Looking for spines

It’s a glorious morning, or so I say. Yesterday it was a dank gloomy one and today I am opting that with confidence it’ll be better. “With confidence”, because it’s still dark and so can’t really be proven wrong. Marcia got up early and so Mr. Coffee finished perking – pretty cool.

The events of a couple of evenings ago are already a distant memory.

Really I saw very little of Thursday’s Big Show other than a quick peek now and then. What I did see was the President as just a loud, divisive, angry, old codger. The assembled Democrats merely a brainless cheering mob. And the Republicans couldn’t quit trying to discover their own spines.

I occupied myself in a variety of other ways. More on that below.

Glory Days – Walgreen’s is a mere mile and a half away – great for some exercise. For decades Marcia took nary a pill. That’s changed. Over the last months, this “never take a pill’ business has changed. So, Wednesday I did a ‘two-fer’; walked to Walgreen’s and got Marcia a new round of pills.

What I hadn’t counted on was the squirrel.

The pharmacist got Marcia’s prescription and began to record the transaction.

Zzzzzzzzz was the sound. All lights went off. About 3-seconds later ‘poof’ all the store’s lights came on. My remark was; “well that was lucky.” “Wrong”, said the pharmacist, “our systems are the last to finish rebooting” She was correct, by nearly 20-minutes.

In the meantime, the line behind me had been growing. One lady said that she had seen what caused the outage. It was a squirrel on the transformer pole across the street across from White Castle. She saw the sparks and the thing go flying. Meanwhile, some grumbling had begun, and the store manager came to prevent things from escalating.

Ok, now my turn. To throw a little light on the situation I asked the manager to go and grab the ‘roasted’ squirrel and hold it for me, saying “it’ll be an easy way to bring home some dinner.” He burst out laughing, people smiled (some probably jealous – we are very close to Kentucky after all).

Anyway, when I get really old, it’ll be a great little story for the grandkids to hear. I can hear it now; “Oh no, another story from Opa’s old [Glory] Days”.

Bruce Springsteen – Glory Days

“Think I’m going down to the well tonight
And I’m going to drink ’til I get my fill
And I hope when I get old, I don’t sit around thinking about it
But I probably will
Yeah, just sitting back
Trying to recapture a little of the glory of
Well, the time slips away
Leaves you with nothing, mister, but boring stories of

Glory days
They’ll pass you by, glory days”

SOTU – while our diminishing Ranter-in-Chief did his annual speech, even while winding on and on, with a speech primarily begging for Ukrainian aid I was otherwise occupied. I did hear him promising we’d have their backs and then not mentioning our ‘expedited’ exodus from our previous best buds; Afghanistan.

With all the hollow hoopla , take some moments to listen to one of our generation’s most brilliant minds, Canada’s Dr. Jordan Peterson. As he lays out in a couple of minutes what is really staring all of us in the face. Doing that you’ll recognize the truth of today’s quote by Elanor Roosevelt how it slices through all the ballyhoo. Fast forward to minute mark 1:14.

“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”

~ Eleanor Roosevelt (first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945)

I think my time was better spent. Much better!

Here, in 3 points, is the ‘why’.

Point 1 – A neighbor and friend, older than me, with memory ‘hiccups’, no family, no longer driving, knocked on our door. He nearly collapsed in my arms from weakness; he had no food and couldn’t get any.

Long story short. We made him a couple of sandwiches and two mugs of hot chocolate with whipped cream and some fruits, and we talked for an hour as he recovered. Meanwhile, since we had shopped earlier, Marcia prepared him a grocery bag good for a few days. I made certain he got settled at his home.

So, while the televised diminishing one ranted on and on, and the wastrels clapped and nodded, I was on the hotline with our County Elder Abuse Service intake. Hopefully making a case that they respond with urgency to our friend, get him started with Meals on Wheels and assign him an Ombudsman (some of my very early background and Adrianne’s current knowledge came in handy). We’re staying on to monitor and prod where needed.

Point 2 – Later, I needed to gather myself a bit. Apparently I required to get the grand collection of windbags cheering, clapping, and caving in, while honest people like my friend needs to; “suck it up” get out of my mind.

Amongst some music I also ended up listening to Oliver Anthony’s “Livin’ in the new world”

“These rich men north of Richmond
Lord, knows they all just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don’t think you know but I know that you do
‘Cause your dollar ain’t shit and it’s taxed to no end
‘Cause of rich men north of Richmond”

Point 3 – While listening to that song I noted that Anthony had posted a short update recorded on his Tour Bus. It’s a short bit, but stay with him and pay special attention starting at the 5:35 minute mark.

Anthony’s honest words are more important than anything that I’d seen delivered via the teleprompters earlier on.

Talk Box – Last week it was the passing of Bob Heil, inventor of the famous ‘Talk Box‘ guitar pedal. I mention it because of two pieces that British guitarist Peter Frampton made into massive hits; “Show Me the Way” and “Do You Feel Like We Do“, both having his ‘guitar’ talk to you.

The reason it had me take note is that Frampton lived in the ‘Nati for many years and occasionally would be involved in one civic event or other. We heard his ‘Talk Box’ a bunch.

A Lighter Quote: When even one’s Doctor shakes his head on some of the nonsense being spouted everywhere I felt this was spot on. “A lot of people will be surprised to know that (in plumbing) there are only male pipe threads and female pipe threads” ~ Mike Du Jour by Mike Lester

Now that it’s dawn, It’s the rain starting up again. Earlier on I seemed to have been a bit “overconfident”. Looking at the weather, rain till at least noon and I desperately need to get a walk in – is this the day to test my new rain jacket?

May Peace prevail! Shalom. Prayers for those suffering, hurting, and even so able to stay hopeful and positive – that is very special!

Dirk

BONUS POINTS:
When we hear reference being made to something as ‘isicia omentata’. This is known today as:

1) Spring Harvest?
2) Bull fight?
3) A secret closet?
4) A hamburger?
5) Pierogies?
6) False eyelashes?