Odd ends

We've been having yoyo like weather around here. Unusual for Northern California. It was pretty cool, as usual, through February and March, and into April. Then about 10 days ago it didn't get warm -- it got hot! 90+ degree hot. That lasted about three days. Back to cool. Then this morning's paper predicted a high of 71. My online forecaster predicted a high of 63. Hey, fellas! Let's get together on this!

* * *

The other morning I had an appointment with the chiropractor. There are two steps up into his office, and I can negotiate that because there is a hand rail on the right side. (Only my right hand works). But getting out is another story. No railing on my right going down. So one of the young ladies "helps" me out. I grab the door jamb, and step down gingerly. "Where do you want me?" asked the young lady helping me. "Stand in front of me," I said, "because if I fall, I'll land on something soft." "That's okay," she said, "I haven't had a man on top of me for a while."

* * *

The following is from an online scientific journal I subscribe to:
"Can chocolate make you a math genius? A recent study has found that chocolate can not only be healthy for your heart and provide some anti-cancer benefits, but apparently it can also help your math skills.

The study, lead by scientists at the Northumbria University, was presented at the British Psychological Society annual conference. Co-author of this study, Prof David Kennedy stated that they found chocolate to be beneficial for mentally challenging tasks. When given hot cocoa with large amounts of compounds found in chocolate, volunteers performed better on mental arithmetic problems.

The amounts used on the study were 500 mg, equal to about five bars of chocolate. So, if faced with an exam or a demanding task that is due in short notice, then go ahead and binge for one day, but it is not recommended doing it habitually, unless you don't mind a few pounds weight gain along with your math skills' surge!"

We knew that, didn't we?

* * *

I am not an ice hockey fan, but the local paper has been flipping lately as the Sharks won their division title. Then they were wiped out in the first round of the playoffs. Which inspired the following in this morning's paper:

Question: How are the Sharks and the Titanic similar?
Answer: They both look good until they hit the ice.

* * *

Aside to LynnM: Yes, I got it.

* * *

Now the following is not really humor, but I thought it too fascinating to pass up.

This is the new Mercedes S CL 600. There is something rather unusual about it.


Nice looking vehicle, but unusual?


Well, that is a unique way to raise the deck lid, but that's not it. Also, note the moulded in exhaust pipes. That's not it, either.


Nor that.


Ah, now we're getting there. Where is the steering wheel?



And pedals on the floor? Looks like it would be the ideal vehicle for gamesters. Could you drive this with a joy stick?


Just think, a 6 year old might be more adept at driving this than many of us oldsters!

Ends and odds

Today is day 100 of the Obama administration. Whether one agrees or disagrees, things are certainly different.

"You've got troubles, right here in River City", said the Music Man. Well, I've got enough of my own troubles, and they're not even set to music. Had difficulty getting online -- modem problem -- but got that fixed.

I needed to contact a friend this morning, so I dialed her number. "Don," she cried, "where have you been? I've been trying to reach you for two weeks!" Well, I hadn't gone any place. Turns out that I'm not getting incoming calls. That may explain why it's been so quiet around here. No trouble outgoing, or getting online, or with email, but incoming? Nada. So naturally I called the phone company. Great deal of "Please hold while I test your line", and after half an hour, I was given a ticket number, and told that someone would get back to me in 24 to 48 hours. If it ain't fixed, they won't reach me. Fortunately they gave me a number to call if I don't hear from them.

Okay, enough with that stuff. How about something to make you laugh!

GREAT TRUTHS THAT ADULTS HAVE LEARNED:


1) Raising teenagers is like nailing jelly to a tree.

2) Wrinkles don't hurt.

3) Families are like fudge...mostly sweet, with a few nuts.

4) Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground..

5) Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside.

6) Middle age is when you choose your cereal for the fiber, not the toy.
7) Middle age is anyone 10 years older than you.
8) Old age is when there is no one else around that's your age.

Asking the proper question

The question is not “What is Pepper doing on my clothes hamper?” The proper question is “How did she get there?”


Her wings are clipped, but she is a very clever bird, as are all members of the parrot family. And she loves to climb, as previously mentioned.

Now that is my walker in the background. Pepper begins on the ground.




