How about those birds?

If this were a rock concert or something really sensational featuring a star of the magnitude of, I'm gonna say, Luke Bryan, I would ask right now, "Washington DEEE CEEEEEE! How ya doing?"

Washington DC is about 45 miles from where we live, and it might as well be 45,000 thousand miles, for as often as we go to America's Shining Capitol City On A Hill. Don't get me wrong, I love plenty of people who live down there and in the suburbs surrounding the District, but there always seems to be some sort of commotion happening in the capitol, some heavy business that I can do without. On the other hand, the last time we went, we saw Fonzie's leather jacket and Archie Bunker's easy chair in the Smithsonian, so there's that!

And now, people are flocking (!) to DC to see something even cooler than Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" dais...certainly more colorful...Look up in the sky! It's a bird!

The article I read said that "excited birders" (and is there any other kind?) are wedging into the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park, along the Potomac River, just northwest of DC.  The big attraction is the presence of a painted bunting, a vibrant colorful bird who usually hangs around in Florida. 

There's a birder site called eBird, and as soon as someone saw a painted bunting at that park, they tweeted (couldn't resist) about it and now people are going to the park the way they ran down to BJs last spring when the word got out that the big box retailer had a fresh shipment of paper towels, tee pee, and Lysol Wipes. 

One of the birdwatchers was Jacques Pitteloud, who, as we all know, is Switzerland’s ambassador to the US. “To see it close to DC, that was absolutely unrealistic,” Pitteloud told the Washington POST. He added that he has been chasing birds with binoculars since he was a boy, and this bird was “exceptional.”

It's a male bird that they're seeing. You know that in Bird World, it's the guys who put on the flashy plumage, to attract the females, who are thrilled to see a guy who knows how to match his bright blue head, red tummy and green and red slashes on his back. The females are green all over, probably from envy.

I must say, the painted bunting reminds me of Little Richard in all his glory!

These birds are about 5in in length, their favorite dinner is seeds and insects, and build their nests in heavy green growth. And just like every living being, and Mitch McConnell, they are affected by climate change. A lot of birds are moving north as it gets really hot down south. “Climate change is disrupting hundreds of bird species, and thanks to community scientists all across the country, we can visualize these disruptions in real time and plan conservation efforts accordingly,” is how Sarah Saunders, a quantitative ecologist at Audubon, puts it.

So it's a bad sign for the climate of Earth, but a good sign for those who don't want to drive to Florida and have breakfast at a Waffle House just to see a painted bunting. New neighbors are coming our way! Let's welcome them.

Dear old golden Zoom days

You Can't Do This In Some Other Countries department: 150-some fellow citizens rallied the other day at Patriot Plaza between the two courthouses (one smooth, one crunchy) in Towson. It was a just-above-freezing sunny Saturday, but they were there to decry the way the county is keeping schools closed during a global pandemic. In the apparent belief that jamming kids and adults together in classrooms is the cure we all seek, they marched, claiming that distance learning is detrimental to young Abernathy and Ursula.

The group was organized by "Re-Open Baltimore County Public Schools," or ROBCPS, and they were treated to a talk by Carol Vidal. She is an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, and her point is that kids only run the smallest risk of getting seriously ill if they catch the Rona, they are "paying the highest price."

Vidal proclaimed, "After months of not connecting to school, many children have lost all joy. It will affect them today and tomorrow by impacting their academic progress, job prospects and current and future mental health. And the toll will likely be greatest on special education students and minorities.”

We don't happen to have children running around our house, but from what I hear and see from friends, kids are still kids. Some kids will do well in school if they have class under a Beltway bridge, and some kids will screw up even if a tutor shows up, treats them to lunch, and, with calming incense burning and Yanni playing,  delves into the causes of the Boer War. 

(Leading cause: too many boers.)

Ms Vidal said she was just expressing her personal opinions on the matter, and so am I. It's my thought that we  - none of us - aren't unsafe to intermingle in public without enough vaccinations to induce herd immunity. 

Of course, it being a public demonstration, kids were carrying colorful placards that their parents made them carry instead of letting them play outside on a perfectly lovely day. “In the room, not Zoom,” read one sign, and another carried the plaintive cry “I want to meet my teachers.”

