My favorite perch in St Louis

As I sit at my favorite perch, overlooking Forest Park, let's not miss the coincidence that I'm going to the zoo this morning, although I doubt I'll see any--perch, that is.  Not that I won't see any perches or perching going on, just not the fish.

 I take note of the fact that the temp here is 20 degrees lower here than home.  Yes, I still call it home even as I am presently homeless and am building a home a good distance away.

Anyway, the drop in temp allows me to wear long sleeves, more specifically, my Chicago Bears tee shirt. In most other settings I might hesitate to don this shirt, given the Bears' dismal performance and outlook for the season.  But at the zoo, backing the Bears might be looked upon with some respect.  There is a new polar bear at this zoo, so I won't be alone contemplating bears as we enter the zoo.

So I gaze park one more time at the view of the park and go to do my exercise set in the faint hope that all that food I ate yesterday won't become permanently attached. Wish me luck.

To Beard, Or Not To Beard....

Recently, I caught myself wondering about something, something I had never considered before--why not grow a beard?  No, I haven't been watching Duck Dynasty.  In fact, I don't think I have ever watched an entire episode of that one.  That's not a criticism, there are thousands of television programs of which I have never watched an entire episode.  That's not it at all.

Why consider a beard?  I am old, in case you haven't noticed.  One of the many wonders of reaching this age is the joy that simple tasks like shaving can bring.  After devoting the usual ten minutes or so, I usually rinse off my face with my hands and a little water.  After feeling my face and noticing it's not smooth at all, I start over.  The problem is, I have an old man's face.  I have grooves and curves (some in the form of wrinkles, others just the result of fading resiliency of my skin) where I didn't before.  My face sags in places it never sagged before, here-the beginning of jowls, there the double chin and the "turkey neck."

Getting the stubble in the grooves formed by wrinkles around my mouth takes pressure that you'd swear will cut your flesh.  Smoothing the not-so-resilient skin that droops from this face requires contorting the face in ways unseen before just to get something to press the razor against.  If I didn't redo my morning shave, I'm pretty certain I'd be growing portions of a beard anyway.  So why not?  It sounds appealing in some ways.  To a lazy person, which I am not (of course), not having to shave every morning might be appealing.  There are some who think the opposite sex might find you more attractive--I have no data on that point, but my sense is that the men on Duck Dynasty have the attractive spouses because of their bank balances, not the pretty faces hiding behind those beards.

I went to google for some advice on the disadvantages of having a beard.  Food on your face from earlier meals appears in everyone's list.  A more subtle--but related--disadvantage is that beards hold and grow bacteria, and can hold and pass along viruses.  Who knew?  How did the cave men survive?  
Another disadvantage is that little children find you scarier--to some old men I know (W.C.Fields, for example?) this might not be so bad.  Oh, and I have no data to support this one either, but several responders reported women found men with beards less attractive.   My sense is that a lot of us don't have much room to give up many points on this scale (OK, I admit it, I am one of those that can't afford to give any points away).

So, for now, no beard for me.  I'm more afraid of the disadvantages than the extra time looking st myself in the mirror each day, painful as that might be.

Reflections From The Road--It Takes All Kinds

This is the ideal time of year to be shopping in the resort towns, isn;t it?  What didn't sell to the tourists during the peak season is now available at a fraction or that price.  Shoppers who select an item usually grin at the prospect, probably because they don't realize that even this slashed price represents about a hundred percent markup on the shop's cost.  You might expect that the sales personnel would at least be smiling, knowing they were still making a killing.  In little shops like these, many of the shops are being staffed by the shopkeeper and his/her family, after all.  Those that aren't family, are likely long-time employees who know the shop's success means continued success for them.

So, I found it odd to hear one of the sales people repeat to more than one customer that she was "just tired, tired of it all, and needed some time off."  This being a week or more after the season ended, I just wondered that she hadn't had enough rest.

