Lack of resolve on resolutions

Now that the 365-page-whatever desk calendar you got for Christmas a year ago is dwindling down to a few pages, have you given any thought to your New Year’s resolutions?

A new blank slate of a year is looming ahead. Are you going to blunder into it as if it were a half-used previous year, or are you going to make the effort to make it the Year of the Changed Person?

What will it be? Lose weight? Maximize use of the treadmill? The all-time favorite – be a kinder, better person? Lots of leeway with that one.

Actually, it’s easier — and more fun — to make resolutions for other people.

To the millennials who need to hide in their safe space from the big, bad world – resolve to spend some time serving in a soup kitchen. Or help a family clean up after a fire or flood.

To those who promised to leave the country if they didn’t get the candidate they wanted – learn the value of putting your money where your mouth is.

To disillusioned people everywhere – think about living in the now instead of in the what you’d like the world to be. Saw that on Facebook. It makes sense.

I don’t make resolutions. I learned a long time ago that I can’t keep them, even the ones I believe are no-brainers.

In my younger years, I was a pack and a half a day smoker. This was before people had to go outside to smoke and could stink up a room without fear of being ostracized. Everbody smoked.

Well, not everybody. One terminally perky co-worker made it her mission to rag on as many smokers as she could about quitting the habit. Right before New Year’s one year she circled the room trying to get people to make a resolution. I was ready for her.

“I resolve to smoke a pack and a half of cigarettes a day,” I announced. “I can keep that one.”

Five months later I quit smoking and haven’t touched a cigarette since.

I can’t even keep a phony resolution! So I just accept me for the flawed individual I am; there’s just no improving on me.

Now you on the other hand, have you considered…? 

What’s the Word?

Who knew there was a word of the year?

As 2016 comes to a merciful end, people tend to look back on it. Some with regret, others with a sense of relief, and still others with an idea to take one more stab at making an impact and getting a mention on the news.

The folks at Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary chose the last option and decided on a “Word of the Year.” Apparently they’ve done it before, but this is apparently the first year I paid any attention to it. The word they chose is ‘surreal.’ The M-W people hinted at some political association with the word and recent events. Maybe. Previous words have been ‘selfie,’ ‘hashtag,’ ‘vape.’ Choosing ‘surreal’ seems sort of surreal somehow, so I guess it fits.

I wonder how close ‘deplorable’ came to being chosen. Or ‘safe place.’ But that’s two words, so I guess it is disqualified.

‘Millennial’ might have been a good choice, only because I saw a couple of funny videos this year about millennials that I enjoyed a lot. Otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered with that word. Or with millennials, for that matter. 

The Oxford Dictionary people chose “post-truth” as their Word of the Year. The dictionary defines “post-truth” as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

I wonder who gets paid to come up with a word of the year and how much. Nice work if you can get it.

Google compiled a top 10 questions for 2016:

1. What is Pokémon Go?
2. What is a Caucus?
3. What is Brexit?
4. What are electoral votes?
5. What is the Electoral College?
6. What is Aleppo?
7. What is the mannequin challenge?
8. What is the European Union?
9. What is Citizens United?
10. What is a Superdelegate?

I have asked Google “what is the meaning of life?” Google doesn’t know, and it didn’t make the top 10 questions for any year.

Maybe the question was too surreal.

Christmas anxiety in song Sung to the tune of “Jingle Bells”

Christmas anxiety in song

Sung to the tune of “Jingle Bells”

Slogging through the slush

In the mart store parking lot,

I’m in a great big rush

To return the stuff I bought.

The kids have changed their minds

On a list that’s 10 feet long

My wits are gone, my nerves are shot

There’s something very wrong.

Oh, Barbie dolls, shopping malls

Power Rangers pink.

My attitude toward the holidays

Has now begun to stink.

(Repeat)

I’ve had five pounds of fudge,

A fruitcake and eggnog.

My brain has turned to sludge

In a sugar-laden fog.

I’m sending Christmas cards

To people I’m not sure

I know or met or even like

Oh, how can I endure?

Oh, Barbie dolls, shopping malls

Power Rangers blue,

How I’m gonna get through this

I haven’t got a clue.

(repeat)

The kids are wanting drones

Not toys and baby dolls.

It’s iPods and iPhones

Stacked up against the walls.

The stores pipe Christmas tunes

And dogs their carols “arf.”

We’re hearing songs from weird buffoons

That make you want to barf.

Oh, Barbie dolls, shopping malls

Power Rangers red.

I’m gonna lock and bar the door

And hide under the bed.

(repeat)

The neighbors on the block

One-up each other hard

With huge inflated schlock

All swaying in the yard.

