Monthly Archives: January 2021

This song is another Folk Alley discovery. The haunting female vocals going “oh-dee-oh-dee-oh” grabbed me. I caught the tail end of it and quickly wrote down The Secret Sisters and Tennessee River Runs Low so I could play it for Jenny. She liked it too. Other artists I’ve found on Folk Alley include: Susan Werner, Tim O’Brien, and The David Wax Museum.

The camera on my dumb smartphone isn’t working again. I can only post pics that other people have taken. I found this one on Instagram and it made me chuckle– and then I felt guilty for chuckling. The guy just looks so dejected, but his sign might as well say “free to a good home,” because you know he’s not getting on another motorcycle. I sold the only motorcycle I ever had 20 years ago and I didn’t have to break my leg to do it. My friend James sold it to me around 1990. I still have my motorcycle license but Jenny isn’t letting me buy another one. Besides I don’t think James has another one to sell me.

Jenny and I woke up super early this morning. One might even say we woke up “doughnut shop early.” 30 years ago I used to roll out of bed around 4:30 a.m. to deliver all kinds of sugar coated goodies from Olathe Donut and Pastry. My boss and his wife lived like vampires and stayed up all night baking plain doughnuts, frosted doughnuts, bear claws, French crullers, and anything that could induce a sugar coma. Mornings like this make me remember mornings like that.

Max will assume this position if he thinks I’ve been on the computer too long and he wants my attention. The loveseat is right next to where I work. Moments like these can convince me that his ancestors used to have actual conversations with humans, and now he’s attempting it with his mind. I think that cats used to have a full vocabulary. They used to ask us how our day was going and comment on the weather, but then eventually they were done with small talk and they just wanted to get out of the house. They started saying “Come on! Let me out!” They became fixated on it, and that phrase was shortened to “Lemmeout!” And now they just say “meow!”

Hoovie wrote those generous words and stuck the note inside a box that also held– A MINIATURE SPY HUNTER GAME!!! The mailwoman delivered it over the weekend and my current high score is 23,850. That’s about half the amount of points I could get on a full sized game back in the 1980′s. I let my plastic dinosaur play it but he couldn’t reach the controls and his score was in the toilet.

This was a water damaged hole that almost took on a life of its own in our bathroom over the years. It was between the pedestal sink and the bathtub. After Chris mixed some mud, chanted some incantations, and worked his magic, it looked like this…All four bathroom walls are sea foam green now! If you press your ear against any one of them you can even hear the ocean!

There’s really not a lot to report again today. Got up. Fed Max. Took my daily fiber gummy and statin pill to keep the cholesterol down. I submitted an idea for a podcast. I’ll find out in 6-8 weeks if it made the cut. I don’t want to jinx it, so that’s all I’m going to say about that. In other news, the peanut gallery went into a cheering frenzy when Chris re-painted our bathroom! I never knew that watching paint dry could bring such excitement. The ‘before and after pictures’ are being delivered by carrier pigeons. Estimated time of arrival is Friday-ish. Stay tuned!

Hello dear readers (Mom, Dad, Hoovie, Chris, and David) I’m literally and figuratively drawing a blank for this blog entry. Maybe it’s because I don’t leave the house except to buy bread and sausages– that’s what I do on Tuesdays. I was just sitting here thinking “I haven’t made string of blog posts in a long time.” When I tried to take a picture of a blank screen on a guy’s head, the camera on my phone stopped working. I took the picture with a laptop camera instead. It’s always something.

Pong is back. The earliest digital home video game has now “evolved” into an analog horizontal experience. How did this happen? Somebody could see into the future and the past. Somebody beckoned the spirit of this classic game. Somebody stood at the cave where Pong had gone to die and summoned it forth like Lazarus. Now the game is back in the living room with motors, rails, pulleys, and magnets. The score display is also as clock when no one is playing. It’s also a coffee table, USB charging station, and a bluetooth speaker!

This is my friend, David. His wife Kris sent texted me this photo after they went to Pop Culture based on my recommendation. I told him that I had an out of body experience from eating their sea green coconut popcorn– and I mean that in good way! We’re gonna miss David and Kris. His work is taking them to Minneapolis. I hope they have good popcorn there! In the meantime I’m going to keep trying all the different flavors on that menu board behind David. So far I’ve had the sea green coconut and the green apple… I honestly can’t tell you which one I like better because they are both so good!