Conversation?

As you probably already know,  I love to engage in conversation with folks I like... and, I like everybody (mostly) and especially you.  Since my graduation from Home Hospice, I don't get much "in person" visits, so, in order not to be depressed, I converse on Blogger, and hope to continue for a long time, boring the hell out of you.

Covid

When I went to bed last night, I had Alexa play the Al Franken Podcast.  Al was interviewing Michael Wolf about his new book: Landslide - The Final Days of the Trump Presidency.  I was extremely  interested in their dialogue,  but Mr. Wolf's voice was very soft and it soon lulled me to sleep. 

Three hours later I suddenly awoke and realized that sleep would no longer be possible because I had forgotten to take my night time pills. Shame on me!  Alexa had nagged me at midnight, saying: "Joe, take your pills!" "Take your pills!"  But I still forgot.

I rushed to the kitchen to take those damn pills, but knew that sleep would not reappear for a while.  No big deal, because the Al Franken Podcast was still  on the air.  Al was now interviewing two Covid experts.  I didn't find out their names.

These folks presented  some information that I thought was "eye-opening." Here are a few matters that I want to investigate more closely:

01.  The material necessary to prepare Covid vaccines will run out before all of the Third World gets immunized.

02.   Vaccine for children under twelve will be available in March 2022.

03.    A mid-western Catholic Cardinal, who has been advising everybody not to take "The Devil's Vaccine" is now in the hospital under a respirator.

04.   The world will never divest itself of the virus and its variants until everyone wears a mask. 

05.   President Biden's plea to private companies to impose immunization mandates is constitutional.  Stare decisis.  The first time such a presidential mandate arose was in 1904.

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On a lighter note, here is a joke that I'm sure you have heard many times before:

A State Trooper stops a car on a highway and tells the driver: "You just went through two red lights."

Driver yells: " No, I didn't!"

Wife says:  "Yes, he did."

Trooper says: "You were also driving 75 mph in a 50 mph zone."

Driver yells:  "No, I wasn't!"

Wife says:  "Yes, he was."

Trooper says:  "Ma'am, does your husband always yell like that?"

Wife says:  "Only when he's drunk."

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Good Morning!  It's a cool sunny morning here in rustic Maryland.  I just watched two beautiful does run across our back yard.

We set up a hummingbird feeder on Wednesday, and a hummer immediately appeared to get a drink.  I don't see any drinkers yet today, but I'm sure they will show up.

Today, for the second time in a week, our electricity went off, but just for two hours. The last time, it was off for four and a half hours, in the evening.  It was fun moving around by candle light.  Back in Massachusetts when I was a boy, electrical outages were a usual event, but we didn't miss electric powered entertainment, because we didn't have any.

I feel sorry for those folks in the deep south who have had no electricity for over a week, with no hope for its quick return. Some folks have medical needs that require electrical power.  

My beautiful daughter, Diane, visited later and we spent a lot of time discussing all kinds of things. She also brought us some large tomatoes from her garden.  (Our helper, Kathy, also brought us some of her tomatoes.)  Boy, do they all taste good!

Today, I would like to talk about Acrostics.

There are many forms of acrostic puzzles, but the ones I like best are created monthly for the New York Times, by fellow Puzzlers, Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon.  

Doing the puzzle, I first solve the clues.  The letters of the answers are placed within a quotation grid.  After the whole puzzle is completed,  the quotation is laid bare and the first letters spell out the author's name and the title of the book from which the quote has been taken.

I have a lot of fun after I see the resultant quote.  If the book title or author catch my interest, I arrange for a book sample on my Kindle and purchase the book if my mind gets engaged. Here are a few of the books I learned about from acrostics. I probably never have learned about them otherwise.

01.  Blue Highway by  Least Heat Moon.

An eye-opening and entertaining look into small-town America.

