I see the beast, but where's the beauty?

 

I have kind of a love/hate relationship with Disney and their parks, hotels and stores. Despite their continued business model of squeezing ever last dollar out of visitors to the Happiest Places on Earth, I continue to grumble and book trips to the Magic Kingdom. And I'm joined by millions of others who flock to the parks daily to consume their churros and turkey drumsticks as they shuffle off to a ride.

The question is why? I have never been to Disneyland when it wasn't crammed with miserable looking people desperately trying to get to the next ride that has less than an hour wait. And the infamous lines that wind around like a snake swallowing it's own tail continue to get more elaborate and deceptive. The replaced fast pass kiosks with a Genie Plus App that you have to pay $20 a day per person to use to join the rebranded "Lightning Lane" on select rides. The catch is, if you can actually figure out the app (and it is working) you can only use it once per select ride per day and once you use it on one ride you can't use it on another ride for a few hours. 

The Genie Plus also isn't good on the most popular rides like Star Wars Rise of the Resistance, Spiderman Academy or the Radiator Springs Race. You have to pay an additional $15 to $20 to get in the Lightning Lane. 

Then you have to hope the ride doesn't break down before your window of time to use the Lightning Lane. Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean broke down several times while we were there last week.

Consumption at the parks always blows me away. Despite astronomical food prices (like $7 for a soda served in a small plastic grenade in Star Wars Land) people move through the park like locust munching on high priced popcorn and Disney branded snacks. If you are lucky enough to get a reservation at a restaurant like the Blue Bayou you can plan to spend $29 for a Monty Cristo sandwich. I bought my son kid's chicken meal for $10 that included one thin strip of chicken. We asked for another two strips of chicken on the side so he wouldn't starve. Each additional strip cost another $10.

The thing that has always baffled me about Disneyland is the hordes of people who flock there despite the expense and crowds, just to try and carve out a piece of the promised dream -- a fantasy world of magic. And I know it sounds hypocritical because I'm one of them. Part of me harkens back to that kid in me who one day dreamed of going to that place Walt Disney hyped on television promising to bring a carousel of color to my black and white world.

But the only color Disney seems to promote is the color of money. I'm sure they have huge teams of people calculating algorythms that keep the crowds moving and consuming just out of reach of the dream. 

I did note in this last trip to Disneyland that despite the outrageous cost of going there, it isn't a place for the rich and beautiful. It attracts the want to be rich and beautiful. And no matter how bad you feel about how you look, all you have to do is go to Disneyland and discover that maybe, compared to the unwashed masses, you don't look so bad or fat as you thought.

This is one of those posts that you start writing without a real point and then you find you've tapped into some bottled up bile and resentment. It got twisted in with all of the stress of travelling after almost three years of pandemic induced isolation. Mix in the stress, expense and the cold I got when we returned home (I've tested negative for COVID four times so I've concluded I just have a bad cold) and you get a pretty negative review of Disneyland.

But I'll bet you we eventually go back.

So happy I could cry

 

I have written several posts about crying at the self-proclaimed Happiest Place on Earth, Disneyland. So after going there yet again last week to celebrate my son's 14th birthday, I decided to do a photo series I call, "Crying at the Happiest Place on Earth." This is me crying on the first day in the park after walking about 30 miles in sandals and rubbing my feet raw.

This is me crying in the hallway outside our room in Disney's Grand Californian. It is a beautiful hotel decorated in Mission style furniture on a grand scale that awes you when you walk into the lobby. It also features premium priced (but not premium quality) food that will bring tears to your eyes (like $20 chicken strips and a $25 dollar pepperoni pizza).

One cool aspect of staying at the Disney Grand Californian is that you have your own entrance into the California Adventure Theme Park. This is me crying in line waiting to go on the Grizzly Bear River Run where they promise you will get wet and probably soaked. There is also a huge probability that you will get queasy on the spinning river raft and another huge probability that the ride will break down after you have waited in line 45 minutes to get on it.

