Are We There Yet?
And just where are we going again? By the time that we get there, I’m going to be so out of shape that someone will have to haul me over the line in a wheelbarrow. When the Y closed, it so disrupted my self-designed fitness routine that all of my muscles have declared a national holiday and I’ve had...
Henry V
So...I’m sure that everybody gets the reference, right? Oh yeah, we all go around quoting Shakespeare to all and sundry who will listen. Anyway, what came to me as I sat down to take quill in hand to write about what’s going on, was this famous line from the Bard, encouraging his soldiers to take heart, make the great...
Fist Bump Anyone?
Holy Schmoley! Isn’t this something? The empty shelves at the grocery--even Wal-Mart--the panic buying of all sorts of things( some necessities, like toilet paper, some not), the cancellation of a myriad of events and programs all over the country...Whooeeee! The cancellations and reschedulings of everything from Broadway to baseball seasons and basketball madness is just stunning, across the board. When the...
All That Glitters
Thought for today : “All that glitters is not gold.” And, just for good measure, “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.” Thoughts to be thunk when you get a phone call purporting to give you large sums of money that you did not know you had even signed up for. Just sayin’. How do I know this? Thereby hangs...
Feline APB (All Points Bulletin)
Well, IBM (Irresponsible Bad Momma) has just had her call letters, so to speak, changed to RFPM (Retired Front Porch Matron). Having had “the Operation” just this last week, she seems to be perfectly happy to not be putting up with the various traveling salesmen who have been showing up forever around here with a line of goods that...
God Rest Ye
Well, rest is just what I’m looking for about now, lemme tell ya. I think that we’d be planning to petition somebody for an extra day in the week or an extra hour or two in the day, if we’re ever to get all of the stuff done that needs to be done. How about it? Who’s going to...
A Boardinghouse Reach?
The new boarder has apparently settled in...as if there were any question about that. She seems to have figured out the daily routine and grasps the fact that at certain times of the day, she can caterwaul as loudly as she likes, it still won’t get her whatever it is she wants. On the other hand, she’s terminally cute...
Weirdnesses Revisited
Years ago--I’m dating myself here--somebody...Art Linkletter maybe...put out a book titled ?Kids Say the Darndest Things?. And that’s what it was all about, taken from his television show where he talked to children of various ages on an array of topics intended to get many levels of entertaining and/or embarrassing responses. Well, I haven’t been on television for a...
Rant # ‘leventy-two
Parking lots are my nemesis, as far as attempting “live and let live”, so to speak. I get really cranked out by people leaving their shopping carts abandoned willy-nilly all over the place instead of putting them in the cart corrals or back in the store. It’s also irritating to go to pull into a parking spot only to...
Another SummerFest Goes Into The Books
Quite the affair this one was. A meteorological potpourri for at least two of the days--Sunday was very nice, actually. The on-again-off-again showers kept everyone on their toes through Friday and Saturday but the fireworks were uninterrupted and the shows seemed to go on just fine. The tractor parade was missing some of the ENORMOUS machines...
Spring is Leaking
Well, there was a weekend. Did the Easter Bunny manage to hop out of town wearing galoshes on Palm Sunday? Hope that most of the Easter egg hunts/rolls/parties got off O.K. on Saturday, which was certainly fine, if occasionally chilly. Little ones were likely to be able to spot colored eggs from quite distance. ...
We’ve Been Fooled Before!
Spring has sprung Some grass has riz We wonder where the boidies is. Well, actually, the boidies is here all right. I’m hearing them in the mornings, and while I can’t tell a nightingale from a yellow-bellied sapsucker( The only bird that I can reliably identify is a killdeer.), there certainly are more of them out there before the sun comes up. ...
The Latest…
O.K…, I’m gonna describe my latest trip to the Great Big Home & Garden Show, but first there’s this snippet from ?The Week?, one of my news magazines, (actually, there are often some neat snippets in there on all sorts of topics...but I digress...as usual) that I thought was a hoot. Think that I saw it somewhere else too. Anyway,...
Vermiform
I’m thinkin’ that I may have worms. Now, now, you can stop planning to boil the cushions on the sofa where I last sat at your house. I’m talking about “earworms”, you know, those tunes that get stuck in your brain and won’t go away, even if you don’t really like the music, it’s just there and repeating,...
Your Attention Please
This is your last warning! The response to our request for personal recollections about Garrettsville--the village itself and, ahem, Greater Garrettsville, the surrounding area--has been, shall we say, underwhelming. John Porter, our very own senior version of the Energizer Bunny, came through with some highlight events, some including his home stomping grounds in Hiram. He also mentioned...
Here We Go Again!
