Category: Rev. Joe Dirt’s Ramblings

The unsolicited, unreasoned, uninformed, unapologetic opinions of Rev. Joe Dirt

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Choice is Good

I have two frequent muses for my silly, little blog.  One is Señora. Most of the time she is okay with being my muse, sometimes she is tickled, and on occasion, she will arch one eyebrow and give me that look. After two bouts of the the brain fever known as matrimonitis I have gained enough “wisdom” to seek Señora‘s approval before releasing stories involving her into the wilds of cyberspace.

My other muse is The Wee Dog, aka Princess Lily, our 7 kilogram rescue dog. A year or so after we adopted her, on a whim – and on sale – we had her DNA tested.  She is 3/8 Bichon Frisé, 1/4 Dachshund, 1/8 Pomeranian, 1/8 Pekingese, 1/8 Shih Tzu and 100% adorable except to squirrels, rabbits, moles and especially chipmunks.

Señora and Princess Lily are essentially surgically/psychically/telepathically connected. Neither one of them can stand not knowing where the other is, generally they are in the same room together.  As revealed in True Confessions, I, by spells, have my roles to play in this ménage à chienne. For reasons known Continue reading “Choice is Good”

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Shopping Amazon…Bad for the Environment?

I generally agree with Bill Maher, but I find him so self-righteous that at times I find him hard to take.

I find myself between a rock and hard place shopping these days for all things except groceries.  In full disclosure (smiley face) Señora takes care of that.  I really do not like buying from Amazon because 1) I find Jeff Bezos obnoxious beyond words 2) I do not see Amazon’s business model good for anyone except Jeff Bezos and maybe Amazon shareholders 3) they like many of these big tech companies went over to the dark side long ago.

Where is Luke Skywalker when you need him?

Yet I keep buying from Amazon.  When I try to buy locally I generally cannot find what I want. I say locally, most the stores anymore are really part of huge corporations.  And these huge corporations continue to eat into many businesses that have traditionally been local mom and pop operations. Have you tried to find an independent barber shop lately?

So then I try to buy online, but not from Amazon.  But somehow Amazon always beats everyone else to death price wise. I thought I found a good source for used books that was not Amazon, Abebooks. Guess what. Amazon owns them.

Where is Teddy Roosevelt when you need him?

If you are sensitive to “colorful” language… you might want to avoid Mr. Maher and this video.

After Bezos rode into space on Blue Origin’s maiden voyage, he famously said this in a news conference.

“I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all this.”

To me ears that was one rankest statements of hubris I have ever heard, given Amazon’s reputation for overworking and underpaying employees, given how their business model has changed the American landscape – and not for the better.

And so it should not go.

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Open or Closed?

Señora and I are having an ongoing “debate”.  After visiting the bathroom for a “meditation session”, do you leave the bathroom door shut or do you open it?  My opinion is that you leave it shut to trap the “aromas” therein, allowing them dissipated in due time.   Señora repeatedly opines that it is better to leave the door open to allow the “aromas” to dissipated quicker.

We keep a candle in there, but the problem with those is that I forget I have lit it.   I suppose that is a minor fire hazard, but mainly they are burning up very quickly.

On a semi-related note, did you know that there are soaps that are solely for decoration, that they are not there for the washing of your hands?

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Mounds, by gawd, Oklahoma

click to see larger

Recently Señora and I were in Oklahoma. First, we made a quick visit to my mother in her nursing home in Owasso. She has Alzheimer’s, so quick or long, the visit it is all the same. In fact given her level of engagement and attention span, a short visit might be better, even if St. Louis to Owasso is a long trip.

Afterwards we headed towards Okemah, OK to go to the Woody Guthrie musical festival.  On the way there I made the impromptu decision to visit Mounds, OK. “Mounds, Oklahoma,” you say, “I have never of it.”  Well do not feel alone in that, Continue reading “Mounds, by gawd, Oklahoma”

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I Just Lacked Patience

I spend hardly anytime on Nextdoor.  I actually have their notifications going to an email account I use if I think I might be spammed by a site or business.  Every day or two or three I flip through this account to see if there is anything of interest there, but mainly just to delete all the trash.  Today, however, one notification of a posting on Nextdoor caught my attention.

