I came across this phrase yesterday "FENDER SKIRTS". A term I haven't heard in a long time and thinking about "fender skirts" started me thinking about other words that quietly disappear from our language with hardly a notice like "curb feelers" And "steering knobs." (AKA) suicide knob  Since I'd been thinking of cars, my mind naturally went that direction first. Our family had an auto parts franchise where we all worked on week ends by the age of 10, selling steering knobs and hood ornaments, or even handling the cash register or installing 'seat covers'. We even gave funny money to our clients.   Any kids will probably have to find some elderly person over 50 to explain some of these terms to you. Remember "Continental kits?" They were rear bumper extenders and spare tire covers that were supposed to make any car as cool as a LincolnContinental. When did we quit calling them "emergency brakes?" At some point "parking brake" became the proper term. But I miss the hint of drama that went with "emergency brake." I'm sad, too, that almost all the old folks are gone who would call the accelerator the "foot feed." Didn't you ever wait at the street for your daddy to come home, so you could ride the "running board" up to the house? Here's a phrase I heard all the time in my youth but never anymore - "store-bought." Of course, just about everything is store-bought these days. But once it was bragging material to have a store-bought dress or a store-bought bag of candy. "Coast to coast" is a phrase that once held all sorts of excitement and now means almost nothing. Now we take the term "world wide" for granted This floors me. On a smaller scale, "wall-to-wall" was once a magical term in our homes. In the '50s, everyone covered his or her hardwood floors with, wow, wall-to-wall carpeting! Today, everyone replaces their wall-to-wall carpeting with hardwood floors. Go figure. When's the last time you heard the quaint phrase "in a family way?" It's hard to imagine that the word "pregnant" was once considered a little too graphic, a little too clinical for use in polite company So we had all that talk about stork visits and "being in a family way" or simply"expecting." Apparently "brassiere" is a word no longer in usage. I said it the other day and my daughter cracked up. I guess it's just "bra" now "Unmentionables" probably wouldn't be understood at all. I always loved going to the "picture show," but I considered "movie" an affectation. Most of these words go back to the '50s, but here's a pure-'60s word I came across the other day - "rat fink." Ooh, what a nasty put-down! Here's a word I miss - "percolator." That was just a fun word to say. And what was it replaced with? "Coffee maker." How dull. Mr. Coffee, I blame you for this. I miss those made-up marketing words that were meant to sound so modern and now sound so retro. Words like "DynaFlow" and "Electrolux." Introducing the 1963 Admiral TV, now with "SpectraVision!" Food for thought - Was there a telethon that wiped out lumbago? Nobody complains of that anymore. Maybe that's what castor oil cured, because I never hear mothers threatening kids with castor oil anymore. Some words aren't gone, but are definitely on the endangered list. The one that grieves me most "supper." Now everybody says "dinner." Save a great word. Invite someone to supper. Discuss fender skirts. Someone forwarded this to me. I thought some of us of a "certain age" would remember most of these. Just for fun, Pass it along to others of "a certain age"! |
Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
January 13, 2009
In A Retro Mood? Come For Supper Some Time.
December 19, 2008
December 14, 2008
Oooooooooooooo!
Waiting for a distant friend from Canada who had driven from Montreal and I hadn't seen for 5 years. Also looking at the cruiuse ships nearby, coincidently the same boat we are to take next week for our Christmas cruise to Puerto Vallarte ( Remember the Oosterdam ? You can view that old blog with brand new old music by Mason Williams )
November 24, 2008
COMRADES, NOW YOU KNOW WHY I WEAR THE GOATEE
Comrades, they don't know the fuck what they are doing up there in Washington. We always did, so the time is right for you to join the ranks of our proletariat revolution and follow me into the glorious uprising of the masses. We have the addresses of the homes of 75 hedge funds billionnaires and they have enough rooms in their mansions to house our small army looking for a cozy place to spend winter and organize the 'the 2009 Real Great Bailout of the Masses'. Bring your own pitchforks.
November 22, 2008
Nigerian Letters To Nigeria. - #1: AMERICANS AND TELIVISION -
to: Doctor AKAO DOUE , ccb,at,bd, bs
Minister of the Office of Nigerian Letters
Your Excellency,
I am very mostly thankful for the grant money that your office has accorded me to study abroad. It is not every day that a Nigerian of my humble origins has the chance to get an degree in amtropology from a American University. Since this sum of money came mostly from the numerous pleas that your honorable office has sent to generous email recipientors in the United States, I feel that these same people should in very fairness be beneficiaries of my studies. So I have decided to redact and publicate my final thesis on the subject of them to which I give below a much shortened version thereof. This effort of me is to be helpful to them as much as to the Nigerian people who have more to do to be catching up to this greatest nation.
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND TELIVISION
When first I spent one month waiting for your money transfer in a unexpensive motel of a small village in the province of New Jersey, I dutyfully did much spend time looking at the television appliance in my room in order to study the culture herein. I will confess to you that I must have turned the round plastic button several million times to ascertain the differencing in the programs. Here are some of my observations that I have listed in order of increasing utility to your Ministry that I presume:
- A white man with a strong black beard appears without a warning at all hours of the day to sell the viewing people soap, hooks,tools, insurance and all manners of objects. We need someone like him to redact a few of your benevolent letters to recruit more money from America. This scary man endowed with a high unagreable voice can sell anything and appears on almost every program for a few intervals of time each hour.
. - Several millions white handsome mans in America have problems with their penis not lifitng up when the moment is right. Many companies sell many medecines, but I know that our Nigerian unemployed brothers could with most hability perform the same, their penis being free of that shameful problem. Honorable Minister, Nigeria could create a school for these American man and hire our unemployed adult mans to teach the art and science of raising of the penis to them. We cannot as a nation under God miss a business opportunity of that proportion with all of the skills endowed to our brothers by our Creator.
- American womans spend much of the day buying glass beads and other ornaments from many programs that use a microscope-camera to make the jewel appear to filling the television glass window. We need programs like this as they are very successful, also because they use magic: every price has many number 9 in it which cause the womans to call a telephone number immediately. Our Nigerian woman like bigger beads but they could profit from a semblable activity while their mans go to drinking.
- American womans spend the afternoon listening to a handsome black woman called OPERA to know what to buy, what to read and what to believe. She would do well to recieve a letter from your ministery as I am told that she also has much money. A better idea can be of your honorable self to telephone to her offering a similar employment in our telivision. This way ourNigerian brothers could spending time out more to drinking or playing dice with their comrades.
- Another magician is another black man of the name OBAMA that has gaining a chance to becoming president. Several programs say he is the Messiah and one other program say he is the pariah, with many terrorists he palling around with. I dont know the verb 'palling' as it is not printed in the lexicon you have given me, but strangely the madam who asserted that is of the name PALIN. This research of mine is going on with that mystery coincidental for now, the missing letter 'L' and 'G' from her name.
- In America, everything comes in pairs, better statement would be in 'fighting pairs'. Coke fight Pepsi for carbonated fluids, McDonald fight Burger King for round meat buns, Cialis fight Viagra for penis potions, Obama fight McCain for presidency, Palin fight Clinton for high madam, Fox fight MSNBC for the description of black man OBAMA as Pariah or Messiah. The research of mine will long time be going on to that thematic, but I feel that we Nigerians could start 'fighting pairs' for distracting our population from despotic lack of efficiency in our administrative leadings.
