Because nothing screams "Date me!" like gas cap flair.
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Wednesday Wa Pic - So you're stuck here with the rest of us
And when you don't open it, or don't close it, it makes the sound of one hand clapping.
Photo credit: Jill Gold. Thanks, Jill!
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Wednesday Wa Pic - But after Labor Day, it's considered tacky
Because nothing says summer like appearing to hide a head wound.
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Wednesday Wa Pic - Reanimation science jobs have their perks
I always wondered why I never saw the good doctor's car on the street.
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Wednesday Wa Pic - Jack of all trades, masta of one
They say it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master something. I am thinking that number is high.
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Wednesday Wa Pic - Pong edition
In the nut aisle, to target that hard-to-reach "wild sleepover" demographic.
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
Wednesday Wa Pic - Monkey Transport Vehicle
You've got kids, right? Don't tell me you never wanted to just tell it like it is...
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Did you know March is National Umbrella Month?
March is International Listening Awareness Month, a fact most men did not hear about, and will not remember if told. Not listening is a trait peculiar to almost every man, as any woman would be glad to tell him, though he would not hear. This is the month to be aware of listening, men.
Of course, it's two-thirds over already, because I did not hear about it.
March is also International Ideas Month. The organization sponsoring it proclaims "our programs...help you capture and clarify what's in your head..." This sounds good, in theory, until you consider that that is one slippery slope.
It is International Mirth Month, as well, which promotes the use of humor as a way of dealing with the travails of modern life. I wish that last sentence were funnier. Clearly, I have managed to fail at International Ideas Month.
March is Mad For Plaid Month, which exists to "celebrate the history and allure of plaid." There are many occasions where "allure" is too strong a word for something, and this is one. Another is when used in a sentence with the word "paisley." Or "bass fishing."
Did you know it is National Caffeine Awareness Month? Not International. Just National. I guess they have given up the French as a lost cause. The creators hope to "reduce dependency through education." This would totally work, if only dependency weren't so fun, and education didn't require a jolt of java to sit through.
March is also National Umbrella Month, "dedicated to the purchase of, use of and conversation about umbrellas." I think it would be hard to have a good conversation about umbrellas, but perhaps International Ideas Month is working better for you than for me.
It is Credit Education Month, Employee Spirit Month, National Craft Month, National Peanut Month (Slogan: "Hooray for national peanuts!"), Optimism Month, National Craft Month ("Because your closet is only 9/10ths full of yarn!"), National Nutrition Month, and Play-the-Recorder Month.
It is also National Frozen Food Month. They tried to take it International, but the Trans-European Heated Food lobby was too strong.
I do not know how a single month can contain so many Months, but it was probably explained at some point and I wasn't listening. Typical.
This is also Root Canal Awareness Week, but keep it down, people, all right? Some of us have to work.
Of course, it's two-thirds over already, because I did not hear about it.
March is also International Ideas Month. The organization sponsoring it proclaims "our programs...help you capture and clarify what's in your head..." This sounds good, in theory, until you consider that that is one slippery slope.
It is International Mirth Month, as well, which promotes the use of humor as a way of dealing with the travails of modern life. I wish that last sentence were funnier. Clearly, I have managed to fail at International Ideas Month.
March is Mad For Plaid Month, which exists to "celebrate the history and allure of plaid." There are many occasions where "allure" is too strong a word for something, and this is one. Another is when used in a sentence with the word "paisley." Or "bass fishing."
Did you know it is National Caffeine Awareness Month? Not International. Just National. I guess they have given up the French as a lost cause. The creators hope to "reduce dependency through education." This would totally work, if only dependency weren't so fun, and education didn't require a jolt of java to sit through.
March is also National Umbrella Month, "dedicated to the purchase of, use of and conversation about umbrellas." I think it would be hard to have a good conversation about umbrellas, but perhaps International Ideas Month is working better for you than for me.
It is Credit Education Month, Employee Spirit Month, National Craft Month, National Peanut Month (Slogan: "Hooray for national peanuts!"), Optimism Month, National Craft Month ("Because your closet is only 9/10ths full of yarn!"), National Nutrition Month, and Play-the-Recorder Month.
It is also National Frozen Food Month. They tried to take it International, but the Trans-European Heated Food lobby was too strong.
I do not know how a single month can contain so many Months, but it was probably explained at some point and I wasn't listening. Typical.