One of the more exciting rides in California Adventure is the Guardians of the Galaxy Mission Breakout ride. It used to be the Tower of Terror Ride with a spooky Twilight Zone theme. They switched it over to Guardians of the Galaxy when they bought the franchise. This is me crying in front of the tower after losing control of several bodily functions during the third or fourth free fall elevator drop. That is me in the back row left.

You stream, we stream, we all stream...

I finally cut the cable and rely completely on streaming content for my television consumption. I got sick of paying for cable that kept increasing in cost without increasing the number of channels I had access to. I was down to basic cable that was basically useless. Other than allowing me to access a few local channels (which I rarely watched anyway) it offered me nothing.

So now my cable bill only includes high-speed Internet and phone land lines. I would get rid of the phone, but my wife insists we need it for emergencies and to receive countless robo calls offering me extended warranties on my car and alerting me that someone is buying expensive things with my Amazon account.

The only down side to streaming versus cable is the number of apps I end up paying for to get premium content. I have Amazon Prime, Netflix, Apple TV, Disney +, HBO Max, Peacock, Paramount, Showtime and PBS.  It still is cheaper than basic cable and I only have to watch commercials on Peacock.

Unlike cable, which was a cultural desert of crap channels, I find myself with almost unlimited choices of things to watch. I have binge watch tons of great original content. The downside in discovering some new series and watching all of the available episodes is waiting for a new season. And sometimes they never come because Netflix or Amazon decides not to continue with the series. But even when they do come, it is sometimes after so long that I forget the plot line of the previous seasons.

What I really like is that, unlike watching premium channels on cable, I can watch a movie or series from the beginning anytime I want. I'm not at the mercy of tuning in at a specific time. And who needs a DVR? DVD's have also become obsolete. Everything is in the cloud waiting to waft down to your on demand.

I remember writing posts in the past about the marvels of DVRs and being able to pause live television. And I remember bitching about having too many cable channels and not enough good content. Who would have dreamed we would eventually be able to stream just about anything we want and any time we want. 

I can't even imagine what and how we will be watching content five or ten years from now. Maybe all we will have to do is close our eyes and content is streamed into our brains.

If that happens I know what I'll be doing at staff meetings in the future.

Picture me, if you will...

 

I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time experimenting with filters on Snapchat. I don't ever actually send any messages on Snapchat. I don't have a clue how it works. But I do know how to capture photos of my face with odd filter effects. It takes less time than Photoshop.

If you don't know me (which applies to just about everyone), you'd think I like my face. On the contrary, I am appalled by it, especially as it ages. I struggle with selfies to try and hide the double chin and sagging flesh. Filters at least hide some of the flaws.

Ironically, I hate having photos taken of myself. Inevitably, I look huge. And photographs always seem to capture me in the most unflattering poses with my mouth have open. Selfies with filters remedy some of that.

They also help me indulge in role playing fantasies. For example I think I would have made a pretty good cowboy.

Though I don't think I could pull off being a clown.

I find it quite horrifying, actually.

But overall filters makes me smile (in a genuine way, of course).

Old man, look at my life

 

Old man, look at my life

I'm a lot like you were

Old man, look at my life

I'm a lot like you were

Lullabies, look in your eyes

Run around the same old town

Doesn't mean that much to me

To mean that much to you

I've been first and last

Look at how the time goes past

But I'm all alone at last

Rolling home to you 

--Neil Young 

 I have always liked the song, Old Man by Neil Young. I can't say the lyrics ever made sense to me other than a young man telling an old man that he was young like him at some point in his life.

Duh.

Actually Neil Young was writing the song to an old man who was the caretaker of a ranch he bought in Northern California when he was 25. Apparently the old man had lived on the ranch for a long time and couldn't believe a 25 year old could afford to buy it. So Neil Young wrote the song to rub his face in it.