Notice that the parents are having the children say that they disdain the use of electronic devices for learning, and yearn to return to the classroom for... more electronic devices. They don't even have chalkboards anymore! 

A ten-year-old told the crowd that he is irked because two of his classmates at Carroll Manor Elementary keep their cameras off all day long.  For his parents and him, this advice: stay in your lane and don't worry about what others are doing. When he gets a job someday, it will be his accomplishments and his alone that will mark his success.

I saw on the news, a father complaining that he is tired of having his entire family around seven days a week. I seriously hope his family does not watch the news.

Here we have the words of "Matthew," who's in the fourth grade student at Mays Chapel Elementary. Matthew doesn't like being home because, even though his three older brothers are also traipsing about the house, “they don’t always want to play with me."

And of course, that situation will be remedied as soon as they throw open the doors at good old Mays Chapel.

I sympathize with both sides on this. Of course, it's not great to have the kids home learning remotely, and of course there are problems. But you know what? There are problems every day when schools are open, and maybe if we stop idealizing what we lack and make the best of what we have, we'll get along fine.

I hope that when schools do open up again, we don't hear a lot of "things were so much when the kids were learning remotely!" You know how that goes.

Sunday Rerun: Mac Daddy

 I'm fond of pointing out the irony of Jim Fixx, author of "The Complete Book of Running," and an accomplished jogger, dropping dead while out doing a couple of miles on the road, while Keith Richards took unimaginable quantities of drugs, and flourishes to this day. He even fell out of a coconut tree and landed on his own coconut and lived to tell the story.

I'm sure there are plenty of illustrations of this, but the point is that some people are meant to live long, long lives while tossing all caution to the wind, and some people who live like monks head to the field of stones very early.

And if you add a case of OCD in which someone tabulates all their food intake, and an insatiable desire to eat Big Macs, the signature stacker from McDonald's, well, you get Don Gorske, who just last week added to his own Guinness World Record for McConsumption by sliding his 30,000th Mac down his McNeck.

Gorske is a retired prison guard from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.  He's 64, and started chowing down on two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions on a sesame seed bun in 1972. In fact, that first time, he ate three of them at lunch, and went back twice more to rack up an impressive total of nine Macs in one day.

He downed 265 Big Macs in the first month of his inFATuation with them, but he is not fat at all, tipping the scales at a slender 185 lbs with a cholesterol level of 165. He stands 6' 2" tall as he waits at the counter for his next one.

"I love the patties, I love the sauce, I can't get enough of it," Gorske told the New York Post.

Gorske gobbling

And since that day in 1972, he has missed only been eight days of Maculation. Once, it was the day his mother died, and he skipped his Mac at her request. Snow days, Thanksgiving, travel days, and days he got stuck at work past McClosing Time account for the other 7.

He now keeps an emergency stash of Frozen Macs in case of future emergencies.

Gorsky also:

• met and proposed to his wife Mary at McDonald's.
• has a statue of Ronald McDonald in his yard.
• drinks hardly anything but Coke 
• almost always does not eat the fries
• keeps a log in a little notebook detailing all his Mac purchases
• keeps a box with the receipts from all his Mac purchases
• puts candles on a Mac for his birthday
• skips traditional Christmas food with his family in favor of guess what
• and has eaten one Burger King Whopper in his life

That came about when a friend bet him five bucks he wouldn't eat a Whopper, so he did it and won the fiver and spent it on...

You know what he spent it on.

The Saturday Picture Show, January 9, 2021

 

A perfect image for the start to a year like this...hope in the sky!

Friends from all over the world, you might not know how great it is to have a snowy day. I have to say that the sweetest part of a snowy day is at dusk, whether or not it's still snowing. The evening between day and night shows the snow off to its best advantage.

The perfect balustrade for a pianist's balcony! 

This week's puzzle pic: who can tell me whose house this has been since 1974?

The world's oldest, toughest tongue twister was born here: say "bouncing baby bed buggy" three times real fast.

Did you know that Baltimore was, at one time, the world's leader for umbrella manufacturing? This guy clearly took a leaf out of our book.