My sister and my wife noted another clerk literally chased them away from a spot where they stood comparing possible purchases, saying loudly, "That register is closed, you can't stand there."  They also noticed she was really very short with several other customers.   We overheard another employee  explaining her mood.  "She just lost Sadie, and Sadie's brother passed away last year, and now, Walter is missing his friends."

Wow, I thought, that is a lot to take in, I guess.  I have to admit though, that I was less impressed when I learned that Sadie and her brother were cats, and Walter is a dog.  Loss is loss, and pets are companions for lots of people.  So, she was mourning for her pets and her pet in mourning.

Reflections From The Road--Why Did The Ducks Cross The Road?

The morning air was filled with squawks and honks.  Walking down to the water's edge, i could see the visuals that this sound track accompanied. 

The sunlight glinted off the water and the troops were lining up.   It was morning roll call for the ducks. The Sargent was herding them into line, squawking all the while. Now and then a straggler would get a serious dressing down and not a quiet one.  I counted two dozen in the line.

Now that I've been here a couple of days, I know this early assembly is not the norm. I could see it even then, the ducks sort of clucking to one another. "What's this about?" Or "What did you duck up now?"

On reflection, I think I know. The troop had an exercise last night, and it was an abject failure.  They attempted to block the road out in front of our place.  The cars slowed as they approached the ducks, but they did not stop.  The ducks had to scuttle out of the way, and soon all the ducks had crossed the road back into the relative safety of the shore and the river.  

The commander, gazing back at the line of traffic and his troops in disarray, honked and squawked his discontent.  He pondered the age-old question, "Why?"  This morning drill was the beginning of the retraining process, I'm not optimistic.

A Walk In The Wilderness

As we walked in the parking lot at the Park Plaza after watching a thoroughly enjoyable movie about another "Walk," we realized once again that becoming thoroughly absorbed in a movie will frequently diminish one's recall of exactly where you parked your car before entering the theater.  Sometimes the best thing to do is click the unlock button on your car keys, letting the noise of the horn and the flash of your lights led you there.  "Wait a minute, I'm trying to find my keys first," she said.  Well, finding the car won't do us much good if we can't find the keys, will it?  And now, finding the car without those keys might not happen either.  So, I can agree that finding the keys is the first thing, I guess.  This really is a walk in the wilderness after "A Walk In The Woods."  Or is it a "Walk On The Wild Side?"  Where's old Lou Reed when you need him?

Back to "A Walk In The Woods."  I wouldn't call it a "buddy film."  Robert Redford and Nick Nolte make an unlikely pair.  The movie is more of a reflection on what is important in life and about realizing it late in life, I think.  Or, maybe it's just me being later in life, so I see everything through that lens.  In any case, "the woods" are those along the iconic Appalachian Trail.  I've seen bits and pieces of that Trail, but never walked any part of it myself.  No, I am not feeling the call of the Trail either.  This is a time of year when I'd like to be walking more, but it is beastly hot and humid here and it's raining most of the time.  So, I put it off and worry about not getting enough exercise to chase those same two pounds around the week this week. If only worrying used up calories.  No matter how important that seems to me each day nowadays, it was time tonight to remember that taking a little time away from all the day-to-day stresses makes a big difference. Feeling that stress?  "A Walk In The Woods" might be just the thing.  Not that walking in the woods is important, but spending some time away from it all, absorbed in something else with someone important to you, is worth doing.      

Sure, you might wind up walking in the wilderness looking for your car, but you might just wear away some of that stress that's been on your mind.  It worked for us.

Gimme Swelter

Gimme Swelter

Yes, it's that time again.  August.  It isn't often that "this August" is worse than some "August of your youth" or "back home." But this August, this week?  I think it's the worst.  Even if you have the good fortune of having a nearby pool at which you can end the day, it can happen as it did yesterday.  We were overheated and out of sorts and hoping to spend some quality time cooling it there.  But, as the Rolling Stones put it nearly fifty years ago--"it's just a shot away, just a shot away--it's just a shot away." What sounds more like a shot than distant thunder?

