My Good Dogs.  I have two, or perhaps more accurately, they have me.  I don’t ask them to do tricks, and thankfully, they don’t require the same of me.  However, today at the Dog Park, it was just the three of us, out there running around, sniffing the wind, scratching behind our ears…. and I thought…. “Oh.  Let’s Do Dog Impressions……. I’ll go first.”  I did my imitation of a Bulldog.   I had drool all running down my face, and was shuffling around all bow-legged, snorting like crazy.   They howled.  Frances peed she laughed so hard.  Wait, she pees everywhere at the dog park…..   So then I said, Frances, pretend you are a Pointer.  Which she did….

Not bad Frances.  Next, I said, “Okay Max.  You go.  Pretend YOU are a Pointer.”   This was not as easy…..  Maxie huffed, “I’m not doin’ it.  Stupid game over.”

“Awwwwwwwww.  C’mon Max.”…………………..”Hmmmph.  Well.  If I HAVE TO…..”

“Woooooo Hoooooo Maxine.  YOU ROCK!!!!,” we shouted with utter jubilation.  Then, she whipped around and said,  “Nobody ELSE saw that crap, did they…..??????  If that ends up on You Tube, I swear to Dog……”

My Good Dogs.

Well, this too shall pass….. About  2  1/2 more weeks before this project comes to a close.  Probably won’t be on any Trivial Pursuit Game Card, or anything.  But it has been fun.  I’ve learned a lot from this project.  Mucho.

Speaking of Trivial Pursuit….. it reminds me of a story.  We used to play that game a LOT when I was in my early to mid-20s.  One night, there was a group of us, cahooting and cajoling over a game.  The question was read to our team (by opposing team member, Ms. Jenny Pratt)….. “Who was the first U.S. President to have an assassination attempt made on his life?”  Well, my sister and I knocked around a ton of possible answers.  “Could it have been John Adams?  People didn’t like Adams…. no….. what about Jefferson?  Nah….. I don’t really remember what our final answer was….. but let’s say ‘Adams’.  Jenny turned over the card, looked down to the answer, and proclaimed with utter confidence…… “Nope.  You’re wrong.  It was Freddy the Freeloader.”   Oh my god, we laughed and laughed.  She was dead serious.  She kept saying… “What?  What’s so funny?”  I’m sitting here at my keyboard laughing about it right now……  …………  oh my goodness………………..    ……………………  I didn’t even know Freddy the Freeloader was a President!

🙂

Hope 372 has given you some laughs.  The countdown begins.

He….. sold the family cow…. for a little bit of nothing.

You see…….For years, they kept the Chock-Full-O-Nuts Coffee Can filled with the cash they had amassed.  They scrimped.  They saved.   It wasn’t much, but it was theirs.  Last week, he bought a huge box of Sea Monkeys with it.  And for what?  The water got cloudy and the whole lot of them died in 3 days.

She looks like she is being quite understanding.  But inside she is boiling over, seething mad.  See how her knuckles are turning all white and the little veins popping out in her neck?   He senses her indignation.   She thinks to herself, “He’s gotten into another one of those lame-brained, get-rich-quick, schemes.”  And she was right.  “I sent him into town to sell the family cow, and he managed to screw that up to no end.”

Yes, in fact, he had.  He took Milky White,  their old heifer, and traded her for some little bag of dried up beans.  Magical???  Ha!  Magical.   She threw ’em out the back kitchen window.    Now she ambles off to bed.  Grumbling. Sobbing.   And without a single box of Kleenex in the cottage.   Despondent, he packs his bags and heads for Poland, where his cousin Vladimir lives.

Whatever you do….. never throw away your magic.

A lot of people use their “blogs” as a platform for “Venting” about things….  to get things off the old chest.  To yammer about that which annoys or bothers them……  but what’s the point really?  I mean, okay, occasionally I will discuss some “issue” or allude to this or that.  But venting…… well, not so much.  Yeah, sure, I pass gas every now and again.  That is a form of venting, I would suppose.  Which brings to mind something.  If you are one of those people who stand in the grocery line, and eek out a fart, right after you pay…. and right before you walk away from the cashier…….. yes, snatching up your bags filled with heads of cabbage and beans and the like……, leaving the rest of us behind in your fetor…… hurrying out as Shirley the Gum-Chomping-Cashier looks over her black horned-rimmed glasses with a piercing glare, nostrils flaring……at the NEXT person in line…… IF you are one of those people…. WHY? I ask you.  WHY??????

Curses.  I’m the one always left standing there with a sheepish grin on my face, shuffling from side-to-side, trying to act like it wasn’t me…. which it WASN’T.    I am not venting.

This is venting:

The saddest day of the year?  Today, you guessed it.  Yep.  January 17th has been deemed the saddest, most depressing, most despicable day of the year.  (This, first published by Psychologist Dr. Cliff Arnell of Cardiff University, Wales, England).  It factors in things like weather, debt, and time since Christmas, failure of new year’s resolutions, low motivational levels, and …….blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  What a load of crap, Clifford.

I’ll tell you the saddest day of the year…… ……. …again, a pile of tripe…. because YOU just CAN’T “Blanket Name” the saddest day of the year Clifford!  In the amazingly insightful words of Bart and Homer Simpson.
Bart:  This is the worst day of my life.
Homer:  No.  This is the worst day of your life, SO FAR.