- Lately, with the gasoline price going up up up every day Nigeria could benefit from example of America and start to drilling off-sure, a conviction of success as they are promotering on the telivision. We need to convince the Nigerian petrol people of this new technology of drilling off-sure to bring back the prosperious nation of Nigeria. More research for my ongoing thesis is needing to ascertain the meaning of 'off-sure', also a word not present in the lexicon I do keeping by my bed always.
- Finalmently, I have greatest news for all our hard-working redactors of Nigerian eMails: America is a country where some people have sold a bridge to nowhere to the congressants in Washing-Town. I know it is hard for most to imagine a bridge with one ending suspended in nothingness, but nevertheless this has occured, significating that with minimal effort we can sell anything to Washing-Town. So let us direct more eMails to that village and collect the funs. Your effort will not be in vain and there is no real need to spend too much time redactionating these letters as Americans will believe anything that is either written down or viewing on telivision.
When my thesis is publicated trhoguhout (another difficult word not in my lexicon) the world, people will finally understanding the secret of American dominating the world. To Americans life is a chess game where everything needs to be black or white, the board, the pieces and the players. They have created a dominant negro in boxing, golfing, basketballing and now are about to create one in presidenting by having the very black Obama fighting the very white McCain. We have much to learn from America on the absence of gray, the key to their success as my thesis will prove. More practically we should do the black-white dichotomy (yes! it is in my lexicon) in Nigeria immediately by my suggeting to your Excellency that if OBAMA wins Your Excellency should telephone the white McCain and have him elected as President of our black nation of Nigeria. This would be a modest albeit efficient step in the direction of the greatest nation on earth.
Your Excellency, I need to concluding that I need more money for my effortuous work and will appreciate more donations from the authors of the successed Nigerian Letters of which, honorable Minister, you are the most respected leader and editor in chief.
I remain thus truly your humble beneficiary and for a parting word I say to you:
KEEP THE EMAILS COMING TO AMERICA, NIGERIA NEED THE MONEY AND THESE MUCH MORE EDUCATED PEOPLE NEED TO BELIEVING ALL THINGS THEY VIEWING OR READING ALL THE TIME
JIMBO LA POIRÉ, foreign-student in amtropology.
November 15, 2008
Avoid The Red Districts When Traveling.
 |
| From yourPhotos |
This Newsweek map is hugely interesting. The red districts have voted Republican 7% or more than they did in 2004. We must assume that this extra zeal came from a combination of the following factors: distrust of Obama, distrust of the Democrats, love of McCain, love of Palin. Now we know that McCain was never a beloved Republican. Sarah did much better with the uneducated. Yet, since much of the Republican message was to paint Obama as a potential terrorist in disguise and the Democrats as the 'loonie socialist liberals, we can safely assume that the message was well received in those Appalachian rural districts that have nothing to fear but fear itself...and little knowledge to counter the outrageous assumptions they have been bombarded with. This is Rush Limbaugh territory.
By the same token the dark blue areas denote a violent rejection of this message as seen in ALL cities with a college or a library. Upstate New York,Vermont and New Hampshire being close to Canada do not fear socialism so much. Many of them get their kicks in Montreal and most of them buy their pills in Canada. By the same token most coasts have more contacts with the outside world, Europe and Asia. How could they fall for the simplistic xenophobic messages of the last Republican campaign. An oddity, the 'Cajun' districts are red, although coastal to the gulf of Mexico. However this quaint people travel very little and many harbor fears that black people have secret gun caches and are preparing a revolution against the white man. I know for having lived there for a few years. Arkansas has the reddest districts of all, a place where trillions of chickens are slaughtered each year. Could it be that these simple folks fear terrorists the most? a little chickenshit at heart, maybe? Strange enough that these are dirt poor districts voting for the Grand Ole Party of fat cats.
Or is it that the Republican thinking heads have painted themselves into a corner, the white trash dumpster of America. If you are intelligent, black, or liberal, or God forbid, all three, avoid any road that goes through any of these depressed areas. Above all, avoid any Republican that contributed to this embarrassing polarization of America. The Republican tapeworm is now hiding in the rotting gut of America, the rest of it well on its way to recovery, bluer than the California sky.
And here's another tip: seek these blue areas, ALL of California, west Texas, New Mexico, the Northeast, Minnesota etc...Nice normal people who know how to vote and try to not have sex with close cousins or farm animals.
By the same token the dark blue areas denote a violent rejection of this message as seen in ALL cities with a college or a library. Upstate New York,Vermont and New Hampshire being close to Canada do not fear socialism so much. Many of them get their kicks in Montreal and most of them buy their pills in Canada. By the same token most coasts have more contacts with the outside world, Europe and Asia. How could they fall for the simplistic xenophobic messages of the last Republican campaign. An oddity, the 'Cajun' districts are red, although coastal to the gulf of Mexico. However this quaint people travel very little and many harbor fears that black people have secret gun caches and are preparing a revolution against the white man. I know for having lived there for a few years. Arkansas has the reddest districts of all, a place where trillions of chickens are slaughtered each year. Could it be that these simple folks fear terrorists the most? a little chickenshit at heart, maybe? Strange enough that these are dirt poor districts voting for the Grand Ole Party of fat cats.
Or is it that the Republican thinking heads have painted themselves into a corner, the white trash dumpster of America. If you are intelligent, black, or liberal, or God forbid, all three, avoid any road that goes through any of these depressed areas. Above all, avoid any Republican that contributed to this embarrassing polarization of America. The Republican tapeworm is now hiding in the rotting gut of America, the rest of it well on its way to recovery, bluer than the California sky.
And here's another tip: seek these blue areas, ALL of California, west Texas, New Mexico, the Northeast, Minnesota etc...Nice normal people who know how to vote and try to not have sex with close cousins or farm animals.
October 23, 2008
September 11, 2008
A Young Democrat's Wet Dream
The pre-med student looked ecstatic when he showed up in the doorway. Before closing the door, he held up a vial and shouted:
"We've got it, the one hundred day, one hundred percent voice killer"
The three students in the room looked horrified:
"Charlie,will you please sit and pipe down. Half the people in the hall can hear you".
Charlie pushed his mop of hair to one side and before the door was completely shut and announced in a much softer voice:
"They cooked this one from the Bordetella virus. The microbiologists worked all weekend, taking time to test it on a monkey at the animal lab. Works like a charm. That big rhesus is now as mute as a dead cell phone."
The three listeners moved closer and slowly started to smile in unison. One of them volunteered:
"How do you know this is going to last at least until the 4th of November?"
Charlie opened a beer that was handed to him but not before jamming the vial solidly into a shirt pocket.
"Easy, the Chinese call this virus the 'One Hundred Day Cough'. The real name is Pertussis. It works like this: a first toxin attaches to the ciliae in your respiratory tract; it's the 'Crazy Glue' in the virus. A second toxin paralyzes those hairs so that they stop propelling the mucus out of your lungs. The third toxin kills them dead while a final toxin gives a chest cold that you can't expel. The net result is that you cough like hell trying to get rid of mucus that slides right back down, having nothing to retain it. It takes about a hundred days to regrow new pulmonary hairs or ciliae. After that you feel well again.
But what Peter and his people did was to create a Bordetella virus with a genetic mutation...and a real 'cute' one at that".
