July 27, 2021
Kudos to
the Norwegian women’s handball team for wearing uniforms made for athletes and
not for swimsuit models.
I couldn’t believe it when I heard that they were actually fined for wearing uniforms that weren’t sexy enough. I didn’t know that sexiness was a required component for Olympic women’s uniforms. I didn’t know that sexiness was required in order to be a good athlete.
Live and
learn.
July 15, 2021
Sometimes when I’m driving, I’m wishing that I could explain to newbie drivers why I make the decisions I do.
“See how that car is squeezing in between those cars? What happens if the car he just got behind slams on its brakes?”
“I could change lanes to pass this slow car, but if you look ahead, you’ll see that there’s a car going slowly in that lane, too; and I wouldn't be able to get back in my lane in time to get to the exit.”
“If a car is trying to merge, let it. Don’t race to try to get ahead of it.”
What I think would be really cool would be for someone famous for driving to make an instructional video. The late Paul Walker, of “Fast and Furious” fame, would have been perfect: by all accounts he was a nice guy, and people knew he knew how to drive; so if HE gave driving advice, young people might have listened.
Any other awesome drivers want to give it a shot?
July 21, 2021
St. Louis is having trouble prosecuting criminal cases. Prosecutors don’t seem to be prepared, and in some cases haven’t even shown up in court, leading to the dismissal of cases against some people who should have been jailed. There is some question as to the competence of the prosecutor’s office in general.
Case in point: One prosecutor was assigned 30 cases after she started her maternity leave.
July 21, 2021
Co-worker: You bring the same lunch every day. Don’t you get bored?
Me: It’s easy to make; and when I make the same thing every day, I don’t have to think about it, I can do it on autopilot. No worrying about having to put together some fancy lunch.
Co-worker: Does it bug you that sometimes your home-made bread is thick, and sometimes it’s thin, and sometimes it’s thick on one side of the slice and thin on the other side?
Me: I like the unpredictability.
July 21, 2021
On my way home yesterday I was following a car that had two stickers on the trunk. The one on the left side was for the Christian radio station, 99.1 Joy;
the one on the right said, “F--- (the word was spelled out) Mean People”.
July 15, 2021
Although I wasn’t too impressed with network offerings this past season, I do like “Leverage: Redemption” and the new “Mad About You” on streaming services. I never quite got into the original “Leverage”, but I do like the new one.
And “Mad About You” is still hilarious. Even the younger generation was laughing pretty hard at it.
I was hoping to watch “Schmigadoon”, but I don’t get that streaming service. Something to keep in mind for the future.
July
12, 2021
Boy, that old
“I sent two boats and a helicopter!” story (see the footnote to “All the
Angles,” September 2020) sure has a lot of uses. The coronavirus is surging
again, this time with the Delta variation. Hospitals are getting overwhelmed,
and even a few fully vaccinated people are succumbing.
If we have another lockdown, some of the people who refused to take precautions will scream about losing business again. But you know what, folks? You had two boats (masks and social distancing) and one helicopter (vaccinations), and you ignored them all.
Start swimming.
July 11, 2021
I watched a Debbie Reynolds movie called “Mary, Mary” this morning. It was based on a play by the inimitable Jean Kerr. It was a comedy, but it made an excellent point: That lots of girls who felt plain as adolescents never realized how pretty they had become, and were consequently insecure in their looks and their relationships as adults. It also mentioned husbands who never affirm their wives’ attractiveness, thereby compounding the problem. I was touched at how insightful it was. I think that any girl who feels plain at 13 should watch that movie at age 18.
Two other things about it struck me: First, the shoes that exactly matched Debbie’s dress stirred my secret desire to have matching shoes for each outfit, which always wars with my cheapness and my determination to cut back on conspicuous consumerism.
Second, I wondered how Debbie Reynolds managed to pack so many changes of clothes into a medium-sized suitcase.
July 2, 2021
As I watch the people around me at work, I gotta say that, if I had that many bored people working for me, I would either cross-train them or offer them all flexible schedules. I don’t believe in keeping people chained to their desks; and I firmly believe in letting people socialize; but people seem to have an awful lot of time to kill.
It seems counter-productive to me.Why make them stay and be bored, thereby reducing their interest in the job, and their consequent enthusiasm, when they could be out enjoying life and getting re-energized? I know that I miss being able to go to the botanical garden, or the art museum, or places to take pictures; and my enthusiasm for life in general is down because of that. And when you're dragging, going to work and being bored isn't going to make you a better employee.
So, I hope that more employers jump on the flexible-schedule bandwagon. It would be nice to have employees who didn't see the job as a life-force draining burden.
July 9, 2021
After a mob stormed the Capitol on January 6, several corporations pledged not to donate to the campaigns of lawmakers who objected to the certification of Joe Biden as President. They were taking a stand, they said, against people who enabled the lies that led to the insurrection.
And they still aren’t donating to those individuals. Many of them are, however, donating to the PACs that support the candidates.
Because that’s different.
July 9, 2021
Governor
Mike Parson won’t make freeing an innocent man from prison a priority. He has
too many other things to do than to release a man who spent decades in prison
for a murder he didn’t commit.
However,
the governor DID find time to sign a law saying that diners may now order
take-out liquor. He also found time to sign a measure limiting pandemic-related
lawsuits. Anything to help keep business alive and humming.
Perhaps Kevin
Strickland needs a business sponsor: Someone who can point out a dollars-and-cents
reason to do justice.
While we’re waiting for the governor to act like a human being, and for laws to be enacted around the country making it illegal to keep people incarcerated when they have been proven innocent, maybe authorities can let Mr. Strickland out on a twenty-year work furlough.
November 27, 2021
Kevin Strickland was exonerated, and was released from jail on November 23, 2021.
June 29, 2021
When I find
myself looking around to see if a cat got into our house and urinated,
I remember
to see if anybody has brought a basil plant into the house.
June 29, 2021
A family
in Baton Rouge, LA was stunned to find a $50 billion dollar deposit to their
bank account.
They reported the error, of course,
But they took a screen shot of the account to remind themselves of that heady feeling.