This is also Root Canal Awareness Week, but keep it down, people, all right? Some of us have to work.
. . .
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Wednesday Wa Pic - How the Thin Blue Line makes its green
The Fashion Police have quietly moved into merch.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Trying to be a leftie is getting out of hand
I forgot to post this column Sunday, so this is standing in for the Wednesday Wa Pic:
GW
I somehow strained my elbow pruning a bush last week, another sign that physical exertion in middle age is best left to characters in movies.
I normally treat my gardening like I do my taxes—as an annual chore best put off entirely until somebody notices.
(I hope my next door neighbors, who both work for the IRS, do not read this. They have seen my yard.)
The injury is to my right elbow, and I am right-handed, which means doing a lot of normal things hurts. I have been wearing one of those forearm straps which supposedly protects your elbow tendon so it can heal, but all it seems to do is carve a fascinating pattern into my flesh. The main effect is that now my elbow and my arm hurt.
So I am trying to do things left-handed that I have never done in my life before, like shave. I am a lather-and-blade guy, and wielding a razor with my left hand is like having some stranger reaching over my shoulder and shaving me.
It is not a precise process, or one for the faint of heart. Tears have been shed, and I don't just mean by my webcam audience.
Spreading peanut butter left-handed sounds easy until you realize that your left hand, after half a century spent slacking off, is basically a one-year-old made out of fingers. It slops jelly halfway across the counter, drops the knife on the floor. In seconds it ends up covered to the wrist in goo. Thankfully it doesn't need a diaper, because I could never get it off one-handed.
I look at my left hand admonishingly. "What have you been doing all these years?" I hissed to it one morning as I walked out to the car. Then, because a neighbor saw me, I had to pretend I had the tiniest iPhone ever in my palm.
"Yeah, milk! Get some milk," I called to my hand enthusiastically, then tapped it to hang up.
Sometimes that theater degree pays off in the oddest ways.
Driving one-handed is not recommended, but I do it. The slick of peanut butter makes it harder. I have not shaved off my lips yet. I tell myself that learning to floss one-handed is a valuable life skill, like taking down a boar, only messier.
I tell myself a lot of things these days. Mostly left-handed compliments.
GW
I somehow strained my elbow pruning a bush last week, another sign that physical exertion in middle age is best left to characters in movies.
I normally treat my gardening like I do my taxes—as an annual chore best put off entirely until somebody notices.
(I hope my next door neighbors, who both work for the IRS, do not read this. They have seen my yard.)
The injury is to my right elbow, and I am right-handed, which means doing a lot of normal things hurts. I have been wearing one of those forearm straps which supposedly protects your elbow tendon so it can heal, but all it seems to do is carve a fascinating pattern into my flesh. The main effect is that now my elbow and my arm hurt.
So I am trying to do things left-handed that I have never done in my life before, like shave. I am a lather-and-blade guy, and wielding a razor with my left hand is like having some stranger reaching over my shoulder and shaving me.
It is not a precise process, or one for the faint of heart. Tears have been shed, and I don't just mean by my webcam audience.
Spreading peanut butter left-handed sounds easy until you realize that your left hand, after half a century spent slacking off, is basically a one-year-old made out of fingers. It slops jelly halfway across the counter, drops the knife on the floor. In seconds it ends up covered to the wrist in goo. Thankfully it doesn't need a diaper, because I could never get it off one-handed.
I look at my left hand admonishingly. "What have you been doing all these years?" I hissed to it one morning as I walked out to the car. Then, because a neighbor saw me, I had to pretend I had the tiniest iPhone ever in my palm.
"Yeah, milk! Get some milk," I called to my hand enthusiastically, then tapped it to hang up.
Sometimes that theater degree pays off in the oddest ways.
Driving one-handed is not recommended, but I do it. The slick of peanut butter makes it harder. I have not shaved off my lips yet. I tell myself that learning to floss one-handed is a valuable life skill, like taking down a boar, only messier.
I tell myself a lot of things these days. Mostly left-handed compliments.
. . .
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Wednesday Wa Pic - Great Moments In Creative Parking
That is not a parking space. That is self-delusion at a professional level.
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Wednesday Wa Pic - It's not just for your kitchen any more
Monitors your frozen foods AND warns you when your friend on Facebook has posted that your favorite character on "Game of Thrones" died.
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Wednesday Wa Pic - No Cheese Left Behind
Forget about the schoolkids. Now they are even grading the cheese!
