Friday, March 31, 2017

I'd Go Anywhere With You Honey. I think..

I accidentally swallowed a piece of gum the other day.  Slithered down real easy.  I haven't swallowed any gum since high school, or 45 some years ago.  Peppermint burps ensued, but I figured they were a heck of a lot better than gas, or puke burps.

I was concerned it was going to add about two grams of weight to my torso for the next seven years, but it turns out that's just an old wives tale.  You know, scare the bejezus out of the kids so they don't eat their gum.  Kinda like the worms and raw sugar thing.

A miniscule amount of those two grams of masticatory substance do digest, like the sweetening agent, but the rest of the synthetic elastomers, or rubberlike materials, as well as plasticizing softeners, resins and preservative antioxidizing agents are going to remain intact.  Hopefully slithering out as easily as they slithered on in.  Fortunately I only swallowed one piece and not a truck load.

I definitely try to not get political on this blog, I think I only went rabid once.  And that was to point out that it's hard to have a discussion with someone when the facts they are espousing aren't really facts at all.  You know, alternative facts.  It's imperative, especially NOW, that everyone gets their facts from reliable sources.  And if you're not sure if it's a fact or propaganda, then check a few sources.  Please.  The future of our country depends on it.

And speaking of our country, you know things have gotten potently weird when Senator Lindsay Graham makes sense.  And you see George W on TV and wistfully harken back to the good old days... 

"I'd go anywhere with you Honey."

I made that comment one evening to my lovely wife, and I meant it.  But then, later that same evening, I got to thinkin that there may be a few places I'd probably not want to go.

We've already established somewhere, sometime in a previous post that I'm only good for an hour of shopping.  I don't care what it is.  Clothes, food, hardware, furniture.  One hour. 

No, I take that back.  I'm only good at furniture shipping for oh, say, about seven minutes.  After that, I don't care.  She can buy whatever she wants.  I'd rather do crossword puzzles in the car.  Maybe stare at some air for a while.

There's also a number of planetary locations I can pass on.  Iraq and Iran come to mind.  So does Syria.  And Mozambique.  The entire continent of Africa for that matter.  Kansas.  Los Angeles.

Other than the aforementioned, I'm probably good to go.  She already bamboozled me into a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit, I mean, how much more challenging and daring could it get?

I just FINALLY finished completing the plantation of the orchard.  That little project only took six years.  In addition to the white nectarine, yellow nectarine, peach, and plum that are now fruit bearing four year olds, we have added: two pears, two apples, a cherry, an apricot, a white peach and a pomegranate.  One more cherry is still on tap.

One of the reasons it took so long is there's a whole bunch of stuff I do when they go in.  First there's the hole, then the positioning of the bare root tree, then the entire hole gets filled with real good top soil, then several layers of wood chips go on, then I introduce a few worms to each tree basin, then a couple T-posts go in and then each little darling gets wrapped with five foot high wire so that them damn flea infested mule deer don't rape and pillage.  And of course, I will now have to dote on them during the hot, dry summer months.

I just made an investment in a new computer.  The old one, I mean ten years really old, running the Windows Vista platform, finally crashed.  For good.  I've been nursing it along for a couple years now, and everyone, I mean everyone who touched the thing told me I needed to get a new one.  Aw shucks, darn.  I'm the fool on this here hill, what do I know about new?

My biggest concern about the crash was my ITunes song collection, close to a thousand hand picked songs.  I routinely back up documents and photos, but ITunes is a bit of a different animal.  Without going into a multi-paragraph diatribe about the cloud, the Geek Squad and the missing close to a hundred tunes, I am happy to say all is now safe and sound and found. 

This new computer is markedly faster, and the screen is massive.  It's also a touchscreen, which I haven't really used yet.  Old dog, new tricks.  My basic writing motus operandi is sitting back with my feet on the desk, remote key board on my lap, looking at the screen from about two to three feet away.  I'd need pretty long arms if I was going to be using the touch screen, know what I mean?

The other night I watched a bit of the epically colossal blockbuster 1963 movie, "Cleopatra", starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.  I say watched a bit because the movie is just over four hours long.  I can't sit still for four minutes let alone four hours.

But, Holy Cow!  What a lavish extravaganza.  It cost forty-four million to make back then, which would be equivalent to roughly three hundred fifty million today.  The sets were incredible, the costumes magnificent.  It's no wonder the movie took home Oscars for both those categories.

The movie went way over budget, which is not surprising when you have from fifty to a thousand extras in every other scene.  Plus those beasts need to eat.  And half the costumes on the principal actors contained actual gold.  As a matter of fact, one of Liz's sixty-five costumes was made from twenty-four carat gold cloth.

Seventy-nine massive, amazing sets.  Twenty-six thousand colorful costumes.

And Liz's eye shadow was epically incredible.  Her face was a double sided mural, bright beautiful colors illuminating from what seemed like a football field between her cornea and brow.  She could have provided the entire light show at a rock concert.  Just by blinking.

