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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #3,524

yeah I know you did not ask!

It is very windy today in this suburb of St. Louis.  And it is November.  Most of the trees have lost their leaves, but the passive aggressive pendejos on the sweet gum tree in our yard are persistently hanging on. Sweet gums generally  drop their leaves 3 or 4 weeks after all their neighbors, prompting a new round of leaf raking with this curmudgeon mumbling something about pinche cabrón of a tree and inconsiderate timing.

I was pulling out of our driveway on this windy, fall day when a sweet gum leaf plastered itself on the driver’s door window.  For a brief second or two or a dramatic 3 or 4, I felt like I was in a B-rated sci-fi movie and alien face suckers were coming to get me.

Yeah… I know.

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Quote for the Day — Isaac Asimov

“There never can be a man so lost as one who is lost in the vast and intricate corridors of his own lonely mind, where none may reach and none may save. There never was a man so helpless as one who cannot remember.” ~~ Isaac Asimov in A Pebble in the Sky

 

To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day

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Word of the Day – Plinth

  • Noun: Plinth

    1. a : the lowest member of a base : subbase
      b : a block upon which the moldings of an architrave or trim are stopped at the bottom
    2.  a usually square block serving as a base broadly : any of various bases or lower parts
    3. : a course of stones forming a continuous foundation or base course
  • Synonyms:
    1. podium
    2. base
    3. bed
    4. bottom
    5. foot
    6. foundation
    7. stand
    8. substructure
    9. support
  • Usage:
    1. “Well… perhaps we can put a statue of you on one of those empty plinths.“
  • Encountered:
    1. Listening to a podcast of Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell me! Chatting with a contestant from Richmond, Virginia before the contest Peter Sagal asked about the confederate statues being removed in Richmond.  He went on to tell the contestant that if he won they might put a statue of him on one of the empty plinths.

To see more Words of the Day, visit this link: Words of the Day

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Democracy in Danger

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #4,439

yeah I know you did not ask!

I’ve been using the disposable fiber face masks like you buy in the first aid section of Wal-Mart for most of the pandemic.

I’ve been wanting to get something a little more stylish so when I was in Wally World the other day, I went looking for the black cloth face masks that are so popular.  I found a big display of them made by Hanes at a reasonable price.  The box stated “Fits Most”.

When I got home I broke open the box and tried one on.  It was much too small for me.  I reckon all the people who have been telling me for years that I have a big head were right!

However prominent proboscises are de rigueur on both sides of the family, and my own is a fine example of this family trait.  Add to that the fact that my chin usually precedes me into a room…  well come to think of it I do have a big head.

Reminds me a bit of the old Jeff Foxworthy joke of the man who had big ears, a big nose, big hands and big feet,  he was so ugly he better be packing.

Ba Dum.

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #234

yeah I know you did not ask!

Just before you cross the Mississippi River on I-255 there is big billboard advertising a Mexican restaurant on the Illinois side.  What grabs my attention every time  is the huge statement declaring that they have “The freshest margaritas on either side of the river“.

I have never thought of a margarita as being either fresh or stale.  Perhaps frozen or on the rocks, salt on the rim or not, made with top shelf tequila as opposed to under the bar instant hangover rotgut, but never as fresh or stale.

I finally decided what a fresh margarita must be is one served by a sassy señorita in a too short skirt.  I just may have to check out their beverage claims.

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Going, Going, Gone

On Jan. 20, 2017 I put the “Not My President” bumper sticker on my truck.  I also put the American flag in the distress configuration on it.  For the first few months afterwards I was getting flipped off regularly.  Then it more or less stopped.  The flipping off restarted the couple months leading up to the election.  I got where I did not flip them off in return, but held up my thumb and forefinger about one inch apart to represent my estimation of their manhood.  I don’t recall a woman ever giving me the finger.

With Joe Biden set to become the 46th President I feel I can take the bumper stickers off.  I feel like I am waking up from one the worst nightmares of my life.  A nightmare that has gone on for 4 years.  I know we have a couple more months of the Orange Monster, and that he can do much damage in the that time period. But I can see daylight.  I can see a time when I might start feeling some pride for my country again.

I cannot express the relief that I felt with the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.  And at the same time the disappointment I felt in so many of my fellow citizens. In my life time of presidential elections there has never been a clearer choice between good and evil.  Yet almost half the country chose to vote for Darth Vader over Yoda.  I do not really understand why anyone would have voted for Trump in 2016, but I more or less excused them as buying into to his bull.  This time around it is incomprehensible for me.  They have had 4 years of watching his incompetence and malevolence, and they did it again.  Oh well.

Going, going, and soon to be gone.

Keep well.

 

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My Mossy Address Book

“A rolling stone gathers no moss”

If you were to sum up my life in one phrase the above aphorism might just be it.  I spent the first 18 years of my life more or less as a military brat.  I literally had 13 changes of schools before I graduated high school.  This includes one school that I was in for a single day.  I have described the last 30 years of my working life as that of a computer gypsy, moving around to take different jobs in Information Technology.  I did have a stable period in between (at least as far as physical location) when I lived in Arkansas and we were getting kids through school.

In such a life people come and go.  It is just a fact of life that you get used to.  I do not know how many times I have said to someone, “have a good life”, knowing I would never be seeing them again. I have on occasions tried to maintain relationships over time and distance, but this must be two sided and has very seldom worked out.

I have now reached the age where many of my relatives, friends and acquaintances are passing away.  This is sincerely a sadness just in itself. If a person truly touches you, they take up residence in some part of your psyche.  I have sometimes described this as feeling like I have ghosts running around my soul.    At times it has felt a little crowded in there.

And now add an additional sadness  due  to this technical  age.  After the fact of someone’s death, sometimes much later, I will come across their information in one of my address books or contact lists.  I have such a hard time deleting the information, it feels like deleting the memory of that person.  Sometimes the address\contact card will remain in there for years.  I just cannot delete it.

On the positive side, it does make you stop for a minute and remember the person when you stumble across it.

Sigh.  We march on.

Keep well.

 

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Me gustó mucho esta cita

As someone who has been studying Spanish for a while, I occasionally get frustrated with my language learning journey.  As one of my instructors said to me, “you will always speak Spanish with a Gringo accent, but if your pronunciation and grammar are correct, don’t worry about it.  The idea is to communicate.”  That I can do as long as we are not chatting about the theory of relativity, the philosophy of Descartes or other such esoteric subjects.

In my case that Gringo accent has a strong southern component to it…picture Gomer Pyle speaking Spanish, instead of “Golly, Sargent”, it is, “¡Caramba! Sargento.”  I came across this quote that I can really relate to.

“Do you know what a foreign accent is? It’s a sign of bravery.” — Amy Chua

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Sister Lorie’s Tale from the Dark Side

Did you ever wake up and wonder what side of the planet it is? Well, I woke up and wondered what part of the universe I had been magically transported to. I’m a planner. I planned a trip to Oklahoma City. We have been going to this retreat for a few years now. We found a hotel close by the facility. Granted this hotel is not much, but it is clean and cheap.

I made the reservation on one of those on line places. You know the kind where you can see lots of lower rates for hotels… I won’t mention the name here. I found the hotel, made the reservation and like a flash they charged my card.

That same day, the hubby calls to tell me that ‘mail count’ is that same time frame. For those of you who are not familiar with USPS, mail count translates to going in early, working late and no time off except for your own funeral. Oh well, we can’t go, so I call the online company. Continue reading “Sister Lorie’s Tale from the Dark Side”