She starts her way up by climbing/ jumping/ fluttering onto that little fender just above the left rear wheel. She'd much rather I pick her up, but as mentioned, she is quite capable.


Then she clambers up the brake cable, checking her distance off the ground every now and then to see if she is at the height she wants.






And when she finds herself about level with her target, she simply jumps across. I've never seen her miss.

Of course if I want to show her off, she will have none of it.

Okay, something funny:

A fellow owned one of those big grandfather clocks, of which he was inordinately proud. But one day the clock did not seem to be working properly, so he hunted for a watchmaker/repair place where he could get it fixed. He finally found a little German watchmaker who said he could fix it. So he hauled it down to the watchmaker’s (which reminds me of another joke -- see below).

The little watchmaker, who stood all of 5 foot nothing, said, “Und vot seems to be ze matter?”
“Well,” said the young man, “it used to go ‘tick, tock, tick tock’, but now it just goes ‘ticktickticktick’ “.
“Ah, ha!” said the watchmaker, as he drew a small stool over in front of the clock. He stood up on the stool so that his own face was level with the clock face, and said, “Ve haf vays to make you tock!”

* * *

Other story:
The fellow found that the clock wouldn’t fit in his small car, so he carried it on his back to the watchmaker’s. One guy he passed on the street said, “Why don’t you get a wrist watch like everybody else!?”

This is Diana Gabaldon, author of the “Outlander” series. Quite an interesting lady. According to one book jacket, “She holds a bachelor’s degree in zoology, a master’s degree in marine biology, and a Ph.D. in ecology, none of which has anything to do with her novels. She spent a dozen years as a university professor before turning to writing full-time.”

She had a lot of experience writing scientific treatises, and was one of the first women to use what ultimately became the world wide web. She would correspond with fellow scientists at other universities, and at one time she even wrote some comics for Disney. After about the fourth book in the series, she wrote a nonfiction book entitled “The Outlandish Companion”. The cover goes on to say, “In which much is revealed regarding Claire and Jamie Fraser (the two main characters in this epic story) their lives and times, antecedents, adventures, companions, and progeny, with learned commentary (and many footnotes) by their humble creator”.

So that is where I get much of what follows. She says in “The Outlandish Companion” that having done so much other writing, she thought she would try writing a novel -- not for publication, and not even to be read by anyone else. Well, what to write? At first she thought she would write a detective story, but thought she could not do that. How about a historical novel where she could draw on the real facts of history? Having decided that, then what time period, and where? She figured that for a story to be any good, it had to have lots of tension. So she chose 18th century Scotland because twice in that century the Scots rose up and tried to free themselves from English rule -- once in 1715, and again in 1745. Both times the Scots were thoroughly crushed. Gabaldon says she does not have a clear idea where her story is going. She does not have any particular plan, or even use an outline. After all, this was not to be for publication. So she started writing about the fighting between the Scots and the English. Incidentally, the Scot term for an Englishman was “Outlander” hence the title of the first book. The series, in order, are Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn, The Fiery Cross, and the latest is A Breath of Snow and Ashes. And Gabaldon said she thought she would stop with a double trilogy, but when her publisher saw what she had written, he told her that it was too much for one book -- there would have to be a seventh. And there is --Echo in the Bone, due out in September or October, this year. No telling where this will stop. But because she does not write in sequence, she says she has already written the end of the series.

Since she worked at a university, she had marvelous access to research material. So she would research an idea, write a scene, and then following another idea, research, and write -- etc. Then she would ‘stitch” the scenes together, much like a patchwork quilt. After a while she read what she had, and discovered she had no women in the story. Well, let’s add a woman protagonist. That should add some tension to the story! And after writing several scenes with the woman, Gabaldon discovered to her horror that while the men all talked like 18th century men, the woman was speaking like a 20th century woman! That simply wouldn’t work! Well, rather than rewrite all of the woman’s dialogue she thought, well, okay, I’ll leave her as a 20th century woman.

So how do you get a 20th century woman back 200 years to the 18th century? Since this is fiction, it’s easy -- time travel. That’s the science fiction part. You’ll have to read the first book to see how this happens, and by then you’ll be hooked.

