You can't go home until you pee

My stated reasons for writing this blog are 1) my own amusement and 2) the possible amusement of my friends and family. That sort of limits what I write about to amusing things. Finding your life-mate on the dining room floor after an unknown period of unconsciousness is not amusing. She's fine, and I am thankful and grateful for the concern shown, and I probably should quit right here.

But there's just SO STINKIN' MANY funny things that happen during a hospital stay you just gotta talk about them, right? Like the guy in the room next door that the nurses never convinced that you could not make a telephone call with your combination call button/TV/lights control. He was still asking for someone to show him "how that #@$% phone works" when we left the next day. Or the guy walking down the hall shouting into his cell phone, "I don't know what kind of game you think you're playing, but I'm not buying it!" Couldn't tell if this was a patient or a doctor. Maybe he just got his bill.

I know why medical care costs so much. It's because of the pre-packaged, single-use medical devices and gee-gaws. At the house, I swept up a foot high stack of detritus that the EMTs left, and they were here only a half-hour at the most. Wrappers, needle covers, rubber tourniquets, disposable sharps containers, a dozen little round tabs for the EKG contacts, half a dozen EKG contacts, a yard of EKG printout paper, little plastic sleeves that made it easier to match up one vial with another, the vials themselves, and stuff I had no idea as to its use, but it was all left on the dining room floor. In the ER, there was a small mountain of trash; most of it seemingly duplicates of what the EMTs had already used, plus new and innovative apparati. They literally filled a trash can with medical jetsam during a 4 hour stay.

And we must talk about the parking garage. I admit it. I'm directionally challenged. I have drawn people maps to my house THAT WERE DEAD WRONG! I have, on more than one occasion, become lost driving from 4th and Congress, downtown Austin, to UT Memorial stadium. You know, that big thing that's right beside the Interstate - the only building in town that seats 100,000 people! 

But parking garages are my own personal hell. I do not understand them and I consider them evil places that exist to warp my mind and confuse my sensibilities. I have abandoned rental cars in parking garages in other cities, informing the rental company where they could recover their car if they could solve the puzzle; I could not.

So, given the fact that I parked hurriedly in the garage in the early hours of the morning, with other important things on my mind, and did not even think about finding my car until that evening, what do you think my chances of finding the car in the month of September were? Barb, ever considerate in spite of her own problems, told me that if I couldn't find the car, come back and she would get one of the nurses to help me. Yeah, right. Like once I left that room I had been carefully led to and actually left the building (not a given in and of itself)  I could find my way back! Not without a trail of bread crumbs, Gretel.

But I discovered the secret of leaving the building. Follow someone who looks like they too are leaving. But don't follow them through any doors that don't open automatically. Because then you have to explain to the nice security guards that you were NOT stalking a nurse. The good news is that the nice security guards show you the way out. And stand there to make sure you don't get confused and come back.

I was lucky, with the garage, too. Seton parking garage has only 5 floors (or 10, because parking garages have extra secret floors in between the real floors and your car gets moved to one of these phantom floors the instant you enter the elevator) and I did not exhaust the battery walking through all 10 5 floors making the car go beep with the door lock thingy. And finding the room when I came back? No sweat. I manned up and asked a little old lady volunteer to take me in hand and lead me through the maze. No crumbs needed.

Meanwhile, while I'm trying to navigate endless corridors and phantom parking levels, Barb has her most difficult time. No, it's not medical in nature. She can't persuade Kenny, the night nurse to leave her window drapes open. Kenny is insistent that there may be perverts with binoculars lurking on the rooftops a block away, spying on third floor hospital rooms. Barb insists that she will take that risk. She doesn't think anything in her room will be of great interest to the most dedicated of pervs, but Kenny prevails because Barb is restricted to the bed and will set off an alarm (more about this later) if she gets up to open the blinds.

The next morning, she is fussing about discussing Kenny's insistence with the nurses aide, explaining that she doubted anyone was interested in looking into her room. The aide replies, "Honey, I worked at a topless bar, and I can assure you that there is no limit to what men want to look at." Barb and I are sort of stunned at this because the aide doesn't really look like the sort of person who would work at a topless bar. NOT THAT I NECESSARILY KNOW WHAT THAT KIND OF PERSON WOULD LOOK LIKE. I'm just saying... She goes on, "Oh, yeah, men are pigs, but that was the best money I ever made. I would take home $500 - $600 a night and I was the hostess. I didn't have to take my clothes off." Phew.