Sunday, December 21, 2014
"A Visit From St. Nicholas" Revisited
Twas four nights before Christmas, and all through the house all the kittens were purring, because they'd had mouse.
Kids' stockings were flung at the hamper with flair, but fell short, in a pile, with the used underwear.
And my wife in her flannels and I in my shorts had just snuggled down to some snoozing of sorts.
When out on the lawn I heard a kerfuffle, and, to my chagrin, nothing rhymes with kerfuffle.
Over to the window I raced like the wind, tripped on a stray hairbrush, abraded my shin.
When what to my eyeballs the moon did expose but a chubby white man with a very red nose.
He was trying to ride my inflatable moose. It was clear to me he had been hitting the juice.
"Dude, what are you doing?" I asked my friend Connor, who was leaning to kiss my inflatable Donner.
"Check it out," said my bud, who had flopped on the grass, "I think I am totally drunk off my butt."
"Thanks," I said, watching my breath rise like vapor, "for remembering this is a family paper."
My wife reached the window, threw open the sash, and cried "Lay off the reindeer, or your nose I'll bash!"
I glanced at the night sky and I saw it then, past my rooftop Mickey and his three wise men:
it might have been reindeer, it might have been geese. I thought I was losing my mind (the last piece.)
But here he flew, Santa, and landed his sleigh, while Connor lay gaping, his tongue on display.
Santa's eyes, they did twinkle, just like in the poem, his cheeks WERE like roses. I stammered out "Whoa! Um..."
"You thought I was fictional, just an old myth," he smiled, and my opinion altered forthwith.
He unslung his sack and pulled out an old toy, a Snoopy I'd had back when I was a boy.
"Merry Christmas," he said, as he saw my fresh tears, "All my gifts are not new, some can undo the years."
Then he hopped in his sleigh, and was gone in a flash, and I knew what he'd left was much sweeter than cash.
Weird dream, I thought, after awaking, agog, but it's true that I really do miss that old dog.
Kids' stockings were flung at the hamper with flair, but fell short, in a pile, with the used underwear.
The children were wrestling pugs in their beds, 'cause a burglar a-tweaking made off with their meds.
And my wife in her flannels and I in my shorts had just snuggled down to some snoozing of sorts.
When out on the lawn I heard a kerfuffle, and, to my chagrin, nothing rhymes with kerfuffle.
Over to the window I raced like the wind, tripped on a stray hairbrush, abraded my shin.
When what to my eyeballs the moon did expose but a chubby white man with a very red nose.
He was trying to ride my inflatable moose. It was clear to me he had been hitting the juice.
"Dude, what are you doing?" I asked my friend Connor, who was leaning to kiss my inflatable Donner.
"Check it out," said my bud, who had flopped on the grass, "I think I am totally drunk off my butt."
"Thanks," I said, watching my breath rise like vapor, "for remembering this is a family paper."
My wife reached the window, threw open the sash, and cried "Lay off the reindeer, or your nose I'll bash!"
I glanced at the night sky and I saw it then, past my rooftop Mickey and his three wise men:
it might have been reindeer, it might have been geese. I thought I was losing my mind (the last piece.)
But here he flew, Santa, and landed his sleigh, while Connor lay gaping, his tongue on display.
Santa's eyes, they did twinkle, just like in the poem, his cheeks WERE like roses. I stammered out "Whoa! Um..."
"You thought I was fictional, just an old myth," he smiled, and my opinion altered forthwith.
He unslung his sack and pulled out an old toy, a Snoopy I'd had back when I was a boy.
"Merry Christmas," he said, as he saw my fresh tears, "All my gifts are not new, some can undo the years."
Then he hopped in his sleigh, and was gone in a flash, and I knew what he'd left was much sweeter than cash.
Weird dream, I thought, after awaking, agog, but it's true that I really do miss that old dog.
. . .
Copyright 2014 George Waters
Sunday, February 23, 2014
I'm being followed by a moon salad; moon salad, moon salad
NASA has announced plans to attempt to grow plants on the moon, and it is starting with turnips.
When I was a kid, I would have been happy to hand mine over to NASA for a moon shot. Rather than orbiting Earth, my turnips tended to end up on the narrow ledge of wood underneath the dining room table.
I hope some day, if all goes well, NASA will expand their lunar ambitions to okra and rutabaga. Maybe Brussels sprouts. If we can send a man to the moon, we can certainly eradicate these scourges in our time.
