All posts filed under: Humor

The unfortunate members of my household provide entertainment – along with the rest of the world.

You Funks and Your Damn Doubles

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After 23 years of losing at backgammon to Funks, the Spouse might have a valid point. We Funks tend to roll doubles. Kind of a lot. If you have never played backgammon it might be hard for you to get why he complains so much about Funks and Doubles. Here are the essentials: you have to move all of your pieces from A to B on the backgammon board. You move them according to the numbers you roll on your two dice. If you roll doubles, it is like you have four dice – you get to move four times instead of two. Double sixes are the EZPass lane. Sweet. Rolling doubles is fun. Rolling doubles makes a person smile with lucky joy. Rolling doubles makes a person feel smug, even if they try to not show it. Observing your opponent rolling doubles is annoying. It is like getting a mystery chunk in your nice cold glass of milk. You can overcome it the once but multiple offenses turn the whole thing sour. The Spouse …

Hamish the Corgi is Embarrassing.

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Have you ever heard of display urination? No? Neither had I until Hamish the Corgi came into my life. Evidently dogs, male dogs most of the time, like to lift their legs nice and high to wee when other dogs are around. Hamish is keenly aware when an unfortunate is locked inside, watching from a parlor window as Hamish prances across this other dog’s front yard. Hamish will take a moment to be sure he is in the ideally, most obnoxiously centered viewing position, then he will lift his tiny, 5 inch leg as high as dogly possible to wee on that other dog’s property. Usually you can hear the barking change from alert to berserker during the display. If that were all, I’d probably get over it. However. And mind you, I’m going to have to be indelicate here. Hamish, my furry pal, my buddy who is napping next to me now, well, he’s a display dooker too. Don’t be coy, you know what dog dookies are. The problem, if we can stretch our …

Car Fever Part 2: Rapid Onset

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The Spouse heard an ad on the radio for Mike Barney Nissan at approximately 7:35am last Thursday. We were in a period of remission with the Car Fever, having administered the aggressive treatment of switching cars so we both felt like we had New Cars. It seemed to be working. But then that ad came on the radio and in the 15 seconds it ran, the Spouse’s fever raged anew. His hands quivered, his heart palpitated, his eyes glazed – no I wasn’t there but I’ve seen the Fever strike. I received his email at approximately 10am. Nissan is offloading the 2012 Pathfinders, it said. Emails from the Spouse often include Cars For Sale topics: the 1971  Lincoln Continental, the 1974 Mercedes Benz 280, the 2002 BMW 740iL, the 1969 Triumph GT6+, the 1978 Mercedes Benz 450SEL and that is just in one month – all advertised on Craig’s list, Hemming’s classifieds, a taped up handwritten sign at work. There’s always a car out there. The Spouse’s email also pointed out that we would have …

17th Wedding Anniversary: Furniture

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No traditional gift is defined for the 17th wedding anniversary. Evidently, being married for 17 years is somehow unremarkable. A middle anniversary. One where you aren’t newlywed, nor have you achieved anything truly notable. It is just part way along the long haul. It is Indiana if you are stuck driving from New Jersey to Minnesota. It is Iowa if you are taking the interstates from Buffalo to Phoenix. Not interesting, not there yet (whatever that means for wedding anniversaries), but at least making some progress. In modern gifting etiquette, the 17th anniversary gift is furniture. I am disappointed in this because at first I read the chart wrong and thought it was porcelain. I need a new toilet, a new bathroom sink, and a crown to replace a fracturing molar in my maxilla. Porcelain seemed just about perfect. But furniture? I guess the giftie list inventors figure that by 17 years the kids and/or dogs have pretty much ruined anything nice you ever had. Maybe it would be a nice anniversary present to sit …

Do Calories Still Burn if I Wear Cutoffs to Exercise?

