I don't usually get too involved in politics, at least not directly. Yeah, I'm opinionated as hell and I'll run my mouth like any other fool. I'll vote in almost every election but a yard sign is about as close as I get to violent revolution. Especially if whatever campaign the yard sign is hyping expects a cash contribution from me for naming rights to my front yard. Isn't it supposed to work the other way around? If it did, maybe I'd get more involved.
But we bucked the normal state of the body politic at home and Miz Susan and I took it to the streets last night. We made the slog north on Snelling Avenue to Rosedale and specifically the JC Penney store. Miz Susan had been intrigued by the new-look Sunday ad supplement last week and then this firestorm(?) of controversy boiled over after some lunatic fringe internet presence calling itself OneMillionMoms advocated a boycott against the retail giant. All because Penney's has hired Ellen DeGeneres as one of its advertising mouthpieces.
I've always loved what little I've seen of Ellen DeGeneres. She's smart and funny and self-effacing and she's got those amazing blue eyes. I have no idea how putting her on the JCP payroll is going to boost the Worthington and Stafford and Arizona Jeans brands but she's a heck of a lot more palatable than Martha Stewart. Good gracious, what were those K-Mart advertising geniuses thinking?
I'm sure that there are a bunch of people out there for whom the OneMillionMom crap resonates. But I'd guess that very few of them are card-carrying, dues-paying OMMers. And if even Bill O'Reilly is calling the Moms latter-day McCarthy-era witch hunters, these creeps are probably already slithering back to the shady areas under the rocks where they came from.
There didn't seem to be much sign of a boycott at Penney's last night unless that little miniature choo-choo train that chugged past the mall entrance to the store every once in awhile had a political significance I didn't catch. I ended up dropping 104 bucks in the men's department while Susan was running around the rest of the mall doing God alone knows what. I could have gotten along without almost any of the things I bought but I'll wear 'em and probably ask myself each time I do, "Is this is a great country or what?"
I'd thought that maybe I'd step it up a notch beyond letting my money talk. That I'd tell the clerk that I was there specifically to support Ellen's employment and to ask that he or she pass the word up the chain of command. Here was one consumer who wasn't going to be intimidated by a lame-ass call for a boycott from some shadowy group of haters. But I kept my mouth shut since the kid who waited on me had an annoying goatee and was wearing an orange bow tie which clashed terribly, even to my usually insensitive eye, with his reddish plaid shirt. Maybe there was a political significance to the outfit which I'm just not hip enough to pick up on. The mere fact that i was at JC Penney on a Saturday night in February is probably a sign that I'm not hip enough to pick up on anything at all.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Sunday, January 1, 2012
new year's resolve
Miz Susan and I had, even by our pathetically low standards, a remarkably low intensity New Year's Eve celebration last night. Despite 2-hour naps for both of us earlier in the day, we were both sound asleep by 10:30. It's not the first new year we haven't been awake to welcome and I'm pretty sure that it won't be the last. I'm telling you, we were exhausted by the day's activities.
Susan had walked all the way to Coastal Seafood (and back) for fish for the fish tacos we'd talked about for last night. And I was totally done in by my second workout at the 4-lane lap pool at LA Fitness in the Midway. And, even more draining, the media section at Target looking for movies to follow the fish tacos. She had given me a list of acceptable choices most of which, it turns out, are probably still exclusively in the theaters. So I picked up the one I could find that she'd OK'd but which I'm sure will be too bleak for her and some Meryl-Streep-as-one-of-five-sisters thing. I figured the five sisters theme would at least resonate.
The one movie that I'd thought about before I got to Target was Invictus and, by God, there it was: a spot on the shelf with a sale-price sticker at $3.98. Score!! But it was, of course, out of stock and, though I was given a rain check for the sale price good through February 15th, it's up to me to check back for it. The 15-year old red-shirt "helping" me scornfully told me so. Target Corp. apparently can't be bothered to robo-call or e-mail me when the damn thing comes back into the store. I'm almost certain that there's technology available to do that but they probably don't really want me back for the mere $3.98 sale which they know is about all they'd get out of me. Oh well, I brought the two home and we'll watch those; I'm going to try to slip in The Namesake and The Visitor, both having come highly recommended as uplifting. Lord knows we can stand some uplifting.
With all of this in mind and the TV newscasts reminding me of more important, if not especially uplifting, current events, I'm going to reveal some of my New Year's resolutions. I've never been much for New Year's resolutions given what I know about my basically weak and hungry-for- instant-gratification nature. I'd only've been setting myself up for even more failure and who need's that? But the resolutions I've come up with seem to be ones that even I can stick to.
First of all, I've resolved to withdraw my support for Michele Bachmann's campaign for the GOP nomination for president. And I haven't accepted any juicy payments from the competition to jump ship. It's not that I don't still think she's a great American and the one truest conservative in the race. But everyone else seems to be deserting her and I don't want to miss out on what might be a good idea; there have been so many good ideas that I've missed out on due to pure sloth. I've thought long and hard about all of the other GOP hopefuls and, despite Rick Santorum rocking a sweater vest like nobody else since my 11th grade analytic geometry and trig teacher, I've decided that I'm going to throw my support to Barack Obama. Even if he's never taken me up on my invite to stop by the house (if both he and the White Sox are in town at the same time) to watch the game and drink a couple of Old Styles and maybe sneak a quick smoke out on the back deck with those of our residents also having a tough time kicking the habit.
He is a Republican, right? I assume that he's the front-runner for the GOP nod based on how everybody else has been talking smack about him at the debates. Which he's been skipping to avoid making himself look as stupid as the rest of them have. He seems like the best hope of the party to wrest the White House out of the grips of the evil Dems. I hope that you'll join me in my support of Barack in the coming Iowa caucuses even though I've told Susan that there's no way we're driving down across the state line to caucus for him. After all, it is a school night.
