Family in the Wind

Oh for crap’s sake. There’s another hurricane coming. The good news is we may finally get a chance to eat those tinned Vienna sausages we laid in for the last storm. Those little dudes are simultaneously disgusting and oddly appealing, like Abba or Circus Peanuts. It would be amusing to take a few cans to Austria and see how actual Viennese people react to them. Meanwhile, the hurricane. There’s an F. Scott Fitzgerald story where two tornados in rapid succession devastate a small town. And one character says, "This is worse than a calamity. It's getting to be a nuisance."

Oh. And a mint.

I don’t want to brag (I want to brag) but (because) I think I may have timed this exactly right. I showed up for the first round of aperitifs and as trays of piping hot canapes were emerging from the kitchen. I got a good seat. The soup was delicious, the salad superb. There was fish and fowl and meat. Two kinds of potato, three kinds of bread, then some cheese and fruit. Now I think I might have time for a nice dessert, a coffee, maybe even a cigar before excusing myself just as the check hits the table.

Explanations are in order

I’m starting to think that language was invented because people needed an effective way to avoid communication. Like, when people say “It’s simple,” they mean “It’s complicated.” When they say “It’s complicated,” they mean “I don’t have time to explain it to you.” When they say “I don’t have time to explain it to you,” they mean “I don’t understand it myself.” And by the time they get around to actually saying “I don’t understand it myself,” it’s because they’re finally ready to admit to themselves that they don’t understand it themselves. That’s when you say to them, “It’s simple…”

Joe the Sea Lamprey

Practice makes perfect. For over a year I’ve been studying Spanish online. As a result, I’ve become quite adept at studying Spanish online. Someday I hope to say something in Spanish to a Spanish-speaking person. That’s the long-term goal. Anyway, the other morning, I was tasked with translating this sentence: “She is lost and needs help.” I typed, “Ella esta perdido y necesita ayuda.” I was immediately corrected – it should actually be “Ella esta perdida y necesita ayuda.” And I thought to myself, “For gosh sake! This is no time to quibble about grammar. She is lost and needs help!”

The Google Glass is half empty.

You know what’s uncomfortable? Standing in one place for an extended period of time. After just a little while, you want to either sit down or walk around. To facilitate this, we have chairs and shoes. Combining the best of both is the bicycle, which allows the user to (sort of) sit down while (kind of) walking around. So anyway, somebody finally realized that the Segway was a terrible idea and they’ve stopped making them. Which, hmm, why didn’t more people buy a complicated expensive machine to do something that can achieved better, cheaper, easier? Consumers can be so fickle.

potatopotatopotato

Hey! Great souvenir idea here: “My Grampa visited Sturgis, SD, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt… and COVID-19.” One thing about Harley Davidson owners, they’re loyal. They show the kind of brand affinity you normally see in preteen boy band fans. (Does anybody sell Harley puffy stickers and scented erasers?) Thousands of them were last seen racing off to their annual camporee (Well, not racing, actually. These are Harleys, after all.) to exchange anecdotes, tall tales, and of course deadly viruses. In a week or two, be on the lookout for some real bargains in slightly used motorcycles.

Hey! Here's an idea!

There’s this little fly, so tiny that even ants don’t bother with it. The female fly pokes a hole in an ant and lays an egg in there. The maggot eats its way up through the ant until it gets inside the head; the ant remains oblivious. Later, this maggot somehow convinces the ant to leave the nest and find a nice moist place, then releases a chemical that makes the ant’s head drop off. The maggot snuggles down in there to metamorphose into adulthood. My point being, I guess, that you shouldn’t trust everything that goes through your head.