Reminiscing on a Spring Day
Right between the Ides of March and St Patty's day - perfect!
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| Our MENSA Club celebrating a very different spring day - Apr, 6 yrs ago (True masters of the Y chromosome as you'll see later . . .) |
I was looking for something different and light this month, appropriate for a spring day. I have several pages of ideas for blog posts and/or commentaries for the newspaper but everything seems too heavy or philosophical, just not right for the occasion. So I say to myself, "Come on Dear Leader, it’s spring (and has been for quite a while this marvelous winter) so lighten up."
Then it dawned on me: I have a deep catalogue of posts going back almost 20 years. Surely, I wasn’t a pedantic bore in ALL of them.
Yahoo, I wasn’t! (Pedantic, that is.) I found several from some years ago that I think fill the bill with a combo of science, humor and brilliant insights into human nature that I hope you find entertaining. (Or at least not too boring.)
Note: I have taken some license to, as we in the writing business say, "punch them up" a bit. Anyway, here you go.
June, 2016 - From the front lines of the battle of the sexes.
Men, I tell you that we are under siege! It’s not just that women are better organizers and at running companies or that they are the majority in law and medical schools. They are generally smarter than us most guys so that's okay. But now it's getting REALLY serious and frightening; our very reason for existence is being questioned!
There are two separate but related bits of news that I have stumbled upon in this regard that I think may have dire consequences for us guys (and just plain consequences for women.) You be the judge.
First, from Verve Magazine.
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No wonder guys like to play with sticks! (Hmmm, I wonder if I could hit a little white ball with it) |
Scientists have discovered that us guys perform spermicide on our own, you know . . .
Apparently somewhere along the line - perhaps after the first thousand generations of wives nagging about raising idiot children - evolution (without our permission) caused us to start to kill off some of the DNA of our "contribution" to life in order for the woman’s DNA to, quote (get this!) "have a bigger influence.” A bigger influence?! Ha, I laugh at their impertinence!
Well, they certainly got what they wanted. Just looking at our current crop of male (and a few female) political leaders today it seems to me that some genetic improvement could be helpful. Which begs the question: would humankind have been better off if we men had been allowed to share, as it were, all our DNA wealth all along?
As a patriot I can only say, ask not what your DNA can do for you but what your DNA can do for the country!
Science Update 2/26/24: Headline from Latrobe University - "Men are slowly losing their Y Chromosome." You know, the chromosome that gives women - and the world - the gift of us men? Perhaps that DNA suicide thing is working too well, huh? You'll miss us when we're gone! (Maybe - see picture at the top)
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| One less man to pick up after . . . |
It seems the Cape Honeybee ladies have decided they've had enough of the males in their lives, they're going to wash that man right out of their hair - permanently. Apparently, once they escape the queen bee they wander off and reproduce on their own with no help from the males. (But men are so much fun - just ask them.) On the other hand, who can blame them; how attractive are a bunch of drones in the first place?
You might have had an idea by visiting any number of military stag bars I once knew, er, ah, heard of. I, for one, am happy that wiser and more progressive leaders saw the obnoxious unfairness of a "boys only club" where mindless humor and drunkenness served as entertainment . . . so they shut them down. (Acknowledging, perhaps, Mrs DL's loving insight about men: "one is one and two is a pack.")
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| What?! Women just don't understand us - we need a quiet place to talk and reflect on our love for them. |
Anyway, this is the sort of thing that if it were to spread among humans of the female persuasion might just have a great impact on us guys, don’t you think? Well, on some of you anyway.
On a positive note, if women didn’t need us around anymore I guess we wouldn’t have to kill off any of our own DNA anymore either, right? (And besides we'll still have the only Y chromosome, ha ha! No, wait . . . hmmm.)
Anyway, hope for the best, men, and plan for the worst!
More June 2016
Farm to Table Fresh Veggies - Like the SW Light Rail, another failed urban experiment
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| Along with lutefisk, some other inedible things |
"I’m NOT eating arugula. You can’t make me and I won’t do it!”
Confused? Let me explain. This is our second year of buying into a sort of a home delivery of farmer’s market veggies. You buy a share of farm grown veggies and they are delivered to a house in the neighborhood where everybody goes to picks up their share and every week the box has a little different mix of vegetables. When I peered into this first box, I knew I was in trouble; nothing really edible in there like carrots or peas or beans or tomatoes. There was a collection of stuff in various shades of green. Don’t get me wrong, I like green. . . when it’s on a golf course or in my yard right after winter but I’m just not a fan of many of the green vegetables and especially of the leafy variety.