I have also resolved to stop cyber-stalking Justin Bieber and Jessica Alba. It's not that their people have contacted me yet and told me to knock it off but I don't want it to go that far. I'm not sure what my replacement obsessions are going to be but I'm sure that they'll be a little more worthy of me. I could fall back on my old practice of sending off e-mails to record labels begging them to reissue favorite but long unavailable CD's (likely long unavailable because they're no one else's favorites). That's never really borne fruit in the past but it seems like a much healthier pastime. Let me know if you've got any other crusades you'd like me to join. Just so long as they're not the Michele Bachmann campaign.
I'm also going to stop saying petty and snotty things in public forums about Tony Sutton and Amy Koch. I'm just going to let those two fade quietly into the sunset of yesterday's political landscape to enjoy some quality time with their families. Who will be, I'm sure, happy to have them home a little more often. This will leave me only Curt Zellers to badmouth but his new haircuts have been a huge improvement over the former coiffure which I made light of. I may have to hope that he and his fellow (and sister) Repubs actually make big-ass fools of themselves over substantive, public affairs issues to find fodder for mockery. And what are the chances of that? What with the proposed sanctity of marriage amendment vote overshadowing all other pressing matters, there's little hope that the GOPers are going to take any wrong steps. Who says that government needs to step back and just leave us alone to live our lives and pursue our dreams? What a load of hogwash that is.
This is a tough one but I've resolved to stop drinking that $125 a bottle single-malt Scotch whiskey which I've grown fond of. What the hell's wrong wrong with Hudson's Bay Scotch? That's a time-honored name in the distillery business and so what if Hudson's Bay is a wee bit more than a hop, skip and a jump from the heather covered moors and highlands of my forebears? Let's keep it local.
I'm also giving up cigarettes, marijuana, smack, speed, meth, crack cocaine and chewing tobacco. I swear that I'm not going to indulge in these products and I further swear that I'm not going to traffic in them, either. At least not for my own gratification nor financial gain. I'm going to leave those markets to the professionals who are probably far better at what they do than I could ever hope to be. Notice that I said nothing about cigars.
And finally, I'm going to stop saving up my money, a quarter or two at a time, for that Formula 1 race car I've been eying. The thought behind that was that it could help speed me to and from work up and down I-94's W and E not to mention East River Road. Yeah, there are lots of plainly posted speed limits all along those stretches but nobody else seems to pay much attention to them. So, why should I? The cops don't seem to be out all that often either. But if the only thing that the new car can now speed me to at the end of the day is another workout in the 4-lane lap pool at LA in the Midway, then who needs it? If I'm going to pay real money in the way of membership fees to feel as crummy as I do after my not so brisk workouts then why would I really want to be in a hurry to get to them? Now, if it was to come home to running my street drug empire, there might be some compelling reasons to move things along. But, as I wrote above, I've given that stuff up for the New Year.
It seems like even when I keep my New Year's resolutions, I might not be all that much better off than I was before. What the hell!? Happy New Year everyone. Even Michele Bachmann.
Susan had walked all the way to Coastal Seafood (and back) for fish for the fish tacos we'd talked about for last night. And I was totally done in by my second workout at the 4-lane lap pool at LA Fitness in the Midway. And, even more draining, the media section at Target looking for movies to follow the fish tacos. She had given me a list of acceptable choices most of which, it turns out, are probably still exclusively in the theaters. So I picked up the one I could find that she'd OK'd but which I'm sure will be too bleak for her and some Meryl-Streep-as-one-of-five-sisters thing. I figured the five sisters theme would at least resonate.
The one movie that I'd thought about before I got to Target was Invictus and, by God, there it was: a spot on the shelf with a sale-price sticker at $3.98. Score!! But it was, of course, out of stock and, though I was given a rain check for the sale price good through February 15th, it's up to me to check back for it. The 15-year old red-shirt "helping" me scornfully told me so. Target Corp. apparently can't be bothered to robo-call or e-mail me when the damn thing comes back into the store. I'm almost certain that there's technology available to do that but they probably don't really want me back for the mere $3.98 sale which they know is about all they'd get out of me. Oh well, I brought the two home and we'll watch those; I'm going to try to slip in The Namesake and The Visitor, both having come highly recommended as uplifting. Lord knows we can stand some uplifting.
With all of this in mind and the TV newscasts reminding me of more important, if not especially uplifting, current events, I'm going to reveal some of my New Year's resolutions. I've never been much for New Year's resolutions given what I know about my basically weak and hungry-for- instant-gratification nature. I'd only've been setting myself up for even more failure and who need's that? But the resolutions I've come up with seem to be ones that even I can stick to.
First of all, I've resolved to withdraw my support for Michele Bachmann's campaign for the GOP nomination for president. And I haven't accepted any juicy payments from the competition to jump ship. It's not that I don't still think she's a great American and the one truest conservative in the race. But everyone else seems to be deserting her and I don't want to miss out on what might be a good idea; there have been so many good ideas that I've missed out on due to pure sloth. I've thought long and hard about all of the other GOP hopefuls and, despite Rick Santorum rocking a sweater vest like nobody else since my 11th grade analytic geometry and trig teacher, I've decided that I'm going to throw my support to Barack Obama. Even if he's never taken me up on my invite to stop by the house (if both he and the White Sox are in town at the same time) to watch the game and drink a couple of Old Styles and maybe sneak a quick smoke out on the back deck with those of our residents also having a tough time kicking the habit.
He is a Republican, right? I assume that he's the front-runner for the GOP nod based on how everybody else has been talking smack about him at the debates. Which he's been skipping to avoid making himself look as stupid as the rest of them have. He seems like the best hope of the party to wrest the White House out of the grips of the evil Dems. I hope that you'll join me in my support of Barack in the coming Iowa caucuses even though I've told Susan that there's no way we're driving down across the state line to caucus for him. After all, it is a school night.
