Pandemonium Entertainments

Playing Van Gogh - first each player needs to obtain an Etcha-Sketch (Target $12 I think.) 

Set a start time, announce what you are all going to be drawing.  Example (and a classic starter) an apple. Can't you see one right now?  Betcha you do a dandy.

When the timer bell goes Bing! stop drawing immediately; take a picture of your masterpiece  and e it to the other players, all of whom, just like you, are playing at home.  First good use of a cell phone in ages!

Left, Right, Center  requires $3 in US quarters, dice that indicate if it goes left or right or center.   Three of any brings quarters to your grasping little fists.  Good for a nice windy patio but don't push how long you're out there.  This is so addictive that when the patio lights come on, game's over.

Strip Poker

I can't really endorse this one.  It has to (or certainly should)  take place in the house.  Think of the neighbor's property values!

In a last bid for a laugh, you could buy a copy of my hilariously funny book -"And the Best Blog Is" available at amazon.com  It has a big red pair of lips on the cover.  Barnes and Noble, will special order it for you.

The Did You Eat Enough at Thanksgiving? It's Simple

If you can't laugh and just sit there sort of wheezing, you did.

A psychiatrist and a proctologist went into business, but what to name it?  They pondered it and passed on:

Minds and Behinds

Catatonics and High Colonics

Nuts and Butts

Loons and Moons

Finally they decided:  Odds and Ends

******

My friend decided to walk to the edge of the earth to prove it's flat.  He came around eventually.

*****

What do you call a tailor that only alters pants?  A slacker!  A rock band who can't stop washing their hands?  OC/DC

******

What if the person who named walkie-talkies named other stuff - would we have (stamps) lickie-stickies;

and hippos would become floatie-bloaties

or pregnancy tests were now called maybe-babies (I think that makes a lot of sense myself.)

Turkey Story Continued

I was only 6 years old and I am 'way beyond that now. 

Every year my parents would pack up the car for the trip to my Dad's mother's house in a little town called Yates Center, KS, some 150 miles from our house in Kansas City, Mo.  Preparations for this lengthy ride (probably 3 hours plus) included the making and packing of a picnic to dine on mid-trip. This was in 1946, post-war.  No money to go eating in a restaurant - "We're not the Vanderbilt's, you know."

Daddy always enjoyed this trip even though my mother and I disliked it intensely.  Grandma  never hesitated to ask my mother why she let me wear those dreadful blue jeans (I looked alarmed but my Mother patted me comfortingly, assuring me this wouldn't happen)  

On this particular trip when he ran into an old running mate back in the day - he was apprised of the fact there was gonna be a Turkey Shoot the next day.  Daddy was proud of his marksmanship and set off post hast to sign up.  He was, after all a several times .22 target shooting champion back in Kansas City, Mo and now came through grandma's front door crowing about appetites and succulent turkey meat.  ("Instead of that ghastly, gamey deer meet," muttered my mom. adding, "Hunting!  Huh - all they do is build a fire and sit around it drinking whiskey .  Hunting my eye" and stuffed another sandwich in her picnic basked.     

But 'twas not to be.  Late that afternoon he came through Grandma's front door. again, but in a very different mood.  I could tell from his face that there was no joy in Yates Center.  He looked at my mother and said, "It's on the back porch."  

I heard this from my post behind the door to the bedrooms upstairs, I couldn't wait to get to the back porch and see what "it" could possibly be.  A great big turkey? but wait he was not in a good mood by a long shot.  My Mother walked toward porch, opened the door, looked around, and back out to find grandma, presumably to plan the Thanksgiving Day dinner at noon the next day.

Yippee! I thought and went straight into the back porch.  There I saw a large cardboard box - flaps softly covering the top.  What could it be?  So I marched right over and flipped and flaps all the way open.  There sat a gorgeous teal duck, black eyes staring right back at me.  The body and tail feathers were a rainbow of various shades of turquois  I instantly fell in love and the parents had difficulty getting me in for dinner. I didn't want to leave my new best friend.  Mother and Daddy cut eyes at one another and I reluctantly slipped into my designated seat.