About the bed alarm. When the EMTs brought Barb in they described her circumstance as "passed out and fell." Well, the passing out part is true, but as near as we can determine, she didn't fall. No bumps, bruises or knots on the head. I think she just slid out of the chair and lay down. Nevertheless, she got a yellow armband that labeled her as "potential risk for falling - don't let this one up because if she does fall the hospital will get blamed." Thus the bed alarm. Hop out of bed and the nurse comes running. Sit on the bed (as her doctor did) and the nurse comes running. And this is one of the wonder beds that wakes up ever so often and adjusts itself to a new position - usually just as you are finally drifting off to sleep!

And we have to talk about the "Code whatevers." Periodically someone on the PA system would call out a "Code Pink" or "Code Purple" or some such. Once there even was a "Code Blue" which on a coronary floor really stirs things up. Nurse Kenny showed us the back of his ID which listed all the important Codes. For instance "Code Gray" meant there was a belligerent or combative patient and according to Kenny meant that security should come, and I quote, "whup him like Rodney King." "Code Debby" was called once, which according to Nurse Topless meant that a mother had taken her own child and left the building. Hmmm. We joked later about "Code Barbara" which meant that if she didn't get dismissed soon we were going to skip out ourselves.

Which brings us to the situation described in the title of this blog. Barb had the doctor's okay to leave; all we needed was some paper work and some pee. So, in order to facilitate the process, we were consuming large quantities of liquid (my part in the "we" was obtaining the liquid). And we were successful. Actually, we were too successful. We had to make three bathroom stops before we got home. But get home we did, and all is well. And that's a nice thing to blog about, too.

Monday Meanderings - Sep 27 - Approved for all audiences

I was involved in a pedestrian/auto accident last week. A pedestrian - a blind pedestrian, at that - ran into my auto. The School for the Blind covers the area between Lamar and Burnet Road facing 45th Street. I'm on Lamar, waiting to turn right when a sighted person, wearing a blindfold, began to cross 45th coming my direction. You often see blindfolded, sighted people in this area - they are employees of the Commission for the Blind, and all employees from a certain level are required to take training courses that include navigating the streets of Austin as if unsighted - thus blindfolded. Usually you see them in groups and they have a non-blindfolded guide helping them, but at some point they have to manage all by themselves.

So, I'm watching this guy coming my way, and he's missing the crosswalk badly. He's drifting over into Lamar itself, and coming straight for me. He has the light and the right-of-way, and I'm just sitting there watching him come. When it's obvious that he's going to run into me, I consider my options: honking would scare the bejeebers out of him; rolling down the window and yelling would probably just confuse matters, so I just let him walk into the front of my car. He snatched off his blindfold, took a look around, swore loudly and jumped to the curb. If he was being observed, I think he flunked Pretend Blind Guy 101.

My thanks to Barb's sister Betty for these insights-

A penny saved is a government oversight.

The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight, because by then your body and your fat have gotten to be really good friends.

The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.

He who hesitates is probably right.

Did you ever notice: The Roman Numerals for forty (40) are  XL.

If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in mind to blame.

The sole purpose of a child's middle name is so he can tell when he's really in trouble.

Did you ever notice: When you put the 2 words 'The' and 'IRS' together it spells 'Theirs...'

Aging: Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.

Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know 'why' I look this way.  I've traveled a long way and some of the roads weren't paved.

When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to your youth, think of Algebra.

You know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.

One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it is such a nice change from being young.  Ah, being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable.

At the hospital they have a little whiteboard in the room and the nurses write down their names, and what the telephone number is and other good stuff. We thought that would be a good thing to have at home. We could write what day it is and our names for starters. Barb suggested that even better would be a little portable whiteboard that we could carry, and it would say, "The reason I got up to come into this room is..."

You gotta love a town where blog items are literally found on your doorstep. We came home the other afternoon and there was a rather well-dressed woman sitting on the curb near the driveway. She had a small animal on a leash and at first glance appeared to be walking her little dog. In fact, she was walking her little pig! Not one of those pot-bellied pigs - just a small ordinary-looking pig! Austin weirdness!

I will say only this about Saturday's game. It is interesting that the vast majority of  schools and universities in this country are eager simply for a winning season and a possible bowl game. In Austin, it is a tragedy of the greatest measure if we are not in the National Championship hunt.

And finally, have you ever wondered what animals might create with finger shadows? That's right. Hands.