I have also resolved to stop cyber-stalking Justin Bieber and Jessica Alba. It's not that their people have contacted me yet and told me to knock it off but I don't want it to go that far. I'm not sure what my replacement obsessions are going to be but I'm sure that they'll be a little more worthy of me. I could fall back on my old practice of sending off e-mails to record labels begging them to reissue favorite but long unavailable CD's (likely long unavailable because they're no one else's favorites). That's never really borne fruit in the past but it seems like a much healthier pastime. Let me know if you've got any other crusades you'd like me to join. Just so long as they're not the Michele Bachmann campaign.
I'm also going to stop saying petty and snotty things in public forums about Tony Sutton and Amy Koch. I'm just going to let those two fade quietly into the sunset of yesterday's political landscape to enjoy some quality time with their families. Who will be, I'm sure, happy to have them home a little more often. This will leave me only Curt Zellers to badmouth but his new haircuts have been a huge improvement over the former coiffure which I made light of. I may have to hope that he and his fellow (and sister) Repubs actually make big-ass fools of themselves over substantive, public affairs issues to find fodder for mockery. And what are the chances of that? What with the proposed sanctity of marriage amendment vote overshadowing all other pressing matters, there's little hope that the GOPers are going to take any wrong steps. Who says that government needs to step back and just leave us alone to live our lives and pursue our dreams? What a load of hogwash that is.
This is a tough one but I've resolved to stop drinking that $125 a bottle single-malt Scotch whiskey which I've grown fond of. What the hell's wrong wrong with Hudson's Bay Scotch? That's a time-honored name in the distillery business and so what if Hudson's Bay is a wee bit more than a hop, skip and a jump from the heather covered moors and highlands of my forebears? Let's keep it local.
I'm also giving up cigarettes, marijuana, smack, speed, meth, crack cocaine and chewing tobacco. I swear that I'm not going to indulge in these products and I further swear that I'm not going to traffic in them, either. At least not for my own gratification nor financial gain. I'm going to leave those markets to the professionals who are probably far better at what they do than I could ever hope to be. Notice that I said nothing about cigars.
And finally, I'm going to stop saving up my money, a quarter or two at a time, for that Formula 1 race car I've been eying. The thought behind that was that it could help speed me to and from work up and down I-94's W and E not to mention East River Road. Yeah, there are lots of plainly posted speed limits all along those stretches but nobody else seems to pay much attention to them. So, why should I? The cops don't seem to be out all that often either. But if the only thing that the new car can now speed me to at the end of the day is another workout in the 4-lane lap pool at LA in the Midway, then who needs it? If I'm going to pay real money in the way of membership fees to feel as crummy as I do after my not so brisk workouts then why would I really want to be in a hurry to get to them? Now, if it was to come home to running my street drug empire, there might be some compelling reasons to move things along. But, as I wrote above, I've given that stuff up for the New Year.
It seems like even when I keep my New Year's resolutions, I might not be all that much better off than I was before. What the hell!? Happy New Year everyone. Even Michele Bachmann.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
'tis what kind of a season?
I'm almost looking forward to the political campaigns swinging into high gear. It's the prospect of the onslaught of abrasive nonstop TV ads which brainless glued-to-the-tube morons like me have inflicted on us. It's hard to imagine that I can actually be looking forward to Michele Bachmann spots. You know; the ones in which she contemptuously spits out the mantra of the evils of Obama-care in her very best Minnesota church-basement, nasal whine. I probably should have my head examined.
But I swear that the onslaught of abrasive nonstop Christmas season TV ads from the auto industry has got me on the verge of dreaming of more face time with the likes of the Congresswoman. When you think about it though, the car ads and the Bachmann ads are really cut from just about the same cloth. I doubt that anyone who's bothering to read this needs any additional convincing that she's a truly heinous political boor. Stupid, smug, smarmy, sacrosanct, small-minded, self-important...I could go on. And that's just a few adjectives out of the S section of the dictionary. She is truly the ugly American in ways that Marlon Brando couldn't have come close to bringing to the big screen back in the day.
But the car ads that are making my stomach lurch every morning and have me knocking shit off the kitchen counters in my haste to grab the remote are every bit as ugly and embarrassingly American. Who on God's green earth would seriously be moved to go out and drop something in excess of a middle class annual income on a new holiday Lexus or BMW? Jeez, ya got me. Oh, wait...I know! It's the same heinous boors who are funding Michele Bachmann's run up the flagpole and the same boors who are doing their damnedest to keep anyone with a middle class annual income a permanent part of the lower middle class.
The ideal that these ads paint of a warped, demented, Mercedes-driven American elite is pure fuel for the Occupy crowd. And enough to gag most anyone even a tiny smidge to the left of the GOP boors, louts and oafs who strut their stuff on Capitol Hill these days. Like I said, it's enough to make me wish for grating attack ads from the campaign trail. In those media-bites, you can at least see the actual faces of the ugly Americans instead of the repulsively sanitized models we see in the holiday ads. And this is all the more bitter as the last of the St. Paul Ford Plant workers ponder their futures from the barstools at Tiffany's.
Maybe I'm just feeling a little jaded from too many hours of chasing down used textbooks and checking on an unending supply of just-invented ISBN's attached to textbooks which I will never in a million years chase down as used copies. Maybe I'm jealous that the velvet-collared overcoat crowd can afford new Infinitis (or so we're led to believe) while I can't even afford the cover charge to get onto a dealer's showroom floor to smudge the wax job on one of those damned things.
It must be a seasonal affective thing. I'm even getting tired of hearing Burl Ives's take on Holly Jolly Christmas and Bruce Springsteen's on Santa Claus is Comin'. How un-American is that?