We should be running some sort of a pool featuring everyone’s best guess as to what season we’re REAAaaaaaLLY in and what the weather is going to be like for the next hour-and-a-half. The prize could be a set of mukluks and/or a half-gallon of suntan lotion. The ?Old Farmer’s Almanac ?wasn’t real helpful in maintaining a...
Season’s Greetings!
Looks like it’s well and truly winter, even though, astronomically speaking, we’ve got to wait until December 21 to be legit. Weather adventures already! Power went out Friday morning somewhere around 3:00 a.m.--the increasing chill in the house woke me up--and stayed out until about 9:30 a.m. Coulda been worse : Ohio Edison told me when I...
Is it Spring yet?
Yeah, yeah, I know, we’re not quite there yet, but I can hardly wait. Know why? Thereby hangs a tale. A small but intrepid group showed up for the first annual (?) Make A Difference Day work event on Saturday, October 27. Not exactly surprising, since it was plenty chilly and plenty rainy and not looking like your standard “Hey,...
Biscuits and Beyond
All right! Consider yourself warned. If you missed the Chicken and Biscuits Extravaganza at the Garrettsville United Methodist Church last week, you will have another chance in the future, because it got such a good reception that there will likely be a rematch and the dessert table will feature a Greatest Hits tour with...
A Pretty Fair Day
Have I got a deal for you! IBM (Irresponsible Bad Mamma) cat had kittens on the back step, in a specially-designated box—with lining and cover, and just as the little mites were beginning to open their little eyes, she hauled them off somewhere unknown and they were not seen or heard from again. End of story? Not on your tintype! I...
Party Central
There’s got to be a time limit of some sort on Spring Cleaning. I just finished mine…in time for Party Central in the neighborhood. Whoo-whoo! Luckily, the rain held off until after the throngs had ebbed and the clean-up crew was packing up the detritus left by the crowds in attendance. Said crowds were able to sit on chairs that...
Deal Of A Lifetime
Such a deal I had for you! Could have had ‘em just like that. But no, nobody stepped up to get in on the giveaway. Ask me nice and maybe arrangements can be made. Bargains! Freebies! They’ll be going fast, lemme tell ya. What’s that? Some timid, unadventurous soul asks what the hubbub is about. What’s being given away? Well,...
Garrettsville Summerfest Wrap-Up
The farmer in the dell. The farmer in the dell. Hi-ho the dairy-o. The farmer in the dell! The definition of the word “dell”—a small, secluded valley or glen (There’s another problematic word), usually a wooded one—isn’t exactly fitting here, but if we can idiosyncratically interpret it to mean “in Garrettsville for the parade”, it was a “dell of a...
Casey At The Bat
Er…actually, it was Grimmy—Grimalkin, to be more formal—who was , so to speak, “at the bat”, and I don’t mean any kind of ballgame, base or soft. No, no it was a real bat, die Fledermaus, as Richard Wagner put it, and it was in my shoe (Plenty of room in there). Grimmy was after a bat. And here’s...
April Showers…Spring Flowers…
“The flowers that bloom in the Spring—Tra-La!”…or words to that effect. At least some of the bulbs and roots that I have planted around here did not fall prey to the squirrels’ depredations during the rather severe—for squirrels, at least—winter we have only lately emerged from. There are blossoms that I don’t recognize from last year and some that do...
Favorite Son
This commonly-used political term came to mind the other day when my mom sent me a clipping from our local newspaper back in Wellington (Lorain County, west of here on St. Rtes. 58 & 18), either the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram or the Wellington Enterprise—I really didn’t check. In politics, the term usually refers to an up-and-coming sort that has aspirations...
Yes Virginia, There Really Is A Spring
So.... I’m walking along early in the morning now and there are more and more bird sounds out there to be heard. During the winter there are always a few--cardinals, goldfinches, the ever-present sparrows, miscellaneous die-hards who have memorized the locations of every birdfeeder within several hundred yards. You also get the occasional Wrong Way Corrigan who wandered here...
It Must Be Spring!
Must be Spring, the litterbugs are out in their cars—at least I assume they’re not the type to be out walking to enjoy the benefits of nature—and they’re pitching trash out of the windows of said vehicles. I picked up, I think it was, six cans on my way around the village in the morning. ( This is all...
About The Other Chicks…
And about the other chicks…. The Sports Illustrated “swimsuit issue” recently came. A subscriber may choose to skip that issue—for ethical reasons or whatever—but I choose not to (I have no ethics that tender anyway) because I send it to my brother-in-law, a nurse and a fireman, both at once, who then is able to celebrate his birthday with the...
Missing The Chicks
I miss the chicks. Nothing to do with the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue; that’s got more hot chicks than a KFC convention. No, I mean real, live “Peeps”, the little , fluffy yellow (and sometimes other miscellaneous colors, especially if they’re just on the edge of getting real feathers) fuzzies that used to occasionally appear under the auspices of Stark...
