ROY ROGERS + DALE EVANS = JEEP

This morning I am still down for the count, so I wonder maybe I'll watch a little television.  When we were kids and we stayed home sick, we had maybe five channels, eight tops, and we ended up inevitably watching soap operas, which is how so many of us got hooked on the damn things (not that it matters now because I think every one of them has been cancelled).  So, I figured: #1 - I have tons more channels than I ever did as a kid, #2 - I have On-Demand, and #3 - It's Saturday, so there has to be something on the tube.

Man oh man, was I ever WRONG.

Apparently, infomercials are on every station prior to 9:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, or so it seems.   I start flicking the channels.  I stop on an old Western.  Oh, look, it's Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, and they're on their horses chasing a wagon with some bad guys.  You know the wagons I mean; the kind from the old Wild West with the big wooden wheels.

I don't remember actually watching this show growing up.  I watched a little bit of Rawhide and Wagon Train and a lot of Bonanza and Lancer.  I watched quite a few Western movies, The Cowboys being my all-time favorite with Once Upon a Time in the West right behind, but all the others, too.  The Spaghetti Westerns, the Australian Quigley Down Under and the amazing horsemanship in The Man From Snowy River.

I'm figuring the setting for the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans series to be no later than the 1880's or so, since many of these Westerns feature the politically incorrect slaughter of Native Americans every chance they get.  Geronimo surrendered in 1886 and Wounded Knee happened in 1890.

I'm also figuring that the television show probably isn't any later than the 1890's since there are always train robberies and horse-ridden escapes from bank robberies.  The gunfight at the OK Corral took place in

1881, the same year Billy the Kid was shot.  The Dalton Gang was gunned down by townspeople in 1892.  But, the last stagecoach robbery in the US was reported in 1916, so maybe, just maybe, what I am about to tell you must be true.

Folks:  Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were following this errant wagon of degenerates with a small posse on horseback and ... and ... and ... (drum roll) ... two guys driving a Jeep.

A frigging Jeep.  I totally don't shit you at all.  A Jeep was screeching through the desert sand on television in the same show that Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were performing cow-poke jokes.  Honestly, the third wall completely obliterated.   The Jeep seemed like it was supposed to be there, but I missed the first half of the show and eventually turned away, so I missed the ending, as well..

No damn Saturday morning vigilante cowboy show is going to make me believe there were Jeeps tear-assing through the Old West.  Excuse the pictures.  I was still on sea legs this morning, and I had to rush and get my phone and snap these shots because I really could not believe me eyes.  Model T?  Maybe.  Jeep?  No way.  The first civilian Jeep models weren't sold until 1945, and there's no way Roy and Dale would be chasing criminals in wagons through the same town week after week in the 1940's.

No matter.  It was ruined for me.  It is ruined for me. Now I can share that sentiment with all of you.

CALLING OUT SICK

Okay, is it calling OUT sick, or is it calling IN sick?

Well, folks, it has finally happened.  I am too sick to complete a blog.  I have been fighting off illness for three days, and it finally felled me one hour before I was supposed to go out with friends.  I won't give you the gross details here today (maybe tomorrow), but suffice it to say that one of my small trash buckets is now remarkably well-rinsed.

Here's hoping there will be no more bucket patrol today.  In the meantime, I'm taking a sick day, kids.  Have fun without me!

THANKS

Thank you, folks, you're the best!

Recently I reached a milestone of 1,000 straight days of posting this blog.  (I'm beyond it now.)

Today I hit 62,000 blog views.  Sixty-two thousand!!!!!!

I am amazed that I've had this many hits for the number of posts that I have.  I know, I know; some of these are Google+ boo-boos, and people open the page and immediately say, "What the fuck is this????" and run away faster than Monty Python's rabbit.

But, still.  Sixty-damn-two-damn-thousand hits.  Who'da thunk it way back when. Tomorrow we resume our regularly scheduled written insults.

Thanks, folks.

BISTO AT THE DELI

(Coffee for Battlestar Gallactica)

Weren’t we just chatting yesterday about grammatical errors at stores? 

Sure we were.  Check out yesterday’s blog post, and you’ll see it.  In that post, I openly admit to defacing a deli case in a grocery store because someone had written in neon pen that the deli sold hot dog’s.  I don’t know what part of the hot dogs they were selling, so I scratched off the errant apostrophe.

Today I am at a different grocery store, standing at the deli counter, deciding what kind of turkey to buy.  I notice a sale on one particular variation of the store brand, and I have to look at the sign several times because I simply haven’t heard of this before.  I mean, there’s oven roasted turkey, honey cured turkey, turkey breast, turkey loaf, etc.

This, though, is BISTO TURKEY.

Bisto?  Bisto.  Hmmmmm, store brand Bisto Turkey.

I can tell that my head is tilted slightly to the left, and I can feel the semi-quizzical expression on my face.  Do I dare?  I mean, should I?  I honestly don’t know what Bisto Turkey is nor what it looks like nor from whence it came.  But, it’s my turn at the deli.  No one else is here, and I’ve grabbed my number – #1 – so I do not have time to debate my options. 