This reminds me of the movie The Defiant Ones, in which Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier are convicts handcuffed together, trying to make good their escape. But these women are not crooks or anything, but they will have to be nice to each other until whoever knotted them up can come around again.

January is a great month to read, as are the other 11!

On The Wall

The "old" Post Office in my hometown of Towson, Maryland, just absolutely LOOKS like a post office -  a two-story limestone building, built in 1937, with a nice little cupola up on the roof.  It's at Chesapeake Avenue and Washington Avenue, right in front of the old Towson Police Precinct and across from the former National Guard Armory. It's not even the real Towson Post Office anyway; it's a "Finance Branch," while the real PO is down on Cromwell Bridge Rd in a cluster of buildings that absolutely LOOKS like an industrial park, with all that means (it means it's as ugly as the old building is attractive).

The downstairs is all post office business - service windows and dropboxes and rental mail boxes. Upstairs, I have no idea what goes on. There used to be a sign saying that the office of U.S. Congressman Clarence Long was up there ("When something goes wrong, call Congressman Long." Man oh man, would he get an earful if he were still around today!)

The Honorable Mr Long is long gone now, but I really hope that no federal nabob gets the idea to level this magnificent building and lease the lot to a hamburger stand or something, if for no other reason than one can go there and see examples of the artform known as "United States Post Office Murals."

Quick history review: in the Great Depression (1929 - present) the United States fought its way out of the financial wreckage of the Roaring (Nineteen) Twenties and the Stock Market crash. One of the federal programs that led to people being trained and productive while learning a trade was the Public Works of Art Project, part of a program that saw hundreds of millions of dollars invested in construction of buildings like courthouses, schools, libraries, post offices and the like. In many cases, these buildings are still in existence and housing vital agencies.

One of the most visible parts of the Art Project was the painting of 1400 murals in post offices across the land. The murals were 12' by 5' and created to depict uplifting, cheerful aspects of American society, thereby providing encouragement to citizens during one of the darkest periods in history.

These three murals have delighted art lovers in Towson and environs, and their preservation is important. It's sad to think that a lot of building designers today think that two coats of "Industrial Beige #5" is the way to decorate a building.

The murals are known as the “History of Transportation” and were painted by Nicolai Cikovsky in 1939. 

What's the buzz?

Sometimes, someone puts two words together and the combination is just perfect! Cheeseburger...law and order...brown and serve...gas and go...drive-in movies...country rock...and now, to add to the list...flamethrower drone!

Yes, your dreams have come true if you are looking for a way to get rid of pesky varmints like wasps, hornets, and the like. In Central China, some genius has paired up a drone and a flamethower, and presto! Bye-bye 100 wasp nests! 

I speak to you as a man who, as a boy having a perfectly Tom Sawyer-ish boyhood, once was climbing a tree in our bucolic neighborhood, and stuck his hand in the crotch of a tree where a hornet nest awaited me. The hornets, amused, welcomed me to their home by biting me over and over and over, causing me to fall from the tree. The resultant "thud" caused our neighbor Miss Alice to run outside to see what was happening, although, by then, the hornets had all fled the area and were prepared to say they knew nothing about the little boy howling on the ground. So I have my grudge against creatures that are equipped with wings and stingers.

SO...back to China...the locals in  Chongqing, Zhong County, were being troubled by huge wasp hordes. Enter Blue Sky Rescue, a volunteer search and rescue group.

For the simple sum of  80,000 yuan — $12,200 — they bought a drone and jerryrigged a flamethrower that carries its own gas tank to do battle with the dreaded bugs.

The Blue Sky guys released a video that shows the six-arm drone hovering over a hive, and when the dronester hits the button, this infernal machine belches fire all over it.

An article on the local Chongqing TV said, “The burning ashes of the wasp’s nest gradually peeled off and fell, and the surrounding residents applauded and praised the rescue team."

The article goes on to quote a local as thanking Blue Sky with these words: “Now we don’t have to worry about being stung by a wasp.”

They've toasted 11 hives so far, leaving over 100 to go. What could be more 2021?