The next morning the whole household was in uproar - Grandma insisted on setting out a hearty breakfast, we wimmin' know you got chores, too, Dicky Bird - her nickname for Daddy whose real name was Victor.  So grandma set out on the big dining room table the following:

homemade-sausages, home-cured bacon, sunny-side up eggs - at least a dozen or more! A big bowl of scrambled eggs shining in butter. Toast - white, rye , homemade pastries such as freshly-made cinnamon lavished with frosting, 

Grabbing a slice of toast, I headed straight onto the back porch to sneak feed my new friend, who clucked softly and settled more firmly on the bed I had made him.  

Daddy called me to go with him on  couple of errands (they must have killed, plucked and cleaned it during my absence.)  And by the time we were back at the house, dinner was ready.  "Wash your hands, the both of you; we're ready to begin."  And when we were in our places at the table, Grand ma and  my Mother began put out dish after dish of vegetables, dressing, gravy (but NO salad!) - no wonder my 5 ft. 3in. grandma must have weighted at least 180 lbs.   

While I deftly avoided anything remotely good for me Grandma had slipped out on the back porch and in seconds, she emerged with a very big platter with something on it and she seemed proud of it.  With a flourish, Daddy stood up, relieved of the platter, and put it in the very middle of the table.  I half-rose to see what it was.  i studied it from all angles and an idea began to form really strengthened was Daddy said, "Have some duck - it's delicious (with a nod to his mother.)

I jumped up from my chair, knocking  it over smartly and ran from the dining room sobbing hysterically slamming the door as I ran, sobbing hysterically all the rest of the day.  Until fatigue finally set in.  But I spent most of the next day giving all of them the dead fish eye.

I think you'd have been a little upset, too - wouldn't you?

Facts and Figures

 Hospitals and Covid Cases

I had to check in at the front desk at one of our two locals for a CT scan, and, making chitchat, asked where the  quarantine floor is located only to be told by a shocked receptionist, "Oh, we don't treat Covid."   So then, I wondered, "What the hell do you treat? "

The hospital in question holds 533 beds. 

I looked up the other major hospital which has 4 36 bed capacity.

So what's up with all of the signs out in front of them both about what heroes they have working there?

Calling bullshit on Some Covid "Facts.'

The latest that drilled me right between my disbelieving eyes  was a A Drudge Report headline - Every 17 seconds a person dies of Covid in Europe."  Every 17 seconds, eh?  Hah!  See headline.

How many Europeans are there anyhow?  Shouldn't Europe be absolutely empty by now?" You can do the math, being a helluva  lot math smart than I am.

Total population in Europe is 741.4 million

The largest country by population is Russia at  144.5 million But I, for one, don't trust them around a glass corner.

Turn your calculators molten with  heat and turn the rest of us pre-maturely grey trying to work it out.

If this dubious bit of information has any validity at all, Russia should be gone at 11:17 a.m. tomorrow morning Russian time.  Many Russian mothers will be wailing about not allowing little Vladimir to become an undertaker.

America can do it!

No More! Never Again!

And that is ever hearing the word "covid" ever again.   Thus I am forced to steal witticisms from Readers Digest.   \"My wife got a free-range, organic, non-GMO, antibiotic turkey this year and every one of those adjectives added $20."

This one's for my cousin Ron, a retired Nazarene minister.  He was waiting for the service to begin when another man approached and asked, "Is that seat saved?" gesturing at the one next to Ron.  "No," said Ron, :" but we're praying for it."

A Bad Day on November 18, 1978

 When I heard about it, I was up in the press room at Ontario Motor Speedway where I was shooting a NASCAR race.

I'd come up from the track for a needed gallon of  water.  It was amazingly hot for November.   Only to find the entire press box  yelling, damning  and screaming and very nearly glued to the AP wire.

A story out of Jonestown (where dat?)  reporting the massacre of 900 people via cyanide and valium stirred into the fruit salad, and Flavor aid   (Said to be the cheap-0 Kool-Aid.)

A small discrepancy from Kool-Aid  but unpleasant nonetheness.  

The 600 humans included little kids.  

It's a good read - google and dig!

If At First You Don't Succeed ...