Happy Holidays to all. Count your blessings.
But I swear that the onslaught of abrasive nonstop Christmas season TV ads from the auto industry has got me on the verge of dreaming of more face time with the likes of the Congresswoman. When you think about it though, the car ads and the Bachmann ads are really cut from just about the same cloth. I doubt that anyone who's bothering to read this needs any additional convincing that she's a truly heinous political boor. Stupid, smug, smarmy, sacrosanct, small-minded, self-important...I could go on. And that's just a few adjectives out of the S section of the dictionary. She is truly the ugly American in ways that Marlon Brando couldn't have come close to bringing to the big screen back in the day.
But the car ads that are making my stomach lurch every morning and have me knocking shit off the kitchen counters in my haste to grab the remote are every bit as ugly and embarrassingly American. Who on God's green earth would seriously be moved to go out and drop something in excess of a middle class annual income on a new holiday Lexus or BMW? Jeez, ya got me. Oh, wait...I know! It's the same heinous boors who are funding Michele Bachmann's run up the flagpole and the same boors who are doing their damnedest to keep anyone with a middle class annual income a permanent part of the lower middle class.
The ideal that these ads paint of a warped, demented, Mercedes-driven American elite is pure fuel for the Occupy crowd. And enough to gag most anyone even a tiny smidge to the left of the GOP boors, louts and oafs who strut their stuff on Capitol Hill these days. Like I said, it's enough to make me wish for grating attack ads from the campaign trail. In those media-bites, you can at least see the actual faces of the ugly Americans instead of the repulsively sanitized models we see in the holiday ads. And this is all the more bitter as the last of the St. Paul Ford Plant workers ponder their futures from the barstools at Tiffany's.
Maybe I'm just feeling a little jaded from too many hours of chasing down used textbooks and checking on an unending supply of just-invented ISBN's attached to textbooks which I will never in a million years chase down as used copies. Maybe I'm jealous that the velvet-collared overcoat crowd can afford new Infinitis (or so we're led to believe) while I can't even afford the cover charge to get onto a dealer's showroom floor to smudge the wax job on one of those damned things.
It must be a seasonal affective thing. I'm even getting tired of hearing Burl Ives's take on Holly Jolly Christmas and Bruce Springsteen's on Santa Claus is Comin'. How un-American is that?
Happy Holidays to all. Count your blessings.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
thanks have been given
There's always plenty to give thanks for here on Laurel Avenue, even during the seasons when giving thanks isn't officially recognized with paid days off work. There's usually enough to eat and drink around here and the two new cats give us plenty of laughs. I'm sure that I give Miz Susan plenty of laughs, too, even if some of those are the rueful what-in-the-hell-was-I-thinking sort.
We've moved in and out of the 4-day Thanksgiving season (6 or 7 days if you count the pre-frenzy housekeeping and food-shopping work that the season demands) and we may have slid irretrievably into winter. I suspect this because I just spent a couple of hours shoveling sidewalks and sweeping off cars. I cleaned off 3-4" of the 1-2" which we'd been told to expect from the latest Gulf moisture-sucking low pressure system meets northern cold front event. I ignored that first little blast we had a couple of weeks ago which turned every street in St. Paul into a multi-car pileup just waiting to happen. I didn't bust out the shovels back then; by rights, all of that first snow should have melted off, what with temps getting up into the 40's. But the weather people keep muttering about sun angles and cloud cover and other weather jargon. All this technical talk just seems like lame excuse-making but it might explain why there was still snow on the ground (and our sidewalk) when it snowed again yesterday.
I even cleared off the back deck which is usually Susan's responsibility. That falls to her because I don't really give a good goddamn about clearing off the back deck. It's not like it's warm enough to have dinner out there for awhile, is it? But she seems to think that it makes sense to keep a path clear to get the trash out to the alley. I thought we did just fine last year when we had to drive our garbage up the block and then down the alley because we had like four feet of snow in the back yard. But she's like that and besides she's got certain entertainments out on the deck which require access. Like confirming that rabbits are nasty and messy in all sorts of ways and that we should figure out how to get rid of all of them. If anyone needs rabbits, c'mon over. I don't have any ideas on how to cull the herd legally but I'll take notes if anyone else does.
I guess I'll know it's winter for good when the commutes to and from Brooklyn Park and EnHenn start nudging the hour-plus marker on the dashboard clock. Can't hardly wait. I'm still dabbling with the idea of checking motel rates out there in the NW suburbs. This could come in handy for the nights when the roads are impassable to the point that anyone with enough smarts will wonder if they don't really have to drive home to St. Paul. Let's see: $2.50 in gas in the Toyota vs. $40 for a room at the Motel 6 plus $15 for the big-ass pizza which would cover dinner and breakfast expenses. Not to mention a twelver of MGD. Probably not such a good idea.
At any rate, the back deck is definitely cleared off to the point where I can grill a steak out there. Last winter, the grill got iced over sometime in January and, even if every once in a while I could clear a path to it, it was mostly out of commission for a couple of months. Grilled steak every so often seems like something else to give thanks for.
