The Whole Truth

Ever order fish at a restaurant and they serve you the fish – whole? I don’t do well with that. I put a little rice over the eye but I still sense the stare….

In southeast Michigan, frog legs and turtle soup are very popular. I always shied away from frog legs. I wasn’t certain they’d killed the frog and I didn’t want some poor frog to be left out there by the marsh with no legs. Now, I’m hearing that frogs, like fish, are being served whole at a few restaurants. Do we really need this?

Kids at our high school swallow gold fish whole as part of a ritual. Not sure I could do that even. I might be able to swallow a gold fish cracker whole…

Malaria

We are continuing today in our recent disease theme. We can’t know too much about our health, right? A friend of mine just got back from Africa. (Funny how we just say “Africa”, isn’t it? Like Africa’s a country or something.  You’d never say “I just got back from Asia, would you? Okay, okay, he just got back from Kenya. Is that better?) So, he was taking the anti-Malaria drugs you have to take after a trip to Kenya. Apparently a side effect of the drug is that you can possibly have some wild dreams. But he said that he’d been fine since he got back – no wild dreams. 

He was fine until last Friday morning, when he woke up and remembered that he had dreamed that the Cleveland Browns had won a game. Now that’s one wild dream.  

Marco Polio

Our daughter recently attended a polo match. (She sent a picture. I said that I didn’t see any horses in the picture. She said the horses were behind her. I said, Oh. I thought that was your pony tail.) She and her friends enjoyed themselves. I can’t figure out why so many people dislike the sport so much. I see people wearing shirts saying “Wipe Out Polo” and “Stamp Out Polo”. I saw a bumper sticker with the message “End Polo now”. Rotary is against polo. Bill Gates is against polo.  Is this some type of class warfare? Do people really dislike the Upper Class that much? I thought Bill Gates was upper class. I’m confused…Is it healthy to have that much hatred in our society?

Wait. What? You say that’s polio? They want to wipe out polio? Well, OK then, I’m good with that.

Now, what about Water Polio? What are we doing about that?

In Your Dreams

Ever have dreams? I’m not a psychiatrist but I think dreams can be categorized as follows:

•          Black and white dreams
•          Silent black and white dreams
•          Silent black & white dreams with an upright piano being played
•          Color dreams
•          Color foreign language dreams with subtitles
•          Color foreign language dreams without subtitles
•      Animated dream-shorts 

Did color dreams begin when color movies came out? Did people dream in black and white before that? If one of our older readers could write in with that info that would be helpful.

Have you ever had a dream that started in black and white and then (like The Wizard of Oz) became colorized mid-dream?

Little Rock

I’ve been to Arkansas once. We got some good barbecue in Blytheville at a little place called The Dixie Pig. It’s a bit off the main road but it’s worth the drive. They put the slaw right in the sandwich. But no, this is not one of those posts about meat. It’s about Arkansas and its beautiful capital Little Rock. If you ever find yourself living there, or if you live there now, I would recommend that you not buy your engagement ring there. Why is that, you ask? What does your Uncle Tommy have against the fine jewelers in central Arkansas? Well, it’s pretty simple. Would you really want your engagement ring to come from “Little Rock”? Do you want to deal with that the rest of your life?

Get yourself a nice watch or bracelet or something. But I'd avoid the ring.

Gaggle Me (Bird Post V)

Do you remember back when we used to actually like geese in this country? They were considered unique, maybe beautiful by some and it was kind of special to see one. I mean, who didn’t love Mother Goose? Now these geese, these rats of the bird family, are everywhere! And, is it just me, or are they getting larger? We heard a while back about one getting hit on the turnpike by a Dodge Caravan going like 75 MPH and, not only did it tear up the underside of the van, the goose lived to tell about it. My theory is that this story and others similar have been rallying cries for the flock. As a result, geese gangs have taken over parts of parks, ponds, schoolyards – places where children used to play, forcing the children to stay inside and play video games (and gain weight). There are rumors that they have taken over entire Day Cares.

My theme for this year’s Thanksgiving (and the Canadian Thanksgiving) is “Take a Gander – Please!”