Liz also showed off her ample cleavage with just about every offering.  And every once in a while an entire naked leg peeked through her many times quite sheer gown.  As a matter of fact, there were numerous scenes with bikinily clad women dancing around as entertainment for the royalty.  It had all the trappings of, say, a PG rated Roman orgy, including over intoxication and ribald laughter.

And then there was this scene between Richard (Mark Antony) and Liz (Cleo).  She's wearing a sheer lavender gown open to her navel, he's wearing a turquoise, gold,  leather and leopard print tunic type thing that's short.  I mean, showing a helluva lot of leg really short.  Like 1980's OP shorts short.  I mean, his tunic was shorter than Taylor Swift's hot pants.

And thusly attired, Mark Antony says, while walking behind Cleopatra, "I have a fondness for all things Greek."

What does this mean???  Do you think he was talking about salad?

Speaking of Liz and Dick, this was the first of eleven movies they starred in together.  It was also the beginning of a real life love hate relationship between them that lasted until Burton's death.

"May I never be free of you," says Mark Antony to Cleopatra after a tender kiss.  Or was that Dick to Liz? 

And speaking of Richard Burton, that man possessed amazing oratory skills.  He also had remarkable knees.  As a matter of fact, most all the men in the movie were attired in short, leather whatsits when they weren't wearing robes.  There was more visible bare male thigh in this movie than any Annette Funacello and Frankie Avalon beach romp.

Rex Harrison is also in the film as Caesar.  But he gets stabbed, a lot, by almost everybody, about midway through the movie.  I have to admit it was strange to see Rex playing a Roman emperor.  I kept waiting for him to teach Cleopatra vowels and about the rain in Spain.

How does the movie end?  I have no idea.  As I first mentioned, it's over four hours long.

I am currently in the planning stages of an upcoming excursion over land and sea to London, England.  Brexit was a pretty good thing for the dollar, apparently.  We're going to London for ten days for a thousand bucks less than a seven day junket to Cabo.  And trust me, Cabo is a heck of a lot closer to us than London is.  And it's, I mean, in Mexico.

Not only will it be a wonderful adventure, it will also give me a travel subject to write about.  I have discovered it's difficult to be a travel writer if you're not going anywhere. 

I'm going to make a note of that.

I have already been to the London Bridge, which is weird, because it's in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.  I think they sell a lot of fish and chips there, in Arizona, in the middle of the desert.  Doesn't anybody else think that's weird?

So I am in the process of working on an Excel spread sheet for the excursion, figuring what sights work best with particular days.  It's a problem, I know.

Here's some good information for just about everybody.  I was recently gnawed on by a tick.  The last time this happened was about fifty-six years ago, when I was six.  I don't think there's a pattern here, but if there is, I'll take it. 

I had just sat down on that one seat in the house where a lot of folks first sit in the morning and something innocently drew my hand to scratch my right upper torso.  A couple light scratches and whatever it was tumbled off and into the toilet.  At first I thought it was a little scab because it came off so easily.

But when I got up and looked in the mirror, holy cow!  There was one big, red, round circle the size of a quarter with a little crater in the middle. Bastard!  Fortunately I already had a scheduled appointment with my doctor for that afternoon.  He confirmed it was a tick bite, and here's the kicker.  The tick HAS to be in there and actively sucking your blood for at least 30 HOURS before they can transmit the bad stuff, like Lyme Disease.

I'm pretty sure I picked him up that night from one of our cats, so I'd give him from six to ten hours feasting upon my flesh.  Bastard.  I usually burn them when I pull them from the cats, but at least this guy got to go to a shitty demise.

Homestead Update

I was talking with one of my neighbors the other day.  She, like me, loathe day-light savings and the long summer hours.  Our short winter break is over.  Back to non-stop fun and frolic for seeming ever.  We may be getting too old for this.  I already need two of me just to keep up.

I had to put down my first chicken this morning.  I've had plenty of them die on me, or just disappear, but I haven't had to dust one on purpose, until now.  She got sick, or maybe injured, and I actually nursed her back to health over a week or so.  She was eating and drinking on her own.  But one of her legs possibly had atrophied while she was still and her foot had turned black.  She couldn't move on her own.  Sigh. 

It was Josie Rosie Posie too, the girl who survived the ringtail attack a couple years back.  It was the total humane action to take, but that did not make it easier.  She is now buried near the picket fence and will provide excellent fertilizer for the many flowers that will be taking over the area in the coming months.

The rest of the flock is fine, including that damn rooster.  And we have four new chicks in the brooder, two of which are Guinea Hens. 

Let's see; burn piles, cut flower boxes to build, brick planter box to create, brick entry and rose sea, weeds, weed whacking, corn, melons, tomatoes, firewood.  2017.  It's on.  

But first, before it gets too crazy, London.  Look for that first travel post near the end of May.

Happy Spring Y'all.











1 comment:

  1. Whats up with the "worms and raw sugar" story? I dont think anyone ever told me about that!!

    ReplyDelete