Olym-past… and none too soon
Okay, now I can actually get something done…or not. I had forgotten how enticing it can be to watch superior athletes do their thing. The summer Olympics were far away and this was a whole new venue, with challenges we don’t often see around here–this year being “the exception that proves the rule.” Speaking as one who has been wrapping...
Definitely Uphill
Whoa !!! The Olympics certainly have some MAJOR MOMENTS ! Lindsey Vonn and her ill-fated return to the Women’s Downhill, for instance. What a thing ! She wipes out her knee, her Achilles tendon anyway; she vows to go back at it; and she does, then lucks into a fracture and gets helicoptered away. We’re talking drama here, friends. Also...
PG-13?
As I have mentioned before, somebody out there in ComputerLand.Internet thinks that my name is REALLY Ivan and, therefore, I must be interested in “guy things” and messages. This means that I get some pretty interesting messages in my SPAM pages (there are lots of them); some having to do with topics like ED (erectile disfunction) ( Did that...
What’s Cookin’
So I am putting together my piece on the meeting of the Twentieth Century Club of Garrettsville, when all sorts of related topics and events just happened to come up. Karma, I guess. First was an article in The Week, a news magazine which I enjoy, partly because it has some off-beat items once in a while. Such as the...
Bbbbrrrrrrrrrr
Well, here we are again. We definitely DO NOT need Greenland. We’ve already got the weather and claiming anything else would be a pile of brown stuff–or white stuff, as the case may be. Anyone who’s not seeing climate change as a real thing, obviously does not have a real firm grip on reality. Hotter summers, colder winters–hmmm, what’s that...
J-E-LL-O
Don’t try this at home. Are you seeing all of the latest hype about the “jello trick” ? It has replaced the “Pink salt trick” online and all over as the latest means of reducing one’s overabundance of avoirdupois (fat of one sort or another, in various locations) . If one just watches the pitch for these products, one might...
Signs and Portents
Christmas trees abandoned on the “devil strip”. Wrappings and tinsel in the weekly trash pick-ups. Peppermint and/or chocolate overload. But the surest sign that Yuletide has truly passed is the appearance of Valentine's Day promotions on the shelves at Wal-Mart. Keep your eyes open for the Easter Bunny, he’s up next. And, of course, every news outlet is offering up...
Welcome To Nuuk
What? You didn’t know that Nuuk is the principal settlement in Greenland,( a province of Denmark in the Western hemisphere)? Have you happened to notice how very much we seem to be resembling that particular location just lately? But then, of course, the prognosticators are teasing us with follow-up forecasts ranging up into the fifties some time later this...
Sing We Now of Christmas
The songs will rise on December 21 at three o’clock in the Garrettsville United Methodist Church, set on the air by the Chancel Choir, the three handbell ensembles and the interpretive narrators telling the story of “Glory to the Newborn King–Celebrating the Light of Christmas”. This outpouring of seasonal praise will incorporate biblical readings, familiar tunes and themes, in...
How Now, Brown Cow
Countryside Veterinary Services keeping you in good health? Well, yes, but dogs and cats are getting even more premium care at the Garrettsville outpost since they have secured a full time veterinarian to offer complete ,non-surgical care at their facility. Dr. Lori Cavalcanti (Doctor of Veterinary Medicine)now joins Matilde, Ingrid, Deidra (vet techs), Cheryl and Alisha(client care specialists) and the...
Holiday Howlers
No. I am not communicating with owls, just miscellaneous rants for the season. I have been saving up a number of “pet peeves” to air out when everyone is in a better mood, comparatively speaking. Take a break from moaning and groaning about the prices and the crowds and the goods available and let me complain about something altogether...
Salt of The Earth?
Visited the Himalayas lately? Lost tons (!) of weight? Paid ANY attention to the latest in food(!) fads online? Got the recipe? A person can hardly open up any random commercial site without seeing somebody urging you to LOSE pounds and POUNDS and POUNDS of ugly, unwanted FAT. And how do you do this, you say. Well, it’s the Pink Salt Trick, of...
(OFA) Old Farmers’ Almanac
The Daylight Savings Time switchover has not often been so noticeable …for me anyway. Probably because of the looooong autumn (bordering on summer, really), the early evenings have seemed quite abrupt. Mornings, of course, are lighter–I do not have to use my flashlights as much--though I still do–and I trust that folks can see me coming better than had...
(OFA) Old Farmers’ Almanac
Done with All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days, done with Election Day, done with the Full Beaver Moon (Didn’t see them out celebrating), daylight has been saved once more…what else is on our plate for November? We already did “Clock hands spin, let’s sleep in! Snowfalls begin and frost nips your skin”. Well, to further quote the OFA, “Veterans deserve...
Candy, And Then Some
Gotta get me a clicker/counter gadget so that I can have an accurate reckoning of how many trick-or-treaters that show up at my porch. The guess this time was somewhere around two hundred or so. Other estimates around town were pushing for three hundred–not exactly a surprise, since most other communities around did their ”beggars night”, as it is...
