Next Week At The DNC

The left, the media, the Obama campaign are in complete meltdown about Clint Eastwood’s gutsy call last night. I predict return fire in kind at the DNC convention next week. Possible vectors of retaliation and their stage props:

Alec Baldwin –  Stands at podium and pulls out cellphone. Punches in random phone numbers, leaves VMs informing citizens they are rude thoughtless pigs. Switches to Words With Friends, refuses to get off stage.

A-B-C. A-Alec, B-Baldwin, C-Comb that hair.

…

Jane Fonda – Large anti-aircraft artillery gun rolls across stage with Jane sitting astride it. Gun turns to point towards DNC delegates, blasts out a shower of food stamps. Crowd goes wild. Fonda uses slick maneuver that starts out as Black Power salute then devolves into Tomahawk Chop.

Let’s talk about distant uncommunicative fathers.

…

Perfesser Cher – Rides onto stage on  pinto pony. Pony shats. Pony doesn’t care what anybody thinks about that. Unintentional metaphor. Exit.

“Both sides were against me since the day I was born.” Shorter Obama: “Hey that would make a good central theme!”

…

Bill Maher – Comes onto stage flanked by 2 armed guards holding canvas bags with dollar printed signs on them. Sets fire to money bags. Better use of currency than $1M donation to Obama SuperPAC.

Maybe he should have saved this for his fair share of taxes on millionaires and billionaires.

…

Dancing Vaginas – A chorus line of dancing vaginas shuffles in from stage left. Each vagina is wearing a press pass that identifys them as “Chris Matthews”. In the spirit of Johnny Bravo, Ronald McDonald and the Easter Bunny, the actor wearing the suit is not important – it’s the vagina suit itself that is the celebrity. Voiceover by Sandra Fluke describing tap steps: touch ball change. touch ball change. repeat ad infinitum.

Won! Credit down gradation every little step he takes.

Creek Project: BFRs

OK now I am thoroughly convinced that the design details of the creek work were part of a Career Day project in a local high school because no way could a professional engineer who understood that he was dealing with intermittent storm drain runoff have designed a thing like this. Also, the purpose of the BFRs is revealed:

A tiny tamper, a roll of landscaping cloth and a pair of lederhosen, I guess they are.

Now people who know about erosion tell me that the bed of the creek should be compacted and lined with large gravel embedded in cement. It would appear from the evidence here that the small size tamper, the kind you would use to prepare for a sidewalk, is going to gently flatten the soil and then gardener’s landscape cloth will be employed. No idea about the lederhosen.

A touch of whimsey.

Somebody on this job has an artistic soul. Although the weir is looking a little bit aslant to me (I’m sure that won’t affect its stability or lifespan. Right?),  it does have a darling stylized flower worked into the pattern of wire mesh. And what else can we call the tiny tamper perched on top of a BFR but an art installation?

My yard is at the start of the creek – I hear that 2 houses away at the end of the creek work, there’s a pool of standing water between the weirs. I haven’t had the heart to go look at it yet. But really – how nice for the baby mosquitoes.

Ring Them Bells

Church resurrected - New Life Community Church buys ex-St. Casimir

Closed two years ago as part of widespread consolidations within the Diocese of Scranton, the former St. Casimir Church has been given a new lease on life as a house of worship by the congregation of a Dallas Township church. New Life Community Church recently purchased the St. Casimir property from the diocese… “We were talking with people in the community. When they learned another church had purchased it, they were so happy,” [the new pastor]  said.

(I’ll say they’re happy. Check out local opinion about the outcome of the sale of another St. Casimir’s  church building in the diocese.)

This was the church I went to the whole time I lived in Wilkes-Barre. It was a block from the old house and right next to it was the elementary school with playground. Here’s a map with some very important local landmarks noted.

We walked to everywhere that was important.

The schoolyard was a wonder – swings, slides, a merry go round and right in the middle a big swimming pool. They paved it over many years ago but it used to be THE place for unattended 6 years old to meet up and horse around. I can’t say the dimensions of it – in my memory it was very big. Definitely big enough for 60 kids to splash around in at one time. It was a foot deep at the shallow end and the middle was 3 feet. It was made of cement, had a big smooth bump of concrete for a border all around and it was painted that refreshing whiteish aqua that I still find  so appealing. It was surrounded on all sides by cinders. It’s coal country, don’t forget.

