Good morning readers. I just wanted to let everyone know I’m within two weeks of celebrating my tenth year of blogging which I think requires me to do an honest review of myself. I have to admit it’s been a real learning experience but one I wouldn’t change for anything. I never decided to blog because I thought I had all the answers or that my philosophy of life was of any interest to anyone but me. I blog primarily to keep myself sane. Blogging is a good way for me to vent and lower my blood pressure all at the same time. I especially enjoy reading the feedback even if it’s discourteous, rude, or off-color. It’s called freedom of speech.
I initially blogged about personal stories of my life but found out very quickly that family and friends dislike notoriety. From that point on I made sure to never mention names or to post any family members photographs.
I then moved into politics and voiced my opinions rather loudly and pointedly. It helped me to quickly discover that most blog surfers are of the “sound bite” generations. My goal then became writing a variety of articles that would keep readers reading to the end. It involved a mix of politics, humor, sarcasm, trivia, and whatever else I could find. I’m interested in anyone who really wants to take the time to read every word, think about it for a while, and then comment with a yea or nay. I’m not looking for approval just honest and open discussions and opinions.
After my interest in political blogging waned I decided to return to writing about personal stories from my past. It seemed the best way to go if I wanted to increased traffic. It also seemed that I wasn’t the only person fed up with politics and politicians. I love embracing change and have done so many times over the years. An old quote I heard many years ago still holds true today: “the greatest opportunities are found on the edge of chaos”.
I have a rather loyal following of readers who’ve stayed with me through my cancer diagnosis, surgeries, and a year of little or no blog postings. I’d like to thank them all for their continuing interest and support. It made returning to this blog a much easier transition than I had ever hoped for. Thanks again.
As we’re all aware this last year-and-a-half with the pandemic has changed many things, some for the better and some for the worse. Since the onset of the pandemic I’ve noticed a disturbing trend with female drivers in the area and I’m assuming that it’s pretty much the same all across the country. I’ve mentioned in past posts that common courtesy is one of the victims of the pandemic and I need to take that one step further. It seems that many female drivers have taken to “flipping the bird” with a vengeance. I’ve seen teenage girls, old ladies, soccer moms, and just about everyone else getting with the program. Needless to say it sparked my curiosity which then required a little research into my archives about the practices of “throwing the finger” and here’s what I found.
SOME HISTORY OF THE BIRD
Tossing the bird has been a tradition with us men that has been passed down through the ages from grandfathers to fathers and then to their sons. Guys have been throwing the finger for a variety of reasons for as long as I can remember. We owned this gesture until the feminists arrived. Now the ladies have every right to be as obnoxious as we’ve been and believe me their certainly doing it with panache and gusto.
Thrusting up a middle finger or “flipping the bird” is one of the more familiar hand gestures across this country. Its popularity is also worldwide and has been around for a very long time in a number of European countries. No one is sure how it originated but we all know that the Romans used it at the time of Christ.
Just as there are many gestures in the world to convey one’s negative feelings about another, there are also regional differences to show approval. Men around the world have several gestures to imply that a woman is pretty. In the United States, men lift their eyebrows, in the Arab world a man grabs his beard, while in Greece he would stroke his cheek. In Italy, a man sticks his finger into his cheek and rotates it, Frenchmen kiss their fingertips, and Brazilians will pretend to hold up a telescope to their eye.
Obviously, almost any gesture can have meaning, either positive or negative, somewhere in the world. So the next time you travel abroad, be careful how you gesture with your hands. You might unwittingly attract unwanted attention from the natives, especially in the Middle East. They seem to look for any spoken word or gesture by a non-Arab as a reason to throw you into prison for a chat or to just execute you.
In my attempt to be fair I’ve also seen a few men with some unfortunate habits. While I myself would never today do something so crude. In my youth I may have lost control a few thousand times. I deeply regret those times when I “birded” nice old ladies or a few hundred clergymen. It really is nice to see that the female of the species now has the capability and the mindset to throw the bird to damn near anybody for damn near any reason. “I Am Woman” hear me roar.
