Foolery

Really Bad Ideas That Sound Sane At First (In Theory)

Agreeing to be interim board president, for ANY board

"Awww, let the stray kitty in for tonight. It's cold out there. He can go back outside tomorrow night. He can figure out the litter box."

Street fair shellfish

Riding out a yeast infection

Noh theater

Hosting a child's sleepover birthday party

Eggs cooked to order for more people than me, myself and I

Jalapeños



(Photo stolen from this site)

Windows Vista

Noh theater while you're riding out a yeast infection

A back rub from a coworker

Buying anything from a guy in a trenchcoat

Any movie starring Keanu Reeves in which he is not a potted plant

Dora the Explorer

"When I lose ten pounds this will fit perfectly -- I'll take it!"

Double-Stuf Oreos



Windows Vista

"Hey, I've got tickets to a pancake breakfast -- wanna go?"

Marshmallow Peeps



This has been a public service announcement from foolery. No adjustment of your PC is necessary (unless you're running Windows Vista, in which case, it's mandatory).

Rock the Boat

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

Every time I hear this song I am transported back in time to the Orland city pool.

Hot dry summer day, ride our bikes five miles into town to the pool.  Lock the bike, pay the bored teenager at the window and go inside. Changing area and bathrooms doused in puddles of unknown origin. Feel the eyes of the Town Kids upon us; as Country Kids we were strangers in our own town. Change in silence and get to the water as fast as possible.

Round the concrete block wall to the blinding brilliance of the sunlit pool, crammed with kids. Tan teenagers with gooey white noses and whistles on lanyards stroll the decks barking warnings at rough-housers. Dive in -- did the water just sizzle on my hot skin, or did I imagine it?

Come up for air and notice the music playing over the P.A. system: AM radio. Still sounds like I'm under water. But the song -- it's always playing, every time we come here. "Rock the Boat" by The Hues Corporation. Rock on witchya bad self.

Funny thing is, several years ago we had a reunion of sorts, three of the Country Kids, over lunch. Talked about this and talked about that.

"Remember the pool?"

"Remember swim team?"

"The lifeguards!"

"The high dive, shudder."

"And whenever we went there, there was one song that always played, no matter what --"

"ROCK THE BOAT!"

"You noticed that too?"

"Of course! It played all summer long, every day, every year we went."

"Huh. So I'm not crazy, then."

"Well, I don't know about THAT . . ."

Hurry up, summer.  Rock on witchya bad self.

 

(Photo stolen from this guy)

Raise Your Right Hand

(Photo stolen from Dan Morgan1 on Flickr)

The United States Oath of Allegiance is as follows:

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.

This is the oath that, I'll bet, most of you reading have never had to take.  Or, put another way, most of you have never had the privilege of taking this oath, and neither have I.  This is the oath one takes upon becoming a citizen of the United States, upon becoming a new American.

This is the oath my neighbor Adriana will take soon.  I saw her in the grocery store tonight.

"I passed my test!" she said.  Her citizenship test.

"I knew you would," I said, and I hugged her.

I knew she would.

And she's the person who we all root for, the one who came to this country from Mexico to make a better life.  She and her husband have two darling children, two decent jobs, and two good cars.  They are saving to buy a house of their own, and maybe, once the New Depression passes, they can.

She will be a new American soon.  I have just had an attitude adjustment.

A Pearl Harbor Story

He didn't look old enough to be wearing a Pearl Harbor Survivor cap, so I asked him, a little shyly.  No, he hadn't been in the Navy that day, but his family lived in Honolulu, near Pearl.  He and his brother were children.  He looked to be about my father's age.

His father worked on the base, but my memory of the man's story fails -- was the father an officer?  A civilian?  No matter; the story belongs to the son, the tall grey man standing before me in my store, wearing a Pearl Harbor Survivor cap.  The man who told me this story.  I never got his name; I'll call him Vance.

Vance and his brother, like any kids, woke up bright and early that Sunday morning, much to their parents' annoyance.  They tried to be quiet, but failed miserably.  So they went outside to play on the lawn while their parents tried to sleep in.