The student who appeared to be the leader of the group asked for more details, all the while fingering his iPhone. Charlie went on after an extra long gulp of his beer:
" Now get this, they got the first and second toxin to attach to the vocal cords instead of to the lower airways. That mutation was already known so they mostly just had to make a culture.
Then, pointing to his shirt pocket, he added.
And guess what! There's enough virus in this vial for all 15-20 people on our list"
The three listeners' eyes grew wide and one of them added with a wicked smile.
"To get their message out, our victims will need a sound box like the one used by Stephen Hawkins. Can you just see this, Sean Hannity sounding like a robot, trying to make a point at 10 mph while his guests can run circles around him at 100 mph."
The young man next to him interrupted, sticking a friendly elbow to his rib cage.
This is assuming that moron Hannity can type. He would need a keyboard with one of those sound boxes.
.......
The leader had completed his phone call, pocketed the iPhone and checked his watch.
Fantastic work! And the other team has everything they need to know, Wendy's, Chinese Food Delivery, the times, the addresses... the whole enchilada. Get this, fellows, Mike's team will take delivery of the drugs at six am. We need to make eighteen packets, double bagged 'Baggies'. Wash your hands in the sink with lots of Clorox and don't touch your face.
He continued.
They've collected the eating habits of 18 of the people on our list. We need to finish the job and save our country from another Republican administration. From now on we are at the extreme degree of secrecy. We know that these will be highly visible victims. If you guys want to finish your semester outside of a federal jail, just try to go home tonight and forget everything you've seen or heard here. From now on it's the other team's turn to play. Let's just keep them in our prayers...and check your TV sets tomorrow night. If they succeed, we will have a bunch of talking heads out of commission for a very long time.
....
Bill O'Reilly was replaced because of his laryngitis. 'The Factor' had a poor Neilsen rating on the 12th of September as it always does when the 'big guy' is absent. The day before, like clockwork, Bill had for his 12:30PM lunch two pastrami sandwiches on rye with a large diet Coke. That meat had been shaken in the same 'baggie' laced earlier with the modified virus. Three operatives had been on his case, with three others left hanging at the other 5th Avenue caterer, one that sometimes delivered cheeseburgers to Bill at the Fox Studio. With Bill O'Reilly, they were'nt taking any chances.
Sean Hannity had three beef burritos with a strawberry milk shake. His voice attackers had to split the dose after the delivery boy was properly chloroformed in the elevator before having a chance to recognize his assailants. Then one of the burritos was destroyed in the process of swabing it with the virus. The plastic bag was later washed with part of the milk shake and poured back in its container. One of the students wrote a note apologizing for the damaged burrito.
The group leader angrily muttered at him.
You nuts or what?! Your handwriting will nail your ass if we get caught! Let's just deliver and dissolve in the street.
........
The owner of FoxNews, Rupert Murdock was out on his high horse and the receptionist was holding the phone at arms length.
Give me Gibson NOWWW! I'm not about to have FoxNews on sick leave all week.
It was explained to him by a studio head that all the station's stars were suffering a bout of severe laryngitis, Brit Hume, Hannity, O'Reilly, Kristol , Krauthammer, including Gibson. It was possible that the studio should be quarantined.
Murdock had a surprising reaction.
You crazy bum, there's no way I will let the left-wing loonies control the airwaves. I'll send you a few healthy replacements before the 5:00 o'clock Factor. Don't let Colmes or Juan on the air alone. Play some 9/11 tapes all day if you have to...and feed a lot of commercials, the high-paying ones.
No one could suspect at that time that the talking heads would not be back until after the November elections. As a matter of fact, the Murdock recruits all suffered similar cases of laryngitis. It was a less severe kind caught at the water cooler in the studio. This had been a last-minute idea from Dave, one of the gang waiting for Gibson's Chinese food delivery disguised as a FedEx man searching for a bill of lading. When he discovered that the meal was for Gibson's secretary, a cute little thing, the student went for the water cooler and, unseen, managed instead to squeeze the content of the baggie into it.
Even Alan Colmes, FoxNews' token democrat, got it. Everyone got it and the FoxNews Neilsen ratings went down the toilet for good. The replacements, Feith, Abrams, Ralph Peters, Wolfowitz, and young writers from the Weekly Standard and the New York Post went on air briefly one after the other, between documentaries and Billy Mays or Cialis commercials. They all petered out when their voices left.
A New York Times cartoon proclaimed 'The NeoCon...spiracy' showing Murdock as a master puppeteer dangling a bunch of empty strings over an electoral map of the USA.
Since a few liberals were equally affected, the entire episode was attributed to the unsanitary condition of the Fox Studio.
But the phenomenon spread. Karl Rove fell silent as well and the Republican party knew it had a problem. The coughing was a side effect that made Republicans shun all and each other to the point that the secret service would not even let a very hoarse McCain talk to the press or other party members. A microbiologist was assigned to Sarah Palin along with a van containing two nurses, microscopes and detection equipment.
At least Palin's voice was crystal clear when she was asked to represent the entire party in a last debate, just a week before the election. Nothing inappropriate there as the VP is to replace the President at a moment's notice according to the job description.
The first question, served by a cocky Olberman in his booming voice, was the hardest one to answer.
Governor Palin, assuming that Georgia has to live without South Ossetia and Abkhazia now occupied by Russian forces, how do you expect the NATO membership that you have wished for them could change anything. You realize, of course, that the Russians now control the trans-national road AND the gas pipeline, that their entire Black Sea fleet is sitting near Poti and that they are well on the way to completing a missile base in South Ossetia as part of the C.I.S. mutual defense plan?
Under those circumstances, don't you feel Gov Palin that their NATO membership would not do much for them and that it has been foolish to let them believe to the contrary, to believe that we would rush to their defense and risk an all-out war for a territory that is divided and much smaller than Alaska, one that has already lost two of its provinces at the demand of their own residents, most of them holding Russian passports, in the same way as we supported the breakaway of Kosovo from Serbia twelve years ago?
She was splendidly dressed from advice received from Cindy McCain fashion consultant, sporting new designer glasses to the great displeasure of 3,500,000 adoring American women who had just changed their own eyeglasses to the kind Sarah wore at the St Paul convention two months earlier.
Her self-assurance was a beauty to behold, her head cocked to one side as she responded smiling at Olberman's long-winded question.
I trust you expect a long answer with a question like this one Mr Olberman.
The audience laughed heartily. Then, a dead silence fell upon the auditorium as well as through the millions of households throughout North America and the rest of the world.
A moment later, she cocked her head the opposite way and tapped her concealed earpiece with an impatient and heavily lacquered fingernail.
Her panicked eyes hidden by a complex toupee with hair extensions, she was observed to mutter something that no one could hear.
Why don't you feed me my lines you *ucking genius speechwriter!
The genius backstage was having the classic coughing spell, shoving the microphone helmet wildy at Karl Rove without being clearly understood. The dose had been formidable, infecting a coffee pot that the poor man had emptied to the last drop. At any rate, like the seventeen others, Karl would have been incapable to help; he had a few more weeks to go on the silent trail, peppering the party with post-it notes, text messages and other desperate means of giving out his precious advice.
What saved the day for Sarah Palin was her faked coughing spell, delivered with great talent and teary eyes, her face flushed as red as the party colors and prompting Olberman, ever the gentleman, to propose a postponement of the event.
Nothing saved the election, however, as Democrats easily won 300 seats. Americans could not vote for such a sickly bunch nor could they believe in a conspiracy since others that were unconnected were also afflicted. Larry King got it, Oprah got it ...and oh! I was going to forget, even Billy Mays went silent.