There’s Rudolph and his nose

And Frosty man of snow.

There’s candy canes and grapevine wreaths

And plastic mistletoe.

Oh, Barbie dolls, shopping malls

Power Rangers white.

I’m gonna pull on Santa’s beard

And kick him out of spite.

(repeat)

The stores are all quite stocked

With gadgets for the home.

The Christmas trees are flocked

With a toxic coat of foam.

‘Midst all the gimme lists

And huge Black Friday sales

Is a reason for the season

It’s the spirit that prevails.

Oh, Barbie dolls, shopping malls

Power Rangers green.

You know whose day this really is;

Merry Christmas from Chlorine.

The 12 Days of the Election

In keeping with the time-honored American tradition of tangling up holidays to the point where we become thoroughly confused and, as a result, apathetic, here is my rendition of The 12 Days of Christmas combined with the upcoming Presidential election.

On the 12^th day of the election, my country gave to me:

12 thousand alleged dead voters a-casting

11 million Facebook posts a-trending

10 federal investigations a-pending

9 thousand TV commercials spewing

8 hundred aides fact-checking

7 hundred flat denials

6 hundred accusations

5 contentious debates

4 gazillion misplaced emails

3 jillion robo calls

2 sniping candidates

And an election that may or may not be rigged.

Be sure to vote Nov. 8.

Two creepy things explained

I guess creepy phenomena can be expected to occur around Halloween — or in keeping with the way holidays in America are celebrated, way before Halloween. However, I believe there is a connection between two seemingly unrelated incidents of which people need to be aware.

First creepy incident: Pumpkin spice. For the past several years, around the time the air goes from humid to a little nippy, retailers start dragging out pumpkin spice flavored products. I suppose it’s to remind us that Thanksgiving and pumpkin pie are looming on the horizon.

Suddenly, everything imaginable is flavored to taste like pumpkin pie — except for the pumpkin. Now suddenly food is flavored with a blend of powdered cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and sometimes allspice. So for that matter, are soap, room spray, aromatherapy candles — and I’m waiting for someone to add it to cat litter.

Visit any retail outlet and you’ll find pumpkin spice flavored coffee, yogurt, ice cream, Cheerios, Shredded Wheat, gum, Pop Tarts, vodka, and apple cider. Nothing tastes like pumpkin, just the spice.

Some have taken this pumpkin spice thing a little too far: pumpkin spice flavored kale chips, potato chips, M&Ms, candy corn, marshmallow “Peeps”  and — heaven help us — Hershey’s kisses.

Mae West once said, “Too much of a good thing is wonderful.” She didn’t mean pumpkin spice flavoring.

Second creepy incident: Scary clowns. Used to be clowns were funny, like Bozo or Clarabelle from Howdy Doody fame (Boomers will understand this. Millenials won’t be reading this). Now clowns are creeping around scaring the waddin’ out of everyone, and are at some point likely to become the next rallying cry — “Clown lives matter!”

According to a CNN online report, clowns are popping up all over the place for a number of reasons – one of which is a marketing tool.

“Clowns are a source of childlike amusement, but they can also be scary and weird,” says the CNN report. “Life is also scary and weird. It's not a coincidence. Perhaps clowns are like specters of anxiety and discomfort, bogeymen that personify our deepest fears.”

Or they’re just a fad, and will soon fade away like trolls, gnomes and politicians. Just wait it out.

I don’t agree. I think the clowns are springing up all over the country spreading anxiety and pumpkin spice flavoring wherever they go.

They must be stopped.

Reining in progress

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Much is being said about self-driving cars. In fact, the government is about to issue policy on them, and knowing how the government works, that can’t end well.

There are a lot of unanswered questions: In a game of chicken, who is more likely to win — a driverless car or one with an adolescent behind the wheel? If someone in a conventional vehicle cuts off a driverless car, how will the driverless car flip off the driver of the conventional car? Or will the driverless car be equipped with special “get back at you” devices we don’t know about yet?

Is the goal to do away with regular cars and pickup trucks and become a nation of passengers in cars that have all the control? What will happen to aimless Sunday afternoon drives with no particular destination in mind? What will we do with all those unemployed driver’s ed teachers? What will backyard mechanics tinker on?

I’m not so sure about driverless cars. When I was in elementary school, the Junior Scholastic magazine — or was it the Weekly Reader? — predicted flying cars and jet packs. In fact, if the magazines had predicted correctly, we’d all have them by now. Imagine flying around a traffic jam in your flying car. Or strapping on a jet pack and just zooming off to a distant city in a matter of minutes.