I also feel like I owe gratitude to someone or something for our lively political scene. My favorite local Republican bigshot, Tony Sutton, just recently announced that he he's quitting his job as state GOP chair and planning to spend more time with his family. That's a nice sentiment though I haven't heard how the family feels about that. Every time I suggest to Miz Susan that I quit my job so as to spend more time with her, she reminds me that I've already tried that and that she thinks that she's still caught up on one-on-one time with me. I will miss Tony though. His conspiracy theorizing after every lost election was always thought-provoking. He'll be missed but, thankfully, Michele Bachmann doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon; her family's possibly made it clear how they feel about her spending more time with them. Just this morning, she was on the GOP-TV Network, oops...I meant the Fox News Network, and she was still promising us that she's going to hold that nasty little Barack Obama accountable for his policies and principles, as if he has any. I love that kind of talk. And I love the thought of her as our President. I'm sort of wondering how she's going to parlay the solid 3% of support she's got (and that's among the party faithful, some of whom can still recognize a nutball when they see one) into a set of keys of her very own to the White House. I know that might make me sound like something of a naysayer. But I am counting on the "suspension" of the Cain campaign to send a surge of energy and money and prospective voters her way. If only Rick Santorum doesn't grab all that swag up first. Hmmmm, Bachmann-Santorum, Santorum-Bachmann. So many candidates and only one spot on the ballot; how's a right-thinking Republican going to make up his or her mind? I guess that, sometimes, there can be too much (or too many) of a good thing. Maybe this is a bounty that we don't have to be all that thankful for.
You know where to find us. Drop us a line about the things you're thankful for.
We've moved in and out of the 4-day Thanksgiving season (6 or 7 days if you count the pre-frenzy housekeeping and food-shopping work that the season demands) and we may have slid irretrievably into winter. I suspect this because I just spent a couple of hours shoveling sidewalks and sweeping off cars. I cleaned off 3-4" of the 1-2" which we'd been told to expect from the latest Gulf moisture-sucking low pressure system meets northern cold front event. I ignored that first little blast we had a couple of weeks ago which turned every street in St. Paul into a multi-car pileup just waiting to happen. I didn't bust out the shovels back then; by rights, all of that first snow should have melted off, what with temps getting up into the 40's. But the weather people keep muttering about sun angles and cloud cover and other weather jargon. All this technical talk just seems like lame excuse-making but it might explain why there was still snow on the ground (and our sidewalk) when it snowed again yesterday.
I even cleared off the back deck which is usually Susan's responsibility. That falls to her because I don't really give a good goddamn about clearing off the back deck. It's not like it's warm enough to have dinner out there for awhile, is it? But she seems to think that it makes sense to keep a path clear to get the trash out to the alley. I thought we did just fine last year when we had to drive our garbage up the block and then down the alley because we had like four feet of snow in the back yard. But she's like that and besides she's got certain entertainments out on the deck which require access. Like confirming that rabbits are nasty and messy in all sorts of ways and that we should figure out how to get rid of all of them. If anyone needs rabbits, c'mon over. I don't have any ideas on how to cull the herd legally but I'll take notes if anyone else does.
I guess I'll know it's winter for good when the commutes to and from Brooklyn Park and EnHenn start nudging the hour-plus marker on the dashboard clock. Can't hardly wait. I'm still dabbling with the idea of checking motel rates out there in the NW suburbs. This could come in handy for the nights when the roads are impassable to the point that anyone with enough smarts will wonder if they don't really have to drive home to St. Paul. Let's see: $2.50 in gas in the Toyota vs. $40 for a room at the Motel 6 plus $15 for the big-ass pizza which would cover dinner and breakfast expenses. Not to mention a twelver of MGD. Probably not such a good idea.
At any rate, the back deck is definitely cleared off to the point where I can grill a steak out there. Last winter, the grill got iced over sometime in January and, even if every once in a while I could clear a path to it, it was mostly out of commission for a couple of months. Grilled steak every so often seems like something else to give thanks for.
I also feel like I owe gratitude to someone or something for our lively political scene. My favorite local Republican bigshot, Tony Sutton, just recently announced that he he's quitting his job as state GOP chair and planning to spend more time with his family. That's a nice sentiment though I haven't heard how the family feels about that. Every time I suggest to Miz Susan that I quit my job so as to spend more time with her, she reminds me that I've already tried that and that she thinks that she's still caught up on one-on-one time with me. I will miss Tony though. His conspiracy theorizing after every lost election was always thought-provoking. He'll be missed but, thankfully, Michele Bachmann doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon; her family's possibly made it clear how they feel about her spending more time with them. Just this morning, she was on the GOP-TV Network, oops...I meant the Fox News Network, and she was still promising us that she's going to hold that nasty little Barack Obama accountable for his policies and principles, as if he has any. I love that kind of talk. And I love the thought of her as our President. I'm sort of wondering how she's going to parlay the solid 3% of support she's got (and that's among the party faithful, some of whom can still recognize a nutball when they see one) into a set of keys of her very own to the White House. I know that might make me sound like something of a naysayer. But I am counting on the "suspension" of the Cain campaign to send a surge of energy and money and prospective voters her way. If only Rick Santorum doesn't grab all that swag up first. Hmmmm, Bachmann-Santorum, Santorum-Bachmann. So many candidates and only one spot on the ballot; how's a right-thinking Republican going to make up his or her mind? I guess that, sometimes, there can be too much (or too many) of a good thing. Maybe this is a bounty that we don't have to be all that thankful for.
You know where to find us. Drop us a line about the things you're thankful for.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
summer's upon us
We've pretty much gone into excessive heat alert lockdown here at the Laurel Avenue summer estate. Which consists mainly of shutting all the windows, turning on our three pathetic window air conditioners and then pointing fans in all sorts of random directions. This in the hope that at least a little bit of cool air will collect in some corner, any corner, of the house. If that's actually happened, I haven't yet been able to figure out which corner it's hiding in.
I'm thinking about working up the energy to make a dash for the kiddie pool we've got filled up in the back yard. It looks like it's sitting in a nice puddle of shade from the little tree out there. But that would mean going out into that inferno and it's going to take some convincing before I decide that's worthwhile. My only other idea for beating the heat is to walk (or maybe drive) up to Snelling Avenue and do some circuit training between the Dairy Queen and a barstool at O'Gara's just across the street. But that would also involve enduring the Turkish bath conditions outside. I just don't know.