The Adventures of Bob the Dog – the Corner Store Caper

The beginning of Bob the Dog’s adventures can be found here.

Sure enough, on Friday I got a call from Raj, the manager up at the Valero Corner Store. Raj lives one street over and he’s well acquainted with Bob the Dog and said that Bob slipped into the store and wasted a rack of beef jerky and pushed over the hot dog cooker and escaped with about two dozen sizzling franks before they knew what had happened, and he had been trying to get in touch with Cole, but his phone was disconnected. Did I know where Cole was so that he could come and pay for all the damage before the home office made him call the cops?

I explained that Cole wasn’t going to be our neighbor any more, so calling the cops wouldn’t do any good, but I kept my mouth shut about Bob the Dog and the note, because I wondered if my failing to take action might somehow make me liable. After Raj hung up, I peeked over the fence and sure enough, Bob was back in the yard, fat and happy, but pretty bloated after all those freshly cooked wieners and a side of beef jerky.

We had a little talk about his adventures, but he showed no remorse and said quite frankly he was pretty tired of dry dog food and that fresh meat was now his new best friend forever. Or words to that effect. Sometimes Bob is hard to understand, what with the accent and all. We agreed that he should go on living next door as long as he could and that I would pick up some Bugle Boy dog food with “real beef morsels” as Bob allowed that was the only kind of dog food he would even consider.

I didn’t care for this turn of events, and I liked it even less when I found out that the only place in town that carried Bugle Boy dog food with “real beef morsels” was Callahan’s – way, way south – and that it cost about the same as steak at the HEB, and maybe I should just let Bob the Dog knock over Raj’s hot dog cooker every once in a while and plead ignorance of the whole thing. I knew calling Animal Control was out of the question. Bob was way smarter than any dog catcher; they had been called a half-dozen times about two brutish Pit Bulls that wandered loose up the street and the Pit Bulls – not known for finesse – had easily bested the catchers so often the City wouldn’t even send them out on that call anymore.

Besides, none of this was Bob’s fault; he had been left to his own devices and by nature Blue Heelers have active and fertile minds and if they are not kept busy, they will find their own activities – which might not fit in with conventional doggy behavior. I’m sure that’s what led to Bob’s heist of the Monterrey Meat Market.

Next - the Meat Market Massacre

Stories for my grandchildren - the West Texas Fair

When first my way to fair I took
  Few pence in purse had I,
And long I used to stand and look
  At things I could not buy.

Now times are altered: if I care
  To buy a thing, I can;
The pence are here and here's the fair,
  But where's the lost young man?

When I set out for college at ACU (then ACC) I had a job as a disk jockey at KRBC Radio. In fact, I had to leave for Abilene to start work before school started. It took some finagling to get into the dorm that early, but I moved in at the same time as the football players and lived on an empty hall in Mabee dorm for two weeks.

I had the night shift at the radio station - 8pm till midnight. Worked out fine for me, but it drove the dorm RAs crazy - I was never there for bed check. Yes, they did come around every night to check on you back then; I don't suppose they do that now. At least not in the Mens dorms.

I had only been at the job - and school - for a couple of weeks when the West Texas Fair began. KRBC parked a trailer, outfitted with a small console with turntables and tape machines (yes, we actually played records back then. We really were disc jockeys) on the midway. I sat behind my console, looking out the window, playing records and broadcasting out onto the fairway. People stopped by and chatted on the air, and I interviewed the stars that performed at the fair - like Brenda Lee, Connie Francis and Brian Hiland (think Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Polka Dot Bikini. No? I didn't think so).

On one side of the broadcast trailer was a couple selling typical fair and carnival souvenirs - dolls, and banners, plaster gorillas and geegaws of all types. We visited some and I learned that they lived up North and toured the fair and carnival circuit about 5 months out of the year. The rest of the time they took life easy. They were at the fair every year that I was, and probably for many more after I left.

On the other side of the trailer that first year was a motorized crane that had a car - I don't remember what kind, but it was small - hoisted up in the air about 30 feet. An automobile dealership was sponsoring this act and there was a guy living in the car. The hype was that he would live in the car, suspended high in the air for the entire two weeks of the fair. People would come and gawk, and there was a little intercom set up and the gawkers could talk to the guy. Mostly they wanted to know about acts of nature. He would always tell the girls not to stand too close under the car.