A week after the elections, FoxNews lost credibility when all their talking heads came back in full force, claiming that the 'loony left' had poisoned their voices. When MSNBC hit the 10,000,000 viewers in January, FoxNews closed its door at a paltry 200,000 viewers. Murdock had had enough of the humiliation, deciding to sell the news channel to a third party headed by a group of students that had inherited a lot of money. They wanted to create a humorous cable channel. They never told the bitter old man that the station would be called 'FoxNoise' and would be a parody of his old cable news channel. Neither did they tell him that the money for the cash purchase came from George Soros, proud sponsor of the virus research, a man now sitting on Obama's cabinet as a National Health Care advisor.
O'Reilly and Limbaugh, having let down their party, both moved to the Dominican Republic with a ten-year supply of Cialis and prostitutes. 'LaryngoPhobia' is now an ailment described in Wikipedia. The two men only eat canned food that they themselves open and wolf down without touching any plate or utensil for fear of losing their new-found voice. Both have grown so fat and sick as to scare the little kids that hang around their cabanas by the sea. Both were turned down when they applied for a broadcast license for a talk-radio show on the island. Rejected, they both went to the local watering hole to be consoled by a new barman, a freshly shaved American who earlier had lost his advertising business after being sued for breach of contract. He had become another refugee needing to work hard for a living. He wiped the table in front of the two men and, with a loud and clearly irritating voice, readied to take their order.
Billy Mays here, what can I do you for?
.........
Cantamar MX, 2008
"We've got it, the one hundred day, one hundred percent voice killer"
The three students in the room looked horrified:
"Charlie,will you please sit and pipe down. Half the people in the hall can hear you".
Charlie pushed his mop of hair to one side and before the door was completely shut and announced in a much softer voice:
"They cooked this one from the Bordetella virus. The microbiologists worked all weekend, taking time to test it on a monkey at the animal lab. Works like a charm. That big rhesus is now as mute as a dead cell phone."
The three listeners moved closer and slowly started to smile in unison. One of them volunteered:
"How do you know this is going to last at least until the 4th of November?"
Charlie opened a beer that was handed to him but not before jamming the vial solidly into a shirt pocket.
"Easy, the Chinese call this virus the 'One Hundred Day Cough'. The real name is Pertussis. It works like this: a first toxin attaches to the ciliae in your respiratory tract; it's the 'Crazy Glue' in the virus. A second toxin paralyzes those hairs so that they stop propelling the mucus out of your lungs. The third toxin kills them dead while a final toxin gives a chest cold that you can't expel. The net result is that you cough like hell trying to get rid of mucus that slides right back down, having nothing to retain it. It takes about a hundred days to regrow new pulmonary hairs or ciliae. After that you feel well again.
But what Peter and his people did was to create a Bordetella virus with a genetic mutation...and a real 'cute' one at that".
The student who appeared to be the leader of the group asked for more details, all the while fingering his iPhone. Charlie went on after an extra long gulp of his beer:
" Now get this, they got the first and second toxin to attach to the vocal cords instead of to the lower airways. That mutation was already known so they mostly just had to make a culture.
Then, pointing to his shirt pocket, he added.
And guess what! There's enough virus in this vial for all 15-20 people on our list"
The three listeners' eyes grew wide and one of them added with a wicked smile.
"To get their message out, our victims will need a sound box like the one used by Stephen Hawkins. Can you just see this, Sean Hannity sounding like a robot, trying to make a point at 10 mph while his guests can run circles around him at 100 mph."
The young man next to him interrupted, sticking a friendly elbow to his rib cage.
This is assuming that moron Hannity can type. He would need a keyboard with one of those sound boxes.
.......
The leader had completed his phone call, pocketed the iPhone and checked his watch.
Fantastic work! And the other team has everything they need to know, Wendy's, Chinese Food Delivery, the times, the addresses... the whole enchilada. Get this, fellows, Mike's team will take delivery of the drugs at six am. We need to make eighteen packets, double bagged 'Baggies'. Wash your hands in the sink with lots of Clorox and don't touch your face.
He continued.
They've collected the eating habits of 18 of the people on our list. We need to finish the job and save our country from another Republican administration. From now on we are at the extreme degree of secrecy. We know that these will be highly visible victims. If you guys want to finish your semester outside of a federal jail, just try to go home tonight and forget everything you've seen or heard here. From now on it's the other team's turn to play. Let's just keep them in our prayers...and check your TV sets tomorrow night. If they succeed, we will have a bunch of talking heads out of commission for a very long time.
....
Bill O'Reilly was replaced because of his laryngitis. 'The Factor' had a poor Neilsen rating on the 12th of September as it always does when the 'big guy' is absent. The day before, like clockwork, Bill had for his 12:30PM lunch two pastrami sandwiches on rye with a large diet Coke. That meat had been shaken in the same 'baggie' laced earlier with the modified virus. Three operatives had been on his case, with three others left hanging at the other 5th Avenue caterer, one that sometimes delivered cheeseburgers to Bill at the Fox Studio. With Bill O'Reilly, they were'nt taking any chances.
Sean Hannity had three beef burritos with a strawberry milk shake. His voice attackers had to split the dose after the delivery boy was properly chloroformed in the elevator before having a chance to recognize his assailants. Then one of the burritos was destroyed in the process of swabing it with the virus. The plastic bag was later washed with part of the milk shake and poured back in its container. One of the students wrote a note apologizing for the damaged burrito.
The group leader angrily muttered at him.
You nuts or what?! Your handwriting will nail your ass if we get caught! Let's just deliver and dissolve in the street.
........
The owner of FoxNews, Rupert Murdock was out on his high horse and the receptionist was holding the phone at arms length.
Give me Gibson NOWWW! I'm not about to have FoxNews on sick leave all week.
It was explained to him by a studio head that all the station's stars were suffering a bout of severe laryngitis, Brit Hume, Hannity, O'Reilly, Kristol , Krauthammer, including Gibson. It was possible that the studio should be quarantined.
Murdock had a surprising reaction.
You crazy bum, there's no way I will let the left-wing loonies control the airwaves. I'll send you a few healthy replacements before the 5:00 o'clock Factor. Don't let Colmes or Juan on the air alone. Play some 9/11 tapes all day if you have to...and feed a lot of commercials, the high-paying ones.
No one could suspect at that time that the talking heads would not be back until after the November elections. As a matter of fact, the Murdock recruits all suffered similar cases of laryngitis. It was a less severe kind caught at the water cooler in the studio. This had been a last-minute idea from Dave, one of the gang waiting for Gibson's Chinese food delivery disguised as a FedEx man searching for a bill of lading. When he discovered that the meal was for Gibson's secretary, a cute little thing, the student went for the water cooler and, unseen, managed instead to squeeze the content of the baggie into it.
Even Alan Colmes, FoxNews' token democrat, got it. Everyone got it and the FoxNews Neilsen ratings went down the toilet for good. The replacements, Feith, Abrams, Ralph Peters, Wolfowitz, and young writers from the Weekly Standard and the New York Post went on air briefly one after the other, between documentaries and Billy Mays or Cialis commercials. They all petered out when their voices left.
A New York Times cartoon proclaimed 'The NeoCon...spiracy' showing Murdock as a master puppeteer dangling a bunch of empty strings over an electoral map of the USA.
