Wednesday, March 04, 2015

Bluebirds; Exercise; Stature; President Lincoln; Guess my Age; Defensive Measures

There's a bluebird on my shoulder,\
It's the truth, it's actual,
Everything is satisfactual.


Zip a dee doo dah!  Zip a dee ay!
Wonderful feelin'
Wonderful day!


Yesterday, there must have been 30 bluebirds on our feeders... today, not quite so many, but still some.  The sight of them makes Elaine very happy.


I cut up some nutty suet and put some in each of 4 empty flower pots.   The bluebirds get down inside to eat the suet and keep popping up their heads to make sure they are safe.   So far, the squirrels have not found out.  Lots of birds like the suet.. especially the woodpeckers.. we get both the red-headed ones and the other.  Also, Tit-mice like it and hang upside down to peck at it.


We've been seeing other colorful birds recently too... one yellow bird that we can't place .. some real  big blue jays .. and of course, Mr. and Mrs. red Cardinal.  


Today, the temperature went up to around 40 degrees Fahrenheit and most of the glare ice on our sidewalk and driveway melted in the afternoon.   This morning, it was still too icy to attempt to go to my NARFE Board meeting.  They seemed to manage without me.


Exercise


Jon Winokur listed some exercise sayings from some of my favorite people:


Ellen DeGeneres:  "I really don't think that I need buns of steel.  I'd be happy with buns of cinnamon."


Phyllis Diller:  "My idea of exercise is a good brisk sit."


Mark Twain:  "I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting."
      and            "I am pushing sixty.  That is enough exercise for me."


Miss Piggy:  "Never eat more than you can lift."


Monsieur Poirot?


President Abraham Lincoln stood around 7 feet tall, especially when he wore that tall beaver hat which he used as the repository of his important papers and mail.   I'm told that he liked to talk about a little Frenchman, that he saw walking during a snowy, Wintery storm..  He said that the Frenchman's legs were so short that the seat of his trousers rubbed out his footprints as he walked. 


Birthday Joke from Edith Keeney


An 85 year old man was accosted by five old ladies at the retirement home.  He asked what they wanted, and they said that they would like to guess his age.  He told them to go ahead.  They told him that it involved three tests, and he would have to do as they said or they would not be able to guess.  He said that was ok.


First, they asked him to take off his pants and walk in a circle.   Next, they told him to take off his underpants.   He balked at this, but they were insistent.  And next, they asked him to jump up and down with is underpants off.  Although very embarrassed, he did so. 


Giggling, the ladies then said that he was 85 years old.  Amazed, he asked them which one of the three tests gave them a clue.   "None of them, " exclaimed one lady.   "Then how do you know how old I am?" he said.   "Well," said the ladies: "We were at your birthday party yesterday!"


Mysterious Defensive Measures


Dick Cavett recently wrote about important books in his life... He was asked by a reviewer if he had ever gotten in trouble for reading a book?


Dick mentioned that the book "Modern Judo" (1943) contained details about a chokehold so lethal that repeated fatalities caused it to be banned from competition... Dick says: "In a fight on the sixth-grade playground, my friends stepped back in horror when I clearly killed my classmate Herbert Langhus with it.  He turned gray, a tear came down.. and then he stirred and was helped inside.  He's fine."


This reminded me of an encounter that I have written up elsewhere:  Once in Nuremburg, Germany, I walked into a bar where a lot of American GI's hung out.  These were tough guys who ran bulldozers and stuff like that.  I was with a German girl and I was wearing a green suit.. by God, I sure looked like a German.. a couple of the drunk GI's did not believe I was an American and started to harass me.  As a dozen or more other GI's wandered over to see if they could beat on me for fun... I decided to act.. I utilized a kind of a chokehold on the biggest, toughest guy in the crowd... luckily for me, he was a sucker for the movement and fell down on the floor, crying for his mama and scaring the hell out of his buddies, who immediately parted and let me out of the door.


I'm glad that I did not kill  him, and I'm glad that I never had an occasion to use the grip ever again, neither in Germany or the U.S.
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Well, that's enough for tonight.  I need to get ready to the 8 to 12 more inches of snow that we will be getting within the next 12 hours.


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