Well he said he wrote it to tell the man that they weren't that different than each other. He just had got rich young by playing a guitar, smoking weed and singing in a weird falsetto voice. The old man on the other hand was taking care of the young man's cows and mending fences for what I imagine was minimum wage. 

I'm a lot like you were....NOT.

I can tell you that when I was 25, I wasn't imagining I was anything like old men. I didn't want to think about getting old. And at that age I was thinking 40 was old. Now 40 seems pretty young to me. I do remember being depressed when I turned 25 because I'd let a quarter of a century go by with out much to show for it. I'd like to go back in time and slap my 25 year old self a few times.

 Speaking of getting old, I've been watching Virgin River on Netflix (don't judge). In addition to young, attractive actors, the cast includes Tim Matheson and Annette O'Toole as an aging couple. If you don't remember who they are, Tim Matheson starred in the 1978 movie Animal Shack. If you really want some trivia, he was also the voice of Johnny Quest in the 1964 cartoon. Annette O'Toole was in lots of movies and series in the 1980s and 1990s. She was Lana Lane in Superman III. She was also in a 1982 remake of Cat People that I panned in a review in my college newspaper. My review headline was "Cat People belongs in the litter box." Anyway she was pretty hot back then.

But Virgin River shows what happens to all of us when we age. Matheson, once a heartthrob, plays a crotchity old country doctor. O'Toole plays his very unlikeable wife. Even when the doctor begins losing his eyesight and his wife suffers a brain injury, it is difficult to like either character. And the challenge for me is that I keep picturing them the way they looked in the early 1980s. 

Time is not kind to any of us. 

Now lest you think I am age shaming I must remind you that I am pretty much in the same boat (which could desperately use a new coat of paint). It is just a bit jarring to see these actors who I picture in their iconic young roles, growing old. It's like going to your 40th or 50th high school reunion and wondering who all the old people are.

Now that I am in this hole, I am going to stop digging.

Oh man, look at my life.

Going to town

 

My wife and I took our daughter to see a performance of Hades Town at the Paramount Theater in downtown Seattle last Saturday. It was the first major performance I've seen since the pandemic. And I have to say it was one hell of a show. 

The place was packed and while most people wore masks, it was kind of freaky being in a crowd. COVID has made me hyperaware of things like that. Not that I've ever liked crowds. But I never used to worry about crowds of people making me sick.

It is amazing how the pandemic changed our lives. And it is amazing how we've changed how we respond to it. In the beginning we were washing our hands several times a day and using hand sanitizer like it was holy water protecting us from the devil. Masks went from a novelty to a necessity. And god forbid we were ever within six feet of another person. Gone was shaking hands and hugging.

But now no one cares about hand sanitizer, social distancing and for the most part masks. Even so, reports are increasing of yet another surge in COVID cases and health officials telling us we should wear masks and avoid crowds. No one really listens.

I enjoyed Hadestown immensely. But that night we got a message that they cancelled the evening performance due to illness and COVID affecting the cast. I was a bit surprised though the understudy had been playing the role of Orpheus in the show we saw. So I wonder who else got sick between the matinee and the evening performance.

In case you've never heard of Hadestown, it is a musical based loosely on the Greek myth of Orpheus travelling to the underworld to bring back his wife Eurydice. Spoiler alert: he fails. The music from Hadestown is amazing. The audience gave the show a major standing ovation (not always a given in Seattle). And it was well deserved. I highly recommend you catch a show if you can. Or at least listen to the soundtrack. It is pretty haunting.

Don't Pandemic II

 

I thought I was yet again being too clever by half when I thought of turning Douglas Adam's "Don't Panic" from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy into "Don't Pandemic." But of course, Google showed me I wasn't the first clever person to use the phrase. And ironically I was looking over some of my past posts and discovered I'd titled post "Don't Pandemic" earlier in the pandemic. Once again I am repeating myself without being aware of it.

But this time I put my face on the "Don't Pandemic" character so at least that is something original. 