Oh yeah. They are trying to grow them. Well, to be fair, this is only experiment one, and they chose turnips, basil and cress as test subjects because, after polling astronauts about what they crave most after months in space, a T-bone did not even come up once.
So NASA is creating a little pod which will hold seeds in a nutrient sheath, and release water to them at the appropriate moment. The pod will then shoot a selfie after five days to determine if anything grew, and transmit the picture back to Earth.
Scientists are hoping for signs of "circumnutation" and "phototropism," but then again, aren't we all?
The trip is planned for late next year, and I look forward to the night when I can look up at the moon and know there is a tiny salad up there, and that humans have finally gone verifiably nuts.
True, growing mass quantities of produce on the moon would enable astronauts to live there without the need for constant resupply from Earth, freeing up the payload bays of incoming rockets for other crucial items, like DVDs of "Downton Abbey."
But I sort of wish instead of basil they would haul chia seeds to the moon, and the whole thing could be one giant chia head in space. Albert Einstein, say. Or Lincoln.
Of course, the conspiracy-theory part of me suspects that all this is just a cover for a very well-hidden pot farm, well out of reach of law enforcement.
The truth is less entertaining. NASA is using a private space firm to deliver the seeds, a first step toward the eventual commercialization of the moon.
So it is possible that one day an astro-miner will drill amidst a field of corn as high as a Venutian's eye.
That's one small step for man, one giant leap for titanium salesmen.
When I was a kid, I would have been happy to hand mine over to NASA for a moon shot. Rather than orbiting Earth, my turnips tended to end up on the narrow ledge of wood underneath the dining room table.
I hope some day, if all goes well, NASA will expand their lunar ambitions to okra and rutabaga. Maybe Brussels sprouts. If we can send a man to the moon, we can certainly eradicate these scourges in our time.
Oh yeah. They are trying to grow them. Well, to be fair, this is only experiment one, and they chose turnips, basil and cress as test subjects because, after polling astronauts about what they crave most after months in space, a T-bone did not even come up once.
So NASA is creating a little pod which will hold seeds in a nutrient sheath, and release water to them at the appropriate moment. The pod will then shoot a selfie after five days to determine if anything grew, and transmit the picture back to Earth.
Scientists are hoping for signs of "circumnutation" and "phototropism," but then again, aren't we all?
The trip is planned for late next year, and I look forward to the night when I can look up at the moon and know there is a tiny salad up there, and that humans have finally gone verifiably nuts.
True, growing mass quantities of produce on the moon would enable astronauts to live there without the need for constant resupply from Earth, freeing up the payload bays of incoming rockets for other crucial items, like DVDs of "Downton Abbey."
But I sort of wish instead of basil they would haul chia seeds to the moon, and the whole thing could be one giant chia head in space. Albert Einstein, say. Or Lincoln.
Of course, the conspiracy-theory part of me suspects that all this is just a cover for a very well-hidden pot farm, well out of reach of law enforcement.
The truth is less entertaining. NASA is using a private space firm to deliver the seeds, a first step toward the eventual commercialization of the moon.
So it is possible that one day an astro-miner will drill amidst a field of corn as high as a Venutian's eye.
That's one small step for man, one giant leap for titanium salesmen.
. . .
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Wednesday Wa Pic - Does this picture bother you?
I have to believe this car belongs to a scientist doing an informal OCD test of the public.
Not just a sloppy, inconsiderate @#!!%#!!
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Wednesday Wa Pic - Drink up, mall visitors
At first glance I thought this micro-marketing to specific demographics was getting way out of hand.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Wednesday Wa Pic - Another apostrophe fail
It is not only the wood that is hard, evidently, but the concept of plural words.
#petpeeve #fustyoldgrammarian
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Halloween horror - or, well, at least its general vicinity
Halloween and I have an understanding. It gives me candy, and I don't call it a pagan abomination.
Halloween does not get the same respect, though, as other holidays, because it is not based on a single, iconic event, like breaking bread with a race of people whose land you want, or the birth of a deity.
But who needs respect when you've got multicolored marshmallow circus peanuts? Who needs clothes, even?
This year my kids, one of whom is a teenager, and the other of whom is so close to teenage he can smell its Axe-scented breath on his back, went to a haunted amusement park for the first time. You know these places. They build temporary scary mazes for you to walk through, and then teenagers in creepy masks jump out at you from dark corners.
