Up Yours English Overlords! Happy Independence Day my fellow American citizens! It’s the beginning of summer, Whoo Hoo! My neighbor is up to stuff, and its vacation time!
My neighbor, AKA Daryl had a cement mixer in front of his house the other day; his front yard is mostly a vegetable garden with trees that have had the limbs cut away half way up. There is a big dirt berm that lies between his yard and the road; he digs at it from time to time.
“What could he possibly be doing over there?” I think to myself.
Today I had my answer; a huge American flag is flying from a new 20 foot flag pole just in time for the 4th of July! Daryl always struck me more as a flower power, doobie toking, anti-establishment kind of guy, but what do I know. I’ve always considered your service to your fellow citizens as being much more important than displaying a big piece of cloth, but today is a good day to fly Old Glory.
About six feet away from the flag pole is another new pole planted next to the dirt hill, it has a large solar panel mounted on top of it. Parked next to it is his old rusty step van with a huge sun painted on the back, and the hood is up. A cable was running to the battery of his van from the panel. He told me once that he was completely off grid now, which I think is pretty cool, so this new panel must be a battery charger.
I started to wonder, wouldn’t a new battery for your van be cheaper than planting a solar panel in front of your house to charge it up? Nah, that’s crazy talk.
Ah, the morning coffee, oh you morning beans, Sluuuurp. GAH! *cough, spit*
I had to dip into the emergency coffee rations this morning. I don’t care what the advertisements say, instant coffee sucks. That caffeinated sludge should only to be consumed in case of dire emergencies, like this.
Take a sip, make a face, wipe off tongue, and repeat.
“Bill Friday would never let himself run out of coffee, and drink instant black gunk!” I think to myself.
My weather station on the desktop on my computer desktop shows a few clouds, but outside of my window it’s raining.
“Liar, liar pants on fire” I say to the computer. But wait! I get to play hooky on my outside honey-dos, our garden won’t need to be watered, and I bet Daryl’s solar panel isn’t doing much charging.
The Register Guard sits in front of me, cup O crappy Joe next to it. The front page is full of the usual hideous drivel. The top story, Faux News targets Eugene’s city council about the pledge of elegance not being recited enough times per year for them. I bet they recite the pledge before sitting on the crapper over there at Faux, and salute as they hit the flusher. As I read the article I see that Faux blew things out of proportion, sensationalized their story, and misrepresented everything; a thousand nutcases sent hate ridden email messages to Eugene, it’s what happens when you yell “Grab your torch and pitchfork!”
Anyway, the REAL news is on the next page.
“Vine said to resemble Jesus” the news report says.
Kent Hardison of Kinston, North Carolina said “I glanced at it, and it looks like Jesus, You can’t spray Jesus with Roundup.”
It sounded to me more like Kent getting out of his honey do list, plus everyone knows that Jesus only gives you special treatment when his face is grilled into your cheese sandwich.
OK at least my morning oatmeal is real, with fresh strawberries (that weren’t sprayed with Raid), walnuts, and a nanner, finished off with some skimmed milk. It’s a breakfast that I have grown to love. Gone are the days when I could clog my arteries with whatever fatty meat object I happen to stuff in my mouth. These days I eat the food equivalent of drain cleaner, and I like it!
But at lunch I found some fried chicken, no Ranch dressing, but I did find some leftover spinach dip! Oh manna from the gods is fried chicken dunked in spinach dip! You have to treat yourself now and then.
Talking about fatty meat chunks, when bacon gets cooked at our house, mainly for the kids *wink* *wink* *wink*, we drain the fat into a suet mix for our feathered friends that frequent the bird feeder; the fat is mixed with bird seed in small cardboard containers. One of the containers fell on the ground last week and the dog apparently ate the contents. He’s a little dog, and we started finding little bird seed loafs all around the yard the next day. I guess bird seed doesn’t digest well in dogs.
Our big family vacation is a week away, a road trip to a theme park in southern California. If we had girls then I suppose we would be bringing our little princesses to Disneyland, but we have boys, and they are Lego men.
Birthdays, give them a Lego set.
Christmas, a big Lego set.
A tooth falls out, another Lego set.
There are Legos every friggen place in this house! I regularly see the cat with a storm trooper helmet in her mouth or batting around the torso of Darth Vader. I’m occasionally hopping around on one foot grabbing the other in pain, after stepping on one. So we are going to Legoland!
The preparation has been arduous, booking hotels (making sure they serve breakfast), buying tickets, changing the batteries in toothbrushes shaped like crayons. We have our neighbor’s 23 year old daughter house sitting for us while we are gone to look after our menagerie. We made sure to train her on how to use the Spotbot our magic little carpet cleaner, the dog likes to barf up interesting things he has eaten.
My wife loves her bots. I think she is upset that we aren’t living the life the Jetsons promised us in the 60s, with a robot maid, and flying cars. She has a Roomba that routinely bumps into my bare toes as it tears around vacuuming the floor. She knows that I think it’s annoying but, I don’t have to vacuum the floor, so it’s a Win Win situation.
I can’t wait for the road trip! What is a summer without a road trip? We may even stop by the La Brea Tar Pits, the boys can’t wait to see where dinosaurs drowned in goo!
No comments:
Post a Comment