BLITHERING, BUMBLING, AND RAMBLING #2
POOR FIDO....
I was walking into the house and was overtaken by a sudden outburst across the street of a man screaming in anger. It’s a nice neighborhood, and while we all sometimes raise our voices to a slightly higher pitch to get a point made, this sounded more like an enraged cartoon character. I thought , hmmm mm, cartoon voice, hysterical tone, coming from the other side of the street, shouting ‘Git OVER HEEEERRRRRREEEEE!!! #*!?##!!!(this is a family friendly commentary, so use your imagination on the alt/delete/expletives) and perhaps my slightly deranged neighbor is interacting with his dog again.
Bingo.
As my neighbor came walking out of his garage, limping and banging his cane on the ground,he screeched for his dog. Um, I thought, his dog died awhile back. I was sure of that. I relayed this info to my lovely wife, along with a rhetorical statement about whether it was time to call the nut wagon for a crazy-to-go.
After a couple minutes of his ranting, a big black dog showed up, wagging it’s tail playfully and wandered into my neighbor’s garage. The dog was one of those that has what looks like a fixed smile on its face, playful, innocent, oblivious to the tension in the shrieks of my neighbor. My wife filled me in that she had seen a black puppy brought home by the neighbor a few months back. Uh oh.
The neighbor’s son stepped out, patted the dog on the head and led it inside. The son returned to close the garage door and got in his pickup to leave. My neighbor continued to shout, now at the son. Go figure.
I felt bad for the dog. Then an old memory surged. I attached the memory below.....
Yeah, the dog’s gonna be just fine.
As for my neighbor........
Back in the late 70’s I worked with a guy named Charlie Eggert.
He was affable, easy to get along with, and had a quote for every occasion. His favorite, which seems on target now, was “ THAT guy is about three beans shy of a full burrito”. Thanks, Charlie. That puts it all in perspective for me.
YOGI BERRA PHILOSOPHY
As the appliance delivery crew was installing our new oven in the kitchen, they asked for a milk crate to set it on, so they didn’t have to lift it from floor height. I gave them one, and after they put the oven on it they saw it was starting to collapse, so one of the delivery guys yelled at the other to hurry up and grab the other end. As the two struggled I got involved on the lower end side where the appliance guy was losing balance and the stove was starting to gouge the door way next to the wall. Crap, I thought, the stove now just inches away and teetering near my newly installed cabinetry.
I was in an awkward position, half crouched and reaching in at an angle to keep the oven up and in. We managed to avoid further damage and got it placed. The delivery guy apologized for the damage to wall, which, upon inspection, wasn’t much, and hadn’t nicked any of the newly installed cabinetry. Whew! The guy whose side I assisted was a younger guy, and looked pale and,out of breath. I noticed that he didn’t lift anything for the next hour.
I counted myself lucky. After all, I was still nursing a tendon injury on my leg that had prevented me from crouching, even slightly, up until that very moment. Fearing that I might have sacrificed my knee to save new cabinetry, I wondered for the next hour, if it might swell up and send me right back to crutches. It didn’t. Whew! x 2!! Thinking I was one lucky guy (ok, maybe sap/goofball/idiot, but still, lucky just the same!-don’t be so judgmental, it’s nice cabinetry!) I figured I was safe from here on.
BUT.......
The next day, which was the Saturday before Father’s Day, my wife surprised me by telling me she had gotten me a Father’s Day gift which she wanted me to go pickup now because it was pretty iffy as far as it being delivered on time for Father’s Day . Ok, I said, what is it? A Traeger smoker grill, she said. WOW. ON MY WAY.
When I arrived at the store to pick it up the nice lady at the counter said, “oh yeah, the barbecue, we’ll get someone to load it for ya”. To which another twentyish female employee said “I can help you load it”. The woman at the counter quickly replied “oooh noooo, honey, it’s the BIG one, I’ll get the guys to do it. “. Hmmm.
So, two guys brought out the bbq, and, yeah, it was big. I asked if they needed some help loading, and, bless their hearts, they said no, they would give it a try, and if they couldn’t do it, they would get help. Ok.
They lifted it about six inches up, then put it down and informed me they would get help. I was beginning to wonder just how heavy this awesome hunk of backyard legend was. Stay tuned.
They got a third guy. The three of them each took a side of my new smoker grill, the two middle aged guys on the side, and the kid who looked all of about 20 years old, and skinny,in the back end. The back end was where the WiFi connection, digital display, control buttons, and menu screen (I.e.-the brains of the whole machine) was. I started thinking about the stove installation the day before, and a a nervous tension started to fill the air as I awaited the lift.
They started to lift, and the grunting noises of men at work started flowing. As the two guys on the side lifted, they told (I should say “gasped”) to the skinny kid, “if we can get the front wheels up, it’ll slide right in”. Good plan. Only problem was, as they lifted their end up, it, naturally, forced the back end down, shifting the weight to the skinny kid in back. He tried, and as his knees started to buckle and I saw the most expensive part of my Father’s Day present heading towards the pavement, for a split second I had a flashback to Yogi Berra.
Yes, Yogi Berra! And his immortal, ridiculously redundant phrase “It’s like Deja Vu all over Again!!
So there I was, again, stepping forward into that awkward ,crouching ,grab movement on the recuperating leg, grasping the heavy outdoor appliance and lifting, barely, enough so that we could all release a collective sigh of relief as it, finally, slid onto the bed of my pickup. Man, the sacrifices you make for cookware!
And the leg survived. What is that, Whew! X 3?
TAKING IT ON THE CHIN
My lovely wife and I were in a park in Folsom with some friends as the “concerts in the park” event was playing live rock music to the picnic groups spread out over the lawn. As I was munching on chicken and my wife had a salad,she looked at me, and rubbed the right side of her chin, staring straight into my eyes. Recognizing the universal signal that I had a gooper on my chin, I stared right back and wiped off the lower right side of my cheek.
She stared again, this time rubbing her right cheek. Realizing that I had missed on my first effort, I wiped my cheek, both sideways and down. She stared back at me, kinda hard this time, and wiped off the right side of her jawline, kinda sternly. Believing her to be slightly annoyed at my inability to complete the gunk removal task, I put my full hand on the right side of my face and wiped backward.
She leaned toward me, wiped her face with one hand across the right, then the other across the the left, and then stared, even harder at me, holding her hands up in the universally recognized “where the hell is it?” gesture. I, of course, now burst out laughing. “Oh, I thought you meant there was something on ME!” She laughed,I laughed, the friends around us chuckled. The phrase “monkey see, monkey do”came to mind.