In fact, I’m really disappointed that no one has perfected the flying cars by now. We Baby Boomers were promised those, and we feel cheated. Driverless cars? Phooey! Give us a car that can fly! Just imagine the chaos we could cause with that; rush hour would take on a whole new meaning.

If scientists want to do something useful and keeping within the magical promises of the Weekly Reader, come up with something more practical. I’d love to see a trash can that wheels itself out to the curb on pickup day. All week long it sits in the garage or just outside the back door for easy loading, and then on pickup day its motor kicks in and it scoots over to curb where the trash truck unloads it and then it ambles on back to start over again.

We have self-propelled vacuum cleaners. Why not a self-propelled cart that collects the mail from the mailbox? And is equipped with sensors that will put mail in to be collected and put up the red flag alerting the postal carrier? That would be so handy on snowy or rainy days.

I’ve heard there’s talk about programmable shopping carts; the shopper keys in what’s on the grocery list and turns the cart loose. Imagine the money you could save from impulse purchases. But if you forgot to put an item on the list, you’re pretty much out of luck. That idea needs work.

I might be inclined to consider a driverless car if it had self-cleaning features, if it could hover over an icy road instead of sliding on it, or if it would load its own trunk after the programmable shopping cart finished at the grocery store.

But on the whole, I’d rather have a jet pack.

Defeated by technology

We’ve all been through the agony of dealing with Tech Support because of the gadgets we can’t seem to live without. Here’s a new spin on the problem, and it doesn’t involve people with funny accents who make you feel stupid because you aren’t as gadget-literate as they are.

It involves one of the satellite TV companies that has been in negotiations with local stations over broadcasting rights. The two entities – the satellite company  and the local stations — can’t agree on a price. It’s between them, right?

Wrong. The local stations have in effect said if they can’t have their way they will take their bat and glove and go home. Nyah! Does that anger the satellite company? Maybe. But I doubt it. It’s just another annoyance to get over until they reach an agreement, which one day they will. It’s been done before.

However, the people who have nothing at all to do with these negotiations are the ones being impacted: The viewers. When the local stations became unavailable it was on a day of a big rainstorm, and I assumed the satellite was out. Then I found it odd that the storm had passed and the cable channels were back on, but the local channels weren’t. That’s when I called and learned about the negotiations. That’s the last time I had two-way communication with a communication conglomerate.

The person on the line who told me about the dispute said I could go online and voice my opinion. I could go on line all right. But for the life of me I couldn’t find where I could leave my opinion. If I had found one, I would have told both sides of the issue that viewers are the ones writing checks for the service they’re not getting, and we’re the ones being affected.

So because these bozos, my whole morning is thrown out of whack. I wake up with the morning news. I know when a certain news program comes on I get up and feed the cats and take a pill I take 30 minutes before breakfast. When the program shifts to another segment, I know I can eat breakfast, and then as I get ready for work I can tell what time it is by what programs are on the tube. During this time I know what the weather is going to be and that tells me what to wear.

But I can’t tell them that because the website I was directed to apparently doesn’t want to know. The web site invited me to type in my ZIP code to see how the negotiations are going in my area, and when I did it said I was lucky because it wasn’t affecting my area.  But it didn’t tell me how I could respond to beg to differ. It clearly doesn’t want to know what I think.

Yet, it sends me a bill and expects me to pay in full for partial service. So here’s my message whether they want it or not: Get off your greedy backsides, put the local stations back on the air, and solve your own problems without involving me and other viewers. We got enough problems dealing with tech support for our computers.

One upside: That commercial for cable TV where the guy makes funny noises with his mouth and singers repeat the company’s phone number? I haven’t missed that one bit! 

Pop goes the — Bubble Wrap

It’s my guilty little secret — I love to pop Bubble Wrap.

I even have a stash at home. Whenever I feel especially stressed or — more likely — whenever I come across the stash, I pop a few of the little pockets of sealed air, and it makes me laugh.

Recently I bought a little tray of eye shadows that came in a box, and the plastic tray in the box was sealed with teeny-tiny bubble wrap. I didn’t think they’d pop but they did. Little teeny-tiny pops. It was fun.

Bubble Wrap is one of those inventions that was discovered by accident, like penicillin but not as serious. Two guys in 1957 — Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavaness — decided to make three-dimensional plastic wallpaper. Why in the world they thought that was a good idea, we’ll never know. Surely their wives didn’t give them that idea: “Honey, you know what would look good in the dining room? Wallpaper with blisters all over it, like acne.”

The wallpaper notion failed, but Fielding later got it, and formed the Sealed Air Corporation in 1960, which today still makes the popular packing material.

