2020 Foresight

Remember when you would get pictures developed? You would typically open the package of photos and say, “I look awful.” Or, “I look old.” Or, “I look awful old.”  Hopefully you were back to your car by the time you opened your package and not in the middle of Walgreen's....

Well, New Year’s is a time for looking forward. My daughter recently showed me this app where you look into your phone and the phone shows you what you’re going to look like in the future. Scary stuff. She, being young, looked much different in her future view. Mine unfortunately did not change much. I looked pretty much the same. Weird. I’m not sure what to make of this. Have I already done all of my aging?

On the positive side, in the future pic I wasn’t covered in tattoos or smoking or anything.

"As Seen on TV"

I was looking at Target for a gift that a relative had seen on TV. Of course I could not find the item. So I found a clerk to help me. I explained what I was looking for and she listened patiently. Finally, I mentioned that my relative had heard about the product from a commercial on TV. Well, that made it easy. The clerk took me to the “As Seen on TV” aisle on the other end of the store. Who knew there was such a thing? Sure enough, the item I was looking for was there. And no, it had not been in the aisle with similar items where I had looked before. So yeah, I never would have found it if I hadn’t found out about this “Seen on TV” aisle.

My goal in life is to not watch any commercials. But no. Now I have to watch commercials to know what part of the store to look in for my purchases. Thanks Target!

Merry Christmas!

Paws for Reflection

At Christmas time, we love to sing, don’t we? One of the first songs I think of is “Up on the Housetop”.  I never get much beyond the first line: “Up on the housetop reindeer…”, ‘cause my mind goes racing trying to determine if it’s “reindeer paws”, “reindeer pause”, or “reindeer pa’s”. I’ve ruled out the third one – there is evidence the reindeer are all male, but I’ve found no concrete evidence that they all had children. So the third option is out, I think.

Regarding the first two options, yeah, I think the reindeer do indeed pause, which would put them on their paws. That’s their landing gear. You hear the paws on the roof but then the noise stops, which would be the pause.

Whose paw is on first? 

Can Can

I talked to an old friend last week who is doing a remodeling job at his house and he had more trash than usual. On garbage day he took his trash cans out to the street. The truck came by and emptied his cans. Knowing that the truck would eventually come back on the other side of the street, he refilled the cans and took them across the street. I thought this was pretty clever; the woman across the street from him did not agree and had some harsh words for my friend. Meanwhile, all the garbage got picked up.

To patch things up with the woman across the street, he took her a cheese cake. She was not home so he gave it to one of her kids. He’s never heard anything from them. So now he’s asking me, if he needs to double dump again, did the cheese cake cover multiple double dumps, or does he need to take a cheese cake over there every time he double dumps? Does anybody know the proper etiquette on this?

New Phrases and Words for 2019

Can you believe it's already December. Here are 2019's new phrases. If you’re not already using them, you probably should be:

“Seems like only day before yesterday” – When something seems recent but not THAT recent

“Put an organ or two into the game” – The next step beyond putting a little skin into the game

“It’s a big world” – When you’ve never met the person being discussed

“Burning the Advent candle at both ends” – When you’re having a busy Advent season

“Rearranged Marriage” – A second arranged marriage

"Girlcott" or "Personcott" – A politically correct protest. Or that extra bed in a hotel room when you have 3 kids.

Palindrome

Palindromes are those words that are spelled the same forward and backward. Kayak, civic, radar, words like that. There are sentence palindromes as well. No, I’m not going to pain you with examples. You can look them up later. But right now you need to read this.

Somebody challenged me once to write a whole post using nothing but palindromes. I don’t have time for that. Sorry.

But don’t you find it disappointing that the word palindrome is not a palindrome itself? I mean, c’mon. Is that asking too much?