Thursday, November 13, 2014

Snow; Pineapples; Tea Parties; Style; Telephone Calls; Scam and Spam; Saints; Nixon; Elaine Idea; Living Wage; Texas Taxes; Leno; Macular

S N O W  !!


"Ou sont les neiges d'antan?"  Well, they're back.


"The snow had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night,
Had been coating the woods and highlands
With a something or other of white."


"Roamin' in the Gloamin'
With my bonnie by my side..."


What the hell is a Gloaming?


How about another dozen of weird  items from my daily notebook:


01.  Hawaii and Pineapple


I've told this story before.  Let's see if I can tell it again without too many embellishments.


While going to Boston University, my wife and I looked around for a place to live.  The University referred us to an apartment house just across Commonwealth Avenue.  A number of other BU married couples lived there and there was an opening.


The place was run by an elderly lady whose last name was Dole.  She said she was originally from Hawaii, and told us she was a member of the Dole family that had the big pineapple plantations on Lanai, one of the fertile Hawaiian Islands.  She said that she kept this apartment house for BU couples because she loved the school and what it stood for.


The Dole lady immediately took a liking to my dear wife and wanted to welcome us into her fold.  She especially liked Elaine's maturity and told her that she would like her to be the so-called "wife-in-charge"..  That was fine, until she told Elaine what her main duty would be.  She would be the "mother" for the tea parties to be held every day. 


Elaine's spirit of independence rebelled.. she did not like the idea of being tied to a daily regimen of "tea, glorious tea"..  so, even though it meant giving up a possible chance to tie into the vast Dole family fortunes.. she said "no", and we moved on to other venues.


02. Delaware and Tea Parties


Our Dole story reminded me of my cousin Tom's attempt to tie into the Delaware DuPont family.  Tom said that one of the DuPont relatives was experiencing dementia and the family was seeking an understanding person who could serve as her private butler and care-giver.  Tom felt that he was the person they were looking for, and he kind of hoped that the rewards would be great.


So, he was hired.  Each afternoon, his duty was to set up chairs and tables in the first foot of water near the family's ocean-front mansion and serve make-believe tea to the old lady and each of her dolls which he propped up in the chairs.  He said that he did this for years, until the old lady passed away.  When her will was read, nobody could find anything in it about my cousin.  So it goes.


03.  New York Style


For ten years now, the New York Times has been publishing a weekly New York Times Style Magazine.  I love the New York Times newspaper and the weekly word puzzles.  I even don't mind their advertisements for 13 million dollar condominiums, or their "Vows" section, where people who have "made it big" write "down" to the "little folks" and let them read about their weddings.  But the Style Magazine?!  Skinny-legged women showing off their spindly legs and weird hairdos in an attempt to sell "original copies of originals" ... I'm sure female readers of the Style Magazine, shortchange their families' budgets to buy some of the useless crap that is advertised. 


04.  Telephone Report for October 2014


I kept track of phone calls during the month of October.  I received  some calls that I did not  care to receive.  This is a summary of those calls:


I received 26 calls from "known" scam/spam artists.


I received 18 calls from "suspected" scam/spam artists.


I received 25 calls that I could not identify.


I received 2 calls from myself.  (How did they do that?)


Surprizingly, I only received one Robocall.. from local politician, Justin Ready (pronounced Reedy)  I think I was slighted.. after all, as an Independent, I expected  more.


05.  Pilgrimage Site?


Mental Floss magazine reports on St. Blaise Church in Vodnjan, Croatia.  Six, count 'em, six preserved Catholic saints are on display.  Make sure, if you visit, that you check out Saint Mary of Egypt's preserved tongue, as well as a thorn from Jesus' crown.


06.  More on President Nixon


I read recently that President Richard Nixon once said that his favorite breakfast was ketchup and cottage cheese.  (I don't think that I want to try that, but I'm sure it is very nutritious.)


07.  More on the Election


Timothy Egan in the New York Times (I think) said that Senator Mitch McConnell paid people to show up at his rallies and pretend to be excited.


Tim also mentioned that Texas had passed a selective voter ID bill that could keep upward of 600,000 citizens (students, Native Americans, the elderly) from being able to vote in the recent election.  He also says that you can vote in Texas with a concealed handgun ID, but not one from a four-year college.


 08.  Another Idea from Elaine Lottes


Elaine is full of ideas.  One of her recent ones:


Wouldn't it be better, if when you dropped something, it went up, instead of down?


Think about that!


09.  A Billionaire's Advice


The Progressive Populist:  Nick Hanauer, a billionaire Internet entrepreneur, recently warned other rich folks: 


a.  The true job creators are middle-class consumers, not rich businesspeople like us.
b.  The soundest way to shrink government is to decrease the need for it by paying wages so people do not need food stamps, rent assistance and the like.
c.  Stop the feudal low-wage policies and get rid of the widening divide, or "the pitch forks are going to come for us."


Remember the French Revolution?
 
10.  What about that, Mr. Governor?


Harper's Index:  Texas collects one and one half trillion dollars a year from undocumented workers.


11. Leno-speak.


Funny Times/John Winokur:


"Fifty percent of America's population spends less than ten dollars a month on romance.  You know what we call these people?  Men."   Jay Leno


12.  Coinages?


Every few months, I go to an eye specialist who injects a product into my macular degenerate right eye... before he does that, he puts drops in my eye and numbs it with lidocaine.   So:  I call that doctor a DROPTHALMOLOGIST, and the numbing material PREPARACAINE.
..............................................................................................
bye for now

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