It could be worse. I could be at work and forced to unload pallets of cartons of textbooks onto a small cart and then schlep them into the store. I managed to duck that work detail this past week and I'm still trying to reconstruct whatever it was I did to avoid that. It would be worth remembering for the next time we get massive deliveries dropped at our doorstep. I did bring home a shopping bag full of paperwork from the store that needs to be pushed into various piles and marked up in ways that will guarantee that I won't remember what the markings mean when i get back to work. I think that I'm expressly forbidden from even thinking about my job during my off hours but I've had a tough time dumbing down to that extent. I'll probably never be the ideal government employee.
I, for one, am definitely grateful to be working. Plenty of other state employees aren't. I feel particularly bad for Kurt Zellers and Amy Koch, our GOP legislative honchos. Daily, these poor, humble servant leaders have to scuttle out into the bright, hot glare of the media spotlight and come up with new ways to call Mark Dayton a low-life dirtball who's intent on sabotaging the will of the people. GOPers love talking about the will of the people. Well, you didn't hear much of that will of the people stuff in late 2008 and into 2009 after they got their ears pinned back by that pesky Obamma and his evil ACORNers.
I don't give much credit to those carping lefty critics who accuse these hardworking Repubs of being dupes and lackeys of the corporate big money financiers and string pullers. Hey, hasn't anyone heard of trickle down economics? Doesn't everyone realize that if we just let the millionaires alone to run their businesses as they see fit, we'll see thousands of subsistence-wage, service industry jobs opening up for recession-plagued middle America? Why, some of those very jobs might be food service and swimming pool maintenance gigs at the country clubs of the upper crust. Or, for the most fortunate, jobs right on-site at the Lake Minnetonka and North Oaks mansions of the trickler-downers. Jeez, guys. Wise up.
I don't know about Speaker Zellers but Majority Leader Koch is reported to have refused her paycheck during the shutdown. She deserves tips of hats if this is the case. Maybe she's got some money stashed away at home or there's a second income in the family. At any rate, I'm thinking of taking up a collection to make things a little easier for the Speaker and the ML during these tough times. I was thinking that maybe we could pool our nickels and dimes and buy a new bowl for Kurt Zellers's haircuts. He's been looking a little more stylin' since he got his promotion last November but it couldn't hurt to have that extra bowl on hand if the evil DFL retakes the House in oh-twelve. I'm at a loss as to what to get for Senator Koch. The first things that come to mind are mean-spirited and, despite what people have come to expect from me, I'm going to resist those. I am open to suggestions, however.
OK, time to get serious about watching the tail end of the the Twins game and that shopping bagful of paper work (don't tell my boss). Maybe the Twinks can cling to their 5-0 lead over the hated Southsiders and maybe I'll actually push some of that paper into sensible piles. And there's always Dairy Queen calling.
I'm thinking about working up the energy to make a dash for the kiddie pool we've got filled up in the back yard. It looks like it's sitting in a nice puddle of shade from the little tree out there. But that would mean going out into that inferno and it's going to take some convincing before I decide that's worthwhile. My only other idea for beating the heat is to walk (or maybe drive) up to Snelling Avenue and do some circuit training between the Dairy Queen and a barstool at O'Gara's just across the street. But that would also involve enduring the Turkish bath conditions outside. I just don't know.
It could be worse. I could be at work and forced to unload pallets of cartons of textbooks onto a small cart and then schlep them into the store. I managed to duck that work detail this past week and I'm still trying to reconstruct whatever it was I did to avoid that. It would be worth remembering for the next time we get massive deliveries dropped at our doorstep. I did bring home a shopping bag full of paperwork from the store that needs to be pushed into various piles and marked up in ways that will guarantee that I won't remember what the markings mean when i get back to work. I think that I'm expressly forbidden from even thinking about my job during my off hours but I've had a tough time dumbing down to that extent. I'll probably never be the ideal government employee.
I, for one, am definitely grateful to be working. Plenty of other state employees aren't. I feel particularly bad for Kurt Zellers and Amy Koch, our GOP legislative honchos. Daily, these poor, humble servant leaders have to scuttle out into the bright, hot glare of the media spotlight and come up with new ways to call Mark Dayton a low-life dirtball who's intent on sabotaging the will of the people. GOPers love talking about the will of the people. Well, you didn't hear much of that will of the people stuff in late 2008 and into 2009 after they got their ears pinned back by that pesky Obamma and his evil ACORNers.
I don't give much credit to those carping lefty critics who accuse these hardworking Repubs of being dupes and lackeys of the corporate big money financiers and string pullers. Hey, hasn't anyone heard of trickle down economics? Doesn't everyone realize that if we just let the millionaires alone to run their businesses as they see fit, we'll see thousands of subsistence-wage, service industry jobs opening up for recession-plagued middle America? Why, some of those very jobs might be food service and swimming pool maintenance gigs at the country clubs of the upper crust. Or, for the most fortunate, jobs right on-site at the Lake Minnetonka and North Oaks mansions of the trickler-downers. Jeez, guys. Wise up.
I don't know about Speaker Zellers but Majority Leader Koch is reported to have refused her paycheck during the shutdown. She deserves tips of hats if this is the case. Maybe she's got some money stashed away at home or there's a second income in the family. At any rate, I'm thinking of taking up a collection to make things a little easier for the Speaker and the ML during these tough times. I was thinking that maybe we could pool our nickels and dimes and buy a new bowl for Kurt Zellers's haircuts. He's been looking a little more stylin' since he got his promotion last November but it couldn't hurt to have that extra bowl on hand if the evil DFL retakes the House in oh-twelve. I'm at a loss as to what to get for Senator Koch. The first things that come to mind are mean-spirited and, despite what people have come to expect from me, I'm going to resist those. I am open to suggestions, however.