This is a great job for a teenager, because it gives him the chance to scare pretty girls without actually asking them out.
The maze designers did an incredible job of plumbing the depths of human fear, because my kids refused to go near them. They just went to the park to be, to borrow a term from the real estate business, "fear-adjacent." They just wanted to wander around the "scare zones" outside the mazes and soak up the general malevolent ambiance.
I can relate. I once went to a political convention.
When I was a teenager, adults had not yet figured out how to entice money from teenagers in such a slick, professional way, unless you count Jordache Jeans.
Sure, there were "haunted houses" you could visit, but they were in suburban neighborhoods, and were mostly free. Anyone with an old hockey mask and a plastic steak knife could put up a strobe light in their garage and attract a crowd.
Well, nobody really showed up. I was kind of disappointed.
The best thing about going to these kinds of scare-parks with friends is the fright-induced bonding, and the stories which come out of this, to be told and embellished forever. This year's tale will undoubtedly entail the moment when my son, responding to some zombie who had growled in his face, yelled back, equally ferociously, "LEMONS!"
The zombie evidently muttered a startled obscenity and wandered away a little disappointed.
Ah, kids and Halloween. If only they could, like their candy bars, remain "fun-size" forever.
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Wednesday Wa Pic - Signage fail
This would do more good if it were posted above my computer instead of on a side-street near a gas station.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
The lighter side of Obamacare - take this quiz!
On Tuesday, another phase of Obamacare rolls out, so today I will try to
cut right through the confusion, in the sincere hope that some will
trickle down onto you. Take this short quiz.
"Obamacare" is a term which means:
a) As God is my witness, I'll never pay for cough syrup again
b) The department of term-coining clearly didn't survive the sequester
c) He cares, you pay
d) They finally ran out of words to end with "gate"
True or False — Politics has no place in health care
a) True
b) Bwahahahahaha!
Starting Tuesday:
a) The Health Insurance Marketplace will make buying coverage easier and more affordable
b) I will be watching "The Voice" religiously
c) Whenever a TV pundit says "Health Care Marketplace," you have to drink
d) Adios, sunscreen—I'll have health care!
I think the biggest misconception about the Affordable Care Act is:
a) The rumored involvement of the Care Bears
b) The definition of "affordable"
c) How we got the North Koreans to pay for it
d) It all would have worked perfectly if it weren't for those meddling kids!
Under Obamacare, I will finally:
a) be able to get that arrow removed
b) be vindicated about that whole anti-Christ thing
c) learn the difficult but exquisitely pleasurable art of complaining about having a doctor
d) not be denied care for my pre-existing condition, political cynicism
Before Obamacare, my health care:
a) was not named after anyone
b) consisted of a Q-Tip, rubbing alcohol and prayer
c) was overseen by Doctor Robitussin
d) provided everything I could ask for except two things—health and care
I do not think government should be in the __________ business.
a) health care
b) all-up-in-my
c) support hosiery
d) governing
In health care, the concept of "prevention" is:
a) a scam by the left
b) just a sneaky way to promote that magazine
c) a tried and true method of avoiding more serious medical terminology
d) a way for doctors to charge you without actually curing anything
Since Obamacare was passed, it has faced a lot of opposition because:
a) the wealthy think that a healthy underclass is an uppity underclass
b) humans were involved
c) well, I'll just say it—true Americans are just born healthy
d) conservatives think it is a bad idea. Plus, they never get credit for coming up with the basic principles of it in 1989
If you have finished this misinformational quiz more angry than light-headed from laughter, it just illustrates how divisive politics can be. I mean health care. I mean politics. Maybe some day they will come up with a pill.
"Obamacare" is a term which means:
a) As God is my witness, I'll never pay for cough syrup again
b) The department of term-coining clearly didn't survive the sequester
c) He cares, you pay
d) They finally ran out of words to end with "gate"
True or False — Politics has no place in health care
a) True
b) Bwahahahahaha!
Starting Tuesday:
a) The Health Insurance Marketplace will make buying coverage easier and more affordable
b) I will be watching "The Voice" religiously
c) Whenever a TV pundit says "Health Care Marketplace," you have to drink
d) Adios, sunscreen—I'll have health care!
I think the biggest misconception about the Affordable Care Act is:
a) The rumored involvement of the Care Bears
b) The definition of "affordable"
c) How we got the North Koreans to pay for it
d) It all would have worked perfectly if it weren't for those meddling kids!