Anyway, Gabaldon started sending snippets to her university friends, who wrote back saying, “Hey this is good. You ought to have it published.” Ultimately she did, and the rest, as they say, is history!

But be warned -- these are long books, an average of about a thousand pages each! Gabaldon has an amazing sense of humor, Even her acknowledgments are funny, and she will, in the course of this story, write on any subject -- war, love, sex, romance, imprisonment, torture, birth, death, ghosts -- you name a topic, and it’s in there somewhere. I read quickly, and discovered when I reread to Am, that I had glossed over some parts.

Gabaldon’s books have been on the New York Times bestseller list, and has been translated into several other languages. And there are a couple of funny stories about that, too.

For example ( and this will be your humor for the day) she originally was going to title her first book "A Stitch in Time" drawing on the time travel bit. But her publisher said "No" because one would find the books in the sewing section of bookstores. So she renamed the first book "Outlander", which is what the Scots call the English.

But then when it came time to publish the British version, she was told that "Outlander" is what the English call the Aussies. So the British version was titled "A Stitch in Time". Then Diana started receiving emails saying "Guess where I found your book?" If you're thinking the sewing section, you are right.

I mentioned earlier her sense of humor. At her website she told this story, which, she says, she told to an audience in Germany where she was on a book tour. She says she told it in English, and before her translator could make the tratnslation, the whole audience burst out laughing.
Diana's story: When she was teaching she had an 8 a.m. lecture to give in a health class. She said there were several hundred students, half asleep, draped over auditorium seats, and the like. At the start, she came out to the front of the stage, and announced that the topic would be the history of contraception. The audience immediately came awake! And then she recited this little ditty, at which the German audience had roared with laughter:
In days of old
When knights were bold
And condoms not invented,
They tied a sock
Around the cock
And babies were prevented!

Remembering Amalie

I was riffling through some computer files when I ran across the following. It is from the talk I gave at her Celebration of Life. Alison, you may remember this:

Amalie and I thought in similar fashion so that at times we could finish each others sentences. There was one instance that was almost comical. By the year 2000 we were both using lightweight scooters. One day, a few years later, one of the scooters needed repair, so we drove to the scooter store. As I pulled up, I saw Jay, the repairman, along with two gentlemen in suits, out on the sidewalk, surrounded by several new scooters. “Hey, Don,” Jay called to me, “come try the new lightweights.” So I climbed out of the car, and drove a new scooter down the sidewalk and back. “Hey, Am,” I called, “come try this.” So she did. While she was scootering down the sidewalk and back, one of the “suits”, a salesman for the manufacturer, was giving me a sales pitch. He was still talking when Am pulled up. She looked at me; I looked at her and gave a little nod; she gave a little nod back. The salesman was still yammering away when I said, “We’ll take two.”

Fun time:

I would guess that many of you have heard of Tom and Ray Magliozzi, otherwise known as Click and Clack. For those of you who have not, they are humorous auto mechanics (and consultants, I suppose) whom I’ve heard on NPR radio, and who have a weekly auto column that appears in our local paper. People call in (on radio) or write in (newspaper) with automotive questions which they answer along with funny side comments. The newspaper column this past week had a rather unusual question: “If a mechanic is not wearing a wedding ring, is that a true indication of his marital status? I think my mechanic is hot, but I’m wondering if he doesn’t wear a ring because working on cars would destroy it. ... I am concerned that if he he took me up on a date offer, but found he didn’t really like me, I’d be out an awesome mechanic. ... Should I go out on a limb and risk losing both my pride and my great mechanic?”

Tom and Ray both said she should take the risk, and then went on to explain why married auto mechanics take off their wedding rings for safety purposes.

Their advice? “So, you need a different way to determine whether your hot mechanic is available. ... Tell him you’ve been hearing a little creaking noise when you go over speed bumps. Tell him its been worrying you. And when he reassures you that it’s nothing serious, just a creaky bushing or something, say ‘So you’d feel safe letting your wife drive this car?’ And if he says, ‘Well, I don’t have a wife’, then you say, ‘OK, would you feel safe letting your girlfriend drive this car?’ And if he says, ‘I don’t have a girlfriend,’ you say, ‘Want one?’ ”

See you all on Monday. I'm taking tomorrow off while a friend and I go to a concert and dinner.