Which is to say that am having the epidermal shot again a week from today at 10:30 a,m,  The first seems to have just eaten it and spit it out again or something.

Meanwhile I have to put together an ad to peddle my amazingly funny book "And the Best Blog Is - Word of Mouth"  

O Alex - Don't You Remember?

That time we first met - in New Orleans?  At the Old Absinth House?  You had been doing a week's worth of shows in  New Orleans  and the three of us got thirsty at the same time.  You'd finished that day's show and we were  in need of hydration. Seated at the bar, we were amused to see that a previous show was running on the TV.  I'd been doing pretty well right where I was, on the end barstool and when I got the final question  the local sots let out a howl of approval.

You proceeded to upstage me by remarking quietly, : "You do know that at 200 years, this place  is the oldest building in New Orleans?"  I had to look down at the filthy floor and mutter, "No."

Years passed, your fame grew and we never met again. But we became ardent fans.  We'd make dinner reservations for 5 p.m. just to make sure that we didn't miss Jeopardy.  Did you do that, too?  Damn!  We should have gotten take out.  

Author Linda Fairstein's series starring Alexander Cooper, assistant DA New York City, and the two detectives  she works with - Mike Chapman (will they never tear up the sheets?)  and Mercer Wallace,  have a tradition - they try to be with a TV in time to bet the final Jeopardy  question  for $20 each!  Mike's strong suit is historical New York and attractions known and not. Coop' specialty is English lit.  Mercer is the wild card.  Since books are famous for "lasting" bon voyage!  Go, Linda, go!

Looks Like Our Moms May Have Been Right

 I'm referring to her pithy advice about always wearing clean underpants when you venture out.  "What if you're in an accident?" in horrified tones.  

To be truthful, the paramedics in my neighborhood are well worth looking at.  If you have to have a pant less  episode with anyone, be sure to call Dispatch and demand Station 2.  You won't be disappointed.

But you may be stunned if you ever get an epidermal shot.

I was.  I was ushered into The Chamber for mine.  First thing I knew I was facedown on a padded table with a hole in it for your face.

And immediately assailed by what I would consider a rather vigorous attempt to yank my underpants and jeans down to my shins.  I hoped the doctor (male) was amused.   

The nurse (surely a contender in all-in wrestling) was a vigorish one.  This was unnerving enough but nothing to follow when it felt like someone it shoved me and my butt through what seemed like a personal carwash.  Floods and scrubs dealt with me for a bit rather longer than I thought necessary.   Then came the shot.  It was so painful that the doctor said to me, "I've got two more ccs to go; can you stand it?" 

So I said, "In for a penny, in for a pound."   I won't be doing that again.  

.

Ir Happens Every Every Four Years

The British invade the United States and our Presidential elections.  They make their preferences very clearly known.  A hapless American viewing it would assume they were Americans with their use, every pronouncement they utter.  All of which are detrimental in the highest power.  

It annoys me mightily - yo! Brits - you are not  legit  voters here.   Get out of our polling places.  

I'm not a fan of the BBC; get off of our airwaves! 

In fairness, I have admired the Beebs for their hiring habits - the ones that don't stutter are immediately replaced by the ones that stammer.  We should do that here in America.  Pity we don't.  Our announcers are largely blazered, long haired (the men) and tight dressed women.  

Back soon - computer took a dump on me and took it in yesterday and am now more or less voiceless.

In fact, I was so unhinged by this sudden computer laryngitis that I was unable to function all the rest of the evening!  "Jeopardy" was the only thing that could could soothe me.  

a

An Elegant Winter Main Dish

 Two things  reminded me of it.  First, the documentary/movie about famed chef Julia Child.  And second our furnace went on during the night.  So - are you now thinking Quiche Lorraine a la Julia Child, too? 

This Julia the easy way ...

Buy a supermarket pie crust.  Cut 3 or 4 cooked slices of pre-cooked bacon into pieces and spread  across pie crust.

Beat three eggs in 1 1-2 cups of heavy cream! and pour over baconed- shell.  Slide it gracefully into the oven at 350  and bake until a mouthwatering brown appears on top/

                                                    Bon Appetit!