Here I am baby. . .sighed, sealed and livid.
I am in bed
and I am sick
but Chicken Zoop
will do the trick.
But not the drink
No, not the broth
but the Zoop-Bird
with the hacking cough.
He swoops around
wings spread, head back
and screams “Zoop Zoop!”
and then “Hack Hack!”
Then I feel well
my colds been drained,
till Zoop-Bird comes
to Zoop again.
So, I’ve been complacent for awhile, not really paying attention to the news too much (actually much happier that way) and just soaking in the contentment of family and life. Not a kvetch out of me lately. Ahhhh. Nice deep breath in and out. And then came Texas. Fucking Texas. Actually you better watch the fucking in Texas because it looks like you’re getting a kid, want it or not. Apparently it’s not up to you, it’s up to some over zealous, over religious, over aged, over bigoted Overlord, who deems your body his/her jurisdiction, to tell you what is appropriate for your life. How dare you! I mean really, how fucking dare you!
This has been building for years. The Right has had Roe V Wade in its sights for years. Now with the Supreme Court clearly in their court, it’s looking mighty doubtful it will survive. We all were complacent, thinking it was sacrosanct and could never be touched but obviously we were naive and wrong, because Texas just struck a blow against human decency and human freedoms. The holier than thou crowd have been picking away at our freedoms, in the name of their divine entity and their own power for decades and that fragile scab has now been exposed. They’re even offering a $10,000 bounty to anyone that reports someone getting an abortion or even helping someone get one. Bounty hunters in Texas. Wow! Let’s hunt ‘em down and make ‘em pay.
There should definitely be a movement to ostracize Texas. Let’s do it financially so it hurts. Any like minded artist, musician and business should immediately cancel any tour, show, concert or convention. Let’s not bring any business influx to this backward, morally over reaching, redneck state.
The clock is ticking for our freedoms and justice but the calendar just got turned back to the 1950’s.
So, we have a new addition to our family, our first grandchild. You’ll notice that I did not indicate a gender, since all involved simply wanted a healthy baby. It happens to be a boy but that’s secondary to being healthy. That’s all anyone really wants, isn’t it, and in this time of Covid even more so. If you’ve read some of my more recent posts you’ll find a decidedly baby centric theme to them. I tend to wax a bit philosophical and mushy when it comes to babies.
I’ve even begun to channel my inner Shel Silverstein (and in no way am I claiming to be anywhere nearly as clever as him). So I might be posting an occasional whimsical child friendly poem. Thank you for your indulgence.
Key Rhyme Pie
I’m baking up a treat for you
Filled with love and a hug or two
The recipe is sure to please
So let’s begin, I hate to tease
Pour in some words
Some fun, some giggles
We’ll need some bounce to make it jiggle
Fold in a dream instead of cream
It’s really not that hard it seems
Add more words, both sweet and sour
A pinch of cheeks, two cups of flower
Pop in the lovin’ pumped to try
I’ve just baked you a key rhyme pie.
So, being what’s referred to as a “professional” is just an easy way to explain to someone what it is you do for a living. I’m a Doctor. I’m a Lawyer. I’m an Accountant. Good, good, people know what that is and kinda know those job parameters. I’m an IT logistics architect specializing in cloud infrastructure. I’m an AI matrix developer working on cyber structural anomalies. I’m a Bioethicist studying telomere regeneration and it’s ramifications on societal engineering. Okayyyy, but what do you actually DO? Besides of course, making a shit ton more money than many of the aforementioned professionals and working on systems to make them obsolete.
My point being, it now takes a paragraph of description to convey what used to be a very succinct answer. The careers and job responsibilities are mind boggling and for the uninitiated, a bit esoteric, taking place in an invisible realm or virtual construct. Coders are the new superstars and athletes. I just read about a twelve year old boy who made $400,000 selling NFTs he created on the blockchain. Really? Good for him but. . .really? It makes me wonder what newborns today will be doing twenty years from now?
Technology is giving us a real existential problem. When most jobs are gone, and the menial ones will go first, what will we all do? It’s no wonder we’re hearing more and more about Universal Basic Income. The government will have to shore up the fabric of the economy by guaranteeing people have money to spend.