 Bubble Wrap as a source of enjoyment took off and people over the world love to pop it. The last Monday of January has been designated Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day.

One day while visiting the local UPS Store I saw a large roll of Bubble Wrap about five feet high and a foot or so across. I asked the clerk if anyone had ever asked to lay a stretch of the Bubble Wrap across the floor and roll on it. For some reason, she thought that was odd.

Amazon and eBay both sell Bubble Wrap suits, onesies, and even a string bikini. There are even Facebook pages devoted to Bubble Wrap. I “liked” one called Popping Bubble Wrap. One can even find Internet sites devoted to virtual Bubble Wrap popping. It’s like fake whipped cream; it’ll do if the real thing isn’t available.

Recently Sealed Air Corporation announced it was revamping its product, and Bubble Wrap will soon take up less space and its bubbles won’t pop. I don’t know if Alfred Fielding is still alive or has any input into the company if he is, but somehow I don’t think he’d approve. I know I don’t.

The company posted the solution to the popless bubbles as “at least you still have virtual Bubble Wrap to pop.”

Not the same.

The annoyance factor has been eliminated. That’s half the fun!

Olympic events I’d like to see

Everybody has been watching the games in Rio and commenting about how great the athletes are — at least the ones who aren’t doping.

You gotta admire anyone who can swim like Michael Phelps. And how about those gymnasts! I can trip and fall on a dust bunny, and those kids make navigating a balance beam look like a walk in the park.

But there are a few events I wonder about. Ping Pong? Really? An Olympic event? I’m not convinced. One winter sport I’ve wondered about is curling. Maybe it’s fun, I don’t know. Anything involving a broom doesn’t sound like a sport to me. A broom on ice leading what looks like one of those weights you see at the gym. What’s the point of it?

It seems though there are some activities that ought to be Olympic events.

Eating should be one. There are people who enter competitions to see how many hotdogs they can eat in a few minutes time. It seems like a good way to get sick, but they call it competitive eating and they practice for competitions. It seems like the winners are always thin. Instead of doping, maybe they would disqualify themselves by binging and purging.

I’ve always said I can lounge with the best of them. Not luge – going headfirst on your belly on ice. That’s a good way to earn a trip to the emergency room. I have lounging down! A comfortable recliner, a good book, a pot of coffee and a few doughnuts and I can hold that position most of a morning. Extra points would be given for being able to read and sip coffee with a cat on one’s lap without losing your place in the book, spilling coffee or annoying the cat.

Shopping. There are so many ways to go for the gold behind a shopping cart. Competitors would be judged on their ability to scan a department at Kohl’s, find items 60 percent off and still in season, whip out a Master Card and be checked out in the least amount of time. Grocery shoppers would demonstrate how they can load a cart with managers specials while at the same time planning how to cook and serve them, choose vegetables that have no bad spots on them without overturning the display, and buy the freshest bread without squeezing it out of shape. Extra points would go to shoppers who have their coupons organized by expiration date, and in order of purchase. Bonus points go to the shoppers who don’t write a check for the purchase, then record the transaction and balance the checkbook while others in line worry that the milk in their carts will expire before they get to the cashier.

Driving. Competitors in the driving event would have to demonstrate their skill at using a turn signal, their ability to stay in the lane they’re supposed to be in, and show expertise in merging from an off ramp into the Interstate without causing a pileup.

This is just a sample. I’m sure if you put your mind to it you could come up with a few Olympic events of your own — complaining, swearing, sleeping late, maneuvering the TV remote. The list is endless and all are worthy endeavors.

The simpler the sampler the better

One of my favorite TV channels is the Food Network. I think whoever came up with the idea of an entire network devoted to good things to eat is a genius.

It also says something about the offerings on network TV that I prefer to watch someone chopping onions than some of what passes for entertainment lately.

I first got hooked on the FN watching Rachael Ray throw together her 30-minute meals. She makes you believe that by shortening key terms — EVOO for extra virgin olive oil and delish for delicious — it cuts down cooking time.

Truth be told, it takes the average cook longer than 30 minutes to put together one of Rachael Ray’s 30-minute meals. She can do it in 30 minutes because she has backstage help prepping the food and chopping the ingredients.

Nonetheless she reeled me in and later I started watching Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa. Ina makes cooking elegant food look easy. If the average cook had the well-stocked kitchen Ina has — not to mention her lavish home in the New York Hamptons and the time to flit around to little specialty stores where she shops for ingredients — then maybe we can put a banquet on the table too.