My shift lasted until midnight, but the fair shut down about ten pm, so for the last hour especially, the midway was deserted and me and the guy in the car had the place to ourselves. It was at that point that he would swing out to the crane boom and climb down and come in the trailer and chat. Several nights his wife or girlfriend - I never learned which - would come by and they would go off to get something to eat. At least once she climbed up the boom to visit him in the car. Perhaps they joined the 30' high club. I didn't stick around.

The next year in that space, they had a guy "buried alive." He was in a box buried a few feet underground, with a glassed-in viewing duct above his face. He too had an intercom and he too got asked the acts of nature question. I never heard what he told people. Like the other guy, when the fair shut down, he slid along a tunnel to an opening that was behind the tent in the back of the public area. We never did visit though. He wasn't the social type.

As for the fair itself? I didn't actually see much of it during that time, but we came back when the kids were little. "Not ride that boat. Not ride that horsey."

Monday Meanderings - Sep 20. This blog is rated "PG"

Austin quite often is named the number one city for.. and here will follow some accolade, such as "best place to live", "best place to start a business", "best place to be a slacker," etc. There apparently is no end to what we are number one at, including the latest tout - the, ahem,  most sexually active city in the nation. I am not making this up.

According to the October issue of Men's Health Magazine, Austin leads all other cities in the US in, well, shall we say euphemistically, mattress dancing. The magazine bases this dubious award on 1) sale of condoms, 2) birth rates, and 3) reported incidences of STDs. Of the cities that are most important to our family, the rankings are:

1.   Austin
11. Lubbock
14. Fresno

Now frankly, I am dubious. Where is New Orleans, Las Vegas, New York? At 46th, 70th and 73rd, respectively. LA? Not even on the list! That's just not right. I mean, the official motto of Las Vegas is "Sin City" while the official motto of Lubbock is "Keep Lubbock flat." I've heard that the motto for Fresno is "Eat more raisins" but I may be mistaken about that.

Now, I notice that a lot of the cities on the list are college and university towns. Maybe there’s a correlation? Go figure.

Article in the Statesman recently telling about an organization in Houston called Taping for the Blind, Inc. They have a somewhat similar mission as Recording for the Blind, dealing primarily in periodicals, such as National Geographic, Time, Reader's Digest AND PLAYBOY! Excuse me? I read "Heavy Truck Repair" and "Early British Literature" and they read Playboy! There's something very wrong here.

According to the article, the woman (!) who reads Playboy says, "I don't read it all cover-to-cover, but I do read everything -- all the articles, all the jokes, all the little cartoons, all the pictures, all the letters to the adviser, all those things." As for the photos, consider Miss August. "She is a Latina, brunette with dark chocolate brown eyes. She has long curly brown hair...in the first photo she is sitting in the ocean. She has a very large grin on her face, pink lipstick. She has a small tattoo right over the small of her back over the dimple area that appears to be some sort of tribal design...there are no tan lines at all. She is not wearing any nail polish, or jewelry, or bathing suit, or anything." There is more, but I think you get the picture, so to speak.

By the way, when asked why she mentions nail polish, she says, "Sometimes that's the only thing they have on." And I thought you only read it for the articles.

 Meanwhile I am reading "Texas : a Brief Account of the Origin, Progress and Present State of the Colonial Settlements of Texas; Together with an Exposition of the Causes which have induced the Existing War with Mexico."  Sigh.

And while we are on this subject, what's up with those Cialis commercials on TV? Evidently if you take this stuff you have to be very,very careful, because "an accidental touch" will WRECK YOUR HOUSE! Sure, an "everyday moment may turn romantic," but if you take Cialis that everyday moment causes the walls to fall down, water to pour from your kitchen counters, fences to fall over, and you find yourself living outdoors in a tent, or on the side of a pond and your bathtubs are now in your front yard.! Just saying.

And how ironic is it that the "Le Bare" club in Austin is in the former location of Cinnabons? The irony is more apparent if you say it aloud.

And we will zip up this subject with this video:


Check them out at iheartpants.org

The Adventures of Bob the Dog – This is NOT my dog

Let me make one thing very clear at the outset. Bob the Dog is NOT my dog.

I do not own a dog. Bob belongs belonged to my next-door neighbor Cole, and I place all the blame directly on his doorstep. Not that that does any good, because Cole is not using that doorstep at the moment and likely will not ever again darken his door, let alone use the step.