02.   The Dictionary of Word Play by Dave Morice

This is a reference book for wordsmiths written by a fellow puzzler. It covers all (most) puzzle types, with examples shown.  I don't know how I have gotten by all these years without this book.

03.  The Mysterious Affair at Styles  by Agatha Christie.

This is the first appearance of Hercules Poirot.  There seems to be a thousand suspects in a murder.  Mr.  Poirot shared his "little gray cells" with me and I guessed who the murderer was in the first chapter of the book. It was a "fun" read, but I would recommend any of the other Christie stories that have less characters and harder solutions. 

04.  Priest Daddy  by Patricia Lockwood

A thought-provoking book by a young girl who grew up with an Anglican Priest father, with weird, to my mind, ideas about life. He was accepted into a seminary and became a Catholic Priest.

The author seemed very immature, in a family that cussed almost constantly.  A family that I would not care to visit.  However, an interesting read.

05.  The Confidence Men  by Margalit Fox.

The true story of two men who were interred in an Ottoman jail in 1917.  Through fake seances, sessions with a make-shift Ouiji Board, phony mental gymnastics, and outright lying, they hoodwinked their young interpreter, the gullible jailer, and even their fellow prisoners into allowing them to escape.

As I mentioned, without my acrostic puzzling, I never would have known about these great books.  God bless you, Emily and Henry, I hope you go on producing acrostics forever! 

 

Today I want to talk about a marvelous communications method called The Podcast.  I'll list a few that I've listened to and give you my assessment of each.

01.  The Rachel Maddow show. I love to listen to her thoughts about interesting current and past events.  I used to watch her TV show at 9 PM, Monday through Friday, but I would rather experience her show as a kind-of Podcast on the morning after.

02.   The Al Franken Podcast.  Al is a humorist and former U.S. Senator and has a lot to tell about his Congressional experiences.  Al has some interesting guests with whom he swaps stories. (mainly "funny" but true.  I wish that he had not resigned his Senatorial seat,

Unfortunately, Al's Podcasts do not surface as much as I would like.

 03.  Lexicon Valley.  This is a remarkable Podcast if you love words. Famous author and wordsmith John McWhorter peppers his episodes with interesting stories about word origins, often using citations from other countries, such as Germany, France, Serbia, Kenya, etc.  He is an exceptional linguist who can speak many languages, but he is not a boring person.

I recently read his book about the 9 "nastiest" words in English. Very interesting and informative, but not recommended for Sunday School teachers.

04.   Mea Culpa is (or was) a rant about Ex-President Trump by his former lawyer and "Right Hand Man" (Michael Cohen) who recently finished a jail term for misdeeds Cohen claims Mr. Trump ordered him to do.  I haven't been able to connect to this Podcast recently.  Maybe Mr. Cohen has run out of material.

05.  America's National Parks.  All you never knew about each of our numerous national parks.  Extremely interesting if you are, were, or will be a tourist in our beautiful U.S.A.

06.  The Moth is a place where ordinary people can talk about their life experiences for five minutes. This is similar to the five minute speeches in Toastmasters Meetings.

Some stories are completely stupid.  Some stories are "blah."  Some stories are interesting.  Some stories are wonderful.  Some stories are inspiring.  Some stories will make you mad.  Some stories will make you cry.  Some stories will make you laugh.

Some storytellers are professional speakers.  Some storytellers like me have overcome crippling stage fright.  Most storytellers are ordinary folks desiring to express themselves in our s(moth)ering environment.  Good luck to them!

 

September 8th activity (TMI?)

I was a nervous wreck this morning, waiting for a doctor's visit. I was sure that he would find some new things attacking my body.  My son calmed me down and I went  to my suspected fate with courage.

But the doctor just made sure that my past problems had ameliorated and then gave me the so-called "Clean Bill of Health."   So now I can move on with the things I like to do, like give tips on how to make one's life more interesting.