So much for food fiction. It’s still better than daytime soaps and situation comedies after dinner. There’s also the variety food shows like Chopped. Four contestants are given picnic baskets, one for each course, full of such improbable items as chicken feet, horseradish, Kool-Ade, wild garlic and yak’s milk cheese, and are told to put together something wonderful using those ingredients and other items from the pantry and refrigerator in 20 minutes flat, and make it look pretty.

The histrionics displayed during Chopped rival any sketch variety shows used to put on. Stoves suddenly stop working, fires flare up in blenders, contestants nearly sever their fingers with a knife, and — most impressive of all, the judges actually eat the results.

Lately the trend on Food Network has been toward “simple” food. Celebrity chefs tout simple ingredients, locally produced. One such recipe was a soup thrown together using leftover breadcrumbs, ground almonds, and a few other things found in no kitchen ever.

Now I don’t claim to be a chef, but I can put a recipe together and warm up the leftovers. But what passes for “simple” or “rustic” food on the Food Network is out of my reach.

You want simple? I’ll give you simple. It’s also delicious. Three ingredients: a ripe, fresh, locally-grown tomato, white bread, and mayonnaise. The classic, elegant, tomato sandwich.

It doesn’t get any better than that. Unless you add bacon.

Keeping us all safe

Sometimes I have to wonder about the people who have decided they need to keep society safe. Safe from what?

We’re all accustomed to prescription medicine bottles that have child-proof caps no one can get into — except a child. I remember once after a bad arm sprain being given a bottle of pain pills at the emergency room. I needed two arms to open the blasted thing, and I had just the one. I ended up putting the bottle under the rocker of a rocking chair and crushing it open.

And by now we’re becoming accustomed to blister packs — items enshrouded in a plastic bubble that nothing can penetrate. Here’s a tip, but keep it quiet — you can open those with a can opener. But don’t tell anyone or else packagers will make them even harder to get into, and then we might need explosives.

But I’m still scratching my head in wonder about the short electrical cord on small appliances.

According to those who feel they must protect the public from itself, short cords are necessary to keep the appliances from being dragged off the kitchen counter by the cord and onto the floor.

By short cords, I’m talking about a cord no longer than a foot. Short cord.

Not long ago, I bought a coffee bean grinder. It has a cord I swear is only about four inches long. It sits on the kitchen counter and when I need to grind coffee beans, I fill the glass container with the prescribed number of beans, put the lid on it and set the safety catch, and then the gymnastics begin.

In order to plug it into the socket on the wall over the counter, I have to put the grinder on an inverted bowl because the cord won’t reach the socket otherwise. So the grinder is sitting on the bottom of the inverted bowl instead of on the stable counter. It could tip over, especially when I’m trying to reach the on/off switch which was designed to require more clearance under the cabinet than I have because of the need for the bowl. I have to hold it while it grinds the beans into coffee because if I let it go, it will fall off the bowl.

It won’t do me any bodily harm because the grinding blades are safely tucked away in the grinder. But it will spill beans and partially ground coffee all over the counter and under the toaster and the George Forman grill, both which have cords of a manageable length and both of which produce heat.

Now I have a mess to clean up, and I have to start over again grinding coffee beans in a grinder sitting on an inverted bowl because some yahoo somewhere decided that coffee grinders were so dangerous they needed to have a short cord. I face more of a safety risk from the fat catcher in the George Forman grill!

I wonder if I can be trusted with a battery-operated coffee grinder — unless the protectors of the public have banned them.

Keeping your cool

It’s summertime! Maybe not officially, according to the calendar, but the thermometer says it is. And all those folks who griped about the cold winter weather are — nope, not satisfied; they’re now griping about the heat!

We checked a few web sites — MedicineNet.com, Daily Mail, and a blog page by Sophia Breene, and added a few tips of our own to help beat the heat.

The most obvious thing to do is stay inside where it’s air-conditioned. That’s a no-brainer.

But if for some reason you can’t, here’s what you can do:

Stick sheets in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes before bed. We recommend placing them in a plastic bag first. Granted, this won’t keep you cool all night, but it will provide a brief respite from heat and humidity.

The actress Marilyn Monroe was credited for keeping her underwear in the refrigerator before she put them on. She was also credited for keeping her cosmetics and perfume in the fridge during hot summer days. She was one cool actress.

Make a DIY air conditioner by positioning a shallow pan or bowl full of ice in front of a fan. The breeze will pick up cold water from the ice’s surface as it melts, creating a cooling mist.

Drink a glass of water before bed. Just eight ounces will do the trick. Not recommended for people over 50.

Gadgets and other small appliances give off heat, even when turned off. Reduce total heat in the house (and save energy!) by keeping plugs out of sockets when the appliances are not in use.

