A Manatee By Any Other Name
Posted: July 20, 2019 Filed under: Current Events, I"m Just Saying..., Politics | Tags: Berkeley man controversy, Current Events, gender neutrality, political correctness, sexual discrimination, stupid ideas Leave a commentThe City of Berkley, CA, is trying to scrub sexual identity from its vocabulary in favor of more gender-neutral alternatives. It’s starting with the name ‘manhole cover,’ which will be eliminated from the municipal code. This obvious sexually offensive and gender biased name is being changed to maintenance hole. Not totally off the wall, but then it gets weird.
Men and women will now be people. Weren’t we always? Brothers and sisters will now be siblings. And, this is regardless of whether your brother considers himself to be a man or your sister a woman. Because now, male and female will be known as people of different genders. So, if you’re planning a surprise birthday party for your sibling in the City of Berkeley and the restaurant manager asks if this is for your brother or sister, you can respond, “Yes, Alice was a person of a different gender.” And should the restaurant manager then ask, “Different than what?” you can reply, “Different that the other one.” And, should the restaurant manager be foolish enough to pursue this ridiculous line of thought and ask, “Other sister?” You would have to respond, “No, other sibling.” And then both of you could have a Manhattan – or a Peoplehatten as it is now correctly labeled.
In Berkeley, men and women are to be called people of a single gender. Pregnant women are now pregnant employees. I guess this is because in the City of Berkeley, men… oops, persons of a single gender can also give birth. And if you’re attending college in Berkeley and you want to join a fraternity or sorority, you’ll now have to pledge as a Collegiate Greek System Residence. Long live Animal House!
Then there’s the whole man/woman thing. Mannequin? Manatee? Isle of Man? Lady Fingers? Lady Luck? Ladies Room? Oh, wait, that’s been covered. It’s a People Room. Good old boys? Female impersonator? Dirty old man?
And how about naming conventions. Does gender neutrality prohibit the use of names that are typically attached to one gender or another? What will happen to Tiffany, Amber, Olivia? What about David, Owen, Simon? Maybe, if the PC police have their way, everyone will have to be named Pat. But I get dibs on two Ts.
Politics and Other Acts of Stupidity
Posted: May 4, 2016 Filed under: Current Events, Politics | Tags: Bernie Sanders, Current Events, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Humor, Republican election, Ted Cruz Leave a commentI must admit, this 2016 election has been very, very interesting, extremely entertaining, and quite enlightening here on the old Sun City home front. Even with Mom’s slowly progressing dementia, she still usually makes more sense than most of the politicians and the pundits put together. Take the Indiana primary that happened yesterday on May 3rd.
Bill and I were in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner when Mom called out from the living room. “He’s doing it again. I can’t believe he’s doing it again!”
I rolled my eyes, passed a handful silverware to Bill to put in the dishwasher, and walked into the living room.
“Who’s doing what?” I asked with a sigh.
“That Trump guy. He’s winning more elections. I can’t believe he keeps winning stuff.”
“And why can’t you believe it?”
“Because he’s such a phony and a big mouth and a liar and I can’t believe people are so stupid that they’re voting for him.”
“I guess there are a lot of angry people out there,” I commented.
“Well I would think so. I’d be pretty angry too at all of these idiots voting for Trump!”
“No, Mom, I mean people are angry at the government so they’re voting for Trump.”
“Well you aren’t, are you?”
“Angry at the government or voting for Trump?”
“Either. Both. Are you?” she asked again, squinting up at me suspiciously.
“Yes, I’m angry and no, I didn’t vote for Trump in our primary.”
“Well good,” she replied with a smile, which quickly turned to a frown. “Are your brothers voting for Trump?”
“Oh, I seriously doubt that they’d ever vote for Trump. They’d write-in Michael Moore before they’d vote for a republican. Besides, Michigan already had its primary.”
“Oh, good,” she said, visibly relaxing. “Who won?”
“Trump and Sanders,” I informed her with a disbelieving shake of my head.
“Sanders?” she asked. “Which one is he?”
“He’s the old socialist running against Hillary.”
“Well what the heck is the matter with everybody in Michigan?” she exclaimed. “I can’t believe I used to live there. I’d be turning over in my grave if I was dead!”
