Going Batty!
So...my question is, if bats (Myotis lucifugus--lucifugus means “flees the light”) are supposed to have such a great echolocation system in their little heads where they emit sounds and then decipher the rebounding sound waves to avoid obstacles and catch their dinner, why can’t they figure out the fact that my front door is wide open so they can...
NOT One Of My Better Weeks
Not one of my better weeks; suffice it to say that I’m now looking for a new car and not a rehab facility. That’s the good part. Time to move on. The rollercoaster begins again : school is starting! Whooeee! Anyone got an office/coffee klatsch/bowling league/civic group/ neighborhood betting pool going on whether the newly -added-on-to Garfield Elementary School will...
Excitement!!
Pretty generally, my cats are NOT about excitement. Mostly, they’re about conserving physical resources, i.e., lazing around, with as little movement as possible. Oh sure, there is the occasional wrestling match, when one of the “guys” has to show how tough he is(This is the same one who is afraid to go outside when the door is open; he...
What We Got For Christmas
Y’ know that old pop/novelty song, “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth”? He sort of lisps and whistles through the tune. Real cute. Ever wonder what the kid actually GOT for Christmas? (This is all sort of a segue into the next topic, which is what I got for Christmas, which, as it applies to humans...
The Name Game
Speaking of winter storms.... This whole naming thing apparently started with the Weather Channel and a Latin class somewhere. This was apparently so that the on-screen prognosticators could get us all to focus on a particular weather event at a particular time and to nudge us toward acknowledging the fact that all of this weather stuff is related rather...
Fatberg!
Have another piece of cake, Chubby? OMG! New scientific research indicates that obesity is likely about three times as great a factor in mortality rates as had been previously believed, up from 5% to 18%. Some 78 million people in the U.S. are struggling with the condition…or not. Some twenty per cent of deaths in the 40-85 yr. age group...
DANG!! Where Did I Put My Ruby Slippers??
They’re not around here, that’s for darn sure. Maybe they’ve made it to Kansas, though it would be more likely that they’d wind up in PA, the way that wind was whooping it up from the West on Saturday. All of the wind warnings in the world can’t help you much, if the trees do not tip-toe out of...
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...
The machines are out to get me!
Does a computer count as a machine or a device? Matters not, they’re after me. So I’m sitting at the computer typing away at my much-anticipated column for this week, when, out of the blue—or whatever color cyberspace is nowadays—the screen went black (that color I know) and totally unresponsive. I wiggled and jiggled various plugs and...
Up, Up and Away!
Wasn’t that a song some time back? “Up, up and away in my beautiful, my beautiful balloon”...or something like that? Goes on to say, “Would you like to ride in my beautiful, my beautiful balloon?” Catchy tune. Google says that The 5th Dimension and Dionne Warwick got the most play with it. Anyway… Saturday last I was engaged in my...
PARTY CENTRAL!!!
You know, the saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for.” Ain’t it the truth! The Villager took a brief hiatus on the Fourth, giving staff and media stars (That’s you, Benjamin.) a little time to set off and/or observe firecrackers and recoup after all of the frenetic activity of the SummerFest—BEST EVER—and come out swinging for the rest of...
Latest Unlikely News
Ya know, you can’t make this stuff up.... The news is rife with absolutely amazing little bits—factoids, we might call them—about what’s going on “out there”, and I don’t mean outer space. Doesn’t take much more than a skimming of the news to find a fine selection of nutballs running around in front of God and everybody and coming...
Winter Prep
So…I missed the Rotary meeting on the 24th. They were working away at their Reverse Raffle and Silent Auction…as they have been for some time; get your tickets now. The array of donated items and services should make for spirited bidding and a good time for all. It’s a regular social event around these parts, starts off the holiday...
Odder Still…
The computer has forced me to type this piece over again after it deleted everything except the date, August 31. I don’t know if I insulted it or what. Maybe it’s been keeping track of the things which I have been saying about it--all true! There was a Dilbert cartoon the other day that might fit : Office worker...
Winter Wonderland?
So… I’ve been wondering a whole bunch of stuff about this so-called winter which we have been having. It seems that there are records of all sort being broken all over the place…highest temperature on such-and-such a date…least amount of snow for whatever month…lowest temperature on some other date (Thank God every day that we do not live in...
It’s A Failure!
A failure of Social Studies Education, I calls it. The recent election, that is…failure of turn-out, failure to understand the way government works(whether it’s supposed to work that way or not), failure to be informed on the issues and the candidates, failure to pay attention to the down-ticket contests…a whole bunch of things that we should all be thinking about but don’t. AND a prevailing, parsimonious attitude that makes a virtue of trying to do everything on the cheap. There’s a powerful big difference between wishing to do things in the most cost-conscious and efficient manner possible to do the best we can for the most citizens and trying to see how much we can get away with before the dreadful consequences which we have been outrunning finally catch up. The difference is the difference between “What’s the best we can afford?” and “What’s the cheapest we can get?” Strangely enough, there are cases in which quality actually does count.
