Bless Me Not

Dear Everyone in the World:

Please stop saying "bless you" every time I sneeze.

First of all, I'm embarrassed that I sneezed.  Then you have to go and emphasize it.

Secondly, why are you saying it?  Simply because you'd heard others say it?  Was the name of your childhood doctor Pavlov?

To "bless me" after I sneeze is completely illogical.

The first time you said it, it was sort of interesting.

"Why say," I thought to myself, "that person is using a quaint medieval expression!"

However, after that, it just got to be incredibly annoying.  It continues to be annoying.

Please stop it.

Of course there is one exception.

If ever I hear you or anyone else commit audible flatulance, I will respond with "bless you".

Simply for comic effect.

Sincerely,

Yours Truly

Winged Princess

The car had needed washing for several days, so tonight, despite feeling tired and exhausted, I decided to just go for it.

The rinsing and washing part never takes long.  It's the towel drying that's time-consuming.  Or rather, the "diaper-drying".

The evening had fallen and it was getting a little too dark for proper spot-free drying.  At least it was better than attempting to wash this big black boy in the blazing sun.

Suddenly I saw a faint "X" shape on the side of the car.  My swirling diaper stopped short of wiping out the shape... which had a little wiggling three-dimensional "something" at the center.  Something like an insect's body.

It was some sort of winged creature who had suffered the misfortune of somehow landing upside down on the wet surface of our automobile.  Each of the four wings was stuck as if with wet plaster to the black surface.

In my heart I felt something.  Compassion.  Pity with a desire to help.  It was literally a physical feeling.  Something like a tingle in the upper center of my abdomen.

This little lady was wiggling her body and pedaling her feet like mad in at attempt to free herself.  The futility of her efforts was clear to me.  Surface tension, for the tiny, can be a [censored].

Was she doomed?  What to do?

I dropped my towels over the back of a chair and ran into the house.  In the kitchen I saw a long sharp bread knife.  That should do...  I grabbed it, and ran back outside to the car.

Once again facing my little struggling beauty, I gently moved the blade beneath one of her wet, stuck wings. Once released from the molecular bond of the water against the paint of the car, it quickly popped up.  Then another wing.  Now her body was at more of a 45-degree angle.  She continued to wiggle and flail her legs.

The knife worked its way under her final two wings.  As it did so, she found the edge of the blade with her reach, and suddenly she grabbed it.  There!  She was now free from the car, and standing on the edge of the blade.  Her wings flapped with a blur, drying in preparation for what was hoped to be her restored freedom of flight.

Walking quickly into the light of a nearby outdoor lamp, I took a closer look.

What???   I suddenly recognized "what" she was.  A termite.  A winged termite.

I hate termites!  These destructive creatures once ate Popeye the Sailor's house right down to the ground!

Normally I kill any termites I see near our apartment, either inside or out.  At our old apartment house in La Mesa, we once had to spend a night at a motel while our abode was tented to be rid of these vile villains.  Damn them.  Damn them all!

A tree in our back yard has been infiltrated by termites, and nearly eaten out hollow.  Death to all termites!

Yet, here she was, my little winged princess, flapping her wings at the edge of my knife.  How I'd felt for her a few moments ago, fearing that whoever she was, her days of winged freedom might permanently be over with.

And now...

The emotions of compassion and appreciation for life, no matter how small, won out.

I flicked the knife to knock her off the blade, and watched her flutter away.  Toward our apartment.

To continue on whatever life path she chose to follow from then on.

I know she probably has no appreciation for what I did for her.  No capacity for gratitude.

Yet she and I have something in common.

We both possess a gift which we neither asked for nor could ever provide for ourselves.

Life.

Winged princess, let us enjoy life as we have been given it.

C-Span

All my life I would have always said that the most boring television viewing possible would be watching congress on C-Span.

Until today. 

Today I watched C-Span with the same rapt attention and interest as if I were watching a race at the Del Mar track on which I had a heavy bet riding.  (Figure of speech... we never wager when we go to Del Mar.)

The Senate voted on a bill that would extend unemployment benefits.

Watching the live electronic voting, it seemed at first to be an easy "win" (for the unemployed whose benefits have run out recently):

Then the evil Republicans raced past for the lead:

Come on, Democrats!  Come on!!!!  

The race is tied:

Finally the democrats come on in the last few minutes and score the victory:

Yay!!!!   Okay, now the bill goes before the House of Representatives.

~ ~ ~

I've never learned so much about government as I did today.  

Earlier, before I snapped the television on, they reportedly passed a bill that would allow law enforcement to investigate the manufacture of counterfeit Native American arts and crafts (!).

Then after the Unemployment Extension bill, they voted on whether to make it illegal to distribute "animal cruelty videos". 

Now that one was a no-brainer:

Overwhelming win by the Yea's!

Sinema Cadness

In this week's San Diego Reader, movie reviewer Duncan Shepherd announces that the Three Penny Cinema is "dead on arrival".

Curses!!!!

Why didn't I get a taste before it up and died?  It's only a couple weeks old.

The idea was wacky and weird, but I like wacky and weird!

What was the Three Penny Cinema?

Well, as I understand it, the offices of the San Diego Reader on India Street in San Diego opened up a conference room where they projected DVD movies onto a screen.  The first ten people in line paid only $0.03 (three pennies) and the rest paid only $3.00.