And thanks to whoever placed that Ryan Gosling GIF on the net. It made my day.
Needless to say we here in New England love the Fall. It’s harvest time for most crops but especially cucumbers which we wait for all year. This is pickle season for those of us who love hot pickles. I don’t mean just spicy hot, I mean hot enough to make your head sweat. My better half and I make pickles every year at this time because the demand for them is high with friends and family. Our time yesterday was spent making 15 pints of hot Bread & Butter pickles and 9 additional pints of smoking hot dill pickles. These pickles are made with our family recipes but we add the additional heat. We add a mixture of sliced jalapenos, serranoes, and my all time favorite, habaneros. Here’s how we get started.
Our preparation actually starts the night before with the slicing of many cucumbers. My better half usually handles that chore because she cuts a much more uniform slice than I do. She also handles slicing the hot peppers because in past years I’ve almost blinded myself by putting my bare hands near my eyes after forgetting to wear gloves.
First we get our lids, rims, and jars sterilized in boiling water. Then we mix a concoction of herbs and spices to make what we call the syrup that will do the actual pickling. We also add three large bottles of jalapeno vinegar which I made earlier this Spring. Just a friendly tip if you’re going to make hot pickles . . . wear thick rubber gloves. Not those flimsy latex gloves because the oils from the hot peppers migrate right through the latex. Once it gets on your bare hands you’re in trouble.
It’s really not a difficult process once you’ve done it a few times. We completed this entire job in 2 hours minus the preparation done the previous day. When you have a good product people want it which is why we have a long list of folks waiting for these pickles. In a normal year we’ll process 35 to 40 pints of a variety of pickles. Then we can get started with our hot pasta sauces, BBQ sauce, salsa, chili, and wing sauces.
It really is a lot of fun and will keep our family and friends well supplied until Spring. You should give it a try.
Being the cynical bastard that I am and having less love for our human race than most, makes this topic concern even me. Most of my life and career has been involved with close personal communications (interviews and interrogations) with hosts of diverse individuals. I’ve been able thanks to years of training and experience to read them exceeding well, hence my overall dislike of so many. Granted a majority of people come across in a good way but once pressures and stresses are introduced to the mix, all of the negative reactions become easily recognizable. My educated guess is that the best people are those with a much stronger control of their basic instincts. I can’t blame the negatives on emotion alone because we all deal with them equally.
The Pandemic has brought us all to the emotional edge in a number of ways through intense worry and fear. It’s interesting in the extreme to recognize both the good and the bad effects and who handles them the best. I won’t even try to explain the negative behaviors of people whose lives are completely consumed by politics and the media. They come to this discussion already biased and flawed. Then we have the medical professionals and first responders who as they always do show us the way things should be done. Compassion, caring, and fearlessness are their norm. A few bad apples have been observed through this horrible period but overall we as a people owe them praise and thanks. Fortunately the negative and selfish people with concerns only for their personal agendas are easily and quickly identified. I’m not here to name names but you already know who they are if your paying the least bit of attention.
I fear that the pressure of death, serious financial ruin, job loss, and long periods of isolation have begun to take their toll on all of us. I’ve noticed in recent weeks the edginess of ordinary citizens doing ordinary things and showing a total loss of patience for each other in a mean and nasty way. All that tells me is that the Pandemic is having a much deeper and long-term harmful effect than I first thought. Returning to the new normal still requires a huge change for all of us from the old normal. We humans are not big fans of change, large or small. This intolerance for each other will hopefully wan as time goes on but who knows for sure. We’ve been told for more than a year now to stay the hell away from each other or else. Some of the incidents I’ve observed lately fill me with doubt that there is a short term solution. We must all wait and see and then do what we can to help remedy this confusing situation.
As always I will remain the pragmatic cynic.
That being said its now time for a little humor. Anyone who follows this blog knows of my deep appreciation for really erotic limericks. I’ve delved into my archives and found this little ditty. Enjoy!
There’s a feckless young fellow named Goody
Who insists that he wouldn’t, but would he?
