Sticks Out Like A Sore Thumb

It is beyond even my imagination that I have run completely out of things to say on this here blog thing.  In over a week, I have had nothing to write about.  There are plenty of potential explanations (read:  excuses) for this.

The injury to my thumb makes it somewhat difficult to type, because it is right where I would hit the space bar with my right thumb, and I get to typing away and forget myself and hit the space bar, and it hurts like the very devil.

The antibiotics I'm taking (because the laceration became infected) make me queasy.  The yogurt I'm forced to eat (so that the antibiotic will have something to act on besides my intestines) can make me queasy too.  I don't like yogurt.

Not to mention all the time it takes (three times a day) to soak my thumb in peroxide and apply antibacterial ointment and encase it in a band-aid.

Did you ever try to peel open the little paper wrapper that band-aids come in without using one thumb? 

No wonder I'm worn out.

Big 10, Bloated 14

Enough already.  The Big Ten athletic conference, once comprised of universities in a solid block of Midwestern states, is about to expand again.  Maryland and Rutgers will be joining in 2014.  They are making no bones about it -- they want a piece of the Big Ten's money-making pie. 

It started out as the Western Conference in 1896 with seven schools (Illinois, Northwestern, Chicago, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Purdue, Michigan).  Indiana and Iowa joined in 1899, and it could have become the Big Ten in1912 when Ohio State signed up, but Michigan had been kicked out in 1908 (for rules violations) and not readmitted until 1915.  The name Big Ten was first applied in1917.

The first misnomer -- a Big Ten with only nine schools -- came in 1946 when the University of Chicago dropped out, but the conference returned to its full complement in 1950 when Michigan State joined.  And that's how things stood until 1990 when Penn State came in, giving us a Big Ten of eleven.  Then last year Nebraska climbed on board, and in two years, there will be fourteen.

It is interesting that the states wherein the Big Ten/Fourteen schools are located will still be contiguous.  It won't be so neat a little bundle of states as it was when it was just the Big Ten, however -- they will stretch halfway across the country from sea to sea (that is, from New Jersey on the Atlantic Ocean to Nebraska's sea of grass).

We All Make Mistakes

I read this morning that it was on this date in 1959 that Ford announced it was ceasing production of the Edsel.  It reminded me of a joke that went around when I was in high school (Class of '64).

The poor old Edsel.  Ford made such a fuss about it with a huge marketing campaign in the summer of 1957, but when the models finally arrived in dealer showrooms that fall, people came to look, but they didn't buy.

Mostly, they said it was funny looking.  The guy who designed it wanted a car that looked completely different, one that was recognizable two blocks away.  So, unlike most other cars with a horizontal grill between the headlights, the front of the Edsel sported a horse collar.

Some people said it looked like an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon.

Back in the early 60's I knew a young man whose name was Myron, but everybody called him "Honk" because he drove an Edsel, and he honked his horn every time he saw another one on the street.  As time went on, opportunities for him to honk grew fewer and fewer.

Oh, and the joke went like this:  What's a three-time loser?  It's an unwed mother driving an Edsel with a Nixon/Lodge bumper sticker on the back.

A dismal future for all of us

I know nothing lasts forever.  I realize that things will change, and I've done my best to adapt when changes were inevitable.  After all, I even reconciled myself to lights at Wrigley Field.  But today's news has left me completely despondent. 

Hostess is going out of business. 

And what is the federal government doing about it?  Nothing!  Banks got billions because they were too big to fail, GM and Chrysler got bailed out to save the American automobile industry, but is anybody offering even a measly couple million to keep Hostess Cupcakes on the shelves?  Nuh-uh.

When I look into the future, what I see -- a life without Twinkies -- is mighty bleak.

Our Mother Country's Tongue

Between British television shows, movies, and books, I get many opportunities to note --  and generally enjoy -- the differences between us and them when it comes to our common language.  Even without the matter of pronunciation, it's interesting that we have different words and phrases for the same things.  For instance, they say "two a penny" where we would say "a dime a dozen."  And I've been trying to remember to use a phrase I got from Jane Austin -- "though I say it myself" (instead of "if I do say so myself") because I like it a lot better.

It sounds funny to me when  they use "stop" instead of "stay," as in, "I can't stop long," or (even better) "Did they stop out all night?"

There's also the silliness with the names the Brits have given to musical notes.  A half note to them is a minim, a quarter note is a crotchet, and an eighth note is called a quaver. But it gets worse:  a 16th note is a semi-quaver, a 32nd note is a demi-semi-quaver, and a 64th note they call a hemi-demi-semi-quaver.

Potato treats can provide confusion because what we call fries they call chips, and what we call chips, they call crisps.  And since to them pudding can mean dessert, you can conjure up a strange picture when they say something like, "We had chocolate cake for pudding."  Of course, pudding can also refer to a turnover, the Yorkshire type.  And they do have many traditional dishes with strange names, such as Bubble and Squeak, Toad in the Hole, and Spotted Dick to cite only a few.

It doesn't matter what they call it because English food is absolutely dreadful anyway.  These are the people who brought you fish paste sandwiches, jellied eels, and deviled kidneys on toast.

Back in the Saddle

This here blog thing has been shut up for a week or so, partly because I inflicted a little injury on my right hand that makes it hard for me to type, and partly because I can't think of anything much to say, now that the election is over.  That had really occupied my thoughts for the past several weeks.

So, I guess I'll do what I usually do when nothing in the news or in my life inspires me -- I'll tell you a story.  This one involves my poor old pal Tony, the guy with the gorgeous Persian cat named Larry (see "Tony's Cat," November 2, 2011).

Tony and I were sitting in my living room talking, and I happened to notice something about my very nice solid walnut bookcase (six feet high, three feet wide) that stood at the other end of the room.  You could plainly see that the three shelves that were movable were beginning to bow under the weight of the books.  I pointed this out to Tony and said, "I'll have to turn them upside down."

"What good will that do?" he wanted to know.

"It will bend them back the other way."

"Turning the books upside down is not going to help anything," said he.

Okay, Tony.  Thanks.

It's Election Day

It's no secret whom I will vote for today.  Not only is the Obama/Biden sign in the front yard a dead giveaway, it is well known to many that I first declared my support of a Democratic candidate 64 years ago.  An oft-told family story bears this out.

The election of 1948 was held on November 2, the day after my second birthday.  That was the election in which Thomas E. Dewey was expected to beat incumbent Harry Truman, but in the end the President prevailed.  On election night, my grandparents had a lot of friends and family over, and there was a lot of talk about the election. At one point, one of Grandma's friends turned to two-year-old me and said, "And who did you vote for?" to which I replied, "Twuman."

I guess before that I would have considered myself an Independent.