“Well now you can just turn over in your bed,” I chuckled as I walked away to join Bill back in the kitchen.
“I guess so. In fact, that’s a good idea. I’m going to take a nap and try to forget about all of this stupid politicky stuff,” she exclaimed as she pushed up from the loveseat and plopped down on the wheelchair seat.
“Okay, see you later. I’m sure you’ll forget all about it by the time you wake up,” I called after her.
“What?” she yelled, a few seconds later from the hall. “Forget about what? Did I forget something?”
“No, Mom,” I laughed, shouting back. “Nothing important.”
Halloween – 2015
Posted: November 1, 2015 Filed under: Fashion Sense and Nonsense, On The Home Front, Out and About | Tags: costumes, Current Events, Current Events Humor Retirement Family Sun_City Constipation, Halloween, hot dog costume, Trick or Treating 1 CommentWe got to take Olivia and Morgan trick or treating. The real treat was that we were able to do it. When Amber, our 13-year-old granddaughter was growing up we lived out of state and were never able to be here with her. Last year Jamie and Ryan were in Iowa visiting Jamie’s folks over Halloween and the girls dressed up and went begging there. So this year we finally got our chance.
Bill insisted we each dress up for the occasion so, when Mom went down for her afternoon nap, we wandered over to a local party store on the 30th to buy our costumes. Naturally the store was packed, but they had an extremely efficient way of handling the swarm of customers who, like us, had waited until the last minute to make their purchase. An entire wall was divided into age groups – Child, Teen, Women, and Men – and each section was covered with pictures of all of the available inventory for that group along with a price and a corresponding stock number. Once you decided which outfit you wanted, you walked over to a clerk who was manning a kiosk a few feet from the wall, gave her your number, which she fed into a terminal, and the availability or unavailability status popped up on the screen. If you were lucky enough to have your costume in-stock, you followed neon-green monster footprints on the floor back to the pick-up window, then proceeded to the cashier to pay for the purchase.
I think the Halloween gods were looking out for us because, as we waited in the queue to give the clerk the corresponding numbers, all we heard her say to the half-a-dozen people ahead of us is, “Sorry, that’s out of stock. Sorry, that size is gone. Sorry, the last one was just picked up. Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
We didn’t have very high hopes when it was our turn. Bill gave her the numbers for our two choices and we held our breath. After a few moments, the terminal spewed out a couple of receipts and we were instructed to follow the feet to costume pick-up. We high-fived each other amongst glares from the milling crowd and happily proceeded to the pick-up window.
Arriving home, we unwrapped our costumes, slipped them on and stood together looking at ourselves in the full-length mirror on our bedroom wall.
“Awesome!” Bill exclaimed.
“Pretty cute,” I concurred.
“What the heck are you two supposed to be?” came the sudden comment from the peanut gallery in the doorway.
“Hi Mom,” I said with a smile. “We’re going to wear these when we take the kids trick or treating tomorrow night.”
“So what are you?” she asked, squinting up at me. “You look like a pencil. Or maybe a crayon.”
“No, I’m a squeeze…”
“Or maybe a marker,” she continued. “You know like the ones that don’t cover up words, just make them brighter.”
“A highlighter?” I asked.
“No, a marker,” she said. “And what’s Bill?” she continued. “He looks like a penis in a pillow. You can’t go out in public looking like a penis!” she exclaimed, turning left and motoring down the hall. “Especially around children.”
“I’m a wiener,” he called after her.
“That’s true,” she yelled back. “But you still can’t go out looking like that!”
Fluffiness
Posted: June 30, 2015 Filed under: I"m Just Saying... | Tags: Current Events, haboob, Humor, retirement, Sun City, thunderstorm Leave a commentWhen Bill and I got back from our walk today, Mom was sitting in the Red Menace staring out the big picture window in the dining room.
“What are you looking at?” I asked, heading into the kitchen.
“The sky,” she replied serenely.
“It sure is nice and clear and blue after all the rain and thunderstorms last night,” I commented, as I poured her a cup of coffee.
“I know,” she said. “Have you noticed the clouds?”
I walked out of the kitchen, into the dining room and stood next to her. “They’re really pretty,” I said.
“I know,” she replied with a nod. “They almost look like real clouds.”
