The plan, like all good plans, was simple: get up, make fudge, relax with
family and animals. Timing was thrown off by a couple of quite welcome phone
calls. During one I pressed the button that opens the garage door, as you do,
multi-tasking. There was a great and nasty noise, the results of which I was
investigating when N. and E. arrived to make the fudge. Since the problem
looked fairly simple and since N. is an engineer, we had a discussion about
what to do.
Those of you who have changed out a carburetor will know how the rest of the
day went. We fixed the first problem, discovered another, found a third, and
so it went. E. and L. started and then finished the fudge. We were still
doing what we could with the garage doors, plural; while I was at the hardware
store getting a bolt, N. decided to check the hardware on the other door and
somehow threw that one a little out of whack. The short version is that E.
went to the cookie (and fudge) party alone, and N. and I exhausted ourselves
trying to fix the unfixable. Eventually, as darkness was closing in, we
admitted that the solution was beyond us.
I dreamed my father was visiting and kept spilling beer. No idea what that
means. I’d ask Dr. Freud, but he’s dead. His nephew came up in class this
week, a fellow who played a large role in making bananas popular. Look up
Edward Bernays if you’re interested in details. I’d write a book about him but
for the fact that I’ve got to go garage door shopping as soon as Christmas
passes.
Yesterday I was out for a beer with N. and engaged the people across the table
in conversation. “Where are you from?”
“L.A.”
“What do you do there?”
“We develop Reality T.V. shows.”
What would you say next? I decided to include the guy sitting beside them.
“Where are you from?”
“Miami, originally.”
“And what do you do?”
“I work for Homeland Security.”
I obviously need some better questions.
Reality T.V. guy asked how N. and I are connected.
“I’m the boyfriend of his daughter,” Nick explained. “The mother and daughter
are swing dancing.”
“Swinging?” said the Reality T.V. woman. You could see she was sizing us up.
“Swing *dancing.*”
“Well E. is,” I added. “My wife will be listening to the band.”
T. sent me an e mail this week alerting me to the fact that people at the
University of Guelf think there’s no way of knowing when a chicken is happy.
They’ve got grant money to investigate. I think they should simply send the
money my way; to find out if a chicken’s happy, you ask.
“Are you happy?”
“Yes, yes,” said Mimo. “It’s all this pasta we’ve been getting.”
“So much better than bits of fruit.”
“The fish was nice too.”
I found year-old cod in the freezer. In some parts of the world I’m sure
people would eat it, but here it went to the animals.
“Cod, pasta, bread, what a season!”
http://my.earthlink.net/article/bus?guid=20181219/f7ae3a57-3a11-4cfa-9107-1c02f0f86179
Happy CPB season to all.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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