Something didn't look right.  There were sure a lot of planes in the air over the harbor that morning.  Is that smoke?  What's going on?  "Daddy, Daddy!"  The boys risked their father's anger because they were sure something was wrong down at the harbor.

Something was definitely wrong.  Vance's father got up and dressed in a flash.  A quick phone call told him what he needed to know.  The Japanese were attacking Pearl harbor.  The planes were visible even from his hillside home, and the oily black smoke was unmistakable.  What he didn't know -- what no one did -- was what the attackers would do next.  Would they invade the island?  Would they bomb the entire city?  What should the father do with his family?

As the family had only one car, the father would have to use it to get down to the harbor, but it was decided that they would all go together, and the mother would take the boys to the air base on the eastern side of the island, at Kaneohe.  The father felt it would be safer there, since who knew what attack Honolulu would be in for, and he didn't want his family trapped without a car.  Little did he know that Kaneohe was the first site of attack that morning, although Pearl Harbor, crammed full of some of the Pacific fleet's finest ships, was certainly the favored target of the Japanese bombers.

(Map stolen from MapQuest)

The mother and the boys hurriedly kissed the father goodbye, leaving him at a naval base under heavy attack.  Mother drove the car toward Kaneohe, which wasn't far away, but was on the other side of the mountains from Honolulu.  She probably took the Pali road up over the mountains, which is now a highway, but which was just a winding road in those days.  The sky behind her was full of smoke, fire and airplanes.

The family's car had a rumble seat for a back seat, and that's where Vance and his brother were riding.  As the car neared the Kaneohe air base, a Japanese plane approached them from behind, and began to shoot.  The boys were unprotected in the back seat and the car was a sitting duck on the open road, so the mother drove off the side of the road into a stand of trees.  The plane flew on by and didn't pursue; it had a much bigger agenda that day.

"Did you understand what was happening?" I asked Vance.

"Oh, yes, we knew," he said.  "My mother was more frightened than we were, of course, but we knew we were in danger."

The boys and their mother made it to safety, their father survived the rest of the attack and the family were reunited.  I had not seen "Vance" before, nor ever since, and will never know any more details of his story than these.

A deep bow to all those who lost their lives on that day, and to those who lived to tell.  December 7, 1941.


(Photo stolen from alice83642 on Flickr  Go look.)

FOOLERY'S LIST OF REALLY SCARY STUFF

• Moles you don't remember seeing yesterday
• Having a black widow on your neck
• A powerful attraction to F. Murray Abraham
• The Cher "Halfbreed" album that's still in my record crate
• Suddenly needing reading glasses
• That instant dusty taste of mold from an apple with a bad spot
• Having been a parent for almost eight years
• Cancer, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma and varicose veins in your blood lines.  And also knock-kneed . . . ness
• Husband's got a six-pound roast in the crock pot and you can't find the cat
• Not being able to palm the floor anymore, but you can almost palm your knees
• Having a girl crush on Brooke Shields, even though she makes cuh-huh-RAAAA-zee Volkswagen ads (which suck)
• Trying to change your registration to independent and finding out you're now a member of the American Independent Party
• Oprah flippin' EVERYWHERE
• No more Mervyns, *sniff*
• Realizing that the only place you shop is Mervyns, three times a year whether you need it or not
• Realizing that your sex life has become very, very similar to your shopping life
• Having to click more than once to scroll to your birth year on a pull-down menu (three times)
• When your peers say, "I can't drink like I used to," and you're thinking, "I can get at least three beers into this purse for later"
• Blood in your urine (HA! Just seeing if you're paying attention)
• Blowing off a haircut in May and spending five months growing hair
• Two cars with over 200,000 miles on each odometer
• Worrying what your legacy will be
• Watching your legacy leave for school every day
• Oprah, unless I already said that
  

Any questions?  Disperse; discuss.

Oh -- and Happy Halloween.

Memorial Day

Don Pierce.  Killed in action in the Sunda Strait on March 1, 1942, serving aboard the heavy cruiser U.S.S. Houston, "The Galloping Ghost of the Java Coast."  His family didn't get to bury him, never had a grave to visit.