I paused a moment before I asked. “As opposed to fake clouds?”
“No, just that they’re really full of stuff today. You know, fluffiness.”
“I guess so,” I shrugged. “They do look pretty fluffy. Almost three-dimensional.”
“No, not that, just full of stuff,” she countered as she engaged the joystick and turned toward the living room. “But good stuff, not bad stuff.”
“Okey dokey then,” I exclaimed, following her into the living room and placing her coffee mug on the end table. “I guess it’s always better to be full of good stuff instead of bad stuff.”
“That’s right,” she responded as she plopped down on the loveseat and grabbed the TV guide. “If it was bad stuff it would be raining, but it’s good stuff so it’s just fluffiness.”
Blue Angel
Posted: April 19, 2015 Filed under: Current Events | Tags: Blue Angels, Current Events, first female Blue Angel, Humor, Navy, retirement, Sun City Leave a comment“Patty, Patty, look at this,” Mom called out as I wandered into the kitchen for my second cup of coffee. I set down my empty mug and walked into the living room.
“Look at what?” I asked, glancing absently at the TV screen where CBS reporter Michelle Miller was talking about flying around in an F-18.
“They just announced the Navy’s first female pilot,” she exclaimed.
I looked closer at the television and read the ribbon below the three chatty CBS news casters, which proclaimed: “Blue Angels announce first female pilot.”
“She isn’t the Navy’s first female pilot, Mom, she’s the first woman to fly with the Blue Angels.”
Katie Higgins, the Blue Angels first female pilot
“It’s the same thing,” she replied with a firm nod.
“No it isn’t,” I argued. “The Blue Angels are a specialized team within the Navy.”
“If you say so,” she pouted. “But I think it’s the same. If you’re a Blue Angel you’re in the Navy.”
“That’s true, but just because you’re in the Navy doesn’t mean you’re a Blue Angel,” I responded, turning around and heading back to fill my coffee mug.
“Maybe,” she muttered grudgingly. “She’s certainly attractive, don’t you think?” she added.
I paused in the kitchen doorway, then walked backwards until I could see the TV. “Who’s attractive? The reporter?”
“No, the pilot woman. She should look good in the shows. That’s probably why they picked her.”
“What pilot woman?” I asked, looking at the screen once again.
“The one talking on the TV.”
“That’s the reporter that interviewed her, Mom. I don’t think the pilot’s actually there. Besides, it doesn’t matter what she looks like. She’ll be flying in a jet a few thousand feet in the air so no one will be able to see her. Besides,” I concluded, speaking loudly as I walked back into the kitchen for the third time, “I’m pretty sure they picked her because she’s a really, really good pilot.”
“Maybe,” she called after me. “But being good looking probably didn’t hurt.”
Katie Higgins, the Blue Angels first female pilot
Who Goes There?
Posted: December 25, 2014 Filed under: I"m Just Saying... | Tags: Christmas, Current Events, Humor, retirement, Sun City Leave a commentAs an early Christmas gift, Bill let me sleep in on Sunday, a concession for which I love him dearly. You see, I’m not naturally an early riser like he is. His internal alarm usually goes off between 5:00 and 5:30 every morning no matter the season. Mine is more attuned to the rising of the sun, which means that during the winter months it’s set for around 7:30; in the summer I awake closer to 6:30. So, during the shorter days between October and March we compromise and he wakes me at 6:30 and throughout the long, hot days of summer, I’m prodded around 5:30. But no matter the season, he always bribes me with a steaming cup of coffee, which I down gratefully before we set out on our daily five-mile walk.
But getting back to this morning…
Although I’m sure my body would have happily continued to snooze, at 7:10 I was jolted awake by the clicking gears and subtle motor hums of the Red Menace. Much like the mother of a newborn, my subconscious is apparently finely tuned to this sound. It’s a similar phenomenon to being jerked out of a sound sleep because I dreamed Mom was calling for me. Nine times out of ten it’s just that – a dream. But sometimes she’s actually taken a midnight tumble and needs help getting back into bed. So, whenever it happens, I always get up, tip-toe across the hall and go into her room to check on her.
