This pretty much nailed how I am feeling about the state of my once beloved country in general, and especially, this election year of 2024.
Somebody please beam me up.
And so it goes.
Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #5,770
yeah I know you did not ask!
You should so be blessed – well cursed at times actually – with a mind such as mine, making all these weird connections between my rumored neurons. Just be thankful that I do not share all of my random thoughts.
A big portion of the price of any alcoholic beverage, as listed on the shelf or bottle, includes various taxes (excise being an example), as imposed by different levels government, mainly federal and state. When you get to the cash register to pay, they add sales tax to the shelf price. More often than not, the now not so random thought pops into my brain that they are charging sales tax on taxes. Just does not seem right.
Just saying.
Matrimonial Log – Star Date 5784.024
“Matrimony… the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Casamiento Segundo, its until-death-do-us-part mission… to explore a strange new relationship… to seek out a new life and new adventures… to boldly go where no sane couple has gone before.”
Señora and I had gone to bed. We were both engaged in canine behavior, that is, we were imitating Princess Lily’s bed time preparation routine. While we were not circling our respective sides of the bed three times, we each were fluffing pillows, rearranging blankets, flouncing around as we attempted to find that ever so perfect spot for falling asleep.
In simpler words, we were trying to get comfortable, and thus were moving around quite a bit. There was an almost spooky, creaking sound that was occurring sporadically but frequently.
Señora says to me, “Is that the bed or one of us?”
I still am hoping it was the bed.
And so it goes.
Matrimonial Log – Star Date 5784.023
“Matrimony… the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Casamiento Segundo, its until-death-do-us-part mission… to explore a strange new relationship… to seek out a new life and new adventures… to boldly go where no sane couple has gone before.”
I am a little worried about Señora.
Let me set the stage. We have an Internet connected Smart Thermostat. It has a sensor downstairs and a sensor upstairs. Remembering that hot air raises and cold air falls, playing with the opening and closing of vents on the various levels of our abode, I can keep the temperature more or less even on all floors. The thermostat functionality is based on averaging the temperature at the sensors together.
As a balance between comfort and pocketbook, we kept the thermostat at 70 this time of year. With the averaging of the sensors bouncing around a bit, it reads 70 part of the time and 69 the rest.
Señora has a Feliz cumpleaños coming up shortly. I always think of this time of year as a triple witching hour as her birthday, Valentine’s Day and the anniversary of our meeting all happen with five days of each other. I make Hallmark’s budget balance in that short period of time.
Unlike yours truly, Señora is not horrified by birthdays. This year is different, however. She is having a hard time dealing with the number. Every time she walks past the thermostat and it reads 69 she goes a little batty. She is convinced that this piece of smart, Internet connected technology is mocking her. I am hoping there is not a whole year of this.
But then again for the rest of the year we keep the thermostat at 72. Guess who is hitting this wonderful number this year. I am sure this maldito contraption will be mocking me too.
And so it goes.
Matrimonial Log – Star Date 5784.022
“Matrimony… the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Casamiento Segundo, its until-death-do-us-part mission… to explore a strange new relationship… to seek out a new life and new adventures… to boldly go where no sane couple has gone before.”
Señora with her eyebrows arched, thankfully not peering at me over the top of her glasses like my Mama used to do, said to me, “You know I have grounds for an annulment, don’t you?”
Being skilled at repartee, I replied, “Oh?”
“Yes,” she went on, “you did not disclose an important fact to me.”
Again with the adept repartee I answered, “Oh?”
“You did not tell me you were an alien, that you were from another planet.”
“Really,” I countered, “I thought you would have figured that out before we were married when I taught you the ear tugging trick.”
And so it goes.
Okay like a lot of my stories there is a grain of reality in there, and just a wee bit of literary license. I did something or the other, very innocent I am sure, that caused Señora to accuse me of being an extraterrestrial.
If you did not get the ear tugging reference, follow this link to Bad Jokes and read the one entitled The Martians. It’s and oldie, but goodie.
Let’s Rumble…
In my painful attempts at writing, in my paltry efforts to describe Señora, I frequently refer back to her relationship with her mother. What her mother wanted was a petite, sylphlike, polished Jewish American Princess, JAP as they are commonly referred to. What the stork brought was from the Russian peasant side of the family, very much an Earth Mother, very much not a JAP, very much to the chagrin of both parties.
Señora has a very good friend that she has known since they were 16. Señora‘s friend would have checked off all the items on Señora’s mother’s menu of a perfect JAP daughter. I cannot imagine finding her in the middle of an Ozark stream building cairns like an Earth Mother of my acquaintance. Because they occupy opposite ends of the Jewish American Princess spectrum, I tend to think of them as a case of opposites attracting.