When you’re at home and you’re pretty sure no one is around, turn on the Slip ‘n Slide and have a few rounds on it.

Eat small meals and eat more often. The larger the meal, the more metabolic heat your body creates breaking down the food. Avoid foods that are high in protein, which increase metabolic heat.

Popsicles! Lots of them! Freeze blueberries, bananas, grapes, cut-up melon and snack on them.

While you're out, keep the house curtains drawn to stop it heating up like a greenhouse.

You should avoid alcohol because it dehydrates the body. You are better off with mineral water or low-sugar fizzy drinks. Also, avoid drinks with caffeine such as coffee and colas. These increase the metabolic heat in the body.

Arrange to spend at least parts of the day in a shopping mall, public library, movie theater, or other public space that is cool. Many cities have cooling centers that are open to the public on sweltering days.

If no one in your neighborhood has a pool, invite them over for a lawn sprinkler party. If the whole street is running through the sprinkler, then no one looks foolish, and you’re all staying cool.

Don't forget that pets also need protection from dehydration and heat-related illnesses too. But don’t squirt the cat!

Meeting Gertrude

Like so many people, I like to dabble a bit in genealogy. Growing up, I didn’t know much about my father’s side of the family. He told my brother and me what little he knew, but it wasn’t much.

Unlike a lot of people I’m less interested in statistics and who begot whom than I am in anecdotes of distant relatives. I started looking at web sites and eventually found a distant cousin who filled me in on some information, and she now keeps the clan informed through a family Facebook page.

Recently she posted a fascinating account of a distant aunt (maybe she’s another distant cousin; I haven’t quite figured it out yet). Gertrude was born in 1905 and grew up in Philadelphia. She took piano lessons as a child, and was trained in classical music. She was a telephone operator and eventually worked as a hostess in a restaurant.

She must have led a rather quiet life, but at the age of 72 she became known as a café entertainer. She abandoned her classical piano studies and learned to play contemporary songs by ear, and from what I read about her she apparently knew about 300 songs and could play and sing for hours.

A septuagenarian party girl!

I found a couple of articles published in 1986 in two Philadelphia newspapers following her death at age 80.

 From the Philadelphia Daily News: “(Feb. 22, 1976 Gertrude) was at a party and her version of "Dark Town Strutters Ball" was played on the piano. In the group was Judy Wicks, then-manager of La Terrasse restaurant in University City. They went to The Frog for a midnight dinner. They went back to La Terrasse for a nightcap.

“In a March 1985 interview with Daily News feature writer Dan Geringer, (Gertrude) recalled that "audition" at La Terrasse.

"’I played for one and a half hours, dear," she said. "She liked me and she liked my style, and from then on it was parties, parties, parties. Saturday night. Sunday night. Parties, parties, parties. And it was fun, dear. I've made a lot of fun for myself in my life. And they tell me I've made a lot of fun for them, too.’

“She and Wicks became close friends. (Gertrude) played at La Terrasse on holidays and at special events for the next eight years. The restaurant normally featured classical music. But (Gertrude) picking out the blues and ballads and pounding the jazz of the '20s, '30s and '40s with a smile and glint in her blue eyes cast a mood few could forget. Her unique sounds could throw a loop and pull the audience through a warp in time to sense a French Quarter music hall, a Harlem speakeasy or a Philly dance club.”

Gertrude cut a record album, one of those long-playing ones. On the cover is not a photo of her, but an artist’s rendering of a lively-looking older woman with a broad smile and twinkling blue eyes. There was an unopened copy of that album for sale on eBay. I bought it. It should arrive soon.

From what I’ve read about Gertrude, I wish I could have known her. She told the Philadelphia Inquirer: "I want to play till the last day I'm on earth. I can't imagine living and not playing. I want to do it till the end. Then if I go," she said, blowing a kiss to an imaginary crowd, "Goodbye? It's been fun! I've had a good time! Oooh! I've had a wonderful time, dear."

There’s so much I would love to be able to talk to her about. It’s impossible now, but in a few days I’ll be able to hear her play and sing.

There Oughta be a Law

Ever have one of those days when nothing goes right? I had a couple of those recently beginning with Friday the 13^th.

I will never admit to being superstitious, but sometimes there’s no other explanation. Friday the 13^th found me with a lot of stuff to do and it beat me up with more interruptions than I ever thought possible. I was not only spinning my wheels that day, I was kicking up gravel.

That was followed by another day of two power outages, several computer glitches, a looming deadline and absolutely no patience left.

It was a Murphy’s Law kind of day. You know Murphy’s Law: If anything can go wrong, it will.