01.  Ask Lloyd Hess to tell his famous "Camel Bricker" story.

02.  Check out the marine paintings by Montague Dawson.  Some of his work is always on display at a Baltimore bank, honoring the city's seafaring past.  I have one of his paintings in my basement commemorative area.

The Italian gentleman who everyone said was my father (pre-DNA testing) also painted beautiful marine scenes.  I'm told that one of his brothers collected as many of these works as possible at one time and would no longer let anyone see and enjoy them.

03.  Look for "lost" money.  Visit missingmoney.com

04.  Expand your brain power by listening to Mozart.  Radio Mozart.net. "Alexa, play Mozart."

That's enough. How about a joke?

At a nursing home, 3 older ladies accosted an 88 year old man. One of them said to the man, "Drop your drawers and we'll guess how old you are."

The man said, "I can't believe you can." But he did drop his drawers to call their bluff.

"You are 88 years old," exclaimed the spokeswoman.

"That's amazing, how did you do that?" said the old man.

The lady explained, "I was at your birthday party yesterday."  

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Please forgive the font problems.I'll try to create better (and funnier) blog entries in the future.  This was just a new start-up entry to get me back.

"Laughter is the sun that drives Winter from the human face.  (Victor Hugo

Yes, I'm back!

 In early 2020, I fell on my face.  Apparently I had passed out and wasn't able to protect myself in a fall.

After a 911 call, and a chilly ambulance ride, I spent some time in Baltimore's fantastic Shock Trauma facility.  In my underwear, and shivering from freezing cold at the Intake area, I shared my time with several policemen wrestling with some "Drive by" shooters. Even though my butt was frigid, I found the experience very interesting.  After listening to my complaints for an hour, they found a warm room for me and a comfortable bed.  Now I was an official Shock Trauma patient.

I knew that I was in a marvelous place.  My two daughters had their lives saved by the "MASH-like" care they received here. One of my daughters had suffered a head wound when struck by the edge of a garden hoe. We called 911 and a Shock Trauma helicopter came quickly to take her to the Baltimore facility.  In the meantime, a brain surgeon was flown in from New York. The doctor and my daughter met up on the facility's roof, where surgery was performed that saved her life.

My other daughter's car was hit by a careless speeder.  My daughter's car was pushed over a median strip and was hit head-on by several vehicles.  Once again the Shock Trauma helicopter flew one of my daughters to Baltimore, where this daughter was patched up with lots and lots of metal.

Both daughters would not have survived without Shock Trauma.  God bless that organization!

Now it was my turn. In my case, facial reconstruction was needed. (They didn't listen to me asking to look like a famous movie star.  I won't say which one, and it wasn't Lassie!)

Part of the reconstruction involved my right eye. That was fine, except that both eyes were now a little out of sync...so, good bye driving.

While the doctors worked on me they apparently found other bodily problems, and decided that I should get into the Home Hospice program. I spent over a year in that program until they told me I no longer needed their care.  I had really enjoyed my constant contacts with Hospice personnel, especially because they seemed to like my stories.  Anyway, I am one of the few patients to have ever "graduated" from an "end of life" sentence.  I feel like a new person and hope to be around for a little while longer.

 

Questions about djt

Some questions I have been pondering:

How fast is our deficit going up because of things that djt is doing?

Am I the only recipient of the Tax Relief Act that has to increase IRS payments by $4000?

What keeps djt's orange hair from flying away in a gale?

Is djt really a billionaire?

Who decided that a sitting president can't be arrested for blatant crimes?

Have there been any attempts on djt's life while he has been president?

What information is being kept from djt by reputable Government workers who fear what he would do if he knew about certain things?

Did djt launder money from the Ukraine?   Russia?  Arabia?

What did djt say to Putin when nobody but him was in attendance?

Was the Steele dossier correct in all respects?

Why are the Republicans afraid of djt?

Has djt been compromised by Putin?

Will the tariffs affect the vote for djt by farmers?

