One more week, please

Sorry about that complete skip of a blog post last week.  Sorry about the near complete skip of this week too.

We are extremely busy these last few days trying to rid the house of a bunch of stuff we don't want anymore.

Step one is a garage sale.  That's going on this week.

Garage sales are weird. The stuff people will buy.  One guy today picked up something from our big huge table of tools.  I have no idea what it was.  It was certainly specialized for some purpose.

"What's this thing?" he said.

"No idea. I was hoping you'd know."

"What do you want for it."

"Fifty cents."

"I'll take 'em both then.  I'm sure I can figure out some use for them."

That's how garage sales work.

Weird.

 I think my favorite people are the ones who walk over from 3 or 4 blocks away. If they're talkers, you'll have an amusing little game of "Six Degrees of Separation" going in no time.

I'm not talking about the Kevin Bacon version of the game.  Just you and the garage saler trying to figure out who you know who knows somebody that knows a guy you know.

If you want to add a challenge, I suppose you could make the connection go through Nebraska's second district Congressional Candidate for the house of representatives, Don Bacon.

I am only mentioning that, not as an endorsement for any candidate or political party. I prefer to generally keep my political views to myself.  I am only mentioning it because his last name is "Bacon."

But go ahead. You and your tree hugging buddies sit around the campfire, killing children and playing "Six degrees of Brad Ashford."

I'm not suggesting that Brad Ashford kills children, but I can see where you'd get that idea. You'd be wrong of course.

I have to stop right here and reiterate that I am goofing around. I don't care who wins this race.  I really, really don't.

Although, I must say that Don Bacon is way handsomer than Brad Ashford.

In fact, I bet you've already deduced that the photo above is Brad Ashford. Not that he's "ugly" or anything.  However, it's clear that he's not "way handsomer" than anyone.

 But Don "Bedroom Eyes" Bacon ... Gasp!

 You're right, we should probably vote for Ashford because he looks more like the way the rest of the country expects a guy from Nebraska to look.  Although ...

Bacon is an Illinois (fyi - I'm pronouncing the 's' in Illinois) Native so I have to wonder where his loyalties will be on Saturday when the Huskers take on the Fighting Illinis ('s' added for clarity).

I think these 2 should just arm wrestle for the job.  That seems to me like the only fair way to decide anything.

Oh look, I've strayed off topic.  My topic was that I'm sorry I won't be posting this week.

Next week for sure.

Thanks for your patience.

Making Flippy Floppy

Wait a minute. Everybody get in line.

I've been struggling lately with this blog posting thing.  I am checking out some of my old posts in hopes of some encouragement.  Some of the things I've just read, I have no idea how I wrote them.

Well, I have some Idea - but I'm not really sure what I've lost.

I think there's the thing about "mocking" real writing.  I never really wrote anything, I just impersonated cliche writing and it kind of worked ok.  So I think I'll cliche write for a little bit tonight to get back into shape.

It was a fucking dark and goddamn stormy night.  Wow, I feel better already.  Ok now what?

Through the evergreens, came the horrifying sound of gale force winds.  And your mom farting from her big bottom.  Because she smells bad.  

Oh yeah - this is stellar stuff, here! It's so good, there's a pretty good chance no editing will be necessary at all.  Except maybe a little "passive voice" clean up or something.

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yeah ...

A single maple leaf had ridden hundreds of miles on the wind and come to rest on the shake shingled roof of a remote cabin at the base of the mighty Saskatchewan Mountain range.  Saskatchewan Mountain range?  Yeah, either there is such a place or I just made it up.  So what?

The leaf might have made it even farther north, had it not gotten itself lodged between a couple of the shingles.  Oh well, it was just a stupid leaf.  It's not like it had a soul ...

"Pappa, what happens when we die?" The little leaf asked his mom.

"I'm your mother dear," said the little leaf's mom.

"Sorry mom, it's just that I can't tell you 2 apart."

"Why you little shit!" cursed the little leaf's dad.

"I mean unless you're talking, that is," said the little leaf.

So his parents told him about how if you're a good little leaf and do all of your work helping to turn the rays of the sun into energy, one day the mighty god-tree will reward you by shedding you off like so much trash. When the god-tree releases you, it will say "More water for me!"  

Then the cold, hard ground will be your bed and the frozen water will be your blanket until you crumble into nothingness to serve as nutrients for the tree. 

The little leaf was amazed by how much his parents knew about something they had called "fotofenceses"  Boy his parents were a couple of bright leaves.  Oh no! They really were bright! Orange! He had just learned what that meant. His Parents were dying!

The little leaf began to cry. His parents implored that he calm down or risk shaking himself loose prematurely.  His time would come. But until then, he had a job to do.

So here he was all these months later.  His job done. All green, yellow, orange gone.  He had lost all flexibility.  He was now just  an old brown, crusty, brittle fragment of his old self.

What a journey he'd had north. Carried by the wind past all the evergreens. Those fuckers.