If he finds himself nude,
With girls in the right mood,
The question is not would he, but could he?
Surprise…it wasn’t quite as erotic or lewd as you were expecting. Next time it’ll be a doozy.
After the last eighteen months of my illness there are many things that I’ve really missed. The Pandemic being the least of them. With all of the various surgeries, cancer, and chemotherapy dominating my every thought I’ve come to appreciate a long list of many little things that I took for granted for most of my life. The adage “Stop and Smell the Roses” suddenly means something. I’m glad I still have time left to really appreciate each and every one of them.
Spending an hour or two totally lost in a painting.
Spending time over the last few years watching two grandsons becoming thinking and intelligent little men.
Realizing after all these years just how precious these days have come to mean to me while sitting on the deck with my better-half enjoying the first sunshine of Spring.
Relaxing and sipping a Jack and Coke that I’m finally able to have now that my newly rebuilt liver permits it.
Being able to bitch and complain about anything that irks me and not giving a good damn about what people think.
Enjoying all of the freedoms that come with old age that you can’t really appreciate until you get here.
You can thank my better-half and three glasses of Jack and Coke for this posting. Maybe it will give those of you approaching the AARP age of fifty that it’s not quite as bad as you might think. When you’re given lemons make lemonade but make sure you have some Jack Daniels in it.
If your reading this then my sneaky use of buzz words in the title worked perfectly and welcome to my blog.
As I’ve stated so many time before I love people-watching. In these day of the pandemic people-watching has taken a weird turn. Let me explain a bit.
Back in the day when crowds of people were everywhere people-watching was easy. Go to a Mall, a retail store, or anywhere alcoholic beverages were served, sit down and watch. These days it’s a real chore to people-watch unless your really committed like me. After months of watching thousands of masked people going about their lives I discovered a number of things.
While I was in the hospital and doctors offices everyone was masked as you would expect. I had tests, scans, and hours of conversations with women whose faces I couldn’t see. One in particular was especially eye- catching due to her lovely figure, beautiful hair, and killer eyes. I see now why most Muslim men prefer their women wearing head coverings. So after weeks of becoming friends with her I couldn’t take it any longer and finally asked her to pull down the mask so I could see her face. I now understand what that old saying about “being careful what you ask for” really means. To me she was beautiful because of her wonderful personality not her looks.
Mean or Nice?
During that same time period I made that same request to another young lady who I didn’t consider all that striking but who was such a nice person I really just wanted to be able to recognize her in the future if I saw her again. She dropped her mask and my jaw dropped as well. She was absolutely beautiful. I was speechless and felt a little guilty about making unjustified judgements about her.
Masks make it possible for everyone to hide. Not only can’t our faces be seen neither can most of our facial expressions. I find myself making funny faces, sticking out my tongue, and muttering curse words muffled by my mask. If I’m doing it I’ll just know everyone else is doing it as well.
Here are my conclusions:
Beautiful Women and Handsome Men can’t be recognized just for their good looks anymore and are now forced to rely on their personalities to impress people they’re dealing with.
Everyone else can now show you how beautiful they really are without worrying about their looks and using their personalities as they always have.
We should make wearing masks mandatory for everyone. Imagine political debates with all of the candidates being masked and forced to rely on facts instead of bad puns and fake smiles. A masked JFK might never have been elected if all of the women in the country weren’t going GA-GA over his looks. Who knows?
Here’s my Public Service Announcement . Just so you know I’m not wearing my mask right now so please sanitize your hands and wipe down your computer. You can’t be too careful. The media might announce tomorrow that the virus can be spread through computer use.
In the past I’ve created lists of things I love and things I hate. After roaming around for the last few months and people watching it occurred to me that another category needed to be documented. Here is my list of things that have morphed from ‘Things That Annoy Me’ to ‘Things That Bore Me’.
* * *
Drug companies and their endless advertisements to cure damn near everything. In most cases you’d need a small mortgage to pay for them but at least the side effects are free.