Since a few liberals were equally affected, the entire episode was attributed to the unsanitary condition of the Fox Studio.
But the phenomenon spread. Karl Rove fell silent as well and the Republican party knew it had a problem. The coughing was a side effect that made Republicans shun all and each other to the point that the secret service would not even let a very hoarse McCain talk to the press or other party members. A microbiologist was assigned to Sarah Palin along with a van containing two nurses, microscopes and detection equipment.
At least Palin's voice was crystal clear when she was asked to represent the entire party in a last debate, just a week before the election. Nothing inappropriate there as the VP is to replace the President at a moment's notice according to the job description.
The first question, served by a cocky Olberman in his booming voice, was the hardest one to answer.
Governor Palin, assuming that Georgia has to live without South Ossetia and Abkhazia now occupied by Russian forces, how do you expect the NATO membership that you have wished for them could change anything. You realize, of course, that the Russians now control the trans-national road AND the gas pipeline, that their entire Black Sea fleet is sitting near Poti and that they are well on the way to completing a missile base in South Ossetia as part of the C.I.S. mutual defense plan?
Under those circumstances, don't you feel Gov Palin that their NATO membership would not do much for them and that it has been foolish to let them believe to the contrary, to believe that we would rush to their defense and risk an all-out war for a territory that is divided and much smaller than Alaska, one that has already lost two of its provinces at the demand of their own residents, most of them holding Russian passports, in the same way as we supported the breakaway of Kosovo from Serbia twelve years ago?
She was splendidly dressed from advice received from Cindy McCain fashion consultant, sporting new designer glasses to the great displeasure of 3,500,000 adoring American women who had just changed their own eyeglasses to the kind Sarah wore at the St Paul convention two months earlier.
Her self-assurance was a beauty to behold, her head cocked to one side as she responded smiling at Olberman's long-winded question.
I trust you expect a long answer with a question like this one Mr Olberman.
The audience laughed heartily. Then, a dead silence fell upon the auditorium as well as through the millions of households throughout North America and the rest of the world.
A moment later, she cocked her head the opposite way and tapped her concealed earpiece with an impatient and heavily lacquered fingernail.
Her panicked eyes hidden by a complex toupee with hair extensions, she was observed to mutter something that no one could hear.
Why don't you feed me my lines you *ucking genius speechwriter!
The genius backstage was having the classic coughing spell, shoving the microphone helmet wildy at Karl Rove without being clearly understood. The dose had been formidable, infecting a coffee pot that the poor man had emptied to the last drop. At any rate, like the seventeen others, Karl would have been incapable to help; he had a few more weeks to go on the silent trail, peppering the party with post-it notes, text messages and other desperate means of giving out his precious advice.
What saved the day for Sarah Palin was her faked coughing spell, delivered with great talent and teary eyes, her face flushed as red as the party colors and prompting Olberman, ever the gentleman, to propose a postponement of the event.
Nothing saved the election, however, as Democrats easily won 300 seats. Americans could not vote for such a sickly bunch nor could they believe in a conspiracy since others that were unconnected were also afflicted. Larry King got it, Oprah got it ...and oh! I was going to forget, even Billy Mays went silent.
A week after the elections, FoxNews lost credibility when all their talking heads came back in full force, claiming that the 'loony left' had poisoned their voices. When MSNBC hit the 10,000,000 viewers in January, FoxNews closed its door at a paltry 200,000 viewers. Murdock had had enough of the humiliation, deciding to sell the news channel to a third party headed by a group of students that had inherited a lot of money. They wanted to create a humorous cable channel. They never told the bitter old man that the station would be called 'FoxNoise' and would be a parody of his old cable news channel. Neither did they tell him that the money for the cash purchase came from George Soros, proud sponsor of the virus research, a man now sitting on Obama's cabinet as a National Health Care advisor.
O'Reilly and Limbaugh, having let down their party, both moved to the Dominican Republic with a ten-year supply of Cialis and prostitutes. 'LaryngoPhobia' is now an ailment described in Wikipedia. The two men only eat canned food that they themselves open and wolf down without touching any plate or utensil for fear of losing their new-found voice. Both have grown so fat and sick as to scare the little kids that hang around their cabanas by the sea. Both were turned down when they applied for a broadcast license for a talk-radio show on the island. Rejected, they both went to the local watering hole to be consoled by a new barman, a freshly shaved American who earlier had lost his advertising business after being sued for breach of contract. He had become another refugee needing to work hard for a living. He wiped the table in front of the two men and, with a loud and clearly irritating voice, readied to take their order.
Billy Mays here, what can I do you for?
.........
Cantamar MX, 2008
February 23, 2008
A Trip To Rome
A woman was at her hairdresser's getting her hair styled for a trip to Rome with her husband she mentioned the trip to the hairdresser, who responded:
" Rome ? Why would anyone want to go there? It's crowded and dirty. You're crazy to go to Rome . So, how are you getting there?"
"We're taking Continental," was the reply. "We got a great rate!"
"Continental?" exclaimed the hairdresser. " That's a terrible airline. Their planes are old, their flight attendants are ugly, and they're always late. So, where are you staying in Rome ?"
"We'll be at this exclusive little place over on Rome 's Tiber River called Teste."
"Don't go any further. I know that place. Everybody thinks its gonna be something special and exclusive, but it's really a dump, the worst hotel in the city! The rooms are small, the service is surly,and they're overpriced.
So, whatcha' doing when you get there?"
"We're going to go to see the Vatican and we hope to see the Pope."
"That's rich," laughed the hairdresser. "You and a million other people trying to see him. He'll look the size of an ant.Boy, good luck on this lousy trip of yours. You're going to need it."
A month later, the woman again came in for a hairdo. The hairdresser asked her about her trip to Rome ..
"It was wonderful," explained the woman, "not only were we on time in one of Continental's brand new planes, but it wasoverbooked, and they bumped us up to first class. The food was wonderful, and I had a handsome 28-year-old steward who waited on me hand and foot.
And the hotel was great! They'd just finished a $5 million remodeling job, and now it's a jewel, the finest hot el in the cityThey, too, were overbooked, so they apologized and gave us their owner's suite at no extra charge!"
"Well," muttered the hairdresser, "that's all well and good, but I know you didn't get to see the Pope."
"Actually, we were quite lucky, because as we toured the Vatican, a Swiss Guard tapped me on the shoulder, and explained that the Pope likes to meet some of the visitors, and if I'd be so kind as to step into his private room and wait, the Pope would personally greet me.
Sure enough, five minutes later, the Pope walked through the door and shook my hand! I knelt down and he spoke a few words to me."
"Oh, really! What'd he say ?"
He said: "Where'd you get the shitty Hairdo?"
" Rome ? Why would anyone want to go there? It's crowded and dirty. You're crazy to go to Rome . So, how are you getting there?"
"We're taking Continental," was the reply. "We got a great rate!"
"Continental?" exclaimed the hairdresser. " That's a terrible airline. Their planes are old, their flight attendants are ugly, and they're always late. So, where are you staying in Rome ?"
"We'll be at this exclusive little place over on Rome 's Tiber River called Teste."
"Don't go any further. I know that place. Everybody thinks its gonna be something special and exclusive, but it's really a dump, the worst hotel in the city! The rooms are small, the service is surly,and they're overpriced.
So, whatcha' doing when you get there?"
"We're going to go to see the Vatican and we hope to see the Pope."