Bisto Turkey is on sale!

It’s not like anyone else is here to catch my blunder if I screw it up.  Is it BEE-sto?  BIH-sto?  Be-STOW?  Kind of like the time the woman at the deli asked for Paul-ish ham instead of Pole-ish ham. 

Sweat starts breaking out across my brow.  Okay, to be honest, I have just come from the track where I walked-jogged two miles, so I am still sweating profusely, anyway.

That’s when I notice it.  Yup.  Right there in the deli case is a hunk of this on-sale turkey, still in its wrapper, clearly marked:  “BISTRO TURKEY.”  Bistro.  Bistro!  That’s what I thought, but the sign … oh, the stupid sign …. The store-printed, manufactured, official sign clearly and without question says BISTO.

I pull out my cell phone to take a picture, but the deli clerk is standing right in front of me and the Bistro Turkey, so this whole idea seems awkward.  “If you don’t mind,” I say nonchalantly, or as nonchalantly as one can be when taking random pictures of deli meat in cases, “I don’t know what kind of ham my son wants me to get, so I’m going to show him this picture to prove there’s more than one kind of ham.”

Liar, liar, pants on fire!

I point my phone in the general direction of the ham, but I aim for the Bistro Turkey.  Yes, I am the pervert taking pictures of processed meat.  Sick, sick, sick person.  Sick, sick, sick grammar nerd.  However, I am a person obsessed.  This grossly grammatically negligent label is obviously something that was mass-produced.  Other stores must have also marked their Bistro Turkey as Bisto Turkey.  Everyone will be confused.  There will be rioting in the streets. 

In the end, I get my pound (“A little over okay?”) of Bistro turkey, and all is right with the known universe.  I don’t berate the deli clerk, I don’t send a manager to the case to review the correct spelling of the word bistro, and I don’t attempt to fix the sign of my own accord.  I’d say I’m over it, but, obviously, since I am posting my blog about it, I guess you can say I’m still somewhat obsessed about it all.

At least I’m consistent.

FEELING SASSY

“Hey, you’ve got a smart mouth!”

I know, I know.  Not like I haven’t been hearing that my whole life, and by “smart,” no one means “intelligent.”  I can’t help myself.  I have a naturally sassy wit and an exceptionally rapid-fire brain coupled with an extremely trigger-sensitive set of vocal chords (or fingers, if I’m in Cyberland).

Take today, for example.  A good and kind friend spends a large chunk of her day trying to determine if flyers about rescuing stray cats are real flyers or some kind of scam to get animals for bait or experiments or just for cruelty and sick fun.  Someone surreptitiously delivered said flyers around my friend’s urban neighborhood, and there is no information about this supposed rescue organization anywhere online or through any local shelters or animal hospitals or police stations. 

Very shady.

Later in the day (still today, for it cannot yet be tomorrow until I post this, then tomorrow will be today and today will be yesterday), this same friend helps to rescue a stray cat near her apartment.  She (my friend, not the cat) has connections with a real and honest organization, the Melrose Humane Society (which keeps autocorrecting to Human Society – go figure), so she summons the real rescuers to help.

Me?  I recommend she call the name on the creepy and suspect flyer, the seemingly fake organization I have hence named the Dorchester Soylent Green Kitty Factory.  Here’s a bit of our exchange (paraphrased for clarity, of course).

SHE:  Melrose Humane Society just picked the cat up.

ME:  I thought you'd sell it to that Dorchester Soylent Green Kitty Factory.

SHE:  BAD HELIAND!

ME:  Hey, you're the one who posted an ad for strays then gets one the same day. Don't be poking the bear.  Let me know if it's a legit rescue organization or if I have to stop eating the kitty animal crackers.

SHE:  You know you’re going to Hell.

ME:  Not until September when school starts again.

Another friend posts online about grammar awareness, targeting English teachers correcting syntactical errors in grocery stores.  Hahahahaha  …. Ummmm …. Guilty.  I somewhat proudly yet somewhat obsessively admit to being at the store deli and seeing a punctuation error on the display case.  The store is selling HOT DOG’S.  I stare at the words and stare and stare and finally lean forward and scrape away the unnecessary apostrophe with my index fingernail.  I mean, seriously.  What part of the damn HOT DOG are you selling, anyway?  And, if it’s still in its natural casing, does that mean I have to order it uncircumcised? 

Ew.  Just ew.

Finally, another friend (holy crap, I have three friends – it’s almost like I’m popular … almost … okay, not even remotely, but humor me) posts a picture of what looks like a gathering of alien pods.  Turns out to be bitter melon.  She very politely poses the following question in her post –

SHE:  My current culinary conundrum - bitter melon. Talk to me food people. What does it taste like - what do I do with it.

(Other people respond with helpful and thoughtful suggestions.)

ME:  You hold bitter melon up to the cucumbers and bitterly scream, "THIS ... THIS is your future, you old crone!"

ANOTHER PAL:  I thought if you remove the seeds it’s not as bitter.

ME:  That explains why post-menopausal women are so freaking happy.