Bob the Dog is a Blue Heeler, the Australian cattle dog. Cole paid a bunch of money for Bob in the mistaken idea that he would make a good bird dog. If cows could fly, he might be, but birds are of no interest to this dog. To hide his general annoyance with the dog, Cole took huge delight in pointing out that he named the dog Bob, and greatly enjoyed working “Bob the Dog” and “Bob the Neighbor” into the conversation. I was not amused.

I should also point out that everyone in the neighborhood is acquainted with Bob the Dog – he howls. Nay, he bays at the moon. Some even call him Bob the Bugler. Complaining to Cole has been in vain to this point and is moot now because of Cole's absence. But let me start at the beginning.

About two weeks ago Cole called me from Las Vegas, where he and his wife Murleene were burning through their inheritance, such as it was. He explained that he “was on a real streak, and up many thousands of dollars, and he wanted to ride that streak while he could, so he was not coming back on Sunday night as planned, and would I please go over and feed Bob the Dog and check on him?”

Not that I was given much choice, but Bob the Dog had been howling louder than ever, so I figured he was out of food and checking on him was to my benefit. Now Blue Heelers are a very intelligent breed of dog, and Bob the Dog had already figured out that the dog food stash was on the screened-in porch and it was mere puppy play to get in there and lay waste to what remained of the supply. All that was left was a shredded sack and some pot plants gnawed to stubs. Cole had mentioned there was more feed in the garage and I knew where the key was, but I found only a half-sack in there and I knew that wasn’t going to last long so I hoped Cole’s luck would turn and they would be back before it became a crisis.

As it turns out, his luck had turned. He called me very early Tuesday morning and in desperate whispers said he had lost the thousands he was up, lost a bunch more money that he had borrowed, lost the house, lost the furniture and cars, lost Murleene, and now some very bad people were looking for him. He thought it best if he visited Montana or Canada or someplace far away for a while and he hoped that Bob the Dog could move next door and live with Bob the Neighbor. There was an “urrk” on the phone, and that’s the last I’ve heard from my ex next door neighbor, only now there’s a “For Sale” sign in front of his house and all the furniture and his car disappeared one night.

Unfortunately, Bob the Dog did not go with the furniture. I was pretty sure by the plaintive howls that Bob was out of food again, but by the time I could get over there, he was nowhere in sight. He did leave a note, however, that said he was going to go “releve the Valero Corner store of all their Slim Jims and beef jerky, and thanks for the care, mate.” Hmm. Turns out Bob is not that smart after all. He misspelled “relieve.”

Next - the Corner Store Caper

Stories for my grandchildren - Thurber brick

In my home town of Breckenridge, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average, the streets are paved with brick. Well, not all of the streets. Just Walker Street, the main east/west thoroughfare through town. And not even all of that - now only the downtown portion of Walker Street is brick; the rest has been given over to asphalt paving, which you will see is sort of symbolic.

Brick is not as smooth a ride as asphalt. I was reminded what it was like to ride a bicycle down that portion of Walker Street when I saw the cobblestone segments of this year's Tour de France. In some places it would really rattle your teeth. But it is enduring. Oh, my, that stuff lasts and lasts. The bricks in Walker Street were originally laid in the 1920s - they have been there almost 100 years. Try that with your hot-mix asphalt. And Walker street really needed paving in the '20s. Here's a look at conditions back then.

The bricks used to pave Walker street came from Thurber, Texas. If you have driven I-20 between Abilene and Fort Worth, you have passed the almost ghost town of Thurber, marked by the 128 foot tall smoke stack that was part of the electric plant. 

The Thurber story is quite remarkable in itself. Founded in 1888, its primary purpose was to provide coal to the railroads, and provide coal it did. At its peak, the miners brought up 3,000 tons of coal a day from as many as 15 mine shafts. To support the miners (and keep out the unions), Texas and Pacific Coal Company built a company town. The houses were owned by T&P, the stores were owned by T&P, the banks were owned by T&P, the schools were built by T&P, the teachers were paid by T&P, the ice-house, the saloons (and saloon-keepers), the hospital, the 600-seat opera house, the cemetery, the four church buildings, the hotels, the library... all owned by T&P. At one time 10,000 people representing 20 different nationalities lived in Thurber. 

Oh, and the brick plant was owned by T&P and Thurber brick paved many streets west of the Mississippi - including Camp Bowie Boulevard in Forth Worth,  streets in Dallas, Houston, Beaumont, Congress Avenue in my current home town, and of course Walker Street. It was used to build the Galveston seawall, the Fort Worth Stockyards, The Dallas Opera House and many, many Texas and Pacific Railway stations. It was even used to pave an experimental highway between Belton and Temple, one of the very first paved highways in the nation. It consisted of two tracks, each track only two bricks wide to accommodate skinny auto tires of the day. I don't know what you did when you met someone coming the other way.