Organic labeling normally just pisses me off but I’ve come to realize if people are stupid enough to buy the “organic” song and dance then there’s nothing I can do. To quote one of my favorite comics, Ron White . . . You can’t fix stupid!
Anyone named Obama or Bush. No further explanation is needed or wanted.
AARP Mailings. I refuse to belong to any organization of liberal leaning seniors that enjoys sucking up to the Dems for more government handouts. You’d think that their current government subsidies would be enough.
Any bumper sticker that insists on telling me things I could care less about. I don’t really care what your children are doing or where they’re doing it. It’s just more eye litter.
SPAM in all it’s forms.
Verizon Wireless and their need to call me ten times a week because I’m now eligible for an upgrade on my cell phone. I’ve already blocked 26 of their numbers but they continue to annoy me from every state in the country.
Hilary Clinton and her endless health problems, her endless mental problems, and of course her endless marital problem, WILD BILL.
Maxine Waters. It’s time for a rubber room and a straight jacket for this wingnut.
The Maine Stream Media in all of it’s manifestations.
George “I Want to be King of the World.” Soros.
Trump Bashing.
Trump Bashers.
Hollywood idiots voicing their opinions about what they think on every topic except their acting, singing, or dancing.
Tipping waiters and waitresses when I’m now doing most of their work. Table computers are fine if I can cut my normal tip in half. All the waitresses do these days is deliver the meal and smile pretty. I think that’s worth no more than a 3 percent tip.
Facebook and Twitter. They should really be on the list of things that annoy me but they bore me as well.
The egocentric morons who frequent most retail stores and are always in line at the register directly in front of me. Where’s my stun gun when I need it.
Bait and Switch is one of the oldest and most misleading types of advertisement. It seems to have become much more commonplace that ever before.
Men talking to me while we’re standing at a urinal. I guess they don’t fully understand how focused I need to be while peeing. Talking is OK I guess but no peeking please.
Cell phone ringtones. Enough already . . . I don’t give a shit that you got email. Put it on vibrate moron.
Facial tattoos. It’s an instant judgement call when I see a person with them. Idiot, dumb ass, or moron, take your pick.
The new and improved Leggings fad. I admit that in many cases they just make my day but whatever you do don’t go into Walmart. You could be struck blind if you’re lucky.
Baseball caps worn backward. Any idiot that still thinks this is cool should get a free facial tattoo.
Homeless beggars. I hesitate giving money or cans to someone who is supposedly poor and unemployed while he’s wearing a better pair of Nike shoes than I have.
President Trumps continual tweeting. Just ridiculous.
Katy Perry. Sing a song, leave the stage, marry an asshole, cut off your hair, and then tell me what a political moron I must be for not supporting Hilary. God women . . . Get a frigging life.
Sex with lifelike robots. Only two terms comes to mind immediately, “Organ Grinder” and “Ex Wife”. Way too scary for me. Thanks but no thanks. Yikes!!!
Being a lifelong animal lover has it’s ups and downs and living here in Maine makes things even more interesting. With the harsh winters and constant snow cover the wildlife here has become quite deligent in their hunt for food. I’ve been a loyal bird feeder for most of my life because I really enjoy having the birds around. My better-half is also a bird lover and we currently have six feeders we keep filled. I estimate the birds are eating close to 125 lbs. of feed a year not counting the many packages of suet we purchase to keep the woodpeckers healthy and happy. Add to that two or three quarts of sugar syrup for the hummingbirds and you begin to truly understand.
It became apparent some months ago that the birds living in this area have a rather accomplished communication system to spread the news concerning food sources and the location of predators. This came to my attention when a herd of wild turkeys showed up out of nowhere and began feeding from the food accidently dropped from our hanging feeders. Needless to say my better-half was quick to buy more corn and began strewing it everywhere. That’s all they needed to make our home the number one spot on their regular feeding rotation. With the heavy snow cover this winter they needed to do something inventive to help them survive the winter. Thus began the feeding of a another new group of dependents that I couldn’t claim on my taxes. As always I just went along thinking that would be the last of the additions to our extended family of two hundred or so really hungry birds. I was sadly mistaken once again.
