can never find out when they meet. I've not been invited.
But I enjoy giving when I can, and I can always make more blood. The people who need it in hospital or hospice, cannot. So that's the main reason. It used to get me out of work, and now it just means I don't get to watch Nicolle Wallace at 4 one afternoon every 8 weeks. The free cookies are nice, too. I guess the Red Cross had some sort of falling out with Famous Amos and Mrs Fields; we don't see their treats anymore at the canteen, so but there are always Lorna Doones.
Having a nice conversation with the staff and the other donors is always fun. I call it "Phun With a Phlebotomist."
My secret is that I always go on Tuesdays and stop at Jersey Mike's for a submarine which is only a little smaller than the submarines prowling the ocean floor for the Navy. Tuesday is Double Points day at JM's, so I get enough customer points to walk out with a free sub like every 6 visits, and you know there is no greater thrill for a freeloader such as I than to walk out with free chow in my bag!
One last thing - the Red Cross sends a little message a few weeks after your donation, such as...
Thank you for giving blood with the American Red Cross on April 21, 2026. Your blood donation was sent to George Washington University Hospital in Washington, DC to help a patient in need. Your donation is on its way to change lives!
I wish there could be a way to find out who got my blood at GWH! Imagine calling them and asking if they feel funnier and happier with a half pint of my A+ coursing through their veins!
They'd probably think it was a joke.
In a bizarre twist, the Edmonton Oilers hockey team almost moved to Houston in 1998 before the city of Edmonton came up with the money to keep them home, which spared Houston the pain that people feel when they see their ex marry someone else with their name!
If you think that didn't make sense, how about them keeping the name "Oilers, " in a state whose one refinery accounts for a whopping 1% of US oil production? Later on, when a stadium was built in Nashville, they changed their name to the Titans, a nod to the titans of country music who add so much to our culture.
This was not the only example of a sports team relocating and keeping a wholly inappropriate nickname. The New Orleans Jazz basketball team moved to Utah and should have left the Jazz behind. The Minneapolis Lakers moved away from the Land Of 10,000 Lakes (actually, there are 11, 842, but who's counting?) to Los Angeles, California, a city of 22 lakes and one tar pit.
The Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team, named for the nimble way Brooklyn residents had to duck and dive to avoid being hit by trolley cars, moved in 1958 to Los Angeles, which for years had electric streetcars. These had replaced horse-drawn trolleys, and those horses really gave pedestrians something to dodge!