Days like that

Every so often I have days that could be better. Yesterday was one of those days. I had a book (World Without End, by Ken Follet) to return to a friend, and a bit of shopping to do. So I phoned ahead just to be sure she would be there. "I'll come out and get it. Save you coming in," she said. "I'll call you from my cell phone when I pull up," I responded.

So off I went. Several blocks later I realized I didn't have her phone number on my cell, and didn't know it off the top of my head. Darn! And then I realized I didn't have the book! So I had to turn around and go back home. Finally delivered the book.

Then I went to buy some bagels. Now I've been doing this for years, so I always know to ask them to slice the bagels in half. And give me a couple of freezer bags. Well, almost always. Not yesterday. And then I did some other shopping elsewhere.

This morning I was rooting around the kitchen looking for the bagels. Finally realized I'd left them in the car. (My, the car was fragrant when I opened it.) I didn't think I could slice bagels with only one hand, so I called another friend to ask if she would be so kind. She was most kind. Thus ends the tale of One of Those Days. Could have been worse, I suppose.

Fun time:

These contractors are installing the steel pillars in concrete to stop vehicles from parking on the pavement outside a Sports Bar downtown.

They are now in the process of cleaning up at the end of the day and anxious to go home.

How long do you think it will be before they realize where they parked?

Floating Hotel

A couple of days ago I wrote about driving to southern California on our way to San Diego to board a cruise ship to Hawaii. And I said “More about that another time.” Well, that time has come.

My first concern was the size of our cabin. Hard to tell from those little diagrams. I had visions of having to dismantle the scooters, and stacking them against the wall. We had been on numerous cruises, with relatively small cabins, and we'd been on one in the Mediterranean where we we had to go outside to change our mind. I needn't have worried. Look at the size of this room!


And if that doesn't convince you, let me say that there was room enough for each of us to scooter into the room, and turn completely around.

I'm guessing that the sour look on my face is because I was sucking on lemon drops.

Of course safety is a major concern on ocean going liners, so the first day out we went through the life jacket-lifeboat instruction procedure. We were told that the old and lame would be the last to get off because if anything drastic were happening, we were not valuable enough to save. Okay, I made that up.

One shipboard problem I worried about beforehand was getting the scooters over the inevitable "bumps" that marked the dividing line between various sections of the ship. You can imagine my surprise when I discovered that the interior decks were quite smooth. There were elevators to get us from one deck to another, and there were quite a number of handicapped persons aboard. (No, not the crew!) A couple of other people had scooters, and there were many with canes and walkers. Near the end of the voyage we were told that there were some 80+ handicapped people aboard.

One of the funniest happenings was when we went to breakfast. As you look at this next photo, the windows mark the aft end of the ship. The photo was taken from the entrance to the dining room, and as we scootered up for our morning meal, we were inevitably shown to a table by the aft windows.
(Obviously those are not portholes.) We would scooter up to our table, get out and be seated. That was when the, um, "argument" would take place among the hired help to see who would get to park our scooters somewhere near the entrance. No, it was never violent, but we got a kick out of listening to the yammering as to whose turn it was. Then the winner would go zooming off (at 4-1/2 mph) and bring them back to us when we finished the meal. Great fun!

There are many more photos I could have posted, but I couldn't resist this one. One might say that I'm something of an ice cream-aholic, for on every cruise we've ever been on, I have to have my ice cream. And Amalie always got a shot of me scarfing it up.

That's it for now, but maybe one of these days I'll show you the islands we visited.

Fun time:

Little Johnny is always being teased by the other neighborhood boys for being stupid. Their favorite joke is to offer Johnny his choice between a nickel and a dime -- Little Johnny always takes the nickel.

One day, after Johnny takes the nickel, a neighbor man takes him aside and says, "Johnny, those boys are making fun of you. Don't you know that a dime is worth more than a nickel, even though the nickel's bigger?"

Johnny grins and says, "Well, if I took the dime, they'd stop doing it, and so far I've made $20!"