OK, time to get serious about watching the tail end of the the Twins game and that shopping bagful of paper work (don't tell my boss). Maybe the Twinks can cling to their 5-0 lead over the hated Southsiders and maybe I'll actually push some of that paper into sensible piles. And there's always Dairy Queen calling.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
waking up the day after the end of days
The Sunday newspaper has a date of May 22nd this morning. From this I’m guessing that the world didn’t really end yesterday. For further confirmation, there don’t seem to be any second-coming sized headlines above the fold of the first section. We did get some dime-sized hail after dinner last night but that was as close as we came to earth shattering, life-as-we-know-it ending natural disaster type shit. No earthquakes, no floods of biblical proportion, no cracks opening up in the back yard and swallowing up me and Miz Susan and all of the trappings of our sinful and decadent middle class life style. It's been kind of a letdown.
Not that I was actually expecting much in the way of Old Testament fireworks. I walked over to Great Clips for a haircut at about two yesterday afternoon and on the way home I stopped at Super America to buy a couple of quick picks on the Powerball. Not exactly the actions of someone who was planning on starting in on the eternal burning in hell thing within the next five hours or so. And of course I took a swing through Cheapo (both sides of the street) on the way home. I didn’t buy anything but if I had, it’s unlikely that I’d have rushed home to slap it into the CD player or onto the turntable to give it a spin.
On the way across the Cheapo parking lot, I found a crumpled up dollar bill. Taking this as a sure sign from one god or another, I walked back to SA to buy another Powerball ticket. What the hell? If I was doing the heretical non-believer schtick, I might as well jump all over it with both feet. I could have run home, popped the buck into an envelope and then run back up to the mailbox to send it off to the Harold Camping Ministry. I think that I probably could have made the afternoon pickup. But that’s not me. Even staring into the fiery depths, I’m not about to prop up some 90-year old quack who thinks he can count up to 7,000.
Good sweet Jesus above, Miz Susan told me that some of the more anxious of her 4th graders had said that they were a little worried about the potential for unpleasantness. Don’t these end of the world nut-cases have anything better to do than frighten 10-year olds? If they’d wanted to do some worthwhile doom and gloom predicting, why hadn’t they warned me well in advance that the Twins would get bit by the injury bug big time and suck as bad as they have? That would have been something I’d have paid attention to. For a tip like that, I might even have sent a few bucks Camping’s way for his predictions on individual game results. Hey, no harm in laying a little off, just in case, is there?
I suppose that it’s possible that the world truly did end yesterday and that I just didn’t notice the transition from my previous hell-on-earth existence to the real live fire and brimstone stuff. But I’m not buying that. My life wasn’t (and still isn’t, apparently) anywhere near a hell on earth. I’ll admit that a few others might have believed that theirs were, just from the effects of having had to deal with me on a regular basis. But as my old friend Laura Prail used to say, “F--- ‘em if they can’t take a joke.”
No, friends and family, there aren’t going to be any easy outs for us courtesy of some wack-job who’s spent a little too much time staring at the small print in his Bible. We’re in it for the long run and we should try to make the best of things. Keep up the good work.
Not that I was actually expecting much in the way of Old Testament fireworks. I walked over to Great Clips for a haircut at about two yesterday afternoon and on the way home I stopped at Super America to buy a couple of quick picks on the Powerball. Not exactly the actions of someone who was planning on starting in on the eternal burning in hell thing within the next five hours or so. And of course I took a swing through Cheapo (both sides of the street) on the way home. I didn’t buy anything but if I had, it’s unlikely that I’d have rushed home to slap it into the CD player or onto the turntable to give it a spin.
On the way across the Cheapo parking lot, I found a crumpled up dollar bill. Taking this as a sure sign from one god or another, I walked back to SA to buy another Powerball ticket. What the hell? If I was doing the heretical non-believer schtick, I might as well jump all over it with both feet. I could have run home, popped the buck into an envelope and then run back up to the mailbox to send it off to the Harold Camping Ministry. I think that I probably could have made the afternoon pickup. But that’s not me. Even staring into the fiery depths, I’m not about to prop up some 90-year old quack who thinks he can count up to 7,000.
Good sweet Jesus above, Miz Susan told me that some of the more anxious of her 4th graders had said that they were a little worried about the potential for unpleasantness. Don’t these end of the world nut-cases have anything better to do than frighten 10-year olds? If they’d wanted to do some worthwhile doom and gloom predicting, why hadn’t they warned me well in advance that the Twins would get bit by the injury bug big time and suck as bad as they have? That would have been something I’d have paid attention to. For a tip like that, I might even have sent a few bucks Camping’s way for his predictions on individual game results. Hey, no harm in laying a little off, just in case, is there?
I suppose that it’s possible that the world truly did end yesterday and that I just didn’t notice the transition from my previous hell-on-earth existence to the real live fire and brimstone stuff. But I’m not buying that. My life wasn’t (and still isn’t, apparently) anywhere near a hell on earth. I’ll admit that a few others might have believed that theirs were, just from the effects of having had to deal with me on a regular basis. But as my old friend Laura Prail used to say, “F--- ‘em if they can’t take a joke.”
No, friends and family, there aren’t going to be any easy outs for us courtesy of some wack-job who’s spent a little too much time staring at the small print in his Bible. We’re in it for the long run and we should try to make the best of things. Keep up the good work.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
harmon killebrew then and now
I had a dream over the weekend in which Jim Lemon was called into a Twins game to pinch hit against a tough left-hander. Lemon homered, an opposite field line drive that snuck just over the right field wall and inside the foul pole.