This same friend posted an honestly curious picture about a Japanese restaurant that only serves stuffed animals.  The picture has a bunch of fluffy toys with plates full of pancakes in front of them.  Me?  I go right back to the old standard – a picture of a rabbit with pancakes on its head.  I don’t know why.  I mean, I know people are posting serious questions and serious topics, but my brain doesn’t work that way.  My brain misfires and goes off like a frigging July 4^th firecracker; BOOM!  Sparks and smoke and debris every damn place.  It’s like a giant clusterf*** inside my skull.

I cannot help myself.  I have a smart mouth sometimes – too often – and I get myself into trouble.  I have stopped counting how many times people tell me I’m a straight-shooter when I say these things out loud.  “We always know where we stand with you,” they say.  I don’t know what that means.  Why wouldn’t you want to know where you stand?  Would you rather be lost?  Is this just a semi-polite way of telling me I have verbal diarrhea? 

And how come I know how to spell diarrhea without needing Spellcheck?

I know, I know.  Go stand in the corner.  It’s okay.  I’ll munch on some soylent green kitty animal crackers and consider repenting.  Maybe it will help me be less bitter.

I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM ...

I have been on an ice cream kick lately.

Nothing too terrible.  I mean, I'm not sitting in front of the boob-tube with a giant spoon sticking out of a carton of mint chocolate chip or anything like that.  It's just that it's summer, and, well, it's ice cream season.

I start last week with my sister.  On the way home from a day out in the scorching sun and walking ourselves miles and miles and miles all over Concord and Sudbury, we decide to stop for frozen yogurt.  This is a wonderful idea except that one of the yogurt dispensers is busted.  This shouldn't be too big of a problem since they have about a dozen more flavors to choose from, and I am happy to see that the wedding cake flavor functions.  But, I am quite upset to see that brownie batter fro-yo isn't offered today, so I bemoan that sad fact out loud.

"Yeah," the kid working the counter responds, "that's the one that broke."

A few days later, my friend returns from her second cross-country trek of the summer.  She is craving a burger, so we go out to eat.  After this, even though I am stuffed, I am craving an ice cream.  We go to a local homemade ice cream stop near her house and decide that we must get something outside of our usual comfort zone, so no chocolate chip cookie dough and no native strawberry.  We both end up with a flavor called Death By Chocolate.  It is yummy, and, yes, we are still alive but barely after eating it.

Today my pal is craving ice cream.  I could go either way, but the more she mentions "soft serve" and "chocolate," the more I am dying for a soft-serve ice cream right here, right now.  After all, it's a hot day.  We deserve a treat.  The problem is the nearest Dairy Queen is right smack-dab in the middle of the town in which I teach, so this is a no-no.  Then I remember another soft-serve ice cream place with portions larger and better than DQ, a place called Dairy Maid.

Across town we go, weaving through the back roads and exploring parts of the nearby town.  We make no pacts about comfort zone or anything like that.  We both order kiddie-sized cups, which holds more than enough ice cream.  My pal orders chocolate soft serve, and I cannot decide so I order a twist soft serve ice cream, half vanilla and half chocolate.

We sit in the car, for it is too hot to be out in the direct sun, and we suck down the soft serve as if we haven't eaten ice cream in days.  Granted it has only been twenty-four hours, but, truly, the time does pass slowly.  Hopefully, this ice cream expedition (from frozen yogurt to hard ice cream to soft serve) will satisfy my ice cream cravings for a few weeks.

Oh, who am I kidding?  

GROWING SOMETHING OTHER THAN MOLD

I'm going to try to grow something other than mold.

I have managed to keep a houseplant (Pothos?) alive for well over a decade.  I finally repotted the poor thing into a better pot and gave it some fresh soil.  I also rooted a piece that was too long and added that to the container.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

During the horrid heat that we had recently, I damn-near killed the impatiens plant my son and daughter-in-law gave me.  I gave the wilted thing some plant food and lots of water and love, and it rebounded better than ever.  I felt (and still do feel) awful, like I neglected a member of my family.  I sat and talked to the plant for a while, apologizing for allowing it to get overly dehydrated in the summer sun.

I have a palm tree plant that I rescued from the clearance section of Wal-Mart last summer.  It was a sad little baby, much like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree.  I didn't have a decent pot for it, so I dragged out my deceased cat's old litter box.  I replanted it into this larger container, never expecting the little tree to survive the summer.  When it rallied, I brought it into my living room for the winter, a room that gets a decent amount of sunshine especially in the afternoon, again never expecting my little palm to make it to Spring alive.  I am pleased to report that the palm tree has sprung at least four new fronds this summer.  I am displeased to report that the plant is still in Dodger's old litter box.

A friend gave me some cuttings from her remarkable basil plant.  I tried rooting it in

water as per her instructions, and I even looked online so I knew to keep changing the water.  Just when I thought there was no hope, the dang cuttings started sprouting little roots.  Within two days of the first sparks of success, the basil had enough sprouts to put into soil.  I planted the cuttings today and moved them outside to get some fresh air and sunlight.

I'm hoping for something other than mold.  If it works, next summer I might even branch out to vegetables.  Who knows?  As long as I remember to water and weed, success may actually be in my future.