Under Obamacare, I will finally:
a) be able to get that arrow removed
b) be vindicated about that whole anti-Christ thing
c) learn the difficult but exquisitely pleasurable art of complaining about having a doctor
d) not be denied care for my pre-existing condition, political cynicism
Before Obamacare, my health care:
a) was not named after anyone
b) consisted of a Q-Tip, rubbing alcohol and prayer
c) was overseen by Doctor Robitussin
d) provided everything I could ask for except two things—health and care
I do not think government should be in the __________ business.
a) health care
b) all-up-in-my
c) support hosiery
d) governing
In health care, the concept of "prevention" is:
a) a scam by the left
b) just a sneaky way to promote that magazine
c) a tried and true method of avoiding more serious medical terminology
d) a way for doctors to charge you without actually curing anything
Since Obamacare was passed, it has faced a lot of opposition because:
a) the wealthy think that a healthy underclass is an uppity underclass
b) humans were involved
c) well, I'll just say it—true Americans are just born healthy
d) conservatives think it is a bad idea. Plus, they never get credit for coming up with the basic principles of it in 1989
If you have finished this misinformational quiz more angry than light-headed from laughter, it just illustrates how divisive politics can be. I mean health care. I mean politics. Maybe some day they will come up with a pill.
. . .
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Wednesday Wa Pic - L.A. County Fair reaches new heights of baconity
Just when you thought the Fair had reached its technological bacon limits...
This may open a wormhole to another dimension, but...totally worth it.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Wednesday Wa Pic - All we asked for was new paint!
Remind me not to ask these people to "remodel" my house.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
In celebration of the humble shim
I got into a conversation the other day, as men will do, on the
subject of shims. It is a topic every man is conversant with, because a
man encounters many things in his life which are wobbly.
Men are problem-solvers by nature, so a shim is like a little wooden man.
You never know when you will need to shim something up, so I carry one at all times. Restaurants don't spend a lot of energy on table stability, and I got tired of having to remedy that with a stack of sugar packets. Now I just shim it up and eat in peace. Sometimes I will even leave it there, my gift to future diners.
I don't want to be the Shim Guy or anything, with a show on A&E and a pile of money, so don't go reading this and then flooding them with emails and a link to this column.
It's not like I have had a custom leather shim holster made, yet. (But if I did, it would feature an embossed cowboy down on his knees, shoring up a situation.)
For the longest time, I thought that song from Mary Poppins was called "Shim Shim Sheree," until I figured out Dick Van Dyke, as a chimney sweep, didn't really care at all about issues of wobbliness, unless it pertained to dancing penguins, and even then he was in favor of it.
If MacGyver had had a shim? Done. That show would have been over.
It is true that a wood shim will wear out a jeans pocket in about a month, so I have taken to shoving it into my belt, at the small of my back.
It's a conversation starter.
Women tend to look at you a little oddly, but men will often just nod kind of respectfully. And you know that whatever plans they had just got converted into a trip to the hardware store.
A shim is almost a state of mind. It begins narrowly, then grows wider; its usefulness adjustable to your need.
Whatever gap you find in this metaphor—shim it.
See what I mean?
I have found in life that the simpler the solution the better. Need to be taller? Slip a shim in your shoe. Need to level a new window? Shim it. Need to fill out a 400-word column after procrastinating it all week?
I think, friends, you know what to do.
Men are problem-solvers by nature, so a shim is like a little wooden man.
You never know when you will need to shim something up, so I carry one at all times. Restaurants don't spend a lot of energy on table stability, and I got tired of having to remedy that with a stack of sugar packets. Now I just shim it up and eat in peace. Sometimes I will even leave it there, my gift to future diners.
I don't want to be the Shim Guy or anything, with a show on A&E and a pile of money, so don't go reading this and then flooding them with emails and a link to this column.
It's not like I have had a custom leather shim holster made, yet. (But if I did, it would feature an embossed cowboy down on his knees, shoring up a situation.)
For the longest time, I thought that song from Mary Poppins was called "Shim Shim Sheree," until I figured out Dick Van Dyke, as a chimney sweep, didn't really care at all about issues of wobbliness, unless it pertained to dancing penguins, and even then he was in favor of it.
If MacGyver had had a shim? Done. That show would have been over.
It is true that a wood shim will wear out a jeans pocket in about a month, so I have taken to shoving it into my belt, at the small of my back.
