I wrote about this comic strip and these two guys a few days ago. Sunday, maybe? I don’t think I made this statement then: “The Argyle Sweater is funny.” I should have, because it is. At the time I was caught up in the idea that The Argyle Sweater, which for some reason I want to call The Argyle Sock, closely resembled The Far Side by Gary Larson.

Well, what is wrong with that? Nothing. Some critics have made the point that Hilburn occasionally has a joke that is similar to one Larson made; okay, are they implying that once an original thought occurs, no one can have an idea like that, even if they express it well, even if they make you . . . smile?

Gee, scientists, you can’t do gravity – Newton did it. Or how about this: A guy or gal has a brain tumor and a really good surgeon is able to delve deep and remove it and have the patient recover and be pretty normal. Do you send him away because he is doing something like an earlier surgeon did? Of course not. He can get the job done.

The Argyle Sweater gets the job done; Hilburn courts humor and lets it manifest itself in that off the wall way Larson did. Great, because for one thing, Larson isn’t doing it anymore in a daily strip. Personally, I like to have my brain regularly tickled by takes on situations that are far beyond knock-knock jokes; we should all utter a collective “Thank You, Mr. Hilburn, for showing us the thoughts you have when you let your mind hear a different drummer . . . well, in cases like this, maybe a different tuba.”

Oom, Oom Pah . . . Pah, Pah, Oom . . .

Oh, that’s sort of a complicated collective thought – so let’s just make the “Thank You” collective and you can customize the elaboration.

Well, I got it from Redbox and right off the bat there is a really graphic sex scene, so had I been watching it with my mother, it would have ended right there. I don’t want to give anything away here, but feel compelled to say the plot just keeps on hammering the leading character and does a number on the others as well. Several activities, for lack of a better word, were kind of out there without background, other than what I surmised. I watched it once; I don’t think I would watch it again.

Oh, yeah, the main character has a big stomach paunch.

The lady in this photo was born Sarah Jane Wisler, but she dropped the “h” and after teaching for a few years married an encyclopedia salesmen and traveled with him. They had their picture taken by the “Kodak Man” at Salt Lake. I’m going to have to scan that photo in. Then he died and she went to Washington D.C. and worked in a white blouse and long white skirt in a government office and then she married L.D.

They showed up one day that summer I was one with a trailer my dad said was packed like a cube. My grandmother was her niece, Jessie Wisler, although there was not much difference in their ages. My great-grandfather was her brother. His name was Wesley. Between the two of them there were four others, Jesse, Frank, Grace and Anna.

Let’s see. Wesley’s father was Jacob and his mother was Anna Lucetta Nye and they came out from Ohio, I think. Before that their families were in Pennsylvania.

And I’m the short blonde in front of Sara(h).

When I was five, she sent me a copy of “A Christmas Carol” she bought when she went to Elizabeth’s coronation. I don’t know how old I was when she sent the picture of her in a rickshaw. Oh, and she dyed her hair red.

I may have written this before, and if so, never mind.

First of all, please pay attention to this:

Don’t do this kind of thing in front of people you do not trust or know well, it is frowned upon in many places.

This is a quote from the bottom of the page on this site about making Voodoo Dolls. It is probably good advice. I am not going to show a picture of the New Orleans doll or the Modern doll, but is is much more complicated than I thought. I figured you could just make a stick figure and declare it was So and So and that would do it; apparently I am wrong.

No, the New Orleans doll requires Spanish moss and the voodoo site cautions this: Spanish moss is often infested with red bugs and other small parasites. Inspect it very carefully before handling. Then the Modern doll requires a picture of the complete person transfered onto fabric and stuffed.

According to this site, voodoo dolls are usually used for positive things:

• Add pins. Voodoo practitioners use dolls primarily for boring positive things like healing people or sparking romance. If you harm your boss out of spite, karma dictates that the consequences for you will be worse. There are seven pins, each one with a different symbol:
  • yellow – success
  • white – positive
  • red – power
  • purple – spirituality
  • green – money
  • blue – love
  • black – repelling negative energy

However, some media have shown them used for nefarious purposes and so some sports injuries or failures to perform maybe be subjected to a VSI. (Voodoo Scene Investigation)

Sore arms on Yankee pitchers might be suspicious.

A bone spur on the heel on a catcher’s hand.

A sudden allergy to the wood used in bats.

Oh, what am I thinking??

OH WAIT

Someone is already thinking this at RESTORE THE CURSE. And you can actually put pins in players. . . just watch out for the aforementioned famous “karma”.

You start out writing a few thoughts here and there, just as you would think them while driving or doing some task. Sometimes it is because something hurts and there is no one to tell. Sometimes it is a revelation of errors made or aspirations hoped for – things maybe you are embarrassed to talk about. There are times you just want to be whimsical.