Don't ask me where that came from. I suppose I think about Jim Lemon every once in a while as my fevered little brain goes over archival footage from my so-called life. But still. Lemon moved out to Minnesota when Calvin Griffith packed up the Washington Senators in the middle of the night and high-tailed it for the upper Midwest. He was coming off of back to back 30+ homer and 100 RBI seasons but he must have missed the muggy tropical nights in DC. He dropped off to 14 homeruns for the Twins in '61 and he was out of the game by 1964.
I have no idea how often Jim Lemon went the opposite way with any of his 71 long balls in 1959 and '60. But however many it was is probably more than teammate Harmon Killebrew did in all of his 573 lifetime homeruns. Harmon hit 'em high and he hit 'em to left field. And as much as Jim Lemon seemed to miss hot and sweaty Griffith Stadium, Harmon seemed to love it here. You got the feeling that he wasn't looking back. And now, only in our memories.
I'm sure that I saw dozens of Killebrew homers on TV Twins games or during the 10:25 sports wraps after those games. And probably listened to announcers' calls of many more on WCCO over the years. I only recall seeing two in person and both came at old Metropolitan Stadium.
The first was when I was 10 or 11. The Twins lost but Killebrew homered, one of his high soaring shots. When I went to games in those days I'd keep score and then try to finish up my scorecard in the lighted tunnel under Ft. Snelling on the way home. I begged Doug to slow down so that I could tally the last RBI's but I doubt that he ever did.
I also saw what turned out to be his last homerun, a straight-line bullet shot to the left-center field seats. This was in 1975 and I was unemployed to the point that I could ride my bike out to Metropolitan Stadium for a day game. Harmon was sporting the powder-blue double knits of the Kansas City Royals on that day. It still doesn't seem right. He hit 14 for KC that year but finished with a batting average of .199. Everybody gets old.
And, despite the aspirations of four billion souls currently hoping to be the one who lives forever, I suspect that every one of us is going to die sooner or later. Harmon Killebrew passed that way today and it does make me a little sad.
I drafted Harmon Killebrew for my Strat-O-Matic team in 1976. He never saw the light of day on the big team until September call-ups and even then he had pretty limited value. A little pop and a little on-base against lefties but that was about it. Lou Jungbauer had offered me all sorts of mid-level talent for Harmon, his boyhood hero. But I resisited and Harm's day of glory finally came. I pinch hit with him to lead off an inning in a game which had gone into extras. Jim Barber, the opposing manager, ooh-ed and ahh-ed over Harmon's pathetic card and intentionally walked him. There was a pinch runner waiting for Harmon when he arrived at first base and I somehow managed to push that runner around to score the winning run. Chalk up another one in the W column for the Duluth Gabbro.
Honest to God, I rememember it like it was yesterday and that was in 1976 or '77. It happened just down the street from where we live now, in the big duplex at 1630 Laurel.
There you have it, from boyhood hero to figment of the imagination of a reluctant adult's baseball dream life. Pretty much the same things, I suppose.
Thanks very much for everything.
Don't ask me where that came from. I suppose I think about Jim Lemon every once in a while as my fevered little brain goes over archival footage from my so-called life. But still. Lemon moved out to Minnesota when Calvin Griffith packed up the Washington Senators in the middle of the night and high-tailed it for the upper Midwest. He was coming off of back to back 30+ homer and 100 RBI seasons but he must have missed the muggy tropical nights in DC. He dropped off to 14 homeruns for the Twins in '61 and he was out of the game by 1964.
I have no idea how often Jim Lemon went the opposite way with any of his 71 long balls in 1959 and '60. But however many it was is probably more than teammate Harmon Killebrew did in all of his 573 lifetime homeruns. Harmon hit 'em high and he hit 'em to left field. And as much as Jim Lemon seemed to miss hot and sweaty Griffith Stadium, Harmon seemed to love it here. You got the feeling that he wasn't looking back. And now, only in our memories.
I'm sure that I saw dozens of Killebrew homers on TV Twins games or during the 10:25 sports wraps after those games. And probably listened to announcers' calls of many more on WCCO over the years. I only recall seeing two in person and both came at old Metropolitan Stadium.
The first was when I was 10 or 11. The Twins lost but Killebrew homered, one of his high soaring shots. When I went to games in those days I'd keep score and then try to finish up my scorecard in the lighted tunnel under Ft. Snelling on the way home. I begged Doug to slow down so that I could tally the last RBI's but I doubt that he ever did.
I also saw what turned out to be his last homerun, a straight-line bullet shot to the left-center field seats. This was in 1975 and I was unemployed to the point that I could ride my bike out to Metropolitan Stadium for a day game. Harmon was sporting the powder-blue double knits of the Kansas City Royals on that day. It still doesn't seem right. He hit 14 for KC that year but finished with a batting average of .199. Everybody gets old.
And, despite the aspirations of four billion souls currently hoping to be the one who lives forever, I suspect that every one of us is going to die sooner or later. Harmon Killebrew passed that way today and it does make me a little sad.
I drafted Harmon Killebrew for my Strat-O-Matic team in 1976. He never saw the light of day on the big team until September call-ups and even then he had pretty limited value. A little pop and a little on-base against lefties but that was about it. Lou Jungbauer had offered me all sorts of mid-level talent for Harmon, his boyhood hero. But I resisited and Harm's day of glory finally came. I pinch hit with him to lead off an inning in a game which had gone into extras. Jim Barber, the opposing manager, ooh-ed and ahh-ed over Harmon's pathetic card and intentionally walked him. There was a pinch runner waiting for Harmon when he arrived at first base and I somehow managed to push that runner around to score the winning run. Chalk up another one in the W column for the Duluth Gabbro.
Honest to God, I rememember it like it was yesterday and that was in 1976 or '77. It happened just down the street from where we live now, in the big duplex at 1630 Laurel.
There you have it, from boyhood hero to figment of the imagination of a reluctant adult's baseball dream life. Pretty much the same things, I suppose.
Thanks very much for everything.
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