How many farmers will go bankrupt because of djt?

Will the Democrats finally decide to start impeachment hearings?

Will the Senate leader go to jail for corruption?

Why is there no pet dog in the white house?

Why did the Brits honor Trump and his family?

Will somebody fire Kellyann for Hatch Act violations?


Revisit next year and see if any of this has been answered.

More from the Pink Book... Carnivals

Yes, I know.. I have become very slow in posting to this blog.  TMGO (too much going on).  But, here is a bit more in an attempt to catch up.

TUNE IN:  Be careful in your Internet dealings.

I use TuneIn to access podcasts, but sometimes the advertisements bug the hell out of me.  For instance:

Run along, little dust bunnies, run along!

What does this button do?  What does this button do?

Those are for Geico, I believe.  They play on and on, all day long, during podcast or news breaks.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to find out about Tune In Premium.  The ad for Premium said that there would be no other ads to bother us.  Instead, the ad spots would be filled with news items. (Perhaps that could be painful to  hear the same news over and over..?)

I talked to a nice lady about Premium, but at the end of our talk I said that I was not going to get it.

So, of course, in my next Discover bill, I found an entry for a $99 payment to TuneIn Premium.  There was a telephone number next to the entry.  I called it and argued with someone for a while, to try to get a refund of  my $99.  I was told that because I "ordered Premium" from a "3rd Party" I should not get a refund.  My answer to that was that if I did not get my refund, I would be telling my story to the local newspaper.  They gave me the refund.

Coupons!

Whenever I buy a 50-50 chance at a church, carnival, or club, I get a ticket stub with the "potential" winning number... but it also usually says, in bold type:  KEEP THIS COUPON

Now, tell me what I should do with all of these coupons?

Carnival Gambling 1

When I lived in New Bedford, the Portuguese Catholic Church would have carnivals in the Spring and in the Fall.  They had them in a large area across the street from my house, so, it was easy for me and my friends to visit them.

We didn't have much money, so we just watched other people win or lose.  One night, while we were watching a money wheel, we noticed that the triple six wheel face kept coming up whenever one of the wheel spinners would do his thing. Aha! A chance to make some money.  We only had a couple of dimes.. but we put one one the six spot when our spinner twirled the wheel.  We won! 

We did this for a while and got richer and richer, until an observant priest found out what was going on.  A new wheel spinner was assigned; we grabbed our ill-gotten gains and left quickly.

Carnival Gambling 2

Later, in Junior High School, I had a lot of jobs because our family was not very rich.  One of my jobs was at New Bedford's Sargeant Field.  I "manned" the ring toss game.  My orders were to:

Let every 7th player win something, even though their ring didn't circle any clothes pin. (It cost 25 cents to play.  The prizes cost something like 10 for $1.)

If the player's ring encircled a clothes pin labeled "81"..  tell them that the winning number was "18."
Ditto with "99" ..  "66."    Ditto with "45" .. "54."  You get the picture.

Of course, you know that I did not follow the rules when the boss wasn't looking.

Carnival Concessions

Sargeant Field had a large bleachers set up for folks to watch circus acts or baseball games.  A bunch of us "rats" would sell hot dogs and soda to the attendees.  Not bad for 12 year olds.. we got 10 cents for every $1 sale.  Because I sold more that the other kids, I received 15 cents per $1 sale.

Besides making a few bucks, us kids got to see all of the circus acts for free.

My favorite was "The Great Lalage".. a muscular lady who twirled hundreds of times on a hanging ring.  After her act, she would retire to her trailer, which was next to a fence that could be climbed by young boys who would then peak in her trailer window to watch her get undressed.

The circus "roustabouts" appreciated kids who worked hard, putting up, and,or, taking down circus tents and sheds.  There were "managers" who had the kids line up for payment of 50 cents each at the end of the night.   Once again, because I worked very hard, each "manager" let me on their line so that I could receive extra money.

Enough for now.