Cleaning day

Today is Wednesday, which for me is laundry day. That’s because my housekeeper, Noemy, comes on Wednesdays. She is from one of the South American countries (Ecuador, I think), and speaks Spanish. When she first started, she spoke practically no English, and we had a bit of a time letting her know what we wanted done. But over the many years she has worked here, her English has improved markedly. Not so for my Spanish. However, we do have a bit we go through when she first arrives on a Wednesday:


Noemy: Buenos Tardes (she arrives after noon)
Me: Buenos Tardes. Como esta?
N: (with feeling) Muy bien! Y usted?
Me: Muy bien, gracias.

And that is about the extent of my Spanish. Oh, and I can count to 5.

The weather has been quite warm the past few days. That’s warm, spelled H O T, as in 90 degree weather. The forecast was for it to cool down today, so this morning I put on a long sleeve sweater. After lunch I was feeling too warm, so I went back to the bedroom to change into a short sleeve shirt. I had just pulled the long sleeve over my head when Noemy stuck her head in. “Can I help you?” “Well you can hang up that shirt, please.” 
Which she did. And then, shades of yesterday’s posting, I said “Gracias”, and she said “you’re welcome”.

You may or may not find today's humor funny. But it certainly is intriguing!


How much does a house weigh and how much weight can a rural two-lane bridge hold???



So! Would this be covered by house insurance, car insurance, or does it come under roadside assistance?


And if it were left there, how would you get in, and where would you park your car?

You’re welcome, thank you, no problem

Several years ago Amalie and I drove to southern California on our way to San Diego to board a cruise ship to Hawaii. But that’s not what this story is about. More about that another time.

On our way, we stopped to visit friends along the way, including Polly, whom we had met on another cruise, and more about that another time. Polly, who I believe had been an English instructor before retiring, told us this story:

She had gone to a local supermarket, done her shopping, paid for her groceries, and then a young man helped to carry her goods out to her car. When the young man had loaded her goods into her car, Polly said, “Thank you”.

The young man said, “No problem” and Polly blew her top. “Young man,” she said, “the proper response to ‘Thank you’ is ‘You’re welcome’. It better not be a problem; it’s your job!” Not satisfied with that, Polly stormed back into the store, collared the manager, and gave him the same message, saying she never ever again wanted to hear any of his employees say “No problem”. And apparently she never did.

Now Am and I were staying at a motel that served breakfast in a separate building. The morning after Polly’s tale, I was dressed and ready a bit before Amalie. I suggested I would go on down and see about a table, and did so. Now we were each on our electric scooters, which makes getting through doorways a bit tricky at times. I was seated when Am came in laughing. “What’s so funny?” I asked. She answered, “I scootered up to the breakfast building door just as a young couple was coming out. They held the door for me, and I said ‘Thank you’. The young man said ‘ No problem’, and the young woman said ‘ You’re welcome’!

But that’s not the end of this tale. Some time after we returned home, I had occasion to go into a local bakery on my scooter. The door to that establishment is quite heavy, and I was wondering how I was going to get in. Just then a woman came by and opened the door for me. I said “Thank you”, and she said ...”My pleasure”.

I suspect that this video is from a commercial. Nonetheless, I thought it was funny:

HE DID IT!

The vet was concerned that Chipper would not regain the ability to fly after his collision with the wall. But this morning I saw him fly up from the ground to his cage rather easily. Looks like he is fully recovered. This photo is Chip in his own cage.


I wanted to get a closer shot of him, but being the prima donna he is, he would have none of it.

In a comment to a previous posting, someone noted the ladders used by the birds, and wanted to know if they climbed anything else. Well, Chipper prefers to fly (United?), but cockatiels love to climb. Pepper will climb practically anything he can get his beak and claws into. He climbs up (and down) the sides of both cages, the couch in the living room, the telephone stand, electric cords, my leg, and anything else that looks appealing. In this photo he is going up the brake cable on my walker.

Fun time:

Jon and Dan are in a mental institution which has an annual contest that picks two of the best patients and gives them two questions. If they answer correctly, they are released.

Jon is called into the doctor's office first. The doctor says, "Jon, what would happen if I poked out one of your eyes?"

Jon says, "I'd be half blind."

"That's correct. What would happen if I poked out both your eyes?"

"I'd be completely blind." The doctor tells him that he is free to go. On Jon's way out he tells Dan the questions and answers.