There are many variations of Murphy’s Law, as evidenced by the fact that there’s a web site called Murphy’s Law.com.  Murphy has diversified some:

It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.

If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.

A falling object will always land where it can do the most damage.

A paint drip will always find the hole in the newspaper and land on the carpet underneath (and will not be discovered until it has dried).

If a dish is dropped while removing it from the cupboard, it will hit the sink, breaking the dish and chipping or denting the sink in the process.

A valuable dropped item will always fall into an inaccessible place (a diamond ring down the drain, for example) or into the garbage disposal while it is running.

The greater the value of the rug, the greater the probability that the cat will throw up on it.

After you bought a replacement for something you've lost and searched for everywhere, you'll find the original.

No matter how long or how hard you shop for an item, after you've bought it, it will be on sale somewhere cheaper.

If you fool around with a thing for very long you will screw it up.

In any hierarchy, each individual rises to his own level of incompetence and then remains there.

Never argue with a fool, people might not know the difference.

Whatever hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.

 No good deed goes unpunished.

Those who know the least will always know it the loudest.

The probability of being observed is in direct proportion to the stupidity of ones actions

A knowledge of Murphy's Law is no help in any situation. If you make it through a Murphy Day, you win!

Murphy certainly gets around and messes things up. My favorite law, however, is Cole’s law. Shredded cabbage.

How lazy can you get?

It can never be said that I’m overly ambitious. I’m as lazy as the next person, but laziness does have its limits. Even I can see that.

I can remember when I was a teenager I picked something up off the floor by grabbing it with my toes and then bending my knee to bring it upward. I thought I was being super efficient. My dad gave me what for about it, chiding me for not bending over and picking the item off the floor. He said I was lazy.

What’s the big deal, I thought. I have toe dexterity. Fast forward to the present time, and I now wistfully look back at the gracefulness it took to stand on one foot to accomplish the task. I’d fall on my backside now if I tried it.

Well, maybe it was a little lazy. Most people do try to find the easiest way of doing something. We now have robot vacuum sweepers to suck the dust out of the carpet. We used to have to push a vacuum cleaner across the floor, and before that we had to drag the carpet outside and beat the dirt out of it.

But how lazy can you get when you buy frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?

The jelly people, Smuckers, makes them. They’re called “Uncrustables,” and they’re sold in boxes in the freezer section of the grocery store. Actually, they’re not new. They’ve been around for a while.

I didn’t think they’d be as popular as they seem to be. I mean, what’s so difficult about slapping some peanut butter on a slice of bread, spooning jelly on top of it, and then either folding it over or adding another slice of bread? Give me a break! Who’s going to buy that?

Apparently, it’s a marketing thing. Kids see it advertised on TV and they beg their moms to buy it. It isn’t really a whole sandwich. It’s a glob of peanut butter in the middle of a slice of bread, a glob of jelly, and another slice of bread and the whole thing is smooshed together and the crusts are cut off and then it’s frozen. It thaws quickly, so the marketers say. But you’ve wasted the crust and part of the bread! I’m too lazy to do the math, but I feel certain that those frozen sandwiches cost four times as much as one even a kid could make.

Maybe it appeals to people who don’t really care what they eat. Hungry? Get a pb&j out of the freezer. But what does it taste like? Remember those jars of peanut butter with stripes of jelly running down the jar? Peanut butter and jelly all in one jar. Easy. Or lazy. I think they still make it. It was awful.

I haven’t tried the Uncrustables. Something about the concept just doesn’t seem right. And I’ll bet money they don’t taste good. I did a Google search on them, though, and found a site where you could learn how to make a homemade Uncrustable so your kids can have a fresh homemade snack.

News flash: You always could do that. If you weren’t so lazy.

Can’t buy happiness

Recently it was announced that someone from New Jersey was the only winner of the most recent Powerball jackpot -- $429.6 million, give or take a buck or two.

The news anchors were exclaiming what a lucky person that winner is. Most people would probably think so, and all of us at one time or another have imagined what we’d do with such an obscene amount of cash. A lot of that involves telling off the boss and leaving the current job.

For some winning meant sharing the wealth, according to the blog Lottosend.com

In 2010 Violet and Allen Large blew headlines with their prize of 11.2 million dollars. They are always thinking of other people, so they tried to help everyone. After the victory they secured all the necessary family and his parents only after that they gave the money to charity. The largest charities accept donations from them and thereby have helped many sick people.

Christine and Colin Weir, after their surprise victory in 2011, became richer by $ 250 million. They decided to open a charitable foundation to help children with different rare diseases. Their donation of the money was given to a little girl with paralysis, the young artist and neighbor orphan. Weir says that their charity has prompted many people to help others.