But on this Sunday morning, four days before Christmas, it was the hushed squishing of rubber wheels and the subliminal drone of the electric motor that woke me up. As Mom continued down the hall towards the living room and the breakfast Bill had laid out for her, I fell back into a fitful doze, imagining the not-so-stealthy return of the Red Menace. And my fears were soon realized when, at 7:30, Mom drove back down the hall, parked in the doorway of the bedroom and asked loudly, “Are you awake?”
“Yup,” I replied, rolling over and sitting up on the edge of the bed. “I am now. What can I do for you?”
“Oh nothing,” she said with a shrug. “I was just checking.”
“Checking?” I asked as I stood up and slid on my slippers.
“Yes, checking,” she said, turning to leave. “I thought I saw you walk by earlier, but I didn’t know who it was.”
“How could you see me but not know it was me?” I shouted after her. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Because you could have been someone else,” she yelled back. “You never know.”
“Like who?” I called out. “Santa Clause maybe? Rudolf? The Abominable Snowman?
“Maybe, maybe not,” came her muffled reply. “Maybe just the not you but the someone else.”
Merry Christmas!
Shenanigans
Posted: December 20, 2014 Filed under: Current Events | Tags: Current Events, freedom of speech, Humor, North Korean hackers, Second Amendment, Sony hack, Sun City Leave a commentAs local, network and cable news continues to be consumed by the North Korean Sony hack, Mom continues to keep me posted – at least as she interprets the situation.
“You’re not going to the movies soon, are you?” she asked as I placed her dinner on her lap tray a couple of nights ago.
“No, not in the near future,” I replied. “Why?”
“Because a bunch of slackers from North Carolina are going to protest something or other and it sounds like going to the movies is going to be a big pain in the butt until everything settles down.”
“Slackers?” I replied, trying not to laugh. “North Carolina? Are you sure it wasn’t North Korean hackers?”
“No, it wasn’t hackers,” she responded with an empathic shake of her head. “Those are computer people, right?”
“Yes, Mom, those are computer people,” I said.
“Well what would they have to do with the movies unless it was a movie you could see on your computer? It was slackers. And besides, why would people come all the way here from North Korea just to clog up a theater and make everyone else miserable. That’s just stupid.”
“Okay then,” I said with a grin as I turned to go back to the kitchen. “We’ll stay away from the movies until the North Carolina slackers are gone.”
“Good,” she said. “Movies cost way too much now-a-days to waste your money on those kind of shenanigans.”
Pink Sky at Sunrise
Posted: October 16, 2014 Filed under: Current Events | Tags: California beaches, Current Events, hotair balloon accidents, Humor, Pacific ocean, retirement, Sun City 1 CommentAs I was delivering Mom’s breakfast to her in the living room, I noticed a story playing on the morning news about a hot air balloon that went down near a beach somewhere in California. It was apparently a proposal gone awry. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
After plopping down her yogurt, banana, and juice I headed back to the kitchen for my second cup of coffee but was brought up short when she called me back to the living room.
“What’s up,” I asked, glancing at the TV and the floundering balloon as it bobbed several yards off shore.
“Did you see the story on the news about the sunrise?” she asked.
“No, what story,” I asked.
“This one,” she said, pointing at the television. “It’s about how pink the sunrise is.”
“Mom, it’s about a hot air balloon going down in…”
“But it was ballooning with a pink sunrise,” she broke in. “And I looked out the window and I saw it right outside at the same time the news was on,” she said with a nod and a satisfied grin.”
“Saw what outside?”
“The pink sunrise,” she exclaimed. “It’s on the news so they must be doing a story about.”
“Mom, it’s in California. That’s the ocean,” I replied, pointing at the TV screen and the waves lapping at the shore. “A balloon fell into the water.”
“But it’s our sunrise,” she stated firmly.
“But our house doesn’t have beach frontage,” I argued.
“No, but they could have used our sunrise for the story and then put it on the beach.”
“Why would they do that? Why wouldn’t they just use the California sunrise?”
“They’re not as nice as ours because they’re all the way west so they don’t get the pretty ones,” she explained.
Jailhouse Granny
Posted: May 23, 2013 Filed under: Current Events | Tags: Arias trial, Current Events, Humor, Jodi Arias, retirement, Spanish lessons, Sun City 2 CommentsUnlike millions of other people around the country and the world, Bill and I haven’t been glued to the daily saga of the Jodi Arias trial and sentencing. Whatever nuggets we hear about it come from the nightly news or reports from Mom. We have confidence that what the news reports is mostly accurate and no illusions that what Mom reports is mostly inaccurate. For example, she gave me an Arias update yesterday morning.
