Slightly Off-Color

 

Back in 2008 I got some funny, funny emails as a result of a post asking how a fourteen year old might refer to his manly equipment -- because I was writing about Calven in The Day of Small Things. The answers were too good not to share -- with a little editing. Thanks to all of you who helped out!

N. said: I call it a "trouble-maker" and sometimes the "brain" but that's not what you're after, is it?!!!
I just asked my 29-year-old what he calls his and it embarrassed him - he finally said he calls it a lot of things......
I can tell you that my 3-1/2 year old grandson calls it a "pete" as well as his 9-year-old step-brother. Even if we had a 14-year-old around, I'm not sure they would tell us!

~~~

P. said: My son got quite a kick out of my question to him, and his first response was "Aaaah, like why are you asking me that???", and
when I told him he was like, "Do you think I was walking around the halls, or in the john, at *** High asking such a question!?!?!" HA ... we also don't want a State Trooper making the headlines of the paper either!!! Anyway, he said all he can come up with is some of the younger guys in his SP Basic school using the term 'junk'. I'm like, "ooook .......", and he just laughed and laughed. He never knows what to expect from mom, but think this one really caught him off guard!!! HAHAHA!!!

~~~
L. said: P****r is not a word used today by boys often - although in our day it was popular. They do refer to their b***s as "my boys".

~~~
A. said: Well, with regards to your 14-year-old boy conundrum, I took an impromptu poll in my office the consensus was that he might easily and casually refer to both his junk and his johnson (esp with those Big Johnson T shirts being so popular at one point), but p*****r might make him a little dated. D**k, it seems, will never go out of style but is a little mature for a freshman in high school (if he's even in school? He sounds shady). Hope that helps!

I sincerely wish you could have just heard the lively conversation with everyone shouting out W**g! Sc****g! Prince Evan! Wiener! Much better than the usual water cooler banter.

So Many Things --Here Are Twp

How long before Ghislaine flees the country? Or "commits suicide"? 

The Orange Excrescence is planning to vet all Smithsonian exhibits to make sure they conform to his idea of history. The Sharpie at work again.

Are there no GOP congresspersons willing to stand up and say 'This is wrong'?

May they reap what they have sown.

I'd like to blast the following song throughout all of DC HERE (try to ignore the yucky opening ad.)

 

Release the Epstein Files

 

Madam Josie Will Tell Your Fortune

On Friday I opened a fortune-telling place.

I put a starry piece of fabric over a lamp to make things look mysterious.

                                  And I put a flashlight in a little bottle with a crystal on top. It looked Perfect! I used my cape to make a place for my magic ball. When Meema came to have her fortune told,she found out that she was going to play lots of games with me. She said she thought I should have told her she would meet a handsome stranger.

Silly Meema. Then I told her she needed to pay me and she said she didn't have any money. So I told her that pretend money would work and she gave me a handful.

Then we played games--checkers and Crazy Eights. So the fortune came true!

     

Dear Sir

                                                              

To Senators Tillis and Budd and Representative Edwards:

Why is DHS delaying processing millions of dollars in flood relief grants to NC? Is ICE Barbie so focused on rounding up brown people without due process that she can't take time to attend to the ongoing relief needs in our state? And what will you do about it?

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

A disgusted constituent.

Super Agers--Who, Me?

 Yesterday, my usual perusal of The New York Times introduced me to a concept of which I was not aware--Super Agers.

Super Agers are folks over 80 who remain cognitively healthy and still have good memories. Despite occasionally wandering into a room and then wondering what I was looking for, I think I still have a good memory.

The article identified strong social connections and an extroverted personality as contributing to the mental agility of Super Agers. Hmm. Does Facebook count? What about dogs and cats? Aside from John every day and Josie three times a week, quick visits from her folks,  and the occasional dinner with friends, my social life is pretty quiet--and I like it that way. 

And  it's too late for me to become an extrovert.

HERE  is an article about super agers. It's not the NYT one, as it's behind a paywall, but it's similar.

Cloudy in the Easr

 

The Cubby Game

Yesterday I invented some games. This is the Cubby Game. Cubby is a girl bear and in the game I do Cubby's voice. Meema is Cubby's mama and she has to help Cubby do things.

I wrote a whole page of rules for Meema to know how to play, but I wrote in pencil and Meema says they probably won't show up in the picture. Maybe if you look really close.

First I drew and cut out Cubby. There she is next to her front door. I also drew her house.

                                             

This is her kitchen. There are shelves with lots of fruit next to the sink. When Cubby is hungry, her mama (Meema) has to give her food. Now Cubby is eating a banana.

                                               
                                                 