Now doomed to live his last few days stuck on the roof of a remote cabin.  A cabin uninhabited, save for the old craggy, gassy woman who lived there.  So pungent and ferocious was her great flatulence that the ungodly odor had seeped through the roof to where the little leaf could not get away.

What did I ever do to deserve this, thought the little brown maple leaf.  Oh what stench!

But the leaf had done nothing wrong.  It was just the cruelest misfortune that he had landed on your mom's roof. Sniff.

My favorite song today

Sorry about this. I don't feel like writing today.  I'm just thinking of my favorite song.  My favorite song changes from day to day.

I'm not going to talk about it. I'm going to post 2 videos.  One will be the "studio" version.  The next will be a live version.  What I like about the live version is that you can understand more of the lyrics.  What I love about the studio version is that you can't.

So for your listening/viewing pleasure/displeasure, here's The Cramps ...

And Live ...

Sorry there's nothing to read. But there's something wildly entertaining to listen to. So there's that.

Oldsmobile graveyard.  Classic. 

Omaha. Yes, the number for Bullshit. Because I'd like to call it.

Many of you young folk may not know the protocol for directory assistance.  Or even what directory assistance was.

A long time ago, if you needed to call somewhere but didn't have the number, you could call directory assistance and get the number.  The number for directory assistance was 411.  So that's where that saying came from.

It went like this:

after dialing 4-1-1 (google "rotary phone").

Someone would answer on the other end and say something adorable like "what city?"

If you weren't ready for this, it could be quite humiliating.  First of all, they said it so fast, you'd never know what they were saying.  So many people knew how it worked, they didn't need to understand the operator.

So after a few times, I had it down.

"What city" (I didn't know exactly what was said and it didn't matter.)

"Omaha."

"Uh-huh"

"Anderson on Burt."

"I have 27 of those"

and so on.

It was really amazing how quickly they got the results.

Anyway - the title of this post is a reference to calling 411 back in the day.

Here's the thing. I think Facebook can be lots and lots of fun.  But I try to avoid any sort of confrontation/argument/disagreement/difference of opinion because once that happens, an extremely long boring slew of back and forth comments happens from everybody in the world and I'm forced to read them all.  I just don't have that kind of time.

So often, I want to call bullshit, but I'd prefer if it were a private line. Not a party line.

So I will do it here (call bullshit) where nobody's listening.  Sniff.

So this was posted a few days ago. I won't say who posted it, because it's not important:

During hundreds of hours of solo bike rides and/or rides with Abbey, I have been yelled at by exactly no one. Today, on a ride with Amy, Leah, and Abbey, we were catcalled by a carload of dudes, heckled by three male pedestrians, and buzzed and screamed at by an old man who waited at the end of his driveway to accost us after he tried to run us off the road.

On the bright side, three guys mowing their lawns waved at us.

But really, worst ride as far as driver interactions in two years.

This was a post that seems to have been put there to say "See that fellas.  Women have it bad. Boy my eyes are open to this now" or some shit.

In response to this post, there were a few affirming comments and amens from people.  Things like "Story of my life."
"Yes - sad but true" or "You go girl!"

Well yes and no.

I don't doubt that women are harassed while they ride their bikes.  Probably more than men.  It must sound terribly misogynistic (and I love the "gyn") to use the word "probably" instead of something heroic and enlightened like "Definitely" but it wouldn't be true - because I don't know.

What I do know is this.  Either EOB (Oops) is not paying any attention when he solo rides (or with Abbey) or he's just not being honest (I wasn't sure how to spell the "lying" that means "not telling the truth").

I think what I disliked so much about this post was that it was obvious pandering. Brilliant in that you couldn't be a guy and say something like "I get yelled at and harassed just about every ride," because you'd sound like some kind of jerk who hates women.

However. It is utter bullshit. If EOB rarely gets yelled at, it's because that person who was going to yell at him has already yelled at me and got his feelings hurt when I responded.

Last Tuesday for instance ...

My story could be chosen from any week, but I will pick the one most recent.  I was solo riding. It had been about 1.5 hours of solo riding since I had last been heckled.

I was at 16th street, heading north.  Actually I was in the turn lane to go to Florence Boulevard. I was waiting at the red light,

A rusty, beat up old pickup pulled up beside me. The bearded old guy in the truck yelled. "Hey."

I ignored him.  He was coughing and smoking. Almost gagging.  "Hey. Sexy pants." He yelled.

I ignored him.

"You! on the bike. Coffity cough, cough."

I looked over.  He finished his coughing (really. he was coughing a lot).

"You know your tire is flat?"

I knew I didn't have a flat tire.  If you are in an old rusty pickup, it might be hard to tell if you have a flat tire or not.  You might come to rely on people telling you.  Maybe sometimes your smoker buddies tell you you have a flat tire as some kind of an outragous prank.

After he said, "You know your tire is flat?" he began with the coughing again.

I look at him and said, "You know your lungs are black?"

I think he tried to answer, but the light turned green and he was busy choking to death, pounding on his steering wheel, etc.

Anyway.  Yeah - motorists also harass men on bicycles.

To suggest they don't is silly.