Morning session, home for lunch and back again. Maybe someone would show up with a 2¢ popsicle and a stampede made up of anyone with 2¢ would head for the gas station. There were no life guards that I recall or even any interested parents. Maybe a local teenage boy hired for the summer to fill the vaguely defined role of  ”playground monitor” for a few hours a day but you could never tell who it was amongst the gaggle of other high school boys hanging around the basketball court. Evenings and weekends were absolutely unattended. Just spread your towel down on the cinders and head for the water and a solitary swim  as you like.

Ah me. Well, it looks like a bit of the good old days will be making a small return with the advent of this new congregation. I found the schedule of events on their webpage:

Corn roasts. Covered dishes. Christmas caroling.

It’s like the old neighborhood I remember but without the beer and keilbasi. The newspaper article  says their services are “very festive and include a lot of music and singing”. I wonder if they know any polkas?

I saw the real estate listing for the property when it was still on the market. It said: “Stained glass church windows to remain in place only upon approval of Seller. They are not included in asking price.” I can see from the photo accompanying the article that the windows are still in place so they must have negotiated for them. Maybe I’ll send them half of the Mitt Romney contribution money I have set aside for the night that he accepts the nomination to help defray that cost and say welcome to the neighborhood. (Mitt won’t miss it. He’s doing very well – have you heard?)

I hope they threw the bells in with the sale. I hope the bells ring every day like they used to. I hope this congregation keeps the cross on top gilded so the sun bounces off of it like God’s own beacon.  Maybe we weren’t unattended in that swimming pool after all. That reflected sunbeam is probably what kept us all afloat.

We’re All Soldiers Now

subtitle: The Real Enemy is Time and Gravity

………………………………………………

Our regularly scheduled Sunday Morning Poetry Throwdown will not be seen today. In it’s place will be an open discussion about the real war on women.

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You know, it’s not just the left-leaning liberal progressive Democrats who want to talk  about the private female businesses in public. Am I not a woman? Do I not have private female business? I do. And I’m going to invite you, you right-leaning conservative traditionalist Republicans, to speculate about them now.

OK, left-leaning liberal progressive Democrat readers are always invited to participate. AND YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. I love you guys.  As people, not as political bellwethers. But you know, love is love. Love is all you need. And so on.

Issue #1 Armpit hair I’ve come to accept that my armpit hair is not located where it used to be. Okay. WHATEVER.  Even though I was completely unprepared, I understand now that gravity has done its dirty work and moved my “armpits” (as defined by (1.) the place where the hair grows and (2.) the place where you rub your solid deodorant/antiperspirant onto). But here’s the thing – I happened to be admiring myself  me in the bathroom mirror while I was waiting for the shower water to warm up,  as you do. I was considering lathering up and taking a twin bladed swipe at that goddamned single chin hair when I took a look at my armpits. Guess what? My right armpit has far less hair than my left armpit. What is that? Is it a sign of disease? And lady friends, you know what disease I mean. If you haven’t looked at your armpits lately, please do so now for the benefit of this discussion.

Issue #2 At the moment I forgot what it was but I’m sure it will come back to me. Maybe it was the goddamned single chin hair.

Horrible Things I Did Not Buy Today

Remember the meerkat water fountain? I went back to that garden center today and discovered that their nature studies are not limited to fountains. Here is a … statuary, I guess it is. And I’m thinking you could use it indoors OR outdoors. Or maybe move it around as the seasons change. Well worth the investment I suppose but I’m not really in the market for parent/child wildlife sculptures.

$167.99

Shopping from home fared no better today. I’m  careful with what I look at on eBay. It’s such a time suck just tending to my regular goings-on there that I don’t need to be looking at curiosities. Deep into the pages of search results for “mexican cactus dish” what do I come across but a not-to-be-ignored Hand Painted Camelot Broadway Show Planter Plant Pot:

For sale we have a gorgeous Camelot Broadway show plant pot. This was hand painted by [nobody you know] with acrylic paints and a coat of polyurethane. Could be used outdoors and indoors for that perfect artistic touch! Depicts Julie Andrews and Richard Burton as well has text with song titles and such surrounding the top. Comes complete with saucer. Pot measures approx. 6″ W x 5.5″ H. Saucer measures 6″ W x 1″ H.

This art object is selling for $49.99. I guess that’s real gold around the rim and saucer. You can totally tell it’s a one of a kind piece. Observe the hand application of pink paint blobs, the hand lettering including extra-artsy random bolding. By the way, how do you spell the name of King Arthur’s wife? I’m not entirely sure that this is it. I guess the artist was coming down off the high of getting to write out “FIE” that details like spelling didn’t matter.

“My grandma really loved seeing Richard Burton on Broadway! Can you make her something special?”

Used! That might start to explain why this exists. It may have been a well-intentioned gift for someone, maybe even a commisoned piece.