Sharon RottlerKirkwood Park / Meramec • 17 hr ago

Someone just left me $60 in cash on my front porch with a note that said “mailbox replacement “ . We have been talking about replacing our mailbox, just haven’t gotten around to it. If you left the cash, please let me know who you are and why you felt the need to give us money.?

Some of you, dear cherished readers, may remember a posting of mine, The Things We Notice, on this same channel.  In that posting I touched on several things but one was the replacing of the post on which rides our mailbox.

After reading the Nextdoor posting, I quickly came to the conclusion that I had not been patient enough, that I should have listened to Señora’s encouragement just a little while longer before undertaking the much needed replacement of our mailbox post.  Since I replaced the old post with a new cedar post, since I reused the mailbox that Sarah had painted, since I did the labor myself, the $60 would have covered my costs, and it would have left me enough over for a six-pack of one of the craft beers that I so enjoy.  Ahhh…Grasshopper… patience.

You have to feel for the poster though.  She tossed a softball to all the trolls out there.  Some of the comments were just funny, but a least a couple were down right mean.  Life on line is not for the faint of heart at times.

And so it goes.

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Señora’s Grilled Cheese Secret

One of the ways that Señora spoils me is to make me a grilled cheese sandwich from time to time.  She is especially apt to do this if I am frantically rushing, gathering the necessaries to go to the golf course, or if I am in the the middle of a honey-do project around our abode.

I find her grilled cheese sandwiches especially delectable.  While making a grilled cheese is not an especially challenging culinary chore, when I make one they are never quite as exquisite as  those that Señora creates.  Externally, they look the same, the beautiful deep brown color of bread essentially fried in a vat of butter – and yes I take my cholesterol  pill religiously. The difference is on the inside.  Her sandwiches have a creamy, melted cheese interior with the cheese dripping from the edges.  I can never get mine to do that.

But I recently discovered her secret, she puts the cheese on a plate and pre-softens it in the microwave and then weaves the cheese into a piece of art on the bread before popping the tasty gastronomic treasure into the skillet with more butter.

Yum, yum.

I might be able to recreate her sandwich now, but it would still be lacking that one important ingredient that makes her sandwich so special, TLC.

And so it goes.

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Speechless after that…

I went to the golf course the other day and picked up a game with a twosome on the first tee, two gentlemen around my age. We rocked along for 16 or so holes playing golf and occasionally, occasionally conversing.  Somehow the conversation turned to social media.

I remarked that I was not on any of it currently, and that I had gotten off of Facebook years ago after discovering that I did not  like many of my relatives. At least a big part of that was that many of my relatives had huge problems with my liberal politics and agnostic stance on religion, and I with their conservative politics and evangelic religion.

After hearing my comment about not liking my relatives, one of the gentleman remarked, “I don’t like anyone.”

Well…I did not know quite know what to say after that.  I’m not sure I have ever heard misanthrope so openly avowed.

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Grant Peeples – Insurrection Song (January 6th)

One more video of a song we heard performed at the Woodyfest in Okemah, OK.  Grant Peeples was a last minute replacement for an act that became sick.  His claim to fame is that he opened for Dan Berns one time at a famous venue in Atlanta, GA.  The singer-songwriter career path is a strange and frequently a not-for-profit journey.  But there does seem to be a lot of these troubadours out there, struggle though it may be.

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Red State Blues by The Red Dirt Rangers

About the time I have completely written off Oklahoma as hopeless and a no man’s zone, I run across something gives me a glimmer of hope that all is not lost in my native state.

The Red Dirt Rangers are hugely popular in Oklahoma, especially around the Stillwater region.  It always amazes that bands like this are not bigger nationally.   We heard them perform this song Thursday night at the Woodyfest in Okemah, OK.