In memory of my long-lost Uncle Don and all who served with him, before and after, and of those yet to come.  With profound thanks, on this Memorial Day, for their selflessness and for the supreme sacrifice they made.

The Ides of March: A Reminder

It's the Ides of March, and with Shakespeare as our guide, I think we all know the lessons:

Don't agree to go to any meeting with a bunch of guys in dresses.


(Art stolen from these guys)

Don't wear a dress, or bed sheets for that matter, all day.

Try to eat only finger foods -- DEFINITELY stay away from steakhouses where there might be knives.

(Photo stolen from these guys)

Avoid declaring yourself the Emperor of Everything or Dictator For Life, at least not until the Ides have passed.  You're just asking for it.

Be extra nice to guys named Brutus.  Have them eaten by lions if you can get away with it -- otherwise, just stay away from them altogether.


(Cartoon stolen from these guys)

Drink eight glasses of water a day, get enough sleep, wear clean underwear, and above all, FLOSS.

Have a good Ides.

Halloween Safety Tips for the Older Crowd

 
(Photo stolen from these guys)

My friend and associate Linda just e-mailed me that she'll be on the radio tomorrow morning, on a local station, talking about Halloween safety tips on behalf of one of her clients.  It got me thinking (which is a dangerous and largely unproductive thing to do):  what about the Halloween revellers out there who AREN'T grade schoolers?  We have plenty of them in Chico (well, we used to, until the town cracked down on the 20,000 people who invaded downtown to drink, fight, stumble, vandalize, and piddle on buildings.

So here is my contribution to a safe and sane Halloween.  Listen up, you legal "adults" out there!  I hope this helps:

• Always bring a bottle opener with you.  Remember what happened last time, when you bit the cap off?  Those ambulance bills add up!
• That Viagra in your treat bucket may LOOK like candy, but don't fill up on them.
• Children Trick-Or-Treat.  Adults do not Trick-Or-Treat.  Nor do adults Trick-Or-Drink, but SOMEBODY is out there doing it.  Was it you?
• Speaking of Trick-Or-Treat . . . the "trick" part is an antiquated notion.  We look back fondly at the days when kids draped neighbor's trees with toilet paper, or put flaming fudge bags on front steps.  Now such antics will get you a trip to Oroville in a patrol car.
• Sexy, revealing costumes look great (on some women -- not me) at indoor Halloween parties.  But wearing skin-baring costumes outside on Halloween is okay only if you think plucked chickens are sexy.
• When Janet Jackson has a public wardrobe malfunction, she gets to explain it on TV.  When WE have Halloween wardrobe malfunctions, we get to explain it to big guys named Moose and Rocko in the county jail.
• We're still not advanced enough as a civilization for you to wear a burka on Halloween.  You'll be picking birdshot out of your butt all week.

If You Don't Know, Look It Up, Right?

Doing a little research at work, and I tend to rabbit trail when I do that . . . I guess people call it surfing, but I think rabbit trailing is more fitting.

 

Anyway, I found this definition:

 

alcohol

a form of popular entertainment vastly less expensive than vacations, movies, theme parks, or even cable TV.

 

Now before all y'all start e-mailing me about the dangers of alcohol and the expense of liver replacement, check out the site where I found this definition.

 

http://sedition.com/ddx/

 

The Devil's Dictionary X.  Well, I can see I have a new reference manual.

Things to Remember Not to Forget

• Never locate your home or business downstairs from a colon therapist.
• Never go into K-Mart, WalMart, or any place with a "Mart" in its name while you have an enormous carbuncle on your face.  You know, like the kind of wound you might get when a cat bites your face.  No matter how well you're dressed, you'll fit right in with the less-than-savory clientele, and the Martha Stewart brand devotees will assume you're a crack addict and they'll steer their carts well away from you.
• For that perky look of perpetual surprise without the pain and expense of plastic surgery, or the ick-factor of shooting up with poison, get your eyebrows waxed over your lunch hour.  People will wonder what you've been up to.
• Mother's Day is NOT just a warm-up for Father's Day and should NOT be treated as such.
• Not everybody thinks "Guitarzan" is funny, especially not at work.