I don't know what to think about the pandemic now. After about two years of hourly headlines describing the onslaught of new variants sweeping through the world Covid has been pushed to page five of the virtual news pages behind classified ads for lost pets. Occasionally a click bait headline pops up promising that Covid isn't dead yet and the next one is going to be the mother of all strains that will wag it's behind at your boosters.

But the price of gas and groceries seems to be more frightening.

Now that my kids are out of school for the summer and I no longer have to shuttle them to and from school and play practice, I have returned to the office several days a week. I have to tell you, it actually feels pretty good to ride the train to work again and sit at a desk that isn't in a basement surrounded by boxes, dog beds and meowing cats. 

And being in downtown Seattle isn't as scary as I thought it would be. Now granted I am exposed to a narrow part of downtown each day. I have a two minute walk from the train station to my office building and I don't venture out much. Me and the pigeons are above it all on the fourth floor of my building. And next month I move to the 11th floor of another building. I will be in a much smaller interior office so I'll be even more insulated from the real world.

Although I wear a mask on the train, very few people seem to care anymore. The train isn't full, but it rarely was before the pandemic. I also don't wear a mask in the office. There are only a hand full of people here. It is kind of nice. 

Most of my meetings are still virtual. That is also nice. The only difference from remote is that I am wearing slacks and a dress shirt instead of pajama bottoms and a t-shirt. I also don't have a dog scratching at my leg for attention.

It's almost like the world is back to normal for me.

Almost.

Old dog

 

I try to avoid commenting about work in my blog. But I've spent the last three Fridays and finally my birthday in an all day leading with purpose workshop. This is not a training I've sought out. It is not a training I would have sought out. There is nothing that involves four full days of psycho babble that I would purposedly seek out.

It's not that I don't want to learn new things, but these consultant led trainings, on Zoom not in person complete with virtual break out rooms aren't learning opportunities. They are mindnumbing wastes of time. I am not a stupid person, but the language of consultants and management training is incomprehensible. 

Things like "generous listening." It translates to paying attention to what someone is saying to you even though it is stupid. There are 360 surveys that give you feedback from peers, direct reports and your manager. They are all over the map --say more, say less, listen more, act more, stop rolling your eyes.

I don't like feedback. I can dissect myself with a blunt tool without someone else's opinion. But providing feedback that I don't like feedback is not socially acceptable. I must drink the Koolaid and adopt the lingo, at least until I actually retire or expire.

At my age I am set in my ways and I don't think making lists and personal goals is going to change that. I can't even remember half of the crap I've "learned" in trainings anyway. 

This dog don't want to hunt no more.

Gray and white

 

I live in a gray and white world, literally and figurative. At times it seems like there is never sunshine in the Pacific Northwest. The sky always seems gray and blotched with drizzle. It seems worse than it was when I first moved here more than 40 years ago. Maybe it is climate change. Maybe it is just me aging, graying and whiting.

My hair is gray and white. I am like a printer running out of ink. I am fading.

Maybe it's the pandemic or social unrest or the economy or the war in the Ukraine that making me gray. Or should that be blue? 

Was it a coincidence that Oscar Wilde's character was Dorian Gray? But I suppose his portrait grayed while he stayed black and white. Though I wish I had a portrait that grayed and aged while I stayed the way my mind sees me -- young and strong. The mirror, however, betrays me.

Which is why I try to avoid mirrors. But there are times, like when I am getting my hair cut, that I can't avoid the mirror. Even on the endless video meetings I am forced to stare at my gray face and double chins. More than two years of this has taken its toll.

And speaking of being invisible (there's one of those old digressions) there is nothing like being in a video meeting with about a hundred people that makes you actually invisible. No one really sees you. If they did see me, I wonder if they would think they are tuning in an old black and white television show.

Free as a bird

So I think I've set a new record for not blogging. Something about a pandemic that just keeps my muse from musing. It's difficult to be motivated to write when nothing seems too amusing.

I did go into the office a couple of weeks ago for the first time in almost two years. I was greeted by a stack of mail a foot high on my desk.