It's a conversation starter.
Women tend to look at you a little oddly, but men will often just nod kind of respectfully. And you know that whatever plans they had just got converted into a trip to the hardware store.
A shim is almost a state of mind. It begins narrowly, then grows wider; its usefulness adjustable to your need.
Whatever gap you find in this metaphor—shim it.
See what I mean?
I have found in life that the simpler the solution the better. Need to be taller? Slip a shim in your shoe. Need to level a new window? Shim it. Need to fill out a 400-word column after procrastinating it all week?
I think, friends, you know what to do.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Wednesday Wa Pic - Natural History Museum sign
Imagine coming up with a "60 second pitch" during the search for funding.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Wednesday Wa Pic - Bovine beneficence
And yet they picture a steer.
Well, at least the Natural History Museum nails the dinosaur stuff.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Wednethday Wa Blog - Of courth, of courth
From a shop window. Faith in humanity officially restored.
Friday, July 26, 2013
They dubbed her 'Hercules'
You may have read this before. I posted this first in 2009. I am re-running it because today my aunt turns 104.
My Aunt Lucile just turned 100, which surprised no one in the family, such is her vitality. A childhood spent laboring on her family's farm in Pomona was better than any gym membership. In fact, she got the nickname "Herc" (as in "Hercules") at UCLA because she took down a male friend by wrestling his belt from him and tying his ankles together.
I marvel at the size of her hands even now, bigger than mine, meatier too, a legacy of 100,000 pitchforks full of alfalfa hoisted in her youth, a million apricots picked in the family orchards. She still has all her marbles, too, although she tires easily now, and has had to use a walker since she fell two years ago.
One hundred, though. One hundred years. I guess quitting smoking in her 50's paid off.
The year Aunt Lucile was born, 1909, Mary Pickford made her very first movie. They laid the final brick in the Indianapolis Speedway. President Taft announced that a naval base would be built in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, "to protect the U.S. from Japanese attack."
In 1909, women could not vote. Movies did not talk. Crossword puzzles had not yet been invented. Neither had the bra. The hottest innovation was cellophane. Until Lucile was seven years old, a horse and buggy were the family car.
She and her two older sisters were eventually joined by five younger siblings, my dad being one, and the family's days revolved around their alfalfa fields, peach, apricot and apple orchards, and walnut grove.
One of Lucile's earliest childhood jobs was rising before dawn, milking the family cow, and lugging the pails back into the house. Heavy work. "Herc" was on her way.
Live a century and you have stories to tell. During the Depression, the only job Lucile could find was in the tiny desert town of Goler Gulch, teaching gold miners' kids, grades 1-8, in a one-room shack, and living in a wood-floored tent with only a gas lantern for light. (She later taught in Spokane and 20+ years in Claremont schools).
In 1934 she bought a shiny new Plymouth, with rumble seat, in Detroit, then ran out of gas money on the drive home to California, until she remembered a small gold nugget a miner had given her, which the service station owner weighed before pumping her the equivalent amount of gas.
The things my aunt has seen in a century. The U.S. population tripled. Inventions as mundane as sliced bread, microwave ovens, copy machines and ATMs, and as profound as X-rays, penicillin, the artificial heart and pacemakers.
She has seen the advent of radio, television, computers, the Internet, and mobile phones, jet travel, space flight, not to mention women's rights and racial integration.
The year of my aunt's birth, the NAACP was founded. At age 99, my aunt saw an African-American elected president of the United States.
In my favorite picture of Aunt Lucile, she is in her 20's, smiling fearlessly and standing barefoot on the rump of a moving horse. Then there is Lucile, all glammed up for her college grad photo, hair fanned just so, costume jewelry uncharacteristically at her throat. There is baby Lucile, nuzzling her mother who, 26 years later, would give her grief about the overly-exposed neckline of her wedding dress. And there is Lucile, 100 years old, her tiara proclaiming "Birthday Princess."
What does she do for an encore? Perhaps in 15 years she will be the oldest woman in the world. The doc says she has very strong bones.
Personally, I wouldn't count "Herc" out.
. . .
My Aunt Lucile just turned 100, which surprised no one in the family, such is her vitality. A childhood spent laboring on her family's farm in Pomona was better than any gym membership. In fact, she got the nickname "Herc" (as in "Hercules") at UCLA because she took down a male friend by wrestling his belt from him and tying his ankles together.
