Doggerel

 It's been a while since I've inflicted a doggerel on my readers.  So here are a couple.

DREAM QUEST

 The salad years held dreams exotic,

Varied, weird, sometimes erotic.

But now I wander endless halls,

Seeking little rooms with stalls.

Don’t laugh you young guys, for it’s coming:

Your own nocturnal quest for plumbing.

 Mike Delaney

6-28-05

All rights reserved.

SMOTE

In the bible folks were smited

For acts that could not be abided.

 

A word of caution, please take note

And reduce the risk of getting smote:

 

To temptation, don’t be submittin’

Lest we be hearin’ that you were smitten.

 

Mike Delaney

7-19-09

Lighten Up

 We're lightening up: Getting rid of stuff we haven't used for many years and will never use again.  Stuff in the top shelves that we haven't used since we moved here years ago.

Me: Woodworking and mechanical tools; plumbing, electrical and automotive gadgets; suit ties, clothing - and on and on.

Trish: Boxes of 'good stuff' going to Goodwill: dishes, glasses, fondue sets, candles and holders (now she has battery candles all over the place).

If you're near my age - lighten up!  Don't leave it up to those who outlive you.  They will toss it if you don't; give them a break.

 

Smell

 Women smell better than men - but you already knew that.  They also have a better sense of smell than men.

So, what has the best sense of smell?  Did you guess dogs?  Wrong!  Would you believe elephants?  Yup.

Next up are black bears, who can smell food from a mile away (watch your picnic baskets).

Male silk-moths: they can smell a single female pheromone from miles away.  Horny little buggers!  Wouldn't you guys have liked to have that when you were young?

Then comes African giant pouched rats.

Finally, yes, a dog: The bloodhound.  Their sense of smell is 10,000 times more acute than humans.  Other dogs aren't far behind.

If I woke up one day and found my olfactory sense was 10K times more sensitive than the day prior, I'm quite sure I'd need to be placed in a rubber room.  Or, maybe I could just put corks in my nose and duct tape them in place.

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.