"That's rich," laughed the hairdresser. "You and a million other people trying to see him. He'll look the size of an ant.Boy, good luck on this lousy trip of yours. You're going to need it."
A month later, the woman again came in for a hairdo. The hairdresser asked her about her trip to Rome ..
"It was wonderful," explained the woman, "not only were we on time in one of Continental's brand new planes, but it wasoverbooked, and they bumped us up to first class. The food was wonderful, and I had a handsome 28-year-old steward who waited on me hand and foot.
And the hotel was great! They'd just finished a $5 million remodeling job, and now it's a jewel, the finest hot el in the cityThey, too, were overbooked, so they apologized and gave us their owner's suite at no extra charge!"
"Well," muttered the hairdresser, "that's all well and good, but I know you didn't get to see the Pope."
"Actually, we were quite lucky, because as we toured the Vatican, a Swiss Guard tapped me on the shoulder, and explained that the Pope likes to meet some of the visitors, and if I'd be so kind as to step into his private room and wait, the Pope would personally greet me.
Sure enough, five minutes later, the Pope walked through the door and shook my hand! I knelt down and he spoke a few words to me."
"Oh, really! What'd he say ?"
He said: "Where'd you get the shitty Hairdo?"
February 4, 2008
February 1, 2008
A Mysteriously Enchanted Evening With Dopamine Soaked Truffles
'It's the economy, stupid'!'
had touted Bill Clinton as the argument for his successful 1992 presidential bid. His wife Hillary was on TV last night, sitting close to the left of Obama that she was debating, her pretty cow eyes smiling, her oxen-like hubby nowhere in sight.
I was sitting on our love seat to the left of Nikki (Nicole Beaudry), both of us watching and listening with great interest, connecting stuff and having a good time. Facing me (i.e. Jacques Poirier), a white non-smoking retiree, was the politician Barrak Obama, a black fellow that is said to hide to smoke cigarettes, always wrapped up in a clean aura of youth and dynamism . On the right, facing the smoker Beaudry sitting next to me, was Hillary, the non-smoking white
woman debating Obama. At one point we had two of those quaintly wrapped truffles bought locally just a week ago. Luck of the draw, I picked a white chocolate coated one while Nikki picked a dark one. Both debaters were very professional and courteous while reciting their respective strong points. Obama had those powerful terse statements, well paced, while Hillary wiggled beautifully, covering all bases but sometimes dragging on for too long. My mate Nikki made short comments, always to the point, while I sometimes rambled my own opinions for too long, distracting her.
So I decided to have a cigarette to better contain my excitement. I quit smoking two months ago but I sometimes have a vacation where I smoke a few and then quit again fo awhile to clear my throat. Thinking about all this under our flannel sheets this morning, I had a moment of serendipity (scientese for 'good luck'), the object of this blog. So hang on...we'll get there!
'It's the MAO.b, stupid!" I now insist, the main reason why it is so hard to quit smoking. What is that all about? Let me explain: but first let's go back a few decades when people smoked in airplanes. Remember those armrest ashtrays and the blue smoke that just exploded five minutes after take-off? One little old non-smoking lady had sent a newspaper the following letter, one that struck me and that I approximately memorized:
"I'm a little old five-foot lady with a serious scoliosis of my back, a fact that has dropped my stature down to four-foot something. When I fly, I always go to the smokers section even though I don't smoke. The reason is that absolutely no one in the non smoking front part of the plane helps...or even sees me...as if I didn't exist. The moment I reach the smokers section five to ten people get up at the same time to help me put my baggage in the overhead compartment. Smokers are definitely better people".
I don't think so. People are people. But a smoker's brain performs more connections. Dopamine swamped, their neural pathways connect at twice the rate of the non-smokers lazier MOA.b inhibited brain, as shown in diagram below. This from a recent study at Brookhaven National Institute shows what happens to the level of the 'killjoy' neurotransmitter MAO,b (monoamine oxydase b) a few seconds after a happy dopamine moment, the 'well-being' neurotransmitter: it is totally recaptured by a good squirt of MOA,b , one that is absent in the 51-year old female smoker. Then the thrill is gone in the non-smoker, it's chemistry recycled for a later thrill. The smoker just goes on and on, stretching his dopamine levels like an old bubble gum, maintaining enough connectivity to relate to the little old lady, her large carrying bag, the hump on her back, the visual comparative cue of a distance to high to the overhead compartment. Meanwhile 200 non-smokers are lost in their private reverie, connecting zilch. MOA,b dismantles the dopamine chemistry so fast it has been called 'killjoy' by researchers.
This is why I had to smoke last night to better enjoy that debate. And here's what I found, synthetized neatly while still lurching under the flannel sheets this morning:
By carefully listing the boolean properties of the people and things that populated our evening as smokers/watchers/eaters/commentators , I found out the connections and listed them in the grid at the left. Check it out carefully. Gender showing an 'X' for a male and 'O' for female etc...
Then I totaled the results, parsing them under TOTAL as you can see, XOX for Obama, OXO for Clinton, OXXO for myself and XOXO for Nikki. The obvious result is the opposite 'O's' and 'X's' between Obama and Clinton, something we all noticed without even thinking about it.
Black male, white female, obvious! The fact that Nikki and I have opposites too is also well known in this household where explosive encounters occur from time to time. But wait, there is more!...much more as I decided to explore this promising vein..
No wonder I was so mysteriously excited last night after unwrapping my white chocolate truffle, having boosted my dopamine to new levels thanks to a few Malboros. Although I was not aware of it till this morning, the truffles have a metallic wrapper with the name XOX clearly printed. I quickly Googled 'XOX' this morning to the San Francisco maker, chef Jean-Marc Gorce. Then I checked out Nikki's score as XOXO, finding a clothing manufacturer by that name, one that has on its home page a model looking exactly like Nikki forty seven years ago. This number is the actual age of Barrak Obama (47). Mystified I looked at my own score, OXXO.
This literally bowled me over. Dig this, OXXO is a 'tienda' situated one kilometer from our Cantamar house in Mexico, and it is THE PLACE WHERE I BOUGHT THE DAMN TRUFFLES LAST WEEK.
I went crazy and lit another Malboro. First, the idea to have a chocolate truffle last night came from seeing Obama's cute little edible brown head ( for the record, I am neither gay nor racist)
This would explain the XOX connection to Obama's score. And my own OXXO connection becomes obvious since I am the one who bought the darn OXO things. Nikki 's connection is more questionable since her lips aren't as fat as those of the twenty year old model shown here. True, the latter might have had lip enlargement, a non-existing procedure in the fifties. On the other hand, maybe Nikki's lips were fatter then. I'll certainly ask her that as I am looking at her, pretty as ever playing PacMan on her computer, unaware of my tortuous inquiries into life on earth as we know it.
Left out was Hillary's score as OXO. Piece of cake! I
was musing at her brown eyes last night. OXO is a well-know cow by-product. On second thought, those tasty little beef bouillon cubes I munched on as a boy scout did not convinced me fully of the validity of that connection. And Bill Clinton is more snake-like than oxen-like, a character better given to ex-president Gerald Ford. So I did the Google thing one more time and found it, the perfect product for Hillary, a mango splitter quite popular in Mexico and made by a company named OXO. Hillary DOES split my 'mango' from time to time, and maybe yours too, right? Plus this other fact: I have girlfriend blogger named 'Mango' and I sometimes wish she would split with her boyfriend. That's it then, Hillary, the Mango-splitter! I need Mango to respond to this blog below and comment on her opinion of Hillary Clinton, stressing connections one more time. For a follow-up, I will respond to her comment...and to yours too, of course. We need to complete this flagging experiment.