Carolyn and Jim McCullar won $380 million in 2011. They alleged that the purchase of luxury items for them isn’t important in life, they think about the future of their children and grandchildren. Instead of spending money on a round the world trip, they invested in profitable business to the next generation – to not feel the need of finance.

But there’s luck, and there’s luck. Some lottery winners ran out of luck almost as soon as they hit the jackpot.

Take for instance William "Bud" Post who won won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania lottery in 1988 but was $1 million in debt within a year, according to the web site Business Insider. A former girlfriend successfully sued him for a share of his winnings and his brother was arrested for hiring a hit man to kill him in the hopes that he'd inherit a share of the winnings. After sinking money into various family businesses, Post sank into debt and spent time in jail for firing a gun over the head of a bill collector. Bud went on to live quietly on $450 a month and food stamps.

According to CBSnews.com, Urooj Khan of Illinois died July 20, 2012, one day after collecting the lump sum option on a $1 million win. A medical examiner initially found that the 46-year-old Khan died of natural causes, but another official asked for a deeper investigation, which revealed the lottery winner was fatally poisoned with cyanide.

Tonda Lynn Dickerson, a former Waffle House waitress, got served a big plate of karma when she refused to split her winnings with ex-colleagues and was forced to pay the tax man $1,119,347.90, Business Insider reported. How did it happen? Dickerson placed her winnings in a corporation and granted her family 51% of the stock — qualifying her for the tax.

It’s been said love of money is the root of all evil. It’s also been said that if you want to know what God thinks of money, look at the people he gives it to.

Go ahead, say what you really mean

Last week, former Speaker of the House John Boehner called presidential candidate Ted Cruz “Lucifer in the flesh.” The way people reacted to that you’d think Boehner said something original. Even the Satanists were offended, according to the website RedState.

Politicians have been dissing each other since the beginning of time. Abraham Lincoln gave as good as he got, and the Founding Fathers were experts at political potty mouthing.

Here, courtesy of Insults.net, are a few examples of political insults from history.

... as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had been starved to death.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-65)

A crafty and lecherous old hypocrite whose very statue seems to gloat on the wenches as they walk the States House yard. William Cobbett (1763-1835), on Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), American statesman and scientist

A lamentably successful cross between a fox and a hog. James G. Blaine, American politician, on Benjamin Franklin Butler (1818-93), American soldier

Filthy Story-Teller, Despot, Liar, Thief, Braggart, Buffoon, Usurper, Monster, Ignoramus Abe, Old Scoundrel, Perjurer, Robber, Swindler, Tyrant, Field-Butcher, Land-Pirate.
Harper's Weekly on Abraham Lincoln

Garfield has shown that he is not possessed of the backbone of an angleworm.
Ulysses S. Grant (1822-85), 18th American president, on James A. Garfield (1831-81), 20th American president

He has a bungalow mind. Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), 28th American president on Warren Harding (1865-1923), 29th American president

He has all the characteristics of a dog except loyalty. Sam Houston, American politician, on Thomas Jefferson Green (1801-63), American politician

He slept more than any other president, whether by day or night. Nero fiddled, but Coolidge only snored.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) on Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)

He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash. H. L Mencken (1880-1956), American journalist and critic, on Warren G. Harding (1865-1923), American president

He's thin, boys. He's thin as piss on a hot rock. Senator William E. Jenner on W. Averell Harriman (1891-1986), governor of New York

His idea of getting hold of the right end of the stick is to snatch it from the hands of somebody who is using it effectively, and to hit him over the head with it. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish playwright, on Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), 26th American president

How can they tell?
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) on hearing that American President Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933) had died

Like rotten mackerel by moonlight, he shines and stinks. John Randolph, American politician, on Edward Livingstone (1764-1836), American politician

One could drive a schooner through any part of his argument and never scrape against a fact. David Houston, American politician, on William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), American lawyer and politician

One could not even dignify him with the name of a stuffed shirt. He was simply a hole on the air. George Orwell (1903-50) on Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947)

Reader, suppose you were an idiot; and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.
Mark Twain (1835-1910), American writer, on Congress

The General is suffering from mental saddle sores. Harold L. Ickes, American Secretary of the Interior, on Hugh S. Johnson (1882-1942), American soldier

We did not conceive it possible that even Mr. Lincoln would produce a paper so slipshod, so loose-joined, so puerile, not alone in literary construction, but in its ideas, its sentiments, its grasp. He has outdone himself.
Chicago Times (1863) on Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address (19 November 1863)