 

Turning Japanese

It's a year into the pandemic now, and so those who sit around thinking of ways to make money off everything have had plenty of chances to do their thing...like the ones who saw big money in toilet paper, paper towels, and sanitary wipes. They're cleaning up! So to speak.

Now comes this - for someone who needs to wear a mask, which is all of us but lighthouse keepers, hermits, and solo ocean voyagers, and is also interested in...looking like someone else.

A Japanese firm has come up with a hyper-realistic mask that will give you the features of a stranger - in three dimensions!

As someone who has had strangers recoil in horror at the very sight of my wizened old mug, I'm all ears, as it were.

Shuhei Okawara is making $950 masks that give you the printed appearance of someone else. Specifically, you will have the look of an unidentified Japanese adult.

"Mask shops in Venice probably do not buy or sell faces. But that is something that's likely to happen in fantasy stories. I thought it would be fun to actually do that," Okawara told Reuters.

These fool-'em masks are now on sale as his Tokyo shop, Kamenya Omote, where he carries a complete line of theatrical and party supplies. This latest offering is being made on a 3-D printer, and he promises to broaden his sales by having overseas strangers pose, too.

 Please put me down for a Harry Styles and a Keanu Reeves. I mean, why not?

I wonder if they ever called him "Duran" Duran

One of the nicest surprises we ever had was when we returned from settlement on this current location of the Lazy 'C' Ranch in 1999 and found that my sister had gone to Cracker Barrel, bought two of their famous rocking chairs, and placed them on our porch as a housewarming gift! They're still there, and I think of her kindness every time I go out on the porch to look for the newspaper. Peggy sits outside every morning on one of them, drinking coffee and watching the passing spectacle.

A couple down New Mexico way got an opposite surprise not long ago, but things turned out ok. Conrad Duran and his lady friend Andrea share a house in Albuquerque. On Christmas Eve, he spotted a pair of old old rockers (not Ted Nugent and Eric Clapton, the kind you sit on) tossed out on the curb near their place. Conrad hauled them home and left them back by the garage, planning to take them inside to refurbish them once the holidays were over.

By the way, the word "furbish," meaning "to give a fresh look to something old and shabby," works just as well here, but no one ever gives it a chance. Maybe we can furbish "furbish." "Refurbish" would then mean the second time we slap paint on an old chair.

Anyway, Conrad never had the chance to furbish the chairs. Someone ripped them off.  "I just grabbed them and left them outside of my garage door which is really not that close to the curb, then I had to go to work," Duran told KRQE-TV. 

It's obvious that he doesn't work for the Albuquerque Tourism Office, because he says he came home from a double shift to the find the chairs as gone as last week's TV Guide.  And he went on: "I've gotten a few items stolen from me over the years living here, ever since I moved here," Duran said. "It's one of those things where you come to terms with it."

So off they went, Andrea and Connie, and when they came back, it was a Christmas miracle! When they returned from visiting family over the weekend, there were the chairs, with new coats of paint and new upholstery!

"I thought they had been stolen and lo and behold, they had just taken them, redid them, and returned them as a Christmas gift or something like that," Duran said. "Now they just look absolutely beautiful."  

Along with the chairs, Duran found  an anonymous note about doing good for others. 

And there's our pay-it-forward moment from Christmas 2020. One piece of advice, though: don't go prowling on your neighbors' porches looking for fix-up projects.  Just don't.

They may very well have guard cats on duty.

Deanna (l) and Eddie (r) make a rare guest appearance on the blog.

Get up!

Here we sit in 2021, with all the latest inventions and conveniences, living like I don't know what.

But I'll bet that at least half of us awoke this morning because an alarm pierced our ears as we tried to sleep a little more...a phone, a watch, a clock radio, whatever. My clock radio sounds off at 0505; if not, the cats would pile in at 0506 demanding food, water, and attention, all of which I am glad to offer.

But what if we were back in the olden days, without alarms and clock radios, and I wanted to get up before the rooster woke up and starting his caterwauling?

I would engage the services of a knocker-upper. How about that? More about that in a minute...

Even longer ago, there were candle clocks, invented in China. The deal was, candles were filled with nails down toward the bottom, and allowed to burn all night. At a certain point, the wax would melt all the way, allowing a cascade of nails to make a hellish noise on a metal tray below it. Nice way to wake up, but it must have been tough to set the candle clock to disturb you at some specific time.