The monkey playing cymbals was watching over it for me. He hasn't changed. He did seem a bit more skitterish than I remember.

I also noted my desk calendar was open to March 2020, the month when it all seemed to go to hell. It was like something right out of the Twilight Zone. This whole scenario is like a bad dystopian novel.

Speaking of dystopian plots, I began watching this series on HBO Max called Station Eleven. It is about a future world where many of the people were killed off by a deadly flu. 

Sound familiar?

It's odd, but the pandemic seems to be losing steam, not because COVID had gone away but because people are just sick of it (pun intended). The intensity of the first year was replaced by hope that vaccines would end it last year. But the endless variants threw a wet blanket on hope towards the second part of 2021. And now people just seem to say WTF. Lots of mask mandates are being lifted.  

I've never liked wearing masks, but I've done it. The biggest pain is remembering to put them on. And I have never found a good solution for keeping my glasses from fogging up. Plus they make my ears pull down and look even bigger than they are. And they really draw attention to my double chin.

Not that my looks matter. I've become even more invisible during the pandemic. I still walk every day. And my wife gave us a family gym membership for Christmas. But working out in a mask sucks. And I'm really sick of walking the same routes for almost two years.

Anyway, why, you ask, is this post called "Free as a bird?" Because it strikes me how ironic that phrase is, especially now that we are all more or less captives in our homes and communities.

Finding my niche

 

Here's one niche I'm not looking to fill.

As I mentioned, I have walked every day for exercise during the pandemic. I have walked ad nauseum. I try to change routes daily so I don't get too bored. I generally walk in two-mile segments. I have a Fitbit to keep track of the steps. I've walked miles and miles.

I walked by the Edmonds Cemetery yesterday. I've walked an driven by it hundreds of times. And I've even noticed this sign before. But this time it struck me as funny. We always seem to be looking for our niche to fill. This helped me put it in context. Maybe it is better to be a generalist than to fill this niche.

Teenage mutant viruses

Just when you think you are safe, they bring you
COVID Variants.
Don't go near your unvaccinated neighbor.

It is all like a bad movie sequel that you don't really want to watch. After all you were glad the first one ended. But the monster keeps coming back to life and chases the hero or heroine. But in this case, the good guys wear masks.

When we were all fully vaccinated, we were briefly relieved. I stopped wearing masks in most places. Tess booked a trip to Disneyland and Universal Studios. It was like we were finally waking up from the nightmare.

And then the Delta Variant reared it's ugly viral head. Good news was it was hitting the unvaccinated the hardest. My first thought was serves them right. Then they started speculating the fully vaccinated were getting sick, too. Just not as sick.

We went on our trip to Disneyland anyway. It was supposedly operating at reduced capacity, but you could have fooled me. They required masks inside on rides, but most of the time you were jammed next to thousands of people without masks.  We were staying at the Disneyland Hotel and they used COVID as an excuse for not cleaning the rooms every day. 

We came home from the vacation more stressed than when we left.

We'd started dining inside our favorite restaurant. We could see the servers' faces for the first time. That quickly changed. We are now back on the patio and servers are masked again. 

I was supposed to return to my downtown office three days a week beginning September 7. That has been moved to November 1 at the earliest. My work is now requiring everyone to be fully vaccinated as a condition of employment. I am glad. People shouldn't have a choice when it comes to keeping the damned virus from spreading and mutating. 

Now they are talking about booster shots for everyone. My wife and I have already had one because of various health reasons. But part of me wonders if it is enough.

I tell you I am sick of masks. I'll wear them, but the novelty has worn off. The brief time when the vaccinated could be free of them was too much of a tease. I want to be free of this all.

Oh well. Once more into the breach.

Like a moth to fame

 

I watched a documentary on Amazon Prime the other day about the actor Val Kilmer. It was created using lots of random footage actually filmed by the actor over his life. First with film cameras and later with video, many from the sets of movies he was starring in.