A Thurber "paver." The little triangle in the center? The union "bug" added when Thurber became the only 100% unionized closed-shop city in the nation, after a period of chaotic strikes and lock-outs. So much for the company town keeping the union out.

And why is Thurber a ghost town today? Because Texas and Pacific Coal Company drilled for oil just a few miles south near Ranger, and soon became Texas and Pacific Coal and Oil Company. The need for coal dwindled almost immediately; the brick manufacturing lasted until the 1930's (by that time the brick kilns were oil-fired) but eventually petroleum-based asphalt supplanted the need for paving bricks. They're collectors items now. But I know where there are a few thousand - if you can dig them up without getting caught or run over.

Monday Meanderings - Sep 13

"Didn't it rain, children?

Talk about a rain, oh my lord.

Didn't it rain? Didn't it rain?

Didn't it rain, oh my lord?"

It wasn't Memorial Day, 1981, but it was close. The general area got 9 to 12 inches of rain; some more than that. Lots of washed out roads and bridges, lots of low area flooding. They're still looking for some folks who were foolish enough to drive around the barricades. It's comforting to know that our house is at the same elevation as the top of the State Capitol building.

Barb delivers Meals On Wheels. The other day, someone on her route came to the door wearing a tee shirt that said, "I have multiple personalities - and none of them like you." O-kay.

Later she stopped at Poke-Jo's for her lunch. In the line ahead of her was a deputy sheriff who, judging from the reaction of other customers in the line, was given a very nice discount for his meal. Hearing the comments, the cashier said, "Hey, anyone comes in here wearing a gun gets a 50% discount, and if they point it at me, they get a 100% discount!"

Bumper sticker on an old rusty Oldsmobile: "Zero to sixty - in 15 minutes"

Saw a family the other evening - the dad was wearing a Mickey Mouse tee shirt, the mom was wearing a Mickey Mouse tee shirt, the daughter's shirt was logo-less. Additionally the dad had a Mickey Mouse tattoo on his leg. Don't know what message this sent. Maybe the parents just came back from Disney World and the girl didn't go? "My parents went to Disney World and all I didn't even get the lousy tattoo?" Unsure.

We were pleased to find out on Saturday that the corporate office for Costco has decided it's Fall once again - never mind the 95 degree temperatures. The corn chowder soup from Costco is one of our favorites, but they only offer it in the Fall. Yea, Fall!

I started with a song, I'll end with a poem. While on the treadmill I listen to a variety of podcasts. One of them is "The Writer's Almanac" with Garrison Keillor. If you've not heard this program it is a daily message with about 5 minutes devoted to "this day in history" historical notes, mostly about literary folk, and then Keillor finishes with a short poem.

For September 3, he read:

I've always enjoyed her sense of humor
by Gerald Locklin.

She's an old friend
And I don't see her very often,
But she has a way of turning up
When I'm talking to a girl I've just met,

And she will invariably storm up to us
And confront me with, "where is the child support check?!"

Then turn on her heel and storm from the room,
Leaving me to make inadequate explanations.

"Home cooking could be hazardous to your health, research finds."

I have mentioned that we eat out. A lot. And part of the justification for that is all the money we save on groceries. But now there is new scientific evidence to support eating out as the proper choice.

According to an article published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a publication of the Centers for Disease and Control, "New research suggests that at least 1 in 7 home kitchens would flunk the kind of health inspection commonly administered to restaurants. At least 14 percent [of kitchens inspected] would fail - not even getting a C...according to Dr Jonathan Fielding, director of Los Angeles County Department of Health." The article goes on to state that at least 98% of inspected restaurants get an A or B each year.

Do I have to point out the key words above? Morbidity. Mortality. Disease. Oh, My! Those are some serious words. I'm not exactly sure what morbidity means, but I don't think I want to mess with mine.

Now I'm not saying that our kitchen is in that failing category. I mean, we wipe stuff up off the floor pretty quickly, especially if it's something we intend to go ahead and eat (5 second rule). Besides, most of the stuff we buy is already cooked. BUT WHY RISK IT?

I mean, if there is even a chance that there's green stuff on that bread in the pantry, wouldn't it make more sense to opt for a freshly baked bun from Schlotskys? Who knows what evil lurks in the back of that refrigerator? And I know  am pretty sure  think  hope that Chuy's passes all health inspections. So why tempt fate?