January 17th can’t be the saddest. Benjamin Franklin was born today.  So was Mack Sennett, Anne Bronte, Michelle Obama… and what about Muhammad Ali, Robert Kennedy Jr., James Earl Jones, Jim Carey, Kid Rock, Maury Povich, and for crying out loud, Al Capone.  It is YOUR Birthday… so be happy and don’t wear any caution tape on your heads….  then again, it’s your party, you can cry if you want to.

Looky who came to town today.  Yes, Greenpeace sailed in and out.  I did not see any whales…just for the record.  Greenpeace got its start in 1970, when the Don’t Make A Wave Committee was established; its sole objective was to stop a second nuclear weapons test at Amchitka Island in the Aleutians.  Who knew, really?

But that’s not what I think of when I hear or see “Greenpeace.”  I think of green peas.  Then it morphs into Greensleeves, and then full circle into Mr. Green Jeans.  Oh how I loved Mr. Green Jeans, and Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Bunny Rabbit, Mr. Moose, Grandfather Clock, the Dancing Bear….. oh my gosh….. when the ping pong balls all fell from the ceiling…. I’d laugh and laugh.  Tom Terrific and his pal, Mighty Manfred the Wonder Dog.  We all need a Wonder Dog.  Just so happens…. I have two.  Life is good that way.

Thank God for Greenpeace.

And that folks, is how my brain works.

The Commissioners of Public Works, of Charleston, SC, approved the purchase of these very fine meter boxes from the Ford Meter Box Company in Wabash, IN.

Not sure about the logistics behind it.  Probably something like….  Rutledge, and Ashley Calhoun, two brothers serving on the Commission of Public Works had a couple of distant cousins up north.  They were the Fords, Bert and Joe, from Wabash, Indiana.  Well, you see how the rest of it works.  How else do meter boxes from Wabash end up in Charleston?  Who’s your little Hoosier?  Who’s  your turtle dove?

Just when you thought it was safe to be….let’s say….a Taurus like myself.    I’ve been a dang Taurus since the day I was born…. and…… as they say about Taurus’ in general… “I am influenced by my surroundings, and become morbid and morose when trying to live under uncongenial conditions….too easily misled by my emotions, sensations, or affections….. often appear ignorant and willfully obstinate to others.” Dag nab. With that sort of arresting description, who wouldn’t LOVE being a Taurus?

But now the rules have changed. An Astronomer (Parke Kunkle)… says there has been some sort of shift in the planets, or stars, or maybe the folks at astrology.com smoked some weed at lunch, and came back with a “sparkly” new idea to sell more subscriptions. Whatever the case, I am now married to an “Ophiuchus”….. whatever the heck that is. This seems like an uncongenial condition to me. I just better go skulk off to some corner, and become morbid and morose, before I turn into an Aries.

Here’s your wires, all crossed up:
Capricorn: Jan. 20 – Feb. 16
Aquarius: Feb. 16 – March 11
Pisces: March 11- April 18
Aries: April 18 – May 13
Taurus: May 13 – June 21
Gemini: June 21 – July 20
Cancer: July 20 – Aug. 10
Leo: Aug. 10 – Sept. 16
Virgo: Sept. 16 – Oct. 30
Libra: Oct. 30 – Nov. 23
Scorpio: Nov. 23 – Nov. 29
Ophiuchus: Nov. 29 – Dec. 17
Sagittarius: Dec. 17 – Jan. 20

The Article about all this Mess……

Hmmmm. There is A LOT going on in the world right now. Seems like there are huge amounts of negativity moving around our planet.

When I was growing up, my parents tried to teach me that “if I didn’t have something nice to say about someone, I shouldn’t say anything at all.” Good lesson, I think. I still have much work to do on this one….

At any rate, tonight, I wish to talk about some major events hitting the headlines lately. Specifically, Sarah Palin has been in the news quite frequently, so I will write about her this evening…………………………. well then……………….
First of all……….

…………………………………………….ummmmmm……………… ………………

…………um um um dee dum………………………. hmmm…………………………………..

….. hang on………….. I’m working on it…………………… …………………… hmmm.

Hmm. Hmmmmmmm. Hmmm………………… ummm ummeee…………………………… ….

Sarah Palin has brown hair. I saw a photograph of her standing near some pretty leaves once.

Here is a photo I took of some leaves.

As it happened today, I discovered something new on my walk home from a very sturdy and fulfilling breakfast. This is it: There is something called The Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim, Ireland. Why have I never heard of such a thing before this morning? Holy Crap. I mean, I knew about the Giant at the top of the Beanstalk…… the dude with the Golden Eggs. And I had heard about Goliath, and what was the little fella’s name? Danny? (No…. that’s not it… but you know who I mean. The slingshot boy.) I was familiar with Gulliver. Although is Gulliver really a giant? Or is it just that the Lilliputians are so dang small? I even know about San Francisco’s baseball team (although they look to be the same size as every one else.)

But here in my very midst, is a shrine to the Giant’s Causeway. (Is that like a Speedway, or a Costco, or something?) Whatever it is, apparently it is constructed of rocks. And…. it seems that somebody ran off with a few, and they left ’em up the street from my house….around 1851 or so……