And of course, on The Simpsons episode "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace" (season 9, episode 10) we see Bart drink 10 glasses of water at bedtime on Christmas Eve so he can get up early the next day to tear into his presents. It's always about the Simpsons for me.

Lisa tells Bart, "You didn't invent that, Bart. The Indians used to drink water to wake up early for their attacks."

To which Bart replies, "It's always about the Indians, isn't it, Lise?"

I hate to tell Bart this, but when you are of Social Security age, ten glasses of water won't let you sleep for more than 45 minutes, trust me.

As society grew, factory whistles and church bells woke some people, whether they wanted to get up or not.  And those knocker-uppers...

Wake-up girl Mary Smith, 1930, London

Bob Cratchit had to get up early to get to the office before Mr Scrooge, so he could put one lump of coal on the fire. People in London, people known as "knocker-uppers" went door to door with a list of what time people wanted to get up. With a long stick in their hand, or a pea shooter for those whose rooms were on the ground floor, they went around doing their duty, getting Scrooge and Cratchit alike out of bed and off to the office.

What history does not tell us is, who woke up the knocker-uppers? Just like how the snow plow driver gets to work in a blizzard, there are things we are not meant to know.

Sunday Rerun: And Mariah Carey never got the cup of tea she was promised

 Most people start their New Year, year after year, making resolutions, looking back over the past year, and planning for the year that just opened. 

But resolutions, like hearts and promises, are made to break. Memories are faulty, and we often forget the best parts of the year that went into the history books more often than many of us ever looked at a history book. And plans? You have to make plans! You know the old expression, failing to plan is planning to fail.  Except that you're not really planning...

What I do each and every 12/31 and 1/1 is, I sit there looking at a television set and wonder why people throng to Times Square in New York to be among tens of millions of people who have nothing better to do than to stand there in way-below freezing weather for 16 hours with nowhere to tinkle.

And 50 tons of trash.  

You can just imagine what-all's in there. 

"Cigarette butts, party hats, favors, you name it," says Paul Visconti, the chief of the New York City Department of Sanitation, and a man who has 30 years experience overseeing cleaning operations. "It’s not easy because you also have the challenges of weather."

So, for my money, the only people who have any business being in Times Square on New Year's Eve are the 246 men and women who start cleaning the place up, and the work literally begins as the ball is dropping.

I mean, why wait?

They have all 50 tons of the confetti, food waste, bags, cups, clothing, lost cell phones, gloves and scarves and such all gone by daybreak on the first.

The army of cleanup people brings with them 30 mechanical brooms, 58 backpack blowers, 44 basket/litter trucks and 58 good old-fashioned hand brooms.

“You will see a night and day difference in eight hours,” Visconti said. “It’s something short of a miracle what we get accomplished.”

It must be a fascinating sight to see, those 246 people showing up as people like Jenny McCarthy leave the Square. I'm so daggone anti-litter, I would probably volunteer to stay and help clean up everyone's detritus, which will never happen because I won't go.

"It’s rewarding to see 50 tons of debris disappear," Visconti says. "It’s not easy but we make it look easy."

The Saturday Picture Show, January 2, 2021

 

Places I would like to experience someday include Novosibirsk, Russia where the temperature dips to a mild - 49°F and you can freeze your noodle.

There's a special prize for anyone who can point out the significance of this cluster of implements! I don't have a prize, but surely someone must. What are these things?

Remember a couple of years ago, just after Farmville and Candy Crush, the big thing on Facebook was pictures of houses like this, with the caption "Would you live here for a year for $100,000?" If this place has decent wi-fi, I would pay that much to live there for a year. It's in Washington State.

Play sad songs for people on this, the world's smallest violin.

This was the picture that came with an article about how some guy started with a single paper clip and kept trading up until he got a house. Uh huh. 

Imagine being an 8th-grade wood shop teacher, and you have to tell a room of 14-year-olds that this tool is a "bastard" file. But it is!

Cooking tip for nuking a potato: put little toothpick legs on it to keep it off the ground, so to speak. Better tip for baking a potato: put it in the real oven for an hour. What are you, in a hurry or something?