As a temporary conclusion to all of this, would you agree with me that a little MAO.b squirted in the synaptic gap goes a long way in suppressing too many weak connections induced by un-recaptured dopamine? Ain't that a good reason to quit smoking? All of a sudden, I want to be like those smooth non-smoking passengers who barely glanced at the old lady with the dowager's hump. Connect nothing. Like cows in a pasture burping quietly at a pass
ing train. My new letters are "Z"E"N", I quit smoking again and I will write short dreamy pointless blogs in the future. That's a switch from those Malboro-produced blawgs that gives me and you a 'mango-splitting' headache. No more cigarettes! Let the old lady jump for the overhead compartment, let's vote for McCain, let general Petraeus achieve victory in Iraq, what recession?...Ron Paul? Never heard of him. Let's go see my lovely Nikki and play a few rounds PacMan till dinner time.
had touted Bill Clinton as the argument for his successful 1992 presidential bid. His wife Hillary was on TV last night, sitting close to the left of Obama that she was debating, her pretty cow eyes smiling, her oxen-like hubby nowhere in sight.I was sitting on our love seat to the left of Nikki (Nicole Beaudry), both of us watching and listening with great interest, connecting stuff and having a good time. Facing me (i.e. Jacques Poirier), a white non-smoking retiree, was the politician Barrak Obama, a black fellow that is said to hide to smoke cigarettes, always wrapped up in a clean aura of youth and dynamism . On the right, facing the smoker Beaudry sitting next to me, was Hillary, the non-smoking white
woman debating Obama. At one point we had two of those quaintly wrapped truffles bought locally just a week ago. Luck of the draw, I picked a white chocolate coated one while Nikki picked a dark one. Both debaters were very professional and courteous while reciting their respective strong points. Obama had those powerful terse statements, well paced, while Hillary wiggled beautifully, covering all bases but sometimes dragging on for too long. My mate Nikki made short comments, always to the point, while I sometimes rambled my own opinions for too long, distracting her.So I decided to have a cigarette to better contain my excitement. I quit smoking two months ago but I sometimes have a vacation where I smoke a few and then quit again fo awhile to clear my throat. Thinking about all this under our flannel sheets this morning, I had a moment of serendipity (scientese for 'good luck'), the object of this blog. So hang on...we'll get there!
'It's the MAO.b, stupid!" I now insist, the main reason why it is so hard to quit smoking. What is that all about? Let me explain: but first let's go back a few decades when people smoked in airplanes. Remember those armrest ashtrays and the blue smoke that just exploded five minutes after take-off? One little old non-smoking lady had sent a newspaper the following letter, one that struck me and that I approximately memorized:
"I'm a little old five-foot lady with a serious scoliosis of my back, a fact that has dropped my stature down to four-foot something. When I fly, I always go to the smokers section even though I don't smoke. The reason is that absolutely no one in the non smoking front part of the plane helps...or even sees me...as if I didn't exist. The moment I reach the smokers section five to ten people get up at the same time to help me put my baggage in the overhead compartment. Smokers are definitely better people".
I don't think so. People are people. But a smoker's brain performs more connections. Dopamine swamped, their neural pathways connect at twice the rate of the non-smokers lazier MOA.b inhibited brain, as shown in diagram below. This from a recent study at Brookhaven National Institute shows what happens to the level of the 'killjoy' neurotransmitter MAO,b (monoamine oxydase b) a few seconds after a happy dopamine moment, the 'well-being' neurotransmitter: it is totally recaptured by a good squirt of MOA,b , one that is absent in the 51-year old female smoker. Then the thrill is gone in the non-smoker, it's chemistry recycled for a later thrill. The smoker just goes on and on, stretching his dopamine levels like an old bubble gum, maintaining enough connectivity to relate to the little old lady, her large carrying bag, the hump on her back, the visual comparative cue of a distance to high to the overhead compartment. Meanwhile 200 non-smokers are lost in their private reverie, connecting zilch. MOA,b dismantles the dopamine chemistry so fast it has been called 'killjoy' by researchers.This is why I had to smoke last night to better enjoy that debate. And here's what I found, synthetized neatly while still lurching under the flannel sheets this morning:
By carefully listing the boolean properties of the people and things that populated our evening as smokers/watchers/eaters/commentators , I found out the connections and listed them in the grid at the left. Check it out carefully. Gender showing an 'X' for a male and 'O' for female etc...Then I totaled the results, parsing them under TOTAL as you can see, XOX for Obama, OXO for Clinton, OXXO for myself and XOXO for Nikki. The obvious result is the opposite 'O's' and 'X's' between Obama and Clinton, something we all noticed without even thinking about it.
Black male, white female, obvious! The fact that Nikki and I have opposites too is also well known in this household where explosive encounters occur from time to time. But wait, there is more!...much more as I decided to explore this promising vein..
No wonder I was so mysteriously excited last night after unwrapping my white chocolate truffle, having boosted my dopamine to new levels thanks to a few Malboros. Although I was not aware of it till this morning, the truffles have a metallic wrapper with the name XOX clearly printed. I quickly Googled 'XOX' this morning to the San Francisco maker, chef Jean-Marc Gorce. Then I checked out Nikki's score as XOXO, finding a clothing manufacturer by that name, one that has on its home page a model looking exactly like Nikki forty seven years ago. This number is the actual age of Barrak Obama (47). Mystified I looked at my own score, OXXO.
This literally bowled me over. Dig this, OXXO is a 'tienda' situated one kilometer from our Cantamar house in Mexico, and it is THE PLACE WHERE I BOUGHT THE DAMN TRUFFLES LAST WEEK.I went crazy and lit another Malboro. First, the idea to have a chocolate truffle last night came from seeing Obama's cute little edible brown head ( for the record, I am neither gay nor racist)
This would explain the XOX connection to Obama's score. And my own OXXO connection becomes obvious since I am the one who bought the darn OXO things. Nikki 's connection is more questionable since her lips aren't as fat as those of the twenty year old model shown here. True, the latter might have had lip enlargement, a non-existing procedure in the fifties. On the other hand, maybe Nikki's lips were fatter then. I'll certainly ask her that as I am looking at her, pretty as ever playing PacMan on her computer, unaware of my tortuous inquiries into life on earth as we know it.
Left out was Hillary's score as OXO. Piece of cake! I
was musing at her brown eyes last night. OXO is a well-know cow by-product. On second thought, those tasty little beef bouillon cubes I munched on as a boy scout did not convinced me fully of the validity of that connection. And Bill Clinton is more snake-like than oxen-like, a character better given to ex-president Gerald Ford. So I did the Google thing one more time and found it, the perfect product for Hillary, a mango splitter quite popular in Mexico and made by a company named OXO. Hillary DOES split my 'mango' from time to time, and maybe yours too, right? Plus this other fact: I have girlfriend blogger named 'Mango' and I sometimes wish she would split with her boyfriend. That's it then, Hillary, the Mango-splitter! I need Mango to respond to this blog below and comment on her opinion of Hillary Clinton, stressing connections one more time. For a follow-up, I will respond to her comment...and to yours too, of course. We need to complete this flagging experiment.As a temporary conclusion to all of this, would you agree with me that a little MAO.b squirted in the synaptic gap goes a long way in suppressing too many weak connections induced by un-recaptured dopamine? Ain't that a good reason to quit smoking? All of a sudden, I want to be like those smooth non-smoking passengers who barely glanced at the old lady with the dowager's hump. Connect nothing. Like cows in a pasture burping quietly at a pass
ing train. My new letters are "Z"E"N", I quit smoking again and I will write short dreamy pointless blogs in the future. That's a switch from those Malboro-produced blawgs that gives me and you a 'mango-splitting' headache. No more cigarettes! Let the old lady jump for the overhead compartment, let's vote for McCain, let general Petraeus achieve victory in Iraq, what recession?...Ron Paul? Never heard of him. Let's go see my lovely Nikki and play a few rounds PacMan till dinner time.