The doctor asks Dan, "What would happen if I cut off one of your ears?"

Dan says, "I'd be half blind."

The doctor, slightly puzzled, continues, "What would happen if I cut off both your ears?"

"I'd be completely blind."

"Dan, how can you explain that you'd be blind?" asks the doctor.

"Well," replies Dan, "my hat would fall over my eyes."

For the birds

Here is the latest on Chipper. When I last reported, following his head injury, I mentioned that he had flown up onto the end table. Well, he did not do that for a few days, but did again yesterday and this morning. I was encouraged by this upward flight, but in the meantime had moved his cage from the floor up onto a box that was much closer to the ground than the end table.


There I was eating breakfast when I heard a flutter of his wings. He makes a very distinctive sound when he flies, so I looked around to see where he was. Lo! and behold, he was up on the stool, but if he was trying to reach his cage, he was in the wrong place. So I moved his cage up to the counter, thinking he could make it easily from there, but when I put his ladder up to his cage from stool to counter, he flew back down to the ground.

So I moved his cage back up on the counter, thinking he would go from ground to stool to counter. I had gone back to the den, and when I came forward, I did not see him -- not on the floor, or stool, or in his cage. Then I did a double-take. He was sitting on Pepper’s cage door. “Don’t move,” I told him, while I went back for my camera. Of course he does as he pleases, so when I got back, he wasn’t on the cage door where I could get a good shot, but inside Pep’s cage.


I speculated that he had flown from the ground to stool to counter, and I wanted to see him do it again. So I urged him out of Pepper’s cage (where he is not supposed to be anyway), and sat down to see what he would do. Well, he surprised me again by trying to fly from the ground up to the counter. He almost made it, but dropped back down. At that point I took pity on him, and moved his cage back to the ground where he could easily get in.


Ok, from birds to humor:

GREAT TRUTHS ABOUT GROWING OLD


1) Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional... 

2) Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get.

3) When you fall down, you wonder what else you can do while you're down there.

4) You're getting old when you get the same sensation from a rocking chair that you once got from a roller coaster.

5) It's frustrating when you know all the answers but nobody bothers to ask you the questions. 

6) Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician

7) Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.. 


LOL

In the last few days I have had three instances where the letters LOL were used -- once on a comment to a posting on my blog, once in an email, and lastly in this morning’s newspaper. I didn’t know what the letters meant until I saw the newspaper -- laugh out loud. At least that’s what I think it means.

Back in the old days, when I was alive, LOL had a completely different meaning -- Little old lady. Now that phrase derived from radio commercials (remember radio?) by used car dealers, who would say something like, “This used car was only driven by a little old lady in tennis shoes from Pasadena, who never drove faster than 30 miles per hour.”

Of course the phrase “Used car dealer” is no longer used because today there are no used cars. But there are “previously owned” cars that may have been driven by little old ladies in tennis shoes from Pasadena.

Humor:
It was the contest of all times! Jesus vs the devil. Each was to create as many computer programs and files as possible in a limited amount of time.

They each went at it with remarkable speed, creating data bases, spread sheets, internet connections, computer games, and on and on. And then all of a sudden, right near the end of the time limit, without any warning, the power went out! It came right back on again a few moments later, and the devil let out a shriek of horror! All his work was gone! Everything he he had created had disappeared!

But Jesus just sat there smiling as he wrapped up the last of his work. Why had the devil lost all his work in the power failure when Jesus didn’t. Easy ... Jesus Saves.

The magic of technology

Several years ago, when I bought a new printer, I also received a complimentary version of Photoshop Elements. I have thoroughly enjoyed using it over the years, though I am by no means an expert, nor do I know how to use all of the things this wondrous program can do. Nonetheless, I can do some interesting work in this application, and today you get the joy, honor and privilege of a demonstration.

You will notice at the top right of this page a section called "Followers". There had been a photo of someone so indistinct that one might think the individual was in a witness protection
program.
Through the magic of technology, I was able to bring that photo onto my desktop and lighten it up considerably. It didn't look super, but at least one could see that it was a rather attractive, wind-blown young lady.

