My Kind of Celebration

Instead of a party for her retirement this summer, my partner wanted to take a celebratory trip to the Grand Canyon.  We left in the middle of September, traveling by car to the West and Southwest and became avid seers of sights.  There are so many absolutely magnificent things to see in this country.

Of course, by the time we got to the Grand Canyon, the juvenile delinquents who are representing us in Congress had shut down all the national parks, so we couldn't get in.  Never got near it.

As for me, I had always wanted to visit Reno, but we unwittingly arrived on the weekend they were hosting “Street Vibrations” there.  Thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands of motorcyclists descended on the area like locusts who choked the life out of everything with their leather and their noise and their gang colors and their endless parade of motorcycles.  I never even got to see Downtown Reno.

We went to Boulder City.  The park that provides the most beautiful scenic view of Lake Mead was closed too, but some of the lake is visible from the road, and we did get to drive across the Hoover Dam.

Before we left for our trip, I gathered 10 dollars in quarters and 50 cents in copper (pre-1982) pennies so that I would be able to avail myself of those machines that squish pennies into souvenirs, to add to my collection.  In the 31 days we were gone, we saw only one such machine, in New Mexico, and it was out of order.

Could we surmise this trip was something of a disappointment?  Well, only here and there.  After all, I did get to see my great (or grand) nephews in Kansas City.  I also gambled in 16 different casinos, visited 4 states I’d never been to before, added 8 state capitols to my collection, and saw enough breathtakingly beautiful scenery to last me a lifetime.  Oh, and there was one other thing.

On the beach at Pacifica, California, on October 1, with the ocean waves crashing into the rocks behind us, the Rev. Terri J. Echelbarger, pastor of the Peninsula Metropolitan Community Church in San Mateo, performed a simple ceremony which she concluded by saying, “By virtue of the authority vested in me by God, the Metropolitan Community Church, and the State of California, I now pronounce you spouses for life.”

I didn't get to see the Grand Canyon, but I did get to marry, legally, the woman with whom I have shared my love and my life for the past 27 years.  Altogether, I’d say that made for a pretty good vacation.

Very grand and great they are too

I referred to my niece's son as my great nephew, and someone suggested that was wrong and that I should call him my grand nephew.  The argument presented was that the grand child of my brother should be my grand nephew.

Well, okay, but the sister of my grand mother is my great aunt, isn't she?  So there.

Stupid is as ...

Something I heard today reminded me that we all do things that are useless from time to time. There are two incidents in my life that I consider prime examples.

One occurred in 1965 when I was in college. I was having trouble with an assignment for my 8:00 o'clock class the next morning and stayed up until nearly 2:00 in the morning getting it done. When my alarm went off at 7:15 in the morning, I turned it off, turned over, and went back to sleep.  I might as well not have bothered.

The other one was about 20 years later. I had finished doing my wash at a coin-operated laundry, except for one item. I pumped at least four more  dimes into a dryer trying to get the bath mat dry when it finally dawned on me that the bath mat spends most of its life damp, hanging over the shower curtain rod. Duh.

Midwest of What?

The Food Network has a new show called "Heartland Table" hosted by one Amy Thielen of whom I have never heard.  She's a native of Minnesota, and, according to their web site, she will be "celebrating all things Midwest" and sharing "rustic recipes from inside her log cabin."

Well, cool.  Today's premier episode was all about making things with butter -- so much butter, in fact, that one wonders if she is channeling Paula Deen. There was a blueberry-lemon pie with a butter crust and new potatoes with grilled onion butter. Well, okay.

The final dish, however, really brought it home.  Nothing spells rustic Minnesota log cabin more than collard greens with traditional Ethiopian spices.

Dangerous Associations

My mother had a job at a manufacturing company for a few years, working in the blue print room. Now and then as she left at the end of the day, she could not restrain herself from saying wistfully as she went out the door, "Good night, sweet prints."

Meanwhile, she was having trouble remembering the name of one of the senior engineers, a man named Basset, who often came there himself to order the printing of the blue prints he required. Since he was an important guy, she wanted to be able to greet him by name.  One day while he waited for his blue prints, they got to chatting, and he mentioned having a dog. That gave her an idea: whenever she saw him, she would remember he had a dog, and that would make her think of a Basset Hound, and that's how she'd remember his name.

It worked great. The next time he came to the print room, she flashed him her biggest smile and said cheerfully and confidently, "Good morning, Mr. Beagle!"

Tennis, anyone?

I’ve been watching a lot of the U. S. Open Tennis tournament on television in the last week or so. While watching yesterday’s women’s semifinal between Azarenka and Pennetta, I got to wondering if it was possible for a tennis fan to identify the player(s) without looking -- just by listening to the tone, pitch, length, and intensity of the grunt or gasp or squeal or, in Azarenka's case, shriek that they emit every time they hit the ball.

When I learned to play tennis in the summer of 1959, nobody mentioned making noise on every shot.

Of course, things were different in those days. Rackets were wood, balls were white, and nobody used more than one hand to swing the racket. Players always took two balls to the service line, since you get two chances to get a good serve in. You held both in your free hand, tossing one up for the first serve. If it went in, you carried the other ball throughout the play of the point.

After the two-handed backhand became popular, players had to have both hands free, and that’s when the men started putting the second ball in their pockets. The women came up with this thing where they tuck the ball up under their little short tennis skirts, which makes them look like they have a tennis-ball-size growth on their hips.

Can’t somebody design a tennis dress with a pocket on the outside?

Where are our manners?

I admit I'm short, but I am also wide, and there's no way you're going to miss me coming.

So, how is it that when I go into a grocery store, I am suddenly invisible? People come within an inch of mowing me down with their shopping carts. They cut me off. They rush around to get in front of me and then come to a screeching halt, blocking my path. When they're standing still talking on their cell phones, it's right in front of the shelf that contains what I'm looking for.

My all-time favorite maneuver, however, is performed by the young mother of two who is carrying one kid in her arms and dragging the other by the hand. When she comes into the store, she pulls a cart from the line and then stands right there, blocking everybody else's access to the carts, while she attempts to put the kid with the flailing rubber legs into the cart's seat and then hoist the other kid into the basket.

She has just carried and dragged those two kids all the way from the parking lot -- can't she take a cart and then walk another ten feet to get out of the way before she loads them into the basket? Well? Can't she?

Grocery shoppers act like they are the only person in the store.  And I always wish I actually was.