Then  you tell one person, and then another, and then someone who knows you so very well – who has always been smarter than you. And you start to think, “Oh, I can’t write that.”

Sometimes you make the decision that you will, because you need to be who you are.

CNN has a story about the money spent by taxpayers in relation to the children of divorce and out of wedlock situations. That is a lot of money. I could say more . . . I won’t.

Last week, I mentioned a festival – a cornbread one – in a post about a Celtic gathering in Maryland.

I have been looking into it a little more and found The Cornbread Gospels and Crescent Dragonwagon. Now, I have a suspicion Crescent Dragonwagon is not her real name, but then again I am somewhat limited in my knowledge of cultural names. I happened upon her while looking at the stuff that is going to be at the National Cornbread Festival in New Pittsburg, Tennessee. (Do you realize how hard it is not to put a “h” on the end of Pittsburg, you New Pittsburgians?) Well, anyway she will be autographing her book and providing historical information on cornbread.

I don’t care for cornbread, but I like festivals. Will Bayou Billy be at this one? He’s my favorite drink vendor, you know – who has been coming to the Kendallville, Indiana Apple Festival, but apparently is NOT this year. Please rethink this, Bayou. It’s okay if I call you by your first name, right?

But back to Ms. Dragonwagon – ACK! I’m slow – being a visual person, I missed the auditory pun until now. Anyway, here is her picture with cornbread which includes this comment:

“To those of us for whom cornbread is
religion, Crescent Dragonwagon is our
favorite evangelist — her voice engaging
and fiery, inspiring us to diversify our daily bread: from the thin-and-lacy, to the glazed drop scone, to the cheese coin.

But we bet the unconverted will flock to THE CORNBREAD GOSPELS, too, for its wisdom—such as how to cut fresh corn from the cob
and the proper way to store stone-ground cornmeal—and its downright delicious recipes.”

Matt Lee and Ted Lee, The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook

And here is her website. I think she’s written a new book about vegetarian cooking, but after the missed pun, I don’t know if I can trust my brain.

Now that the snow pack has completely melted off and the trapped leaves beneath it been raked – to some degree – I see that the driveway is not where we assumed it was. That is, to be blunt about it, the actually cement is closer to the spruce tree and farther away from the hedge. We had been quite comfortable making the curve between the two, using the frozen snow path as a guide. As it turns out, the spruce stretched out at the bottom and we were making a bigger arc.

AmeliaJake with clippers . . . Ah, the thought is scary, and gets scarier when I think of putting a ladder against the trunk and just dropping those lower branches. Hey, I’ve been watching Ax Men. Maybe if I watched the show while staying at an Holiday Inn Express, I would be a real expert.

AmeliaJake with a chain saw!!! Yes!!! The possibilities . . .

From: BMD Workbench

I know the thing in my kitchen is not an icebox; it is a refrigerator – I sometimes call it an icebox, though.

The summer I was born, my father delivered blocks of ice for iceboxes. He was a teacher then and I think he worked for my great uncle’s ice business. My grandmother had an icebox, I’m certain. I vaguely remember it. But then we also had a 1948 Frigidaire and to tell you the truth, I don’t know if it is still working or not. I know it was a few years ago. It had this little, tiny freezer compartment that came down like a nodule from the inside top – and icecube trays that had a little ratchet type release handle.

I have always been behind the times when it has come to icebox improvements. I did not have an icemaker for decades . . . and only a few years ago did I get a refrigerator that dispenses ice through the door, as well as chilled water – which I don’t use.

Yesterday, the divider that separates the freezer part and the refrigerator half got really hot. I vacuumed the coils, but that didn’t help. So I called the local repairman; he made a point of getting over last night and found the hose for the water had blocked the compressor fan. So he unblocked it. I paid him and he left, and then I turned to the newly-revealed accumulation of gunky dirt in the refrigerator area and thought, “Oh, my God.” So we made a stab at cleaning it. I took no pictures, no pictures at all.

Gosh, I’m a yucky housekeeper . . . I need a maid – or to move every year.

Say, that picture above? Wouldn’t it be nice if I could be “restored” to my earlier days . . .

I read today that while most of the world has helicopters where the rotors go counter-clockwise, zee French ones, zhay go, how do you say? clockwise. Why is this?

Well, maybe the Russian ones go clockwise,too.

And then, China and India and Poland do the clockwise thing as well.

So maybe I was a little loose with facts when I said “most of the world”. Hmm . . . Sikorsky was born in Russia of Polish descent and studied aviation in France. The plot, it thickens. So, if Sikorsky of helicopter fame was from Russia and studied in France, isn’t it odd that French and Russian helicopters rotate the reverse of American? Did Sikorsky start out rotating counter-clockwise and someone changed his mind? Did he originally go clockwise and the French and Russians got miffed at his coming to America and just said, “Eh, Eh, Eh, we spit on you and will turn the other way.” Probably not.