I then had the idea for this posting, and asked the young lady's permission. She said ok, and offered to email me an original JPEG, which she did.

I was then able to load the new pic into Photoshop, and try to work some wonders. Here is the result:



I must confess that using a comb and brush on a photograph was rather tricky. Incidentally, take a look! She now has used the new photo in the "Followers".

Today's humor:
60-PLUS

Q: Where can men or women over the age of 60 find young, sexy members of the opposite sex who are sexually interested in them?

A: Try a bookstore under fiction

Q: My wife is going through menopause. What can
I do?

A: Keep busy. If you're handy with tools, you can finish the basement. When you are done you will have a place to live.

Q: How can you increase the heart rate of your 60-plus-year-old husband?

A: Tell him you're pregnant.

Q: How can you avoid spotting a wrinkle every time you walk by a mirror?

A: The next time you're in front of a mirror, take off your glasses.

Q: Why should 60-plus-year-old people use valet parking?

A: Valets don't forget where they park your car.

Q: Is it common for 60-plus-year-olds to have problems with short-term memory storage?

A: Storing memory is not a problem, retrieving it is a problem.

Q: As people age, do they sleep more soundly?

A: Yes, but usually in the afternoon.

Q: Where do 60-plus-year-olds look for fashionable glasses?

A: On their foreheads.

Q: What is the most common remark made by 60-plus-year-olds when they enter antique stores?

A: “I remember these!”

More birds

Chipper update:
As I had mentioned a while ago, Chipper had hit his head, and the vet said he had suffered some head trauma. He wasn't flying, and when we opened his cage in the morning, he just fluttered down to the ground. Then a few days ago he surprised me by flying up to the end table in the living room. He did that twice over two days, but not since. Then this morning, instead of just fluttering to the floor, he flew around from his cage in the dining room around to the living room. Quite an improvement.


Now I have a puzzle I hope you can help me solve. Yesterday I noticed that the photos on the dresser in the bedroom were knocked somewhat out of alignment. Take a look at the following photos, and see if you can tell what's happening.




Any ideas?

Incidentally, I finally got my counter to work, and I thank all of you who have been to this blog site. Now, I suppose you want something funny. Let's see what I've got.

GREAT TRUTHS THAT LITTLE CHILDREN HAVE LEARNED:


1) No matter how hard you try, you can't baptize cats..

2) When your Mum is mad at your Dad, don't let her brush your hair.

3) If your sister hits you, don't hit her back. They always catch the second person.

4) Never ask your 3-year old brother to hold a tomato.

5) You can't trust dogs to watch your food.

6) Don't sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.

7) Never hold a Dust-Buster and a cat at the same time.

8) You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.

9) Don't wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts.

10) The best place to be when you're sad is Grandpa's lap.

Greeting cards

I have been making greeting cards to send to friends and relatives for nearly 30 years. My first ones were in black and white (these days called “grey scale”) on my very first Apple IIe. The advent of color printers was an obvious improvement.

Now I’m no artist, but I have purchased hundreds of thousands of graphics, people email me interesting photos like the ones I show here, and I discovered that Google has tons of graphic material. (That zodiac I used recently was from Google.) It’s just a matter of a little imagination to dream up a card.

For instance, here on the left is the front of a birthday card.










And here is the inside.









Another example. Obviously an anniversary card.

Front











Inside












And you still want some humor? Try these:

DEFINITIONS

Fishing: That’s where you have a jerk at one end waiting for a jerk on the other end.

Golf: That’s where you put a small ball about an inch and a half in diameter on top of a bigger ball about 7,000 miles in diameter, and try to hit the little one without hitting the bigger one.



DEFINITION OF “OLD”

First you tell your friends that you are having an affair...
Then your friends ask you, “Are you having it catered?”
That, my friends, is the definition of OLD!

Horoscopes

This morning I was glancing at the horoscopes in the paper. That reminded me of an interesting story. Some years ago, before I was married, I joined a singles group. One evening the president announced that we were going to put on a dance, and he gave the date, time and address where people could come to help. So the following Saturday I showed up to see what assistance I could render.

The group had decided that the theme of the dance would be the signs of the zodiac. One talented person was going to paint each of the signs on large pieces of cardboard, and they wanted someone to come up with some wording to paint onto the signs. I said I would do that if someone would tell me what the signs were supposed to represent. They did, and I did, making up these phrases off the top of my head.