So why would I watch a documentary about Val Kilmer? We kind of have some things in common. He is about the same age as me. We were both raised Christian Scientists. We both have one son and a daughter. We were both wildly successful in our careers and became quite famous....well, he did. I really thought he played an amazing Jim Morrison in the Doors movie and I will never forget his Doc Holiday in Tombstone.

Oh, and my wife took my children to see his one man performance of Mark Twain several years back. 

What struck me most about the documentary of Val Kilmer was how he no longer resembles the Val Kilmer I remember from all of his films. He has had throat cancer and had his trachea removed. He no longer acts. He attends comic conventions and signs autographs. He does art.

He doesn't look happy. 

I was also amazed that he was able to capture so much of his own life on film. I have absolutely no film or video of my life prior to my late 20s and then very little. You would be hard pressed to make a documentary about my life. But that is also what struck me so hard. There would be nothing to make a documentary of my life about. I've never been famous. No one would care.

That in itself is depressing. But I try and comfort myself with the knowledge that, although I didn't achieve fame in my life, I also didn't lose it. No one watches movies I've made and then gasps at what I look like now in my 60s. I've also had a relatively healthy life.

But still, I never starred in a movie. I never published a book. No one recognizes me on the street. No one even really sees me. And when I die, very few people will remember me or for very long.

Now granted, I could live another 20-30 years. I could still write a book. But writing a book isn't what it used to be. Pretty much anyone can these days. 

I used to naively believe my blog was my road to fame. I thought I'd be discovered and my genius recognized. But a couple of decades go by and you realize that isn't going to happen. 

Part of it is age. It isn't a world for old people. No one wants to hear our stories. They aren't relevant anymore. Layer COVID over everything and my opportunities for being famous are pretty much nil.

Oh well. It's time to blow out the candles on this pity party's cake and get on with life. At least I still have a sense of humor.

Good Bidet mate!

 

I honestly had never used a bidet until we stayed at an AirBNB cabin a few months ago that had a bidet attachment installed. It was a fancy electronic one that allowed you to pick a water temperature. I was skeptical at first, but after one use I wondered how I'd ever lived without a bidet.

The pandemic inspired many shortages, including toilet paper. So a bidet naturally addresses that concern directly. The only thing you need toilet paper for after using a bidet is using a few squares to dab the water off from your tushy.

When I got home I began researching how I could install a bidet attachment in my own bathroom. I discovered there were many affordable options. I chose a model from a company called Zen. I ordered it and installed it without too much trouble.

Without getting too gross and graphic, this is the only toilet I will use now. We've gone camping and then on a trip to Disneyland since and both times I missed my bidet dearly. You don't know how much pain toilet paper causes until you start using a bidet. 

I'm flushed with pride over my discovery.

Walking out of things to say

 I haven't been any more prolific in 2021 than I was in 2020. Something about a pandemic kind of dampens down your sense of humor. Not that mine was particularly keen before COVID 19. I've been running out of steam when it comes to blogging.

Or I've been walking out of steam. Why should running get all the credit? And I've been walking more in that past year and a half than I probably have my entire life.

I need to pace myself (ba da boom).

You would think that I would want to blog more during a pandemic. But once you talk about masks and social distancing ad nauseum, what else is there to say? 

I did find it kind of weird how we went from constant mask wearing and running away from people to now being able to walk around without masks and just frowning at people instead of crossing the street when you encounter them on a walk. It just seemed to happen. 

Though I think vaccinations had something to do with it. My stupid right wing brothers still haven't got their shots. You'd think this is natures chance to really give natural selection another chance. Because not getting vaccinated in the face of a virus that has killed thousands of people is kind of like not wearing a seat belt, a bike helmet or a life preserver on a sinking ship. You certainly shouldn't be dipping those toes in the gene pool any longer.

I suppose a few good things have come out of the pandemic. I did clear out all of my bins of crap out of the garage and made a few bucks on eBay. And I've tried not to turn around an use those bucks to accumulate more crap (though my wife thinks I have too many guitars). 