We need more cowbell!!

From time to time I read a blog written by a woman who is a BIG Mississippi State fan. The other day she was blathering about excitedly commenting on the beginning of football season and she encouraged her readers who share her fondness for MSU to "Respect the Bell" and abide by the new cowbell rules and "ring responsibly."

Excuse me? Cowbell rules? Ring Responsibly?

With a little investigation it turns out that the SEC Conference has banned cowbells (indeed ALL artificial noisemakers) from football games since 1974 and that really chafes MSU because they think that they have a great cowbell tradition. I won't speculate how you think you have a cowbell tradition IF YOU HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO RING A COWBELL AT A GAME IN 36 YEARS!

Now let me go on record right here as saying that this isn't about who has the best team or best conference. We all hold dear our own convictions and will defend them to the end. This isn't about that at all. Besides we all know the SEC is a wienie conference anyway. No, this is about the freedom to support your team in the manner you deem best, and if cowbells ring your dingy, then we need more cowbell!!

However, at MSU games this year, new experimental, relaxed rules will allow the ringing of cowbells under the following conditions:

• When State scores
• Quarter Breaks
• Pregame
• Timeouts
• Halftime

Failure to follow the rules will result in a $5,000 fine against the team and potential reinstatement of the ban. You can't make up stuff like this.

Now that's just wrong!

Contrast this with the cowbell rules at Texas games:

• Unless it's an Oklahoma fan, you may not bludgeon the opposing team fans with your cowbell.
• If you throw your cowbell on the field you won't get it back until the game is over.

That's it. If you are looking for a team with a cowbell tradition, Texas puts the cow ON THE FIELD! The band is issued cowbells at each game - all 400 of them - for crying out loud! The rule for fans is, if you got 'em, ring 'em!

Can you imagine the BIG XII - a wholly-owned subsidiary of the University of Texas - banning cowbells or any other noisemaker? Okay, maybe vuvuzelas, but only for humanitarian reasons. Can you imagine what would happen to an Oklahoma fan who showed up with a vuvuzela? Uhh, no, let's not go there. Would you tell the country of Switzerland that they couldn't ring those cow-size bells at the Winter Olympics? Would you tell the 50,000 Harley riders at the Republic of Texas Motorcycle Rally they can't rev their engines?

Like Texas, some things are not to be messed with. Keep your hands off my cowbell.

Monday Meanderings - Sep 6

Happy Labor Day, though you do wonder why it's called that when absolutely no one does any.

I knew it wouldn't last, but this past weekend was a harbinger. Got in some really good patio sitting. And at long last, some real football. It doesn't get much better than this.

I got a $5.00 check in the mail the other day from Time Warner - settlement in a class action lawsuit. I don't know what it was that T-W did to offend me but I'm pretty sure that I suffered more than $5.00 in grievous injury, public humiliation, inability to perform my marital obligations, or whatever. Maybe they will send the rest later. To add insult to injury, the letter stated in big bold letters that I was responsible for the tax ramifications of this settlement and that I should consult my tax adviser for assistance. I don't know what your tax adviser charges, but I don't think I'm going to come out ahead on this deal. Curse you, Time-Warner, for whatever it was that you did!

It may interest you that Steeler's strong safety Troy Palamalu's hair has been added to the list of celebrities' body parts insured for enormous sums of money. Head & Shoulders in this case sprung for the one million dollar insurance policy. Other parts on this list are those belonging to Dolly Parton, some Brazilian bomb shell, and assorted others, to name a few.

He said: "Wow! Gmail will now let you make free telephone calls to any phone in the US and Canada if your computer has a microphone."
She said: "Does our computer have a microphone?"
He said: "No."
She said: "And how is that different from our phone plan? We can call any phone in the US and Canada now for free just by picking up one of the 6 phones we have in the house - not to mention the 2 cell phones."
He said: "But look at the rates to other countries; we can call the Czech Republic for 2 cents a minute."
She said: "You do realize that we no longer know anyone in the Czech Republic, don't you?"
He said: "Ummm. Well, never mind."