I marvel at the size of her hands even now, bigger than mine, meatier too, a legacy of 100,000 pitchforks full of alfalfa hoisted in her youth, a million apricots picked in the family orchards. She still has all her marbles, too, although she tires easily now, and has had to use a walker since she fell two years ago.
One hundred, though. One hundred years. I guess quitting smoking in her 50's paid off.
The year Aunt Lucile was born, 1909, Mary Pickford made her very first movie. They laid the final brick in the Indianapolis Speedway. President Taft announced that a naval base would be built in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, "to protect the U.S. from Japanese attack."
In 1909, women could not vote. Movies did not talk. Crossword puzzles had not yet been invented. Neither had the bra. The hottest innovation was cellophane. Until Lucile was seven years old, a horse and buggy were the family car.
She and her two older sisters were eventually joined by five younger siblings, my dad being one, and the family's days revolved around their alfalfa fields, peach, apricot and apple orchards, and walnut grove.
One of Lucile's earliest childhood jobs was rising before dawn, milking the family cow, and lugging the pails back into the house. Heavy work. "Herc" was on her way.
Live a century and you have stories to tell. During the Depression, the only job Lucile could find was in the tiny desert town of Goler Gulch, teaching gold miners' kids, grades 1-8, in a one-room shack, and living in a wood-floored tent with only a gas lantern for light. (She later taught in Spokane and 20+ years in Claremont schools).
In 1934 she bought a shiny new Plymouth, with rumble seat, in Detroit, then ran out of gas money on the drive home to California, until she remembered a small gold nugget a miner had given her, which the service station owner weighed before pumping her the equivalent amount of gas.
The things my aunt has seen in a century. The U.S. population tripled. Inventions as mundane as sliced bread, microwave ovens, copy machines and ATMs, and as profound as X-rays, penicillin, the artificial heart and pacemakers.
She has seen the advent of radio, television, computers, the Internet, and mobile phones, jet travel, space flight, not to mention women's rights and racial integration.
The year of my aunt's birth, the NAACP was founded. At age 99, my aunt saw an African-American elected president of the United States.
In my favorite picture of Aunt Lucile, she is in her 20's, smiling fearlessly and standing barefoot on the rump of a moving horse. Then there is Lucile, all glammed up for her college grad photo, hair fanned just so, costume jewelry uncharacteristically at her throat. There is baby Lucile, nuzzling her mother who, 26 years later, would give her grief about the overly-exposed neckline of her wedding dress. And there is Lucile, 100 years old, her tiara proclaiming "Birthday Princess."
What does she do for an encore? Perhaps in 15 years she will be the oldest woman in the world. The doc says she has very strong bones.
Personally, I wouldn't count "Herc" out.
- - - - - - -
Lucile, at left, with her parents and sisters, around Christmas, 1912
Same sisters, Lucile at right, 1915 or so
My dad blaming Lucile for tipping the load, early 1930's
But there is more to life than bailing hay
College grad, early 1930's
With the miners' kids in front of school, Goler Gulch
Aunt Lucile cleans up nice, alongside her new Plymouth, for which she saved delivery charges by buying direct in Detroit, 1934
Teaching school, Spokane, 1950s
School teacher photo, Claremont, 1970s
Big Alaska camping trip with her siblings, 1980s
100th birthday party, July 2009After being applauded for blowing out the candles on her cake without assistance, Lucile joked "I've got a lot of air."
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Wednesday Wa Pics - A visit to the aquarium
Went to the aquarium recently.
Who gets to name fish? And what are they smoking?
Not convictfish? Not zebrafish? Methinks the fish-namer had low blood sugar.
He sleeps with the fishes.
Some ichthyologist had a little fetish.
I think this is offensive to Mexicans or fish. I can't decide.
Ah, the ichthyologist's fetish gets even more specific.
Presented by BP. Too soon?
When they salute, do they have to shout "Fish! Yes, fish!"
I think fish-naming would be fun. I am sorry I dropped that class in college in favor of stage makeup.
. . .
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Wednesday Wa Pic - Eat the RCH
When I saw this in a parking garage, at first I thought they were really rubbing it in. Of course the Benz is for the rich. Then I realized some guy named Rich probably bought himself one. Either way, it's a dumb idea to leave a car like that unattended, especially when a lot of other drivers, drivers who can't afford this kind of car, tend to keep a lot of those little ketchup packets in their glove compartments in case of an urgent need.
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