It is the “Rocky” one – Hank, Dalmatian and Budweiser. Watch it again here.

There are times when I am listening to someone speak and they will interject a parenthetical “pardon the pun” and go on. For my part, sometimes I mentally smack my forehead when I realize I had not caught it. Ever now and then, I will be reading and there will be a real parenthetical “pardon the pun” and I will usually go on because there is no reason to stop reading. However, sometimes the phrase surprises me because I am not aware of a pun. I will go back and it I still don’t get it, I will have to force myself to not linger forever trying to identify that pun.

Here’s one in a recent blog post: Digital downloads cost $8.99 on Amazon (free from Limewire or a friend), CDs average $10.50, but vinyl LPs sell for a whopping $14.00 a pop (pardon the pun).

So, where is the pun? I don’t get it. Is my mind a plodding one, wandering in a blogging world?

UPDATE: Okay, I’ve got it.  After someone remarked that he could not see a pun either,  I thought some more about it and considered perhaps the pop referred to pop music – or maybe a paternal parent was forking over the cash. I went back to the post from which this came and in the paragraph above was a reference to a 15-year-old’s remark that music  “sound(s) better on vinyl, even with the crackles and pops and hisses.”

On the pun scale, I give it a “hiss”.

“the dog”  . . . .”the dog”?  For crying out loud; he’s not “the dog”, he is Sydney and he gets fed every morning and evening. Today it was rice and browned ground beef and chopped up chicken and dog food for ‘sensitive stomachs’ all mixed up and microwaved. Now he is outside and I am waiting for him to come in, settle down and sleep. We have been through this out and in process several times this morning. Now he is in – again – and staring at the opposite end of the sofa. We have walking around on some afghans . . . circling . . . and down in a curled up position, although his head is still up, not yet resting on paws. YES! Houston, we have head on paws. We are a go for nap . . . we think.

Are you wondering about the punctuation in the first part of this post? Well, I am. I am fairly certain that we were taught to put punctuation outside of quotation marks in circumstances where the quoted section was not actually the complete sentence. I am confusing myself; I am going to research this. Not that doing this will get the house cleaning or get any food cooked, but I think it’s important.

Often when I look at the Internet news headlines, I see a little camera icon at the end. That means you have to watch it; you can’t quickly click and see the text of the article. No, first comes a commercial and then the introduction of the story and reporter and, finally, the story.

If you want to linger over a part of the story or go back to check on something, too bad. Well, I find that annoying.

Just now, I saw there was a story on Cooper Manning, the eldest brother. And it was one of those “watch” ones. Yes, it was interesting to hear Cooper’s interpretation of the Manning accent, but I really would have appreciated not having to listen to all the repartee between anchorperson and onsite reporter.

Okay, all day yesterday one family member worried that we would be snowed in beyond all snowed in periods of the past. We would never be able to get out of the house again  and, gasp, Wal-Mart trips would be a thing of the past. Ah, dare I dream of such a blessed outcome.

It snowed, but at 4 am, when I looked out the porch door as Sydney went to reconnoiter a location for his outdoor privy, there was very little on the ground and none on the bushes. An hour changed that and soon the school closing started moving across the bottom of the TV screen.

I got the worried nurse to the hospital, although I did take the precaution of leaving Sydney at home in case I were to slide and crash, slide and wind up on a curb or in a ditch, slide and slide and cause him to be jolted around the car and injure himself.

A dastardly freezing rain or really wet snow or, judging from the perfectly round ice balls on my trunk, hail smacked into windshield and clogged the windshield wipers. I ended up driving with my head hunched down to look out under the wiper arc for awhile – sort of in the posture of a little old lady with severe neck osteoporosis. It was slick and the intersection were ruts and humps of snow, shoved by cars turning and plows doing the same.

A short trip and actually  enchanting  once I was headed back down Riley Street. I got home; let the dog out and took some pictures of the night and the snow and the dog and the light left on for anyone wanting to come home.

Aha, I was just sitting here with the TV on Fort Wayne’s CBS at a low volume and when I shifted my laptop, I caught a glimpse of the screen. (You have to realize that some of my mornings I look at the laptop while in a deep sofa slouch; well, you don’t have to, but it would be helpful to understand why I could not see the screen.)

By the way, the TV was on CBS in the first place because I looked this morning to see if East Noble was going to have a delay. They did not.

Getting back to that moment when I saw the screen, the name Dorko was being broadcast and there was his picture. Not a bad looking man at all. Trim and distinguished.

Just last week, I happened on the Dorko name and wrote a little about it. And now there he is on television. Oh, Good God, I looked again and the show is “Martha”. Now, that’s great; Martha Stewart drives me crazy. She goes to prison and comes back to a TV show and design collections with department stores and Kodak Film Gallery.

Well, Martha is neither here nor there and I guess I should climb on the wagon, take the pledge – no more Dorko remarks. It just lends itself so easily to that sort of thing . . . No excuse. Get a grip on yourself. Have some class, AmeliaJake.

I must protect the little diesel with some more Diesel 911 because the temperature is supposed to plummet later today and over night. Well, if plummet is the word, then I guess it is supposed to happen fast, and checking in with the weather site, I see that a significant drop is looming during a couple of late night hours, followed by a continued downward trend.

45 Degrees today; high of 19 tomorrow.

Block heater to be plugged in; diesel protected from windchill; additive in fuel tank.

In the dentist chair at 9:00 in the morning. Hey, that’s not bad; it’s getting up and being clean at that time. I am more of a later in the day person, not to mention an on my own schedule person.

My teeth are fine; I should floss more but they are okay. Most of them are over 53 or so years old because they are my second teeth – my real ones, in you will – and  I’m 59. They can still wreak havoc on a hamburger, though, and are strong enough for corn on the cob and steak.  Maybe next year I will have some fillings replaced – some of the old, old ones.

I learned my lesson about not keeping watch on my teeth; a filling cracked and fell out of one – bit by bit, or bite by bite – and more decay started, followed by a really painful abscessed tooth. It had to come out and now I have a one-tooth bridge. That is the only tooth I have lost due to cavities. Lucky, lucky in the genetic tooth department, or maybe the fluoride in the water category.

I love my teeth. Is that too strong an emotion? It is not the way they look but what they do for me – such as staying with me and not leaving me to fiddle with dentures that might fall out when I sneeze. Don’t laugh; that happened to Harold Hagerty in the basement of the  Scott Methodist Church when he was on election day duties. Oh, actually, I think everyone laughed at Harold and I know the story was retold a lot. In fact, look, I am retelling it now.

I used to hate being tone deaf. Actually, I didn’t know I was until midway through elementary school. I should have guessed. My mother asked me to sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and then laughed; well, I remember that moment. I asked what was wrong and she said, “Oh, nothing.” Yeah, right.

Then in second grade, the music teacher came in and had each child come up and sing back to her the notes she had just sung. I had no idea what was going on. Then it was my turn: the teacher and the kids laughed at me and I didn’t know why. It was awful.

Today I read that a gentleman had written he could only manage to listen to a vinyl record 10 times before being annoyed by this distortion caused by needle meeting vinyl. Heavens to Betsey, it is amazing to me that anyone could pick up something such as that. Frankly, I listen to music for the cheerfulness factor – and the lyrics.

Here’s something that will shock music fanciers: I like The Stein Song by Rudy Vallee as sold by itunes. It is tinny and fuzzy and oh, so great. And I never get annoyed.

Come on, everybody sing . . . and sing ’til the rafters ring.