Speaking of guitars, I've gotten back into playing almost ever day. I've discovered you can find the chords for just about every song ever recorded on line now without having to pay a cent for sheet music. 

We had been prepping our house to sell and upgrade. But I think we've given up on that. We missed the sweet spot in the market where you could sell your house at a highly inflated price and actually find a better house that you could afford to buy. So now were are just thinking of remodeling. We'll see how that goes.

Oh well, it's almost time for my after work walk with my son and my dog. Got to get those 10,000 steps a day in somehow.

Hit me with your best shot

 My wife and I had our second COVID-19 vaccine shot last Friday. So I figured that was worth noting on a blog that I've woefully neglected since the pandemic began more than a year ago. 

I couldn't tell you why the pandemic squashed my muse (or at least put a face mask on it so it is hard to make out). I suppose there is only so much you can write about walking, face masks, socially distancing and my right wing brothers. 

I spend most of each day in my basement office staring at video meetings and forgetting to unmute myself when someone says something to me. I wear t-shirts and jeans. I shower maybe once a week. 

Maybe being fully vaccinated will change things a bit. But for the most part not. At least until a bulk of the population is also fully vaccinated.

My older right wing Christian brothers aren't getting vaccinated. I think it has something to do with the will of god, liberal conspiracies and the fact that Biden is the President. Neither seems convinced that COVID-19 exists. 

Regardless, I have been fully vaccinated and leave my brothers to their own misguided beliefs and assinine opinions. After all, you can't fix stupid. 

So I started writing this post on March 29th and it is now April 26th. Can't seem to get into the blog groove. But I am fully vaccinated and it seems the rest of the country is starting to catch up. I actually took my son to a movie theater on Saturday. Other than wearing masks and not having to worry about anyone sitting next to us or in front of us, it was pretty normal. I actual enjoy going to restaurants and movies and not having to deal with crowds. 

I am getting sick of walking every day and masking and unmasking when someone approaches on the sidewalk. I've read articles that say we really don't need masks if we are outside. 

But then again I've read articles that contradict that as well. That part of COVID hasn't changed with vaccinations. What we need is to administer everyone with truth serum. 

Isn't it ironic

 I was going to call this post, "Don't let the old year hit you on the way out," but discovered that is the title of a post I wrote around this time of year last year. And ironically I hoped 2020 would be a better year than 2019. 

Well that didn't happen. 

I won't rehash how sucky of a year it was. Suffice it to say, it was worst year in recent history. The only good thing that happened was that piece of crap in the White House is on his way out. I won't feel any true relief until President Biden is sworn in and Trump is back in Trump Tower whining about how the election was stolen from him.

Spoke with my right wing, nutjob brother on Thanksgiving and he told me he had manned phones during the election. I thanked him for helping Biden win and he started yelling about him not winning. 

I can only hope that there was a mix up at the hospital when one of us was born and we are not truly related.

If anything good came out of the pandemic it was that we didn't have to visit any of my family in person for the holidays. 

I'd like to say that I am posting again out of popular demand, but no one but Baggy in England seemed to have noticed I wasn't writing in my blog. Normally a lack of readers wouldn't stop me from blogging, but it is difficult to write a point-of-view humor blog when the civilization seems to be collapsing around you.

Though I did manage to muster up enough humor to send silly e-mails to my staff at work each Friday in an attempt to boost morale. The general response was not unlike that to most of my blog posts: crickets.

The world wide web

 

It is spider season where I live. There seem to be webs everywhere. And although spiders used to freak me out as a kid, now I've come to terms with them. 

My family, on the other hand, have not. My son is afraid of them and will holler for me if he enters a room and sees a spider. It has become one of my responsibilities along with garbage, recycling and picking up dog poop.

I don't kill spiders any more. There is too much suffering in the world. I try now to gently catch them in a cup and release them outside if they are inside the house. I respect that they are more afraid of me than I am of them and they can do me little harm. And they catch pests such as mosquitoes and sometimes other spiders.