Cubby is in her living room. There is a picture on the wall of her friend Niko. He is a blue bird. The floor is a little messy with Cubby's toys.

Then I painted Cubby's bedroom She has a blue bedspread with white stars. Also she has a picture of herself in a green frame and shelves for books and toys.                            

Good night, Cubby!

A note from Meema.  Midmorning, Josie said she was bored and wanted to watch a video but we have a fairly strict rule which is no videos till 1 pm. After a bit of arguing during which I held firm, she went to the dining table and got out her paints and, with no input from me, came up with the Cubby Game. Yay!

 

Worm Food

                                        

“I mean, what is the purpose of life, if, when it’s over, we just become worm food?” he said. “I’d like to think that there’s a little more to it than that. If there’s such a finality and there’s nothing beyond this life, then all of our attempts to live with a moral code, with a sense of owing other people our best, not our worst, then it has no meaning.”

Thus spake Mike Huckabee, evangelical Christian, Baptist minister, and ambassador to Israel. Also a fervent supporter of Netanyahu. Also a believer in the importance of Israel to the Second Coming of Christ after an apocalyptic struggle in the Holy Land. 

Great. Just the guy we need to work toward peace and justice in the Middle East.

But, leaving that major inappropriateness  aside, I am also annoyed by Huckabee's assertion that if there is nothing beyond this life, attempts at living morally are meaningless.

What's wrong with behaving like a moral, caring person without the carrot of Heaven or the stick of Hell? Is that a meaningless life, Mike?

                                         

As I see it, in government, evangelicals and those who count on an afterlife are a danger to a here and now society. What do they care about the health of the planet or, indeed, the suffering of its inhabitants--it's all going to be sorted in the Hereafter. 

They will truckle to one of the most un-Christ-like of men in hopes of bringing about a return of the original and gather in prayer to celebrate the passage of a bill designed to harm many of the least of us. They empower masked thugs who snatch up perceived foreigners willy-nilly. And they conveniently manage not to demand to see the full Epstein files. Rather than listen to the victims, they question, in secret, one of the abusers and reward her with an illegal transfer to a "country club" facility.

Where's that moral code Huckabee talked about?

                                          

Birdie, Birdie

 

Recent Reading

The Caretaker has been sitting beside my bed for many months because I didn't feel ready to read it. Rash can be a tad dark in his always beautiful writing, and the dark time we're in has had me reading lighter stuff. But finally I braved up and began.

Excellent writing as always and the characters and their stories grabbed me immediately.  A recluse with a damaged face, a young couple who marry despite parental opposition, the Korean War, an obsessed mother. . . and  what a plot! I had to keep going. Highly recommended for any time.

I continue to enjoy and be in awe of Leonard's snappy story telling and his way with dialogue. He is a perfect example of the writing teacher's mantra Show, don't Tell. These three were delightful.

On the other hand, I was surprised to find that I didn't enjoy these two from Alice Hoffman as much as I expected to, and found myself skimming through and quibbling with some anachronisms that annoyed me. Also, the two books were very heavy on the Tell as opposed to Show. It's all so subjective --some other time, I might have liked them more.

 

Beach Week for Josie!

Josie and her folks are safely home after a great week at Pawley's Island!

 

Just a Matter of Time?

 The morning view made me happy to think that at least the Golden Grifter hasn't been able to leave his mark on the sun--maybe fu fancy it up with some cupids and curlicues and a big T in the middle.

And while his plan for a ginormous gilded ballroom that will eclipse the White House (the Peoples' House) itself comes nowhere near all his other atrocities, it is really quite annoying to see this power mad toddler trying to piss leave his mark on an icon of our nation.

Oh, but it will be a gift--paid for by him and other donors. 

Ha! His record of charitable giving leads me to doubt that he'll fork over much, if any. And we the taxpayers will undoubtedly absorb a blinding amount of ancillary costs. Kinda like the recent golf trip to Scotland.

As for those other donors--in the Grifter's DC, it's pay to play. Does anyone believe those donors won't get something in return? Not just plaques or invitations to the White House, but an easing of various regulations or lucrative government contracts. Or pardons--his speciality. 

Looking at the plans for the ballroom, I began to think of the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles--the gilded pomp adored by one Louis after another while the ordinary people of France suffered and the aristocrats got richer and richer.

Until many of them, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette included, went to the guillotine.

Sometimes the people have had enough.

Rabbit Rabbit

 

Blue Sky Beyond

 

Morning Glories

These lovelies self sow and decorate our steps every year--a most obliging flower!