This might have been the picture that got Bing Crosby to give up the hooch. Do you see what I see?

 

Happy New Year, and let's plan for a great one, just like they did in 1926!

It happens every year

 It's not too late to make your 2021 New Year's Resolutions. I know, you still have a perfectly good set of them from last year, all untouched, and so do I. But let's write them down on this form, and stick them to the front of the Kelvinator so we can keep track, whaddya say?

 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 

2021

I will:

• Start__________________________________
• Learn_________________________________
• Visit__________________________________
• Quit __________________________________
• Try___________________________________
• Be___________________________________
• Eat___________________________________
• Improve_______________________________
• Make _________________________________
• Give__________________________________

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

So, print this out, and we'll both fill them out, and then we'll meet back here on June 30* to compare notes.

* I know that's my birthday but if I follow my resolutions, I'll need smaller pants.

True Colors

There was a ballplayer named Manny Ramirez a few years ago. So colorful, flamboyant, and talented was he that Red Sox fans coined the expression "Manny being Manny" to explain his peccadilloes, which included flunking a drug screening because his specimen contained the female fertility hormone hCG, disappearing into the leftfield scoreboard at Fenway Park while a game was in progress to answer the call of nature, and - I saw this myself - fielding a ball off the left field wall in Baltimore and then pausing to shake the hand of a fan in the first row before heaving the ball back to the infield. Manny was truly one of a kind, which we can also say about the year 2020, for crying out loud. 

So let us say that this year's choice for the Pantone Color Of The Year is...TWO colors! What a clear case of 2020 being 2020!

Here they are, and you will see them in your home soon, I'm sure. One of the Forty Shades of Gray made the list this year. It's "Ultimate Gray.” described as a "color of stability, strength, and realness (that is) experienced and wise."

Speaking for people my age, I can verify that gray hair denotes experience. Wisdom, well, you decide.

The other color is called “Illuminating,” and is said to be "a hopeful hue. She’s optimistic and radiates positive vibes."

So the wizened old gray is "experienced," while the young vibrant yellow is an illuminating female. Makes sense.

Pantone really puts a lot of importance into this color thing. They say that these are just the colors we need to leave 2020 in the dust behind us and get on with the business of 2021 with a "a futuristic vibe that telegraphs insight, innovation, and intuition."

But wait! There's more! “One color could never encapsulate all we’ve been going through this year” said Laurie Pressman, vice president of the Pantone Color Institute, based in Carlstadt , N.J. “These independent colors are rock-solid resilience on one hand and hopefulness in the other. Ultimate Gray and Illuminating send a message of positivity supported by fortitude.”

I happen to like yellow and gray, the both of them. I looked through the listing of all American colleges and universities and beauty schools (as a gray American, I have time), and none that I could find use that color combination. It would be a natural for a t-shirt or even a pair of pants. OR, an attractive mask!

AOC (D, NY)

Put 'em on!

Old joke from a Bazooka gum wrapper:

Grandmom to granddaughter: "Why did you call off your wedding?"

Granddaughter: "He had cold feet."

Grandmom: "In MY day, we didn't find that out until AFTER we were married!"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, the gum was good. 

You can't get a good sleep if your feet really are cold (as opposed to the "cold feet" we get when we chicken out of something). It's true, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac.  

Not only that, they say 68% of us have trouble getting to sleep at least once a week, and 27% of us have sleeping problems all the time.

Sleep experts (finally, a job for me!) say that modern life, with crazy commutes and non-commutes and being up and on electronic devices at all hours and working too much...all that suppresses our production of the hormone called melatonin.

Melatonin helps us sleep! Get as much as you can!

You can't run down to the Drugs 'N' More and pick up a bottle of melatonin (well, you can, but why bother?), but you can buy something almost as helpful: a pair of socks.

Donning socks at bedtime improves our overall circulation because it opens the blood vessels in our feet (your doctor calls that vasodilation). Vasodilation releases heat that spreads all over us, thus decreasing overall core body temperature.