I didn't realize until doing a Google search that spiders can live for several years. So it makes me feel even better about not killing them randomly out of fear. Somehow longevity makes their lives seem even more valuable. 

Maybe it is my age and having less mortality left in my existence that makes me more sensitive to the right to all things to occupy space as long as they are intended. 

This, of course, doesn't apply to the thing squatting in the White House and his throngs of followers. They can move on anytime now.

It's as easy as A, eBay, C....

 Can't believe almost three months have gone by since I posted. Time means little during a pandemic. But in that time I worked my way through all the bins in the garage and sold or purged most of it. I opened my own store on eBay as well as listed stuff on Facebook Marketplace and Craig's List. It has been an exercise in marketing and psychology.

I have learned a great deal about selling. First, I was right, Elvis memorabilia does not sell. You practically have to pay people to buy it. It took almost three months to sell all but two of the Velvet Elvis paintings (though the last one sold for $200).  I also learned that it is a pain to pack and ship large items.

I also learned that cleverly written item descriptions are hit and miss when it comes to selling. So there goes my long held theory about that humor (especially my humor) sells. Sometimes people just want you to cut to the chase.

I also learned that people will buy just about anything. I sold an old laminated Blockbuster Video Card for $14. And I sold a Warthog skull, a baboon skull, a badger skull, a beaver skull, a snapping turtle skull, a deer skull, a buffalo skull, a cow skull and my beloved horse skull from the Nevada desert outside of Reno. I even finally sold a goose skull despite the fact it was banned from eBay and Facebook due to some obscure policy about migratory skulls. And I sold one of four coyote skulls. The remaining three don't seem too popular because of missing teeth.

Why did I have all of those skulls? There was a time before I was married (18 years to be exact) that I spent way too much time browsing eBay and thrift stores snapping up curiosities. I thought of the skulls as more sculptures than dead animals. But once I got married, the curiosities no longer seemed so curious. So I packed them away in bins that sat for fifteen years untouched until I began my saga to empty out my past.

The long and winding road

It is hard to believe how long this thing has lasted and is still lasting. And the same swirl of debate floats around about what to do or not to do. Masks have become the lightning rod of controversy. Most of us have donned them. But the fringe of non-believers still resist.

I still walk every day. I walk miles a week. I walk in straight lines. I walk in circles. I walk with my children and my wife. I walk with the dog. I walk alone. I walk the long and winding roads.

I just don't ever seem to get anywhere. 

That is the bugaboo about this pandemic. Everything and everyone goes in circles. Nothing is real and everything is real. Everytime I see something on line about a celebrity dying or someone on Facebook noting a classmate or relative has died, everyone flashes to COVID-19. Even if it is of old age, or a brain aneurysm everyone still thinks it is the virus.

The fourth came and went with a whimper and a bang. No 5k race. No parade. No sponsored fireworks. We had a fire in the fire pit and set off a few tame noise makers (and a few that weren't). I didn't miss any of the patriotic BS. I am not feeling very patriotic these days.  We did watch a broadcast of Hamilton on Disney Plus. It was entertaining.

I attacked the wild hill side behind my house with a weed whacker. It was a temporary assault on the weeds. But they always come back. If only things I actually planted would be so healthy.

If there wasn't enough chaos, we are thinking about selling our house and buying a new one. This will require prepping our house to make it attractive to sell. So much clutter. I still have stuff in plastic bins that were tucked away two moves ago and haven't seen the light of day for 15 years. You would think that if I haven't looked at them for 15 years I should just let it all go, but it is still hard for me.

Part of the issue is that the stuff in bins is stuff I had with me for years before I got married and had children. I used to collect eclectic stuff like warthog skulls and velvet Elvis paintings. There is no space for it in my home or life anymore, but I hate to just trash it. So I may turn to eBay to at least feel my former life had some value.

I just wish Elvis memorabilia would have appreciated in value more than I had expected.