Small Stuff

 Everyone's heard the expression 'don't sweat the small stuff'.  Probably said it yourself a few times.

As I 'mature', the amount of small stuff becomes increasingly larger in quantity.  Frequently, I'm saying things like 'who cares?' and 'so what'.

Trish, however, seems to be increasingly concerned about small stuff.  She is a self-expressed perfectionist.  Always has been, I guess.  I am not.  Never was.

I wonder: is it nature or nurture?  Growing up on a farm may have contributed to my non-perfectionist attitude.  Don't have the right part to fix it up like new?  We're wasting daylight!  Make it work any way you can!  Bailing wire, duct tape, jerryrig with whatever is available.  

This dichotomy inevitably leads to conflicts twixt Trish and I.

Another thought: are women, more than men, inherently more concerned about small stuff?  I'm guessing that may be the case.  

Sickoes

 Sickoes.  I can't stand 'em!  But lots of folks must like them.

I define sickoes as those who get a kick out of people doing nasty things to other people.  Torture, incest, rape, murder - and on and on.  What the hell is wrong with these people?

Watched an episode of Law and Order last night.  A guy repeatedly beat his wife and abused his young daughter; and his wife was okay with it!

What's the attraction to this type of book, TV, movie, video, whatever?  Is the 'Human Race' really that inhuman?  Or, is it a small minority?  If so, why is there so much of it?  

I don't know.  It disturbs me.  Deeply.

1950s TV Shows

 Remember when your dad brought home that first TV with a 13" screen in a console?  If you were lucky and had a rotor for the antenna, you could get 3 stations - on a good day.  For the younger crowd: the rotor turned the rooftop antenna so you could receive station signals from different directions.  Sometimes a vacuum tube would burn out, so you'd go to the store and replace it.

Westerns were the most plentiful type of series:

The Rifleman

Wagon Train

Bonanza

Have Gun, Will Travel

The Lone Ranger

Others, I liked:

Ozzie and Harriet

Sea Hunt

Sky King

Lassie

Dragnet

Victory at Sea

Wild Kingdom

There were many others but that's a long enough walk down memory lane.

Return Flights

 We just returned from the annual family reunion in MN, an event that's been held for over 30 years.  Trish and I fly to MSP from Spokane, and spend 3 nights in The Land of 10,000 Lakes.  Fly over Friday AM return Monday AM.  Today was no different.

That said, it could have (and should have) been quite different.  I made the flight reservations, usual flights, usual times.  Or so I thought.  We arrived in good time at the airport for the return flight, my son, Tod, driving.  Went through security and then to our gate, C1.  But: the sign at that gate said San Francisco.  Huh? 

Trish determined the gate had changed to C10.  So we hustled over there.  Yup, that gate said Spokane.  There was nobody there other an  airport employee.  We said that we were supposed to be on that flight, showed our boarding passes.  

Nope! OMG!  Our reservations were for a flight at 9 PM that day,12 hours later.

We threw ourselves on the mercy of the court, AKA, the guy at the gate.  They were ready to close the airplane, everybody already on board.  Turned out, there were 2 open seats in Comfort+, the section we'd paid for.  Pretty darned lucky.

Different story, bigger screw up.  It's 1983.  I'm returning to my job in Egypt after a 2-week break in the States, flying out of JFK airport to London.  Or so I thought.  I arrived at the airport and went to the display to see which gate I should get to.  My flight wasn't listed.  Went to the ticket counter and asked why.  She looked at my ticket and said, "That flight is leaving from LaGuardia, not JFK.  Crap!

I hustled out the door, grabbed the first taxi, hopped in.  I waved a $100 dollar bill in front of the driver and said, "Get me to LaGuardia as fast as possible!"  I made it in time.  Barely.  

Expelled!

 Yes, she was expelled.  Didn't play well with others.  In fact, didn't play with others at all.  Flat out, refused to have anything to do with others.  Except the staff.  Loved the staff.

Who is she?  Parker, one of our two therapy dogs.  Our other dog, Maisie, wasn't expelled, apparently played well with others.

Trish took both dogs to a high-end dog hotel.  The pups spent 4 hours there yesterday, to see if they could be accepted into the elite company - of dogs that did play well with others.  

If I ran the dog hotel, I would have said, "So what?  Who cares if she doesn't want to play with other dogs?  She likes to play with Maisie."

Trish figures it's Parker's training.  T trained her to stay away from other dogs because doing so, conflicted with the training and therapy dog work.  She took it in stride, though.  Trish, not Parker: got a large charge out of it - despite the 6 hours wasted in Spokane.  Not totally wasted, though: she's pleased that she got to shop for clothing she didn't really need (in my view, not her's).  In my view, there's no such thing as a woman with too many clothes.

In her defense, Trish donated a few pairs of pants recently, which only left about 150 pairs.

PJs

 Pajamas.  Mom bought them for my brother, Gerry, and I in our early teens.  First PJs ever for any male in our family.  

In winter it got near freezing at night in our upstairs bedroom, so I guess Mom thought they would help keep us warmer than sleeping in just briefs.  And they did - for one night.  Having slept in our briefs since forever, the PJs felt too restrictive.  So, one night was it.  For both of us.  Thanks, Mom, but they just don't work for us, feel like straitjackets.

I don't recall ever seeing guys in PJs except on TV.  The military sure didn't issue olive drab jammies.  Don't recall anyone in my college dorms wearing them either.

Women like them though.  Trish has a few pairs.

Doot Ta Do!

Empty cardboard cores of toilet paper, what do you call them?  In our family they were called Doot Ta Dos.  When we emptied a roll of TP, we'd hold the core to our mouth and yell Doot Ta Do (DTD!  Did one of my brilliant siblings start that great tradition or did it come from elsewhere?

The lower corner cabinet in our kitchen was a swivel-out flour bin.  It's usage ended when flour was marketed in more user-friendly packaging than 100-pound bags.  

Then it became a home for DTDs.  It was some do-good thing or a maybe-some-day craft project of my Mom's.  I don't recall what the mission was and, later on, I doubt Mom did either.  

It was plumb full of the things, 100s of 'em.  They became part of the huge bonfire that my oldest sister Mary and I had going before the farm was sold.

Trish inspired this little story: she held up and empty plastic bottle and said Doot Ta Do!

Do any readers know the origin of DTD?  If so, please share.