Forsooth!
The Settlers “Ye Old” State Renaissance Faire has shuffled off into history once again, leaving bags of gold for the Middlefield “Shop With a Cop” program and the “Middlefield Cares! Food Cupboard”. Generous supporters included the Nauvoo Family Market, White House Chocolates, Alley’s Grille, Mary Yoder’s Kitchen, Zeppe’s Pizzaria, EarthLight Art Source, Mangia! Mangia! and The Ghosts of Burton...
Haunts At Home
With Halloween coming up and all, I think that I’ll have to admit that I think that the house seems to be haunted. Not just by the bats who make periodic appearances (Though not—can I hear some knocking on wood out there—just lately) thupp-thupping around inside the place, from living room to dining room to kitchen and...
Party On!
So...there’s this big birthday party at my house, see...first big event here since Christmas, see...significant birthday, see. Oy, oy, oy...such a party!So, the party is to be utilizing the park-like backyard and the covered porch and the custom deck and the flagstone patio and the flood-lit arbor (I told the local photographer, Ronda Brady, that the place was “wedding...
Feathers, Fowl, and Finances: The Increasing Toll of Yuletide Celebrations
In a surprising turn of events, it appears that the cost of procuring the items featured in the classic holiday tune, "The Twelve Days of Christmas," has experienced a notable increase of approximately 4.8%. At the forefront of this upward trend are the turtle doves, ostensibly due to their relative rarity. When was the last time one encountered such...
Business Plan?!?!?
Awwwrighty-tighty, here’s the plan. Dick, Larry, Casey…. Listen up! What you need to do is put the entire village of Garrettsville under roof, hire all or nearly all of the inhabitants and you can play in the big leagues with the Hartville Hardware which just had its grand opening last weekend. Holy Schmoley! The place needed a map to direct customers to...
Home Sweet Home, both of ‘em
My current abode being somewhat the worse for wear, I was recently inspired to “go home” to Wellington to get one more look–maybe the last…or close to it–at the old homestead before someone new gets to call it “home.” So, anyway, it was a fine drive to Lorain County and even after all of these years, I still notice how...
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,...
Lost in the Digital Wilderness
I had been intending to do this particular piece on my laptop, thus ending its long retirement from meaningful operation, but that just did not happen, for a number of reasons. See, I have had this device for quite some time, not forever, but long enough, but it had mostly served as my access to the Monday edition of the...
One Down!
Whew! Do you remember a TV program from ages ago called TW3 (That Was The Week That Was)? Well, tweak it just a little to That Was the Week-end That Was and you’ve got November 4th, 5th , 6th and 7th , 2010 at this establishment. It was --literally and figuratively--really cool! Thursday, the evening candlelight tour opening date of...
And We’re Off!
Most recent R-C bulletin claims that the Old Farmer’s Almanac is predicting a very cold winter for much of the country. I have not got my 2022 copy yet, but it’s on my list to check out. As usual, there will, no doubt, be variations by specific locales, but I’m getting my woolies in order, just in case. Could...
My Kind of Month
October is my kind of month. It’s interesting. The harvest is winding down; those shocks of corn so prized by decorators are actually passe’ . Nobody uses them any more, unless they’re Amish, of course. Corn pickers are where it’s at as far as harvesting corn is concerned. They’re also one of the reasons why farming has always ranked as...
Oxford English Dictionary and then some
The Oxford English Dictionary has just come out with its quarterly revisions and additions. Some nine hundred new words and phrases have now been deemed worthy to grace its pages, some of them pretty far out there. How often do you wish to know the meaning of Empedoclean? ( Don’t go there. It’s about some Greek philosopher dude named...
Catastasis
Heck of a word, eh? Followed closely by catastrophe, catastrophism, catatonia and cat-a-wampus( next column in my Webster’s New World College Dictionary has catchpoll, catechesis and catechin–totally unrelated). Amazing what words are out there, just waiting to be used, if only we had some idea what they meant. In any case, all of this came up when I thought that...
Alea jacta est
Or “Alea iacta est,”, if you are a Latin purist (I know you’re out there somewhere.). Mrs. Grissinger, my Latin teacher in 9th and 10th grades, probably wasn’t up on the latest translation/ third person singular/imperative and all that, or any other notions of what Suetonius said that Caesar said. Anyway, supposedly, this is what Julius Caesar said when...