Some people prefer to put a hot water bottle down by their feet. You can see the reasons why socks are better if you will simply Google "leaking hot water bottle."

sock suggestion

The experts say you should choose socks made of natural fibers such as wool or cotton, and they do recommend wearing a fresh pair every night just to sleep in. You can see why this might not be the best answer for you if you will simply Google "Who's gonna do all this laundry?"

Big Mack to go

And we're back, with a story that was all over antisocial media last week, and I didn't see a lot of divided opinion about it. It's about the female college student from Georgia who went to the Cayman Islands to visit her boyfriend, broke Covid-19 quarantine rules, got caught, and was sentenced to four months in prison down there in tropical paradise.

People here in non-tropical paradisiacal Baltimore were upset to see that her sentence was cut in half to two months. 

Her name is Skylar Mack, because no one knows how to type "Schuyler" (the correct spelling of the name) on a birth certificate. At 18, she saw fit to leave Georgia to hang with her boyfriend, one Vanjae Ramgeet, 24, ostensibly to work on her Jane Austen term paper for English Lit 101. He received an identical sentence and an identical reduction.

Meanwhile, Jonathon Hughes, their attorney, said the couple accepts the decision of the court (how noble) but points out they had hoped "Skylar would be able to return home to resume her studies in January."

"Ms. Mack and Mr. Ramgeet continue to express remorse for their actions and ask for the forgiveness of the people of the Cayman Islands," he said.

She is a pre-med student (maybe next time, study some law?). She left for the islands in late November to go see this Ramgeet participate in a jet-ski race. She tested negative for the Rona before leaving, and tested negative again upon arrival. Nevertheless, she was told to isolate for two weeks.

Nevertheless, Skylar refused to follow this order and was seen at the competition two days later. People at the race knew she was non-compliant and reported her. Officials arrested her, and pinched Ramgeet, whom they say "aided and abetted her in the breach." 

Off to try out her new cell phone

First of all, it doesn't matter that she was pre-med or was a basket-weaving major. At 18, if she wishes to jet around the world, she needs to learn to follow the rules and laws. Sure, being at the race was bound to be more fun that staying in her room for two weeks, but them's the breaks nowadays.

Americans, once the envy and pride of the world at large, are now objects of scorn because so many of us absolutely refuse to heed to directives of educated health professionals, choosing instead to abide by the advice of "Joey" from Facebook, who says "it's a known fact" that "masks don't work." 

We hate being told what to do, so we don't, and then when we get tossed in some foreign Walled-Off Astoria, we have our grandparents whine about it on CNN. Of course, a lot of this comes from our being a country where even when you lose an election, you just claim you really won, uh huh.

Sunday Rerun: Santa Jimi

 

In December, 1969, Jimi Hendrix continued to defy other guitarists, who to this day are unable to duplicate what he could do on an electric guitar, and spelling purists who insisted his name was "Jimmy.".  He accomplished the latter by naming his new band, which was to replace The Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Band of Gypsys.  The more conventional spelling would be Gypsies, of course, but then, Jimi never did anything the conventional way.

He had hired veteran drummer Buddy Miles to slam the skins, and Billy Cox (not to be confused with the old Dodger third baseman) to play bass. Cox and Jimi had become friends while serving in the US Army together in 1961 at Fort Campbell, KY.

Jimi and the band were booked for the holidays of '69-'70 at the Fillmore East, the legendary rock concert hall in New York.  There were new songs ready for the band - most notably "Machine Gun" - but Jimi wanted to do something special. 

While rehearsing for the shows at Baggy's Studios in Manhattan, the band wove together the melodies (melodys?) of The Little Drummer Boy, Silent Night, and Auld Lang Syne.  Someone wisely hit the "record" button, and we are left with these holiday treasures to enjoy, 43 years later.  At the concerts on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, The Little Drummer Boy and Auld Lang Syne wound up as parts of medleys with other songs.

If you'd like to hear this tripartite medley, YouTube is standing by.  Just go here and enjoy! 

The album of the concerts was released in March of 1970, the last to come out during Hendrix's life, which ended that September.  


We don't have any way to know which direction his career might have taken, but it's good to hear his music again.

The Saturday Picture Show, December 26, 2020

 

Hey, whatever it takes to get people to belt themselves.