Back to my story. Sooo we open this box of stuff and it’s confirmed, there’s nothing good to eat in there. Spinach, arugula, kale – yuck! There were a few really good radishes which I devoured right away. I know what you’re thinking, you Epicureans you, what a food swine I am. How can I not like kale and arugula?! Well, I’ll tell you why. Because it tastes crappy! If I can put enough 1000 Island dressing on it, I can probably choke it down (but that seems like a terrible waste of good1000 Island dressing.) I mean when I was growing up, fresh peas were like a delicacy. Green beans from a can, mmmmm. Iceberg lettuce; what a treat!
Before you go all smug on me think about this:
The first time my mom made (or tried to make) "Eyetalian spaghetti" – basic tomato sauce and some sort of noodles, I think - in the early 60’s sometime, my dad simply said, what is this and what do I do with it? Good question. Also, I had never heard of pizza until I went to college in the big city of Duluth. I'm not kidding. Chinese food? Same thing, Duluth's own Chun King chow mein in a can! (Quite the culinary foundation for a connie sewer,)
Don’t get me wrong, though, through my 68 19 76 years on this earth I have developed a taste for some of the more . . . interesting foods. Like asparagus (sparingly and only with sauce); broccoli (sparingly only with sauce) and mushrooms (sparingly and only on pizza.) There are still things, however, that I simply don’t care for and it’s too late to change now. Among them, arugula, kale and sushi. OMG raw fish? Seriously? What am I, a porpoise?!
Luckily, this year, having learned our limit on how many fresh vegetables we can eat, we split a share with a neighbor. They don’t know it but they are our saviors! (well, MY savior.) And, much to Mrs. Dear Leader’s chagrin, I can pawn off all the crappy green things to them. Ha ha ha! (Oddly, they apparently like that stuff – vegans? vegetarians? veterinarians? Whatever.) Better yet, I get to make them feel bad that we “sacrifice” the green stuff just for their kids. This will work out great. Now for some REAL veggies!
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| Now you're talking! |
Oct 2015
Now I know how the Inca’s may have felt. Or the Hittites. Or even those stone worshipping people on New Guinea.
My life and the society that I have lived in is being buried. First, they take away a man’s real beer like Budweiser or Grain Belt and replace it with Moose Drool or something with an equally stupid name. Then they make him wear dayglo green lycra shorts and a helmet to go for a bike ride. Isn’t that enough? Nooooooo apparently not . . .
. . . now they’ve gone too far; they’re stealing my childhood food! No, that's not right. They're are appropriating it.
Listen to this (From Sept 15 Star Tribune Food section): ”Delicately spiced pork shoulder defies its bologna shape; its thinly sliced, warmed and slightly scorched on the stove, cloaked with Gruyere and sharp cheddar and tucked into a toasted and buttered roll.” All for only $11. This is the modern replacement for the good old bologna, Wonder Bread and chunk of (fake) cheddar cheese sandwich. Really.
First, if you even know what Gruyere cheese is I don’t want anything to do with you. Next, why would anyone do this? Can you imagine your mom saying - when you come in from a morning of playing ball with your buddies without a single adult interaction - “Come on, honey, it's almost done, I’m just slightly scorching your pork shoulder and Gruyere sandwich. I’ll get the sugar free koolaid and low salt chips in a second.” Oh boy.
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| Now THAT is a samich! |
Thanks, mom, but could I just have a hotdog? “Sure, dear, I’ll get your Limousin beef dog blanketed with a barrage of Asian inspirations: tangy kimshi, yuzu fruit mayonnaise, avocado, chopped egg, charred shishito peppers, pickled ginger. . .” Limousin beef?! Fruity mayonnaise? First, I only use Miracle Whip and second, NEVER on a hot dog. (Although I do put it on my bologna sandwich - and almost everything else.) And I’ve got your shishito right here.
Well, can’t screw up dessert, right? How about S’Mores? Sure, as long as it’s “a light, spongy graham cake indulged with chocolate cremeux (fancy word for pudding?) with picture perfect pillows of meringue marshmallows strategically placed around the artful plate.” Picture perfect pillows. . . huh? That will NOT look good on the camp fire. Is nothing sacred!?
You know, it’s okay if all stores have to be "upscale." It’s also fine if we only build “upper end” homes and apartments. It’s even okay if no hip person would be caught dead going to a regular restaurant. (Gotta be a trendy joint that serves this kind of stuff – and covered with kale, no doubt.) But this is going too far! Taking the remnants of my youth and trashing it and then charging $11 dollars for a bologna and cheese sandwich (replacement), well, that’s just too much.
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| "Remember the Embers" Now THAT was a restaurant! |
I guess this is a not too subtle reminder that I just might be a bit out of step with the times and need to go gently into that good night (on the town at Olive Garden - if I can find one.)
Note: these stories are from several years ago so please rest assured that I am a totally different man now; I will eat broccoli without sauce.
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| You've been warned! |
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