January 29, 2008
Greeting Our New Maid Lupe
Nikki and I were looking forward to our new maid's first visit this Tuesday, a person that came highly recommended by friends we have by the beach. Our house built in dusty Baja was in dire need of some prep work, basic human pride demanding. Our bed was concealing a complex matrix of dog hair and dust bunnies coating the guitar case and everything else thrown under there for two years. Done. Then we took care of the different trash bins overflowing with crap. What would she think? Of course the kitchen floor Mexican tiles had too many grease spots, so I took care of that since I am the one who tends to cook with wild abandon. Nikki did her clothes closet so that the lady's organizational skills would not feel challenged. I thought I ought to wash the top windows since most natives in our area tend to be of short Mayan stock, unable to reach there. But then water started to drip on the lower panes, so I ended up washing all the panes. Eventually we cleaned up the dust bunnies hanging on the walls that Lupe would not reach. Many fell on the furniture, so a quick 'Pledging' of these was called for. No big deal since I happen to be addicted to the scent of lemon Pledge. My desk was covered with books, cameras, tools and wires. We declared the area verboten. The same with Nikki's computer area. One bad move dusting the keyboard and a chapter of Nikki's next novel is gone or badly mangled. We do not
want that. Same with the music keyboards, piano, electronics. A wire is so easily pulled from its socket. Verboten. Of course we expect Lupe to clean corners, our house having several hundreds of these from a quick estimate, all suffering neglect. But all shelves need to be cleared before accessing their corners, precious little objects that could fall on the hard ceramic floor and shatter, some three-part sculpture held only by gravity. We could tell her which, but this would tax her already overloaded memory from all these other client's stuff. So we ended of clearing all the shelves ourselves, placing all their content on sevaral tables that became de facto 'verboten'. Since we now had no place to have our Monday night dinner. Nikki "Windexed' all the glass shelves and together we put the stuff back. Tuesday morning we got up at six. The arrangement was that Lupe was to bring her own favorite mop and that we were to provide her with a pail. My pail had some cement deposits stuck to it so I washed and scraped it till 7AM, eyeing Nikki who was frantically cleaning around the sink for traces of my morning breakfast, sorting out the cleaning products underneath until they looked like something that Lupe would see in a normal house. This is when I saw them, those ceiling fan blades, how awfully dirty. Never noticed before how they could show off the soot from our central wood stove. What would she think? And worse, what would she tell? We have a 13 foot ceiling. I'm six foot tall and our stepladder is 5 feet. But I did it, I cleaned up all 3 ceiling fans...breaking a bulb that splintered all over the floor below. Tiny glass chards. She could could easily cut herself while rinsing her mop.
So I scoured and washed the entire floor before 8AM. However, I cut myself rinsing the mop, leaving blood marks in both bathrooms while looking for a Band-Aid. No big deal. I quickly washed both lavatories, removed finger marks from the mirrors and then rushed to put some clean clothes on. Ouch! , my own 'armoire' was a war zone. Verboten for Lupe. She would certainly tell neighbors what a slob I am.
8:25AM, any minute now she will be here. Thank heavens for Nikki's fluency in Spanish. She will guide Lupe through the tasks. We discussed tips. This hard-working woman referred to us by our elitist neighbors ought to get at least 20 dollars, an amount I just happened to have as a crisp bill in my shirt pocket. And there she was, all 5-foot of her, beaming at the gate. 'Hola Lupe'...said Nikki while our three dogs barked in unison. She then introduced the woman to the house and to her 'marido'; I immediately handed her a cup of steaming coffee and a croissant while Nikki quickly swept the crumbs from around the toaster oven. Then they sat by the coffee table and smiled profusely in Spanish.
A nine o'clock, Lupe and Nikki were still chatting about dogs, a common interest, later deciding that there was really nothing to do in the house today. We paid her one hour and a half and I gratefully gave her the $20 bill so that I can get on with the business of the day, writing this blog in quiet silence.
want that. Same with the music keyboards, piano, electronics. A wire is so easily pulled from its socket. Verboten. Of course we expect Lupe to clean corners, our house having several hundreds of these from a quick estimate, all suffering neglect. But all shelves need to be cleared before accessing their corners, precious little objects that could fall on the hard ceramic floor and shatter, some three-part sculpture held only by gravity. We could tell her which, but this would tax her already overloaded memory from all these other client's stuff. So we ended of clearing all the shelves ourselves, placing all their content on sevaral tables that became de facto 'verboten'. Since we now had no place to have our Monday night dinner. Nikki "Windexed' all the glass shelves and together we put the stuff back. Tuesday morning we got up at six. The arrangement was that Lupe was to bring her own favorite mop and that we were to provide her with a pail. My pail had some cement deposits stuck to it so I washed and scraped it till 7AM, eyeing Nikki who was frantically cleaning around the sink for traces of my morning breakfast, sorting out the cleaning products underneath until they looked like something that Lupe would see in a normal house. This is when I saw them, those ceiling fan blades, how awfully dirty. Never noticed before how they could show off the soot from our central wood stove. What would she think? And worse, what would she tell? We have a 13 foot ceiling. I'm six foot tall and our stepladder is 5 feet. But I did it, I cleaned up all 3 ceiling fans...breaking a bulb that splintered all over the floor below. Tiny glass chards. She could could easily cut herself while rinsing her mop.So I scoured and washed the entire floor before 8AM. However, I cut myself rinsing the mop, leaving blood marks in both bathrooms while looking for a Band-Aid. No big deal. I quickly washed both lavatories, removed finger marks from the mirrors and then rushed to put some clean clothes on. Ouch! , my own 'armoire' was a war zone. Verboten for Lupe. She would certainly tell neighbors what a slob I am.
8:25AM, any minute now she will be here. Thank heavens for Nikki's fluency in Spanish. She will guide Lupe through the tasks. We discussed tips. This hard-working woman referred to us by our elitist neighbors ought to get at least 20 dollars, an amount I just happened to have as a crisp bill in my shirt pocket. And there she was, all 5-foot of her, beaming at the gate. 'Hola Lupe'...said Nikki while our three dogs barked in unison. She then introduced the woman to the house and to her 'marido'; I immediately handed her a cup of steaming coffee and a croissant while Nikki quickly swept the crumbs from around the toaster oven. Then they sat by the coffee table and smiled profusely in Spanish.
A nine o'clock, Lupe and Nikki were still chatting about dogs, a common interest, later deciding that there was really nothing to do in the house today. We paid her one hour and a half and I gratefully gave her the $20 bill so that I can get on with the business of the day, writing this blog in quiet silence.
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