Hello Again
Let’s get down to brass tacks. I am, to put it politely, unreliable. Gimme a week off and, “Lo, and Behold !” I’ll take whatever the traffic will bear–one week, two weeks, whatever. The danger is, will anyone even notice and say, “Whatever happened to that non-sport columnist that wrote about odd stuff from the almanac and such? Who...
Rusty…
The new boarder seems to be settling in just fine. "Rusty" the light orange kitten , newly acquired, is eating just fine, is being prime kitten-like in behavior so far...cute, cute, cute. He follows me, or anybody, really. I heard that he followed the postal worker the other morning...also somebody walking home from the Y. He's getting to be...
The Cat’s Meow
Well, maybe. We have a new prospective Porch Kitty. Rusty (not a serious automotive epizootic but a light orange mini-kitty) has arrived. He is currently exploring the territory; the porch itself and the front steps pretty-much define it so far but the veteran Porch Kitty, SunnyBoy, has not been exactly a Welcome Wagon representative. There were plenty o’ low growls...
Keep The Change
The on-line spoofers are at it again. Second or third call this week letting me know that I have won fabulous sums of money, if I will just call back to this number. What the number is, I cannot really tell because the caller either speaks so fast that their words (numbers) are unintelligible or their whole message is...
Salt of the Earth
I cannot be the only one being urged to try the “Himalayan Salt Trick”. It’s everywhere online and in some publications too. Every digital salesperson–we’re lookin’ at you, Oprah–has a tear-jerker of a tale about how they’d slipped into avoirdupois Purgatory and would not go outside without being wrapped in a sheet. Their love life was shot, their wardrobe...
Hands OFF!!!!
What is it with people who seem to think that everything…EVERYTHING…is theirs to do with as they please? Whatever…whenever…wherever…however they please. How does this get to be a mind-set? This is a vandalism state of mind and it does none of us any good, least of all those who “get away with it” and continue to behave in this...
Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty
That was me after the football game on Friday. Driving home on Liberty St.--late–just past SkyLanes, I spotted a cat in the road…putting at least one of its nine lives on the line…and had to swerve to avoid being the deliverer of that fate. I pulled into the space by the car wash, fished out my flashlight and went...
OMG!!
What a beautiful way to end a Summer that spent WAY too much time resembling the hinges of hell. Gorgeous finale. Activities of all sorts (Zach Peterson Memorial Bash, Cleveland Air Show, Great Geauga County Fair, all of the miscellaneous family gatherings–all of it!) got to soak up the sun, break out the BBQ, kiss one season goodbye and...
Aaaaannnnnd we’re off !!
Told ya ! As soon as the Fourth of July is done, it’s the looonnnng slide into SCHOOL. Slide’s over now and here we are, back at it. But first… Got my tricycle fixed. Thanks to all those who inquired and offered to attempt restoration of my mobility. The Fix-it Elf( no relation to the Tooth Fairy that I know of)...
Between a rock and a hard place!
How, How, How is a person supposed to manage to learn to use these devices if all of the instructions assume that you already KNOW all of the technical directions and language and are able to follow them. Here I am back in familiar surroundings -- between a rock and a hard place. Brand-new equipment is no assurance of competence...
Bikers. I Need Bikers!
Well, one, anyway. We can skip the heavy metal, major leather, tattoo extravaganza biker-types (Not that I have anything against such displays, mind you) I just need somebody to show me how to adjust my tricycle. I purchased this beauty last summer because riding my regular two-wheeler was becoming an exercise in scary balance issues and I just sort of...
Applause! Applause!
That goes to the latest iteration of theatrical presentation by the Garrettsville Curtains Up Theatre, a farce titled “The Play That Goes Wrong”...which it did in so many ways–all of ‘em intended but, still…. The whole premise of the thing, I think, is to illustrate some of the various things that can go wrong in any dramatic–or musical, for that...
Play It Again, Sam!
That’s a famous line from a famous movie (Or at least one everybody thinks that they remember, whether they did or not. Casablanca?). We may have a local version with a small variation : “Play it again everyone.”...with “everyone” being our latest BIG Band, The Thrill of the ‘Ville. In case you missed it, Saturday night was the place to...
I’ve Gotta Get Out More
No. Really Then I would not be so amazed at what’s out there. Walking around in front of God and everybody. Nor is it just the people, the products are pretty far out there sometimes too. I’ve gotten used to hair–long, short, absent (by choice or by chop)color challenged or color riotous, styled or not so–in various iterations, some flattering,...
Skip The Waiting Room
…Or not. Local boy, Jared Sheehan, having made good (more or less–he’s the chief innovation officer at a company called Quick MD and co-founded various technology-driven companies supporting various social impact industries) returned to his old “stomping grounds”, so-to-speak, to communicate the latest thinking in and about medicine online at the Garrettsville branch of the Portage County District Library on...