Anyone paying to see a film could also go through the Reader's collection of promotional movie stills and buy them for just $1.00 each.  I would have looked for Pee Wee's Big Adventure.

Why did I not act and go for it last weekend, when they were showing some sweet sixties french films?  I guess Wendy and I were sick, that's why.  Otherwise, I was gonna try and go for it this weekend.  Only it's too late.

The Three Penny Cinema is dead.

This kind of disappointment is not new to me, though fortunately, it only happens once in a while.

Years ago in the wayback time I remember seeing a crazy little event item in the Reader for a thing call "Garden Caberet".  They were showing free movies in someone's back yard (?... or so it seemed, in reality it was the space behind and between a beauty shop and a BBQ restaurant) and you could buy coffee and pastries to eat while you watched.

Though I was always curious about that, I never went.  Not until years later when they were charging and it was popular.  Sure, it was enjoyable, and continues to be so, but I'll always kick myself for not going back when it was new and free of charge and fresh and...  and new.

So what lesson has been learned here?

In life, you have to go for it.  Don't wait.  "...walk in the ways of your heart and in the things seen by your eyes..."

Unless you're sick.  Not much you can do about it then.

Must have ten-speed bike...

Enjoyed this Craigslist job posting because of the bicycle reference:

Source: http://sandiego.craigslist.org/esd/ofc/1839076263.html

In Demand

With being unemployed for a year, and my unemployment insurance payments having ceased, you'd likely think me worried.

Not at all!

For since July 9th I have had 24 e-mails from several different Hiring Managers seeking my services.

Yes, indeed, twenty-four.  Count 'em.  In fact, here are their names:

Elba Calanche, Carl Arino, Jesse Euresti, Jordan Viego, Bobby Bobele, Aaron Batine, Lessie Porras, Bertie Galceran, Mari Alpuche, Paul Bada, Audra Rambonga, Luella Bonillas, Barbra Pajaro, Elba Ballagas, Timothy Oroz, Roy Vizcaino, Greta Togores, Mathew Lanuza, Alan Pedroche, Annmarie Baluja, Carlos Carcana, Derek Umpierre, Tommie Flandez, Tony Zetino, Nita Allala, Jannie Santisteban, Dale Luna.

They are all "Hiring Managers with the International Student Exchange Center (EPSEC)" and in each e-mail along with the job description (which I can do from home), they state that "The starting salary is $31.28 per hour".

Well, where do I sign up?  I guess I should just pick one of the e-mails and respond to it and give them all my personal details so that I can start getting paid the big bucks!

Strangely, each and every e-mail was tagged as "spam" by g-mail.

And they added a band of yellow at the top of each message with the following text:  "This message was likely forged and did not originate from your account."

Why would they say that? Oh... upon close examination, each e-mail seems to have been sent from me (my e-mail address) to me. What? Oh well...

Oh, gmail, you spoil-sport!  You non-believer!  You'll soon see you were wrong...

I'll send you a postcard from the French Riviera not long after I begin collecting my $31.28 per hour for working at home!

The Littlest Guys Ever

What's more fun than a summer cold?  Anything is more fun.

However, my having a summer cold facilitated my introduction to two tiny new "friends".

Having heard it was a good idea to sunbathe for 20 minutes between 10:00am and 2:00pm to get a free fix of the amazing anti-viral Vitamin D, I was laying face down on a towel on some one's back patio.

Concrete looks really interesting from just a few inches away.  It's got lots of tiny rocks embedded in it.  Grains of sand, I guess is what they are.

Suddenly a little dot moved across the cement.  A burnt-orange little creature.  I mean this guy was tiny!  His entire body was about the size of an ant's head.

Then another dot appeared suddenly on the white towel near my head.  Uh-oh... this one jumped.  A flea?  I found him again, and no... this was no flea.  A jumping creature, yes, but his jumps were only an inch in distance, and he didn't look like a flea.  He was too round, and I could see his tiny legs.  This guy was black in color.  As tiny as the first one... perhaps even smaller than the head of a common Argentinian ant.

Watching these two little guys reminded me of a poem that I remember my Dad reading to us kids when we were very small.  Over the years he'd share it again and again on various occasions.

Since I'd heard it so often and when so young it never really had much meaning to me.

Until now.

A Considerable Speck

Robert Frost (1874-1963)

A speck that would have been beneath my sight

On any but a paper sheet so white

Set off across what I had written there.

And I had idly poised my pen in air

To stop it with a period of ink

When something strange about it made me think.

This was no dust speck by my breathing blown,

But unmistakably a living mite

With inclinations it could call its own.

It paused as with suspicion of my pen,

And then came racing wildly on again

To where my manuscript was not yet dry;

Then paused again and either drank or smelt –

With loathing, for again it turned to fly.

Plainly with an intelligence I dealt.

It seemed too tiny to have room for feet,

Yet must have had a set of them complete

To express how much it didn't want to die.

It ran with terror and with cunning crept.

It faltered; I could see it hesitate;

Then in the middle of the open sheet

Cower down in desperation to accept

Whatever I accorded it of fate.

I have none of the tenderer-than-thou

Collectivistic regimenting love

With which the modern world is being swept.

But this poor microscopic item now!

Since it was nothing I knew evil of

I let it lie there till I hope it slept.

I have a mind myself and recognize

Mind when I meet with it in any guise.

No one can know how glad I am to find

On any sheet the least display of mind.