Sure enough, it happened.  We heard it rumble, and flash, then "Oh, a storm is threatening, my very life today."  We had to leave the pool as the thunderstorm approached and stumble back home--"War, it's just a shot away."  This week has been miserable enough that more than once I said it out loud--how can anyone stand to work outside today?    

Monday, it rained all day, a deluge.  We spent time walking around a certain Plaza , dodging the spots where the overhanging roof leaked a pouring faucet down on us.  We dared to hope for a hot, sunny day.  Then we had to cross an alley between buildings, where it turned out the water was four inches deep.  Aa Mick and the rest of the Stones put it back in 1969, "Oh, the flood is threat'nng my very life today."  But the sweltering weather returned yesterday, unrelieved by the pool stay we had been hoping for.

Today, it was awful again--in terms of heat, anyway.  You still have to qualify that some.  Any day you can be free, be loved, have hope, give love, smile, frown--whatever--is a gift isn't it?  Just a few moments ago, when I opened the sliding glass door and the hot air plowed in, nearly knocking me over, I remembered it's still good to be alive, so I have to say it--"Gimme, gimme swelter, or I'm gonna fade away."

The Road Not Taken

I own a collection of puns that I picked up one day and, after opening it randomly to a couple of different entries, I was hooked.  I went to customer service to see if they had anything with which to remove the hook and they handed me a deck of cards and said "Here, go fish." and this was a branch of a large bookstore operation.   Just can't understand how these bookstores keep afloat. canoe?  Want to try punning?  Don't go there.  That road is not one for the taking.  Soon enough you will find yourself stuck, and it's a sticky business--branches or not.  

Not long ago, I was reading an article written by a local writer that I read on a semi-regular basis.   Her subject was couponing, and at first glance, when she described her mother's attachment to green stamps, and I reflected on my own mother's experiences with green stamps, I sized it up as at once a genuinely informative article on the present-day art of couponing and a wry reflection on how, despite ourselves, we are "becoming our parents" as we age.  I set the article aside for a more careful read when I would have some time and went on to other things.

When I picked it up again, I realized the direction the author had taken did not include the reflection on how we are taking on some of the characteristics, habits, idiosyncrasies of our parents.  I had read that into the reference to her own mother.   As has often happened, I misread the direction she was taking.  I wondered if this was simply because she had long ago accepted the notion that she was becoming like her mother?  Or did she not notice that her interest and apparent commitment to using the new variety of coupons that are sprouting everywhere around us was similar to her mother's green stamps habit?  Or, was her mother not really a coupon person and her interest in saving did not extend to coupons in general?  We'll never know.  Perhaps her article had included that discussion about following in her mother's footsteps and it wound up on the cutting room floor, so to speak, in the interest of brevity.  Or, like usual, I had no idea where she was going with the story.

But it gave me pause, and now I can hardly type--paws are just not made for keyboard work.  One of the similarities between I have observed in my own behavior and what I recall of my father's is a love of puns and associated malapropisms.  Often, I get distracted from what a speaker or writer has said or written, because I'm chasing a self-made pun.  The article described above started with a pun of sorts.  "Here's the deal (no pun intended)."  Which made me ask, what's wrong with intentional punning?    Why are puns like the Rodney Dangerfield of humor, they "get no respect."  But what is due the author of the following--"The Zen enthusiast said to the hot dog vendor, 'make me one with everything.'"  This one is just so right.  Who could put down such a clever expression?

I spend way too much time examining puns from all sorts of places.  They seem to fall on me and I collect them.  Most are not gems, but a few require a bit of thought.  Others are easily spotted as in the question, do animal rights activists prefer PETA bread?  Speaking of Spot, I really miss him--I spilled some spot remover on my dog and now he's gone.  Now I am worried about my pony.  He's got a cold and he's a little hoarse.  Make me stop....