“Did you hear that all the reporters are mad at that Jodi Arias?” she said.
“No, I didn’t know that,” I replied. “Why are they mad?”
“I don’t know but I think it has something to do with her speech that she gave in court.”
“Speech?”
“Yes, at her trial yesterday,” she explained. “She gave a speech about why she shouldn’t die.”
“Oh, that. Well why did that make the reporters mad?”
“Because she never apologized for killing that guy and all she did is talk about wanting to cut her hair and teach her grandmother Spanish.”
“Mom, she’s either going to death row or to prison for the rest of her life. How is she going to teach her grandmother Spanish from behind bars?”
“I don’t know. Maybe her grandmother’s in jail too,” she said as she flipped through her TV magazine.
“You don’t seriously think her grandmother’s in prison, do you?”
“Maybe. Stranger things have happened,” she concluded, changing the channel to The Price Is Right and putting an end to the conversation by turning up the volume.
“Well there was a nugget of the real story buried in there somewhere,” Bill commented after I told him about this latest revelation from my mother. “What Arias said was she wanted to teach Spanish and literacy to prisoners if she got a life sentence.”
“Honey,” I replied. “There’s always a nugget of accuracy in just about everything she says. It’s just that sometimes the nuggets aren’t much bigger than a grain of sand.”
Who’s Ben
Posted: May 14, 2013 Filed under: Current Events | Tags: AP, Benghazi, Castro kidnapping, Current Events, government scandals, Humor, IRS, Jodi Arias, Kermit Gosnell, retirement, Sun City Leave a commentDuring dinner last night there were news recaps of the Jodi Arias guilty verdict, various talking points and sound bites from the Benghazi whistleblower testimony, updates on the verdict of baby murderer Kermit Gosnell, and recounts of the Cleveland kidnappings and the harrowing escape of the three women held captive for 10 years. In addition, reports of a potential IRS scandal and a possible unjustified Justice Department raid on AP had just broken. All in all, it was a busy news night.
With so many current events to discuss, I was somewhat surprised when, during the weather report, Mom suddenly asked, “Who’s this Ben guy?”
I stopped chewing my pasta salad, and, through a mouthful of bowtie pasta, grapes and Feta cheese, asked, “Ben who?”
“No, not Ben Who,” she replied. “Who is Ben? I’ve been hearing about him all day on TV and I don’t know who they’re talking about.”
“Hearing about him on the news?” I said after I swallowed. “What did he do?”
“That’s what I’m asking,” she huffed, wiping her mouth with a napkin and placing it on her now empty plate. “They keep talking about how he got attacked or maybe mugged or something, but I don’t know who he is.”
And then, after almost four years of restraining himself during these often cryptic, frequently befuddling, and generally quirky mealtime conversations with his mother-in-law, it finally happened. Bill could no longer hold in his laughter – or his final mouthful of milk – until he reached the safety of the kitchen. Instead, he rose quickly from the recliner, took two jerky steps towards the kitchen door, stopped, snorted once, gagged down a chortle, and spewed milk out of his nose as he tried to escape.
Mom stared at the jet stream of homogenized liquid as it slowly soaked into the carpet, while I jumped up to render first aid assistance to my husband.
“Are you okay,” I asked, patting him on the back as he stood hunched over, an empty milk glass clutched in one hand and an empty dinner plate dangling from the other. He nodded yes, straightened up and walked with whatever remained of his dignity into the kitchen.
“Better mop that up, it might stain,” Mom commented to his rapidly retreating back.
I followed Bill and found him leaning over the sink, splashing cool water on his face.
“What was that all about?” I asked, patting him on the back some more.
He sniffed a couple of time, dried his face with a paper towel and looked me in the eye. “You know what she was talking about, don’t you?” he asked.
“No, but apparently you do,” I replied.
“Ben. The Ben guy she was asking about?”
“Yeah, the Ben guy, who was…. Oh. My. God!” I whispered.
“Yup. Benghazi. That’s who got mugged!”
Bananas and Prunes 