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Yesterday evening I pedaled along behind the Spouse at the Delaware Park loop. I act as his traffic break, his pace car, and his medic when his new roller blading skills fail him. Sometimes they do. I carry a phone (for 9-1-1) and cash for the hospital snack bar in case we get stuck in the emergency room before dinner. Last night he was skating along just fine and I had the time to look around, to think about something else. I pedaled along and marveled. Everyone, EVERYONE on the loop wears technical fitness gear. I saw compression shorts and tops for running, rollerblading, biking, power walking, ambling, and baby carriage pushing. There were sneakers shaped like feet. Running shoes like tiny, complex space ships. Walking sticks made of a fantastic alchemy of carbon fiber, tungsten, and leather. Biking pants with the bike built right in I think. And the bikes – they were lean and elegant, like arrows whirring along the path. The male long distance runners from nearby colleges ran in a line …

The Dog Has An Opinion. Why Do I Listen?

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Hamish just told me he thinks it’s more than time for morning walkies. It was simply his opinion. I didn’t care. Then he expressed his opinion to Miss Tibbit and she got all excited about it. It is now her opinion, also. Evidently, we will be having walkies soon if I am to have any peace in my day of Big Thinking. Hamish has an opinion a little too often in the course of a day. He believes that Wiggins The Cat should not be wandering around the house at 5:30am. He tells the cat so. We all must listen as a captive, bed-ridden audience. He strongly believes that nasty looking, ancient, fuzzy dog should not walk on our sidewalk or wee on our flower beds three times a day, every day. He cries his thoughts on the matter in full voice, telling the block, telling the scrappy dog. As far as I can tell, only Miss Tibbit cares. Hamish is entrenched in the notion that toys are his, and he graciously allows Miss Tibbit …

Surviving the zombie apocalypse just got more complicated.

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I prepared myself. I read FEMA’s advisements for disaster preparedness. I studied The Zombie Survival Guide. I watched Shaun of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, 28 Days Later, Walking Dead, and Zombieland. I learned that: Zombies just aren’t smart. They aren’t stealthy. They don’t think. Zombies have a single, consuming, burning desire – to eat, variably, brains and living flesh. We can outlast Zombies. Their bodies rot will away around them. Eventually. Probably. My 12-gauge shotgun and plenty of BBB shot, high velocity shells will get me through. Well, and a pair of good sneaks. I was wrong. Throughout Buffalo last weekend I saw signs that the apocalypse has arrived. And the zombies are more dangerous than any of us feared. Zombies can drive.  Will cars become their hunting tools? The abilities to drive, to be safely locked in the steel boxes, to flee the urban areas have always been the mainstay of human survival in the zombie apocalypse. Zombies like a bargain. Discounted gasoline. Yard sale deals. The implication? They are planning …

Nothing Gets Done When I Have a Big Stack of New Library Books

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A person should never, ever visit the library on a Thursday, not if they want to have any kind of a productive weekend. I had Big Plans for last weekend. I was going to burn some paint off the woodwork in the bathroom. Mulch down the few garden beds still exposed to the burning drought-sun. Maybe clean the house. Mow the dry, brown vegetation patch that used to be the lawn. Watch a movie. Knit. Ride bikes. All kinds of things. Instead I read. Two romance novels, a couple of period mysteries, a fantasy novel, some modern literature, and a little bit of history.  I read on the sofa with my feet propped on the dog-worn ottoman. Read in the back yard on my new vintage-style woven-strap lounger. Perched with a book at the kitchen table – just for a moment was the intent but I creaked when I finally stood up. I read in bed. At my desk. On the front porch. On the back deck while burgers grilled. I may have spoken to …

Why Teenagers in Beater Cars Always Speed

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The Spouse and I were ripping down the QEW (Queen Elizabeth Way) from Niagara On The Lake in Canada to the Peace Bridge border crossing. Our bellies were full of British style pub food from the Angel Inn and the Mini Cooper S was enjoying running at higher rpms for a little while. The speed limit on the QEW is 100kph – about 62 miles an hour. Normal highway pace. Rarely have I seen anyone moving so slowly. Traffic was pretty light. It was midday and the Canadian rush to the U.S. for cheaper mall shopping was over. The Spouse had the Mini cruising in the right lane without obstructions. Every now and again a massive BMW or Mercedes would blow past in a blur of color and grace. We’ve seen this phenomenon in Europe too, and have long speculated that other countries must offer a Speeding Pass to the owners of luxury performance cars. I am always jealous when the tail end of a Beautiful Car disappears ahead of us. I noticed that the …