I do think, however, that just as some jobs today didn’t even exist ten years ago, going forward we’ll see new jobs being created to address new technologies, social issues, and unintended consequences from the same technologies that arise to supposedly better our lives.
So, when a new person or couple enters your life orbit pulled in by the gravitational circumstances of either a marriage, house move or job relocation, we fall back on the stories we’ve trotted out for years. You know, the tried and true anecdotes that have served us well as conversation starters or fillers. The moments in our lives we’ve told over and over and have honed and embellished till they’re as tight as a good comedian’s ten minute set. The stories of how we met, our honeymoon, college shenanigans, having a baby, job fiascos, parent’s aging and so on, name your own.
There’s an old joke where a bunch of old folks are sitting around roaring with laughter. One elderly gentleman says “47” and everyone laughs even harder. “21” another says and they laugh some more. A younger man watching this, walks over and asks what’s to funny about those numbers. “Oh, we’ve told the same jokes so often over the years that we just numbered them to save time. 47’s a hoot, I’ll tell you sometime.”
We tell these stories as little encapsulations of our lives, to bring someone new up to speed, to fast forward through the dull spots. Just the highlights please.
I look at my kids’ lives and see their trajectory through life’s milestones and know that they are writing their own stories. They too will trot out these small vignettes that chronicle their own path along the timeline. A get-to-know-you Cliff Note version that is comfortable to tell and is well received.
Maybe they’ll even have a blog, or whatever the future’s equivalent is, to pass down some of those stories. I bet number 47 will be a hoot.
So, it’s a beautiful day here in New England, the sun is shining, it’s just warm enough so that my iPhone doesn’t alert me with it’s “High Temperature” reading and shut down. I once put it in the refrigerator and forgot about it for a few hours. I swear I heard Siri’s voice shiver.
Sitting in my favorite Adirondack chair, drinking my coffee and reflecting on life. Yeah, that sounds a little, oh I don’t know, content? Sure, content. I think of some long gone relatives who would have spit into the air yelling “poo poo poo,” to ward away the evil spirits that would demonize the fool brash enough to count his blessings. Don’t get too comfortable or you’ll incur the wrath of the gods.
I’m not sure if it’s age, lifestyle or maybe the Zoloft (probably a bit of each), but I’ve arrived at a place where I’m at peace with myself. The kids are all grown and living their own trajectories, my wife still finds me amusing and tolerates my shortcomings, and I’ve been following some of my passions that have been on the back burner so long it’s amazing they haven’t burnt to a crisp. This blog has been one of them. It started out as a way just to vent some of the rage I was feeling over political stupidity and overall societal foolishness but branched out to a forum for some other writings. Oh, there’s still a kvetch here and there ( it’s not healthy to bottle it up), but I do need an avenue to write about other things as well.
So, thank you dear reader, for allowing me to take tangents and explore other content here in the Void. Oops, have to go put the phone in the freezer.
So, today brought me back to this blog’s kvetching roots. Covid/Trump. Trump/Covid. It’s the same really, both blights on the land.
My wife and I were just returning from walking the dog. My neighbor was outside with his dog too so of course both animals needed to do the butt sniff dance. In talking with the human (and I’m being kind here), it turns out “I’ll have to get vaccinated in order to go back to work.” Wait, what? I instinctively took two steps backward. “Are your wife and kids vaccinated,” I asked. “Oh yeah,” he said, “against my wishes.” He then went on to espouse on all the conspiracy theories and bullshit that Trump/Fox (again kinda the same) threw up from their collective noxious bowels. People die from the vaccines, they’re just not reporting how many. Masks don’t work against the virus, Dr Fauci said so himself. I’ve been fine and I’ve been out since last March (not really you’ve been unemployed and then remote when you did get a job). Hydroxychloroquin works and doesn’t hurt anyone (no it doesn’t and yes it does—the patients that require the drug for actual reasons and couldn’t get any because you idiots were buying it all up because your Fuhrer said to. Ivermectin works. Again, a big no. Ivermectin is an anti-parasitic medication (If you don’t know what that is, go look it up, I’ll wait. . .are you back? Good). Ivermectin is commonly used in dogs, brand name Heart Guard. He went on to say that I’ve been watching the wrong news. I don’t need to watch the news, I’m in the medical field and I get to see with my own eyes the devastation this virus has wrought. Did you get a flu shot in the past, have you gotten the shingles vaccine, tetanus, pneumonia, Hep-A, Hep-B, MMR? Polio? Oh that’s right we don’t need to anymore because we all got vaccinated and achieved herd immunity, thank you very much! He finished up by saying “I’m not going into any store that mandates I wear a mask, or giving them any of my money”. Well, that’s the first thing I agree with, please don’t and they won’t let you in anyway, because they are man-dat-ing it, you stupidity absorbing sponge.