Let’s Rumble…
I bring her up as she is Continue reading “Let’s Rumble…”
Think I Like Word Play?
Señora was ever so kind as to gift me a daily calendar of Dad Jokes. As one of my quotidian habits I have been sharing the “humor” with my mishpocha in my native state of Oklahoma…much to their chagrin.
Today’s joke:
Why can’t you hear a pterodactyl going to the bathroom?
Because the “P” is silent.
Of course I had to riff on that:
I can already hear the tsunami of groans coming from Oklahoma… like a wrinkled gnome gnawing and gnashing on a bone, kneeling on one knee in front of the knight and knave, hoping to wrangle or to wriggle or to wrestle his way out of their wrath.
“What a psychedelic experience I am having,” said the psychopath to his psychologist.
“Oh don’t get your knickers in a knot, they already have too many wrinkles, ” answered the pshrink.
Okay the last one was made up, but some folks refer to head shrinkers as p-shrinks.
Like any good comedian (yes, a bit of hubris), I had to insert a callback to a previous joke:
I could go on, if I had more thyme or was less sage.
And so it sometimes go.
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Solitude and Quietness
Solitude and Quietness… no I am not Superman in his Fortress of Solitude.
I came across this click bait article in my news feed with the words weird and intelligent grabbing my attention.
10 Weird Habits of Highly Intelligent People
It did make me wonder about a large group of folks, especially the generations younger than me , Z, X, Epsilon, Millennials, Omega, Alpha, Cherrio, whatever it is they are calling them these days.
There seems to be all too many folks that have to have music, video, some form of input constantly streaming into their heads. When does this leave time for quite reflection and daydreaming?
Of course, one of our neighbors, a gentleman several years older than I, cannot be outside without plugging in. Since he must be nearly deaf, he has his rock and roll from the 60s and 70s cranked up in his huge radar operator earphones. If he is walking his dog, I can hear him a football field away.
A few years back, without conscious decision, I started leaving the radio/CD player off in my vehicles the majority of the time. Especially when I was jogging or now when I am riding my bike, it is a qualitative difference between doing those activities with audio input versus listening to your own self. When I realized this, I quit plugging in so much when I was doing those sort of activities.
We all walk this world in our own moccasins, but I do worry about folks constantly plugged in without quiet time for their self.
And so it goes.
Quote of the Day – José Mujica
Former Uruguayan President, José Mujica, when asked why he lived as if he were poor, he insisted that he did not need to have more things to be happy.
“I am not a poor president. The poor are not those who have little, but those who need a lot. I do not live with poverty, I live with austerity, with renunciation. I need little to live well.” ~~ José Mujica
I am utterly fascinated by this man, a former president of Uruguay. As president of Uruguay he refused to live in the presidential palace, preferring to continue living in his home on a small farm on the outskirts of Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. Plus at that time he got around town in an old beat up blue VW Bug.
From Wikipedia:
“Mujica has been described as “the world’s humblest head of state” due to his austere lifestyle and his donation of around 90 percent of his $12,000 monthly salary to charities that benefit poor people and small entrepreneurs.An outspoken critic of capitalism’s focus on stockpiling material possessions which do not contribute to human happiness, he has been praised by the media and journalists for his philosophical ideologies; the Times Higher Education referred to him as the ‘philosopher president’ in 2015, a play on words of Plato’s conception of the philosopher king.”
Not only is he a politician, but he is also a deep thinking philosopher. The world could use more leaders like him.
I pulled this quote from an online Spanish review course I have been taking at 1001ReasonsToLearnSpanish. Below is the quote as I originally found it.
Cuando se le preguntaba por qué vivía como si fuera pobre, él insistía en que no le hacía falta tener más cosas para ser feliz. “Yo no soy un presidente pobre. Pobres no son los que tienen poco, sino los que necesitan mucho. Yo no vivo con pobreza, vivo con austeridad, con renunciamiento. Preciso poco para vivir bien”.
To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day
Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #2,503
yeah I know you did not ask!
You should so be blessed – well cursed at times actually – with a mind such as mine, making all these weird connections between my rumored neurons. Just be thankful that I do not share all of my random thoughts.
Friends do not let friends spend hours careening down the YouTube or Facebook rabbit holes.
Put that cell phone down on the ground and step back 2 paces… DO IT NOW! Don’t make me hide your charger again.
Just saying.