Came the night of the dance, and the decorations including these painted signs circling the room was quite impressive. What startled me, though, was individuals coming up to me over the course of the evening, and saying, ‘How did you know?” “How did I know what?” “ That saying is me!” Or “That fits me to a T”. Well, the wording I dreamed up was pretty general, and if the shoe fits, ...

For your benefit, and possibly mine, I have entered my email address in my profile. Now if you want to comment by email, feel free.

And LynnM, I have a question to ask, and would appreciate it if you would email me. Thanks.

Now, as promised, three more picture/phrase puzzles. What phrase or saying does each of the following represent?




































Answers:

1. iPod

2. Dr. Pepper

3. Whole milk

Odds and Ends

These are my computer glasses. When I’m not wearing them, they hang from the handle of my walker. It is at this time that Pepper performs a valuable service. She makes sure that I keep these spectacles clean. How? Easy. She gets them dirty (you can guess how) so that I have to clean them.

Yes LynnM, the birds are a lot of fun -- so much so that at times they are a pain in the neck. As when I’m typing on the computer, and Pepper climbs up my leg, and demands to have her head rubbed.

And speaking of typing, I have a program on the computer that converts the qwerty keyboard to a different placement of letters for one-handed typing (right hand). If you were to type qwerty on my keyboard, you would get: 56q.or Looks like some kind of code.

Here’s a suggested entertaining website you might enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq6b9bMBXpg

And here’s another:

http://carolynspreciousmemories.com/Videos/kids_artlinkletter.html

Enjoy.

Now for our daily dose of humor --

And Lynn, this is not aimed at you.

There once was a lady named Lynn
Who was so uncommonly thin,
That when she assayed
To drink lemonade,
She slipped through the straw and fell in!

and

A fussy old widow named Pease
Thought her home was infested with fleas;
So she used gasoline,
And her form was last seen
Sailing over the tops of the trees

More about birds

I ran across photos of Chipper and Pepper about which I can tell a brief story. This photo on the left is most unusual. These two usually seem to go out of their way to avoid one another.

The photo on the right is a more likely scenario. Now be aware that you are looking at Pepper's cage, and that is Chipper sitting where he is not supposed to be. But Pep, despite her size, won't challenge Chip.


I want to try to describe something that happened some weeks ago. It's too bad that I didn't have a movie camera handy, but it happened so quickly that I wouldn't have had a chance, anyway.

In this last photo, you see Pepper sitting on the ladder to her cage. That is Chip's cage on the right. Now imagine that that is Chipper where you see Pepper. Pepper came along the counter on her way to her own cage. She saw Chip sitting on her ladder, and immediately backed away.


What Pep did next quite startled me. She climbed up the ladder to Chip's cage to the cage door (that's the one on the right), and then jumped over Chipper, landing on her own cage door. Psitticines are very clever birds when they want to be!

Okay, humor time:

THE IRISH PROSTITUTE

An Irish daughter had not been home for over a year. Upon her return, her Father cussed her. 'Where have ye been all this time? Why did ye not write to us, not even a line? Why didn't ye call? Can ye not understand what ye put yer old Mother thru?'

The girl, crying, replied, 'Sniff, sniff..Dad..I became a prostitute...'

'Ye what!!? Out of here, ye shameless harlot! Sinner! You're a disgrace to this Catholic family.'

'OK, Dad-- as ye wish. I just came back to give mum this luxurious fur coat, title deed to a ten bedroom mansion plus a $5 million savings certificate, for me little brother, this gold Rolex, and for ye Daddy, the sparkling new Mercedes limited edition convertible that's parked outside plus a membership to the country club.......................... (takes a breath)............. and an invitation for ye all to spend New Years Eve on board my new yacht on the Riviera and... ..'

'Hold on hold on....now what was it ye said ye had become?' says Dad.

Girl, crying again, 'Sniff, sniff....a prostitute Daddy! Sniff, sniff.'

'Oh! Be Jesus! Ye scared me half to death, girl! I thought ye said a Protestant. Come here and give yer old Dad a hug.