I think I have mentioned that a homeless person volunteers at our Recording for the Blind. It may be that he lives in a shelter - he is not un-bathed -  but you know from his appearance that he is not prospering in society at large. When you speak to him he will say hello, but nothing else. He reads - without a director, sets his book down when he's done and walks out. The other day they handed me a psychology book on the subject of mass murderers and other social demons (!!!) and the studio manager said in jest that we could no longer call people evil, that bad people were victims of society. I responded, "I'm depraved on account of I'm deprived," and then said, "What movie is that from?" Without pausing as he walked by, our "homeless" reader said, "West Side Story. The song Gee, Officer Krupke." and kept right on walking. The moral to this story? Don't judge a book by its cover.

And if your iPhone needs a little decoration, I suggest one of these decals:

Hi-ho Austin! Away!

I have mentioned before that I have the utmost respect for daily bloggers, especially those who seem to come up with clever, meaningful, inspiring, entertaining (choose all that apply) blogs each and every day and sometimes weekends too. I just can't do it. I can hack out Monday Meanderings most weeks, and if we have been on a trip or something special is going on I can sometimes get a blog on Wednesday AND Friday, but it's hard. I'm just not that creative,

However, I have been thinking about that and I just may have a solution. I once took a creative writing course and part of the instruction was a presentation from a couple of professors from the University of Oklahoma. Now right here I should go off on the oxymoron-ness of professors from OU and creativity, But see? I'm just not that quick. But I digress.

The presentation was an explanation of how the writers of the old Lone Ranger radio program - one of the longest-running radio programs ever - approached their formidable task. I think it's hard coming up with a few paragraphs and a couple of pictures once or twice (or three times, on good weeks). They had to fill 30 minutes, twice a week, 52 weeks a year, for more than 20 years! That's 2,956 episodes!

They did it with a matrix. I once had a copy of the actual matrix, but that writing course was many, many years ago and the matrix, like my memory, is long gone. It was rather sophisticated in its layout and design, but the bottom line is that had a list of all the protagonists possible in the old west - the rich rancher, the rancher's wife, the rancher's daughter, the ranch hand, the poor farmer, the farmer's wife, the farmer's daughter, the store keeper, the blacksmith, the lovable town drunk, Little Nell, Ma Barker, etc., etc.

Then they had a list of antagonists: the gunfighter, the card shark, the greedy rancher, the crooked sheriff, the greedy mayor, the mean town drunk, the mine owner, the cartel back East, the bandidos, the Hells Angels (oops, wrong program). Add your favorite antagonist..

Then they would intersect protagonists and antagonists with situations: water rights, sheepherders vs cattlemen, stage robberies, train robberies, bank robberies, marauding Indians, marauding pisteleros, bank foreclosures, droughts, floods, railroad bridge outages, meanness because they could - oh, there was a fine, long list of situations!

Matrix in hand, they methodically picked one from each column, overlaid them with the Lone Ranger rules; among them:

• The Lone Ranger is never seen without his mask or a disguise.
• At all times, The Lone Ranger uses perfect grammar and precise speech completely devoid of slang and colloquial phrases.
• When he has to use guns, The Lone Ranger never shoots to kill, but rather only to disarm his opponent as painlessly as possible.
• The Lone Ranger does not drink or smoke, and saloon scenes are usually interpreted as cafes, with waiters and food instead of bartenders and liquor.

Okay there you have it. My new plan for blogging. I will simply make a matrix. I think mine should have -  

Places: The recliner, the patio, the back yard, the front yard, on the roof (remind me to tell you about nearly calling 911 to help get me off the roof), the attic (remind...never mind. I've used that one), Port A, Fresno, Lubbock, Monterey  (and all points in between), various foreign countries we have visited, Fran's, Chuy's, Tres Amigos, Central Market, Erwin Center.... oh, I think this list could be very long!  

People and critters: family, friends, people of Wal Mart, people of street corners, Leslie, Texas quarterbacks and wide receivers, Lady Longhorns, Bevo, birds, stray dogs and cats. This too, could go on a while.  

Events: OK, here I have a quandary. Do I limit myself to things that really happen or do I make stuff up? At this point every member of my family is saying to himself or herself "What! He makes stuff up all the time!"  I guess I have my answer.

And of course, I too have rules to blog by:

• Truth should never get in the way of a good blog.
• If it can't be funny, it should at least embarrass some family member.
• If I'm smart I will be careful about which family members I embarrass.

I'm sure there are others; I just can't think of any at the moment.

So that's the new bloggy plan. Let me know how you think it's working out. Better yet, what Places, People and Events can you contribute to the matrix? Send 'em in and I'll put them in the mix.

A long-standing tradition

The Retrospective

2008 

2009