The most popular card of 2021.

I don't care what they look like frozen; all I know is, I love McRibs!

You can bet a lot of nickels, this little buffalo will grow up to look like a big buffalo!

This is a population density map of the USA. Spot your town!

The picture as published didn't say where this took place, but the folks in this town decided to line up to thank the UPS guy for completing his daily rounds of 200 deliveries.

Put this jar right up in the correct angle and take a picture of a jar full of nature.

I don't know all of you but I am certain that very few of us humans were as cute as this little lamb when we were 15 minutes old, as she is.

Merry Christmas 2020

It's hard to believe this hellacious year will finally come to an end next week, and even though we keep saying, "Things will be better in 2021," there's no certainty behind that.

Except that there are vaccines coming for us, and even though many people are saying they will refuse the shots, that's on them, and those of us who take the needles will be vaccinated against that part of the herd that refuses to join in. It's their call, but I already have my sleeve rolled up. I'm ready.

It seems odd to say, but I think Peggy and I will be just as happy to remain more or less isolated in the future, even when we get the go-ahead to cluster in restaurants and ballparks and wherever particular people congregate. We fully appreciate that we were able to stay home, and could afford to do so. 

The economy is in tatters and there are going to be problems stemming from this virus for years to come. The turning of a page on a calendar means nothing, but the chipper spirit that saw this country through wars and terrorist acts and weather disasters and countless calamities will see us through this, too. I feel confident and I hope you do as well. Be of good cheer; the holidays are here! 

Holiday Rerun: On The Road Again

 It's getting close to Christmas, so we think of what's happening on the roads because we're trying to get to the family gatherings and so forth.  At least there's no forecast for snow in the Baltimore area this year at the holidays.  

(Which makes me wonder how, in all those Hallmark Christmas movies, there is always snow on the ground and on the roads, and yet, people get in their cars and go places. It's clear that they don't film them in Baltimore, where the very suggestion of snow three days hence sends people into a panic. They flock to the groceries for bread, milk and toilet paper, and then stay home "for the duration."  Can't drive on a road with snow on it, after all.)

But this news stopped me cold: (from WTOP.com)

 

Driverless cars could be coming to Interstate 95 if Maryland transportation officials have their way. The Maryland Department of Transportation announced Wednesday that it has asked the federal Transportation Department to use the I-95 corridor to test autonomous vehicles. Federal officials are looking for several “proving grounds” around the country for self-driving cars. Maryland officials have suggested using I-95 between the University of Maryland to the south and Aberdeen Proving Ground to the north. The first group of testing areas for driverless cars will be announced in early 2017. If Maryland is chosen, the earliest I-95 would see driverless cars would be 2018.

I colored that text red because it's certainly a red-letter day for people around I-95 who own body and fender repair shops, orthopedic medical practices, and law firms centering on auto accidents, to think of this business bonanza coming their way. 

If you've had the previous misfortune of driving I-95, the superslab that takes people from New England to Florida (even if they don't want to go), at least in the Baltimore area, I can testify that you have been in vehicle hell.  18-wheelers taking turns on 9 wheels! Crotchrocket motorcycles racing around like demons! Tailgaters galore! Ill-advised lane changes! Speeders going 85, and - almost worse - pokers doing 35! And drivers from other states driving like nuts!

And that's just on the entrance ramp.  Lord knows what the highway itself is like, I'll tell you that right now.

I see no way that life will be better when the science fair veterans behind the idea of autonomous (sounds better than "driverless") vehicles are causing mayhem from Florida to New England.  

I can't even think about it.  But I can tell you this, as we head into Christmas weekend. This was not on the news or anything, but it just so happened that on December 14 there was a traffic accident in the Riderwood section of our fair county, and the older couple whose SUV was smashed up expressed concern that the Christmas tree they had on their roof and were taking home at the time would not make it home, with the car being towed away. Soooo...the crew of Truck 1 from Towson Fire Station, D Shift, who had responded to the scene, took the Christmas tree, put it on their rig, and dropped it off at the peoples' house.

They could have shrugged and said, "Yeah, too bad," but they didn't, and I hope that little nugget sends you off happy today!