So, the moronic faction of this country has found me. Way too close to home for my liking. I’d put up a sign—NIMBY, No Idiots in My Back Yard, if I thought he’d understand. In the end we agreed to disagree, it’s easier than channeling the Hatfield-McCoy feud.
So, I vent and kvetch here to keep peace in the neighborhood. It’s probably better for property values as well.
So, when did simply buying some paper towels become such an exercise in math skills. I mean c’mon, there are eight sizes, from regular to huge—regular, large, big, giant, mega, super, double, and huge. Seems excessive and purposefully confusing. Every possible combination of sizes, 2 mega rolls equal 5 regulars, 12 doubles equal 24 regulars, and so on. But wait, now there seems to be Triple Rolls and Family Rolls and packs that say “now with 25% more per roll” (12=26). Most are 2-ply, but some are 1-ply. Some are normal and some are select-a-size. Some are on sale and some are not. Just go to the Aisle of Bounty and stare at all the permutations of size and price. I find the easiest way to not get ripped off on paper is to simply check the package for total square footage and divide by the price. This gives you your cost per square foot for that given package. Then just compare, it’s an easier and quicker picker up than trying to absorb all the possibilities.
I was walking down the road and I saw. . .
A Republican,
“I won, I won!”
He had a scowling face.
He was a grumpy Trumpy.
I was walking down the road and I saw
A Republican,
“I won, I won!”
He had a scowling face. . .
and a big big belly.
.He was a very dumpy, grumpy Trumpy.
I was walking down the road and I saw
A Republican,
“I won, I won!”
He had a scowling face,
a big big belly. . .
and orange skin like a pumpkin.
He was a spray tanned bumpy, very dumpy,
grumpy Trumpy.
I was walking down the road and I saw
A Republican,
“I won, I won!”
He had a scowling face, a big big belly, orange skin
like a pumpkin. . .
and was still giving speeches.
He was a political stumpy, a spray tanned bumpy,
very dumpy, grumpy Trumpy.
I was walking down the road and I saw
A Republican,
“I won, I won!”
He had a scowling face, a big big belly, orange skin
like a pumpkin, was still giving speeches. . .
and had his wife with him.
He had married a trampy, a political stumpy, a
spray tanned bumpy, very dumpy, grumpy Trumpy.
I was walking down the road and I saw
a Republican,
“I won, I won!”
He had a scowling face, a big big belly, orange skin
like a pumpkin, was still giving speeches, had his wife with him. . .
and was a sexual predator.
He was a randy humpy, had married a trampy, a
political stumpy, a spray tanned bumpy,
very dumpy, grumpy Trumpy.
I was walking down the road and I saw
A Republican,
“I won, I won!”
He had a scowling face, a big big belly, orange skin
like a pumpkin, was still giving speeches, had his wife with him,
was a sexual predator. . .
and had a big fat ass.
He was a lumpy rumpy, randy humpy, had married a trampy, a political stumpy, a
spray tanned bumpy, very dumpy, grumpy Trumpy.
I was walking down the road and I saw
A Republican,
“I won, I won!”
He had a scowling face, a big big belly, orange skin
like a pumpkin, was still giving speeches, had his wife with him,
was a sexual predator, had a big fat ass. . .
and was an insecure man-child with a narcissistic complex.
He was a very jumpy, lumpy rumpy, randy humpy, had married a trampy, a political stumpy, a spray tanned bumpy, very dumpy, grumpy Trumpy.
I was walking down the road and I saw
A Republican,
“I won, I won!”
He was. . .well he was a lying piece of shit that
brought disgrace and near ruin to his own country,
a fool and a traitor that should be jailed.
I would rather have a Wonky Donky
than a Petulant Elephant.
.