Last year I erected a squirrel feeder on a nearby tree hoping it might convince the little buggers to stay away from the bird feeders. Once again, no good deed goes unpunished. We found out very quickly that turkeys and the occasional deer are also fond of corn. So began the battle for the corn that lasted most of the summer and into the winter. My better-half still insists on bringing home an endless supply of corn to keep the battle going. I left one of the bags sitting in the basement and hoped she would forget about it. She forgot for a time but the field mice did not. They like corn too and we soon found ourselves overrun with mice. Since the untimely demise of my lifelong best friend, my cat Stormy it’s been difficult to keep them under control. He died a year ago and the mice discovered his absence rather quickly. A new war was a brew’n.
A quick visit to Lowes supplied me with an armload of mouse traps and a determination to keep the mice out of our home. I did discover that putting cheese in a mousetrap is a waste of time. At first the mice were able to pull the cheese from the trap without harming themselves. After some research I discovered that JIFF creamy peanut butter really gets the job done. I’ve peeled 13 little corpses off those traps so far and I hope there will be many more to come. I toss their little corpses out onto the snow bank in the backyard where the crows and coyotes fight over the free meal. At least with the mice I only have to feed them once.
I wish that was the end of this sad story but no such luck. Next on my list is a large group of industrious little chipmunks who have quite a nice residence under our home. My father always told me if you see one chipmunk you probable have at least ten. If that’s true then we may have upwards of a hundred roaming around. Oh yeah, they also love corn and bird seed just like damn near everyone else. It’s a little more difficult for them because they’re so small and the birds are constantly chasing them away.
I’ll begin working in our garden within the next few weeks and “Job 1” is to be certain that the fences are intact. All these little varmints, birds, deer, and skunks are just waiting for me to make a mistake and then my garden will be trashed. Don’t even get me started about that big fat skunk that patrols our property looking for trouble. If he was any bigger I could just ride him around like a horse.
So begins another summer here in Maine. It should be interesting.
It’s been a number of months since I last visited my blog and I’m not entirely sure why. I suppose it’a mixture of laziness, apathy, and the holiday season that’s approaching. I’ve been wanting to write but I don’t want it to be more of the same crap you’re hearing and seeing in other media. The “Trump is the devil.” nonsense is wearing really thin except for a few braindead liberals and diehard Democrats.
There’s a time and place for everything but the last thing we need is the steady media drumbeat of negativety during the holidays. I’d much rather enjoy the season with my family than listening to an incredibly biased media laying hours and hours of propaganda and fake news on me. Life is just too goddamn short.
We’ve had out first two snow falls for 2017 and the snowblower came through as expected. I’m going to try very hard not to do the normal fall-on-my-ass routine that seems to occur every year. I’ll be staying in the house as much as possible, I’ll keep nice and warm, and have a drink or two to calm my nerves. Before I know it Spring will be here once again.
So Merry Christmas to family and friends and anyone bored enough to read this blog.
I’ve also been giving some serious thought to my New Year’s resolutions for 2018. I’ll do a quick review of 2017 just after Christmas and then post 2018’s early in January.
Stay healthy . . . Stay warm . . . Kiss the kids and grandkids . . . Hug your pets.
I’ve been contemplating something for the last few months and I’ve finally decided to end my blogging career here on WordPress. I’ve been blogging on a regular basis for almost seven years on two different blogs and I’ve had a lot to say. I’ve voiced my somewhat irreverent opinions on everything from politics to religion. It’s been a lot of fun and I’ve made some good friends over the years as well as a few liberal enemies.
I also have a number of other interests that have slowly but steadily taken over my daily activities and turned blogging into a secondary concern. I’ll be shutting down this blog the week prior to Halloween and it should remain available for a time until my domain renewal next year. After that who knows . . . .
I’d like to thank all of my followers and other regular readers for stopping by as often as they have and I’ll certainly miss their intellectual and opinionated emails. The email, everyuselessthing@yahoo.com, will remain active indefinitely.
everyuselessthing.com 