"No matter how cynical I get, I can’t keep up.” — Lily Tomlin
It’s all stuff
I posted this vintage Christmas card to Facebook to amuse my friends. The kid’s woeful expression prompted a few comments. Really, though, if you study 19th and early 20th century portraits, photos, and illustrations, unsmiling faces were the rule rather than the exception. People always looked somber. I started to wonder why that was. Well, for one thing, […]
Yesterday Polly and I visited our friend Ed’s garage to do some cosmetic work on the Ducati. Ed, as regular readers know, is not only a friend but my motorcycle maintenance guru. With his help, we put on new clutch & brake levers, bar end mirrors, and front turn signals. The bike’s still a little rough, but there must […]
Black Friday is a tawdry commercial invention and I won’t give it the dignity of calling it tradition, no matter how many years it’s been going on. A tradition I endorse, on the other hand, is the Black Friday horror story. Another tradition I endorse is avoiding human contact by shopping online. But in a fit of […]
The new trailer’s home, parked behind the new fence we had built to screen it from view. I’m fighting the urge to hook it to the new truck and drive around for no reason. There’ll be plenty of occasions to use it, and soon. Donna says I’ve had my birthday and Christmas, not just this year but all the […]
A sure sign of getting old is confusion over repurposed abbreviations. I no longer know what people mean when they say CRM or CSA—or even CIA. I used to teach CRM—crew resource management—to USAF fighter pilots, but that’s not what computer people mean by CRM. People tell me they get their veggies and fruits from the […]
Our daughter Polly’s possessions are still at the ex-boyfriend’s house in Ajo, Arizona: furniture, kitchen stuff, clothes, the lot. Since she’s still with us and doesn’t yet have a place of her own, the ex has been allowing her to keep her things there. Polly found another job, this time with our local school district. She starts this week, […]
Look, I don’t have to explain myself or justify my choices, so save your “I quit watching that after the first episode” cracks for someone who’ll be impressed by your brilliance and discretion, all right? I will admit, however, that I’ve fallen into some lazy habits when it comes to watching TV, because I’ve been […]
I’m going to put a few freeway miles on the new truck this morning. The one-year-old but new-to-us truck, that is. The original tires didn’t have a lot of tread left so we had new ones put on. Before the new tires, the alignment seemed off: there was a very slight pull to the right. […]