More Mudpuddle Art

The Flower Pot                    Capital =C= Calligraphy

Design from my Morning St/roll

 

Will the REAL Starbucks Please Stand Up

When you finish your Starbucks Frappachino save the plastic glass and the ten inch straw.  On the next hot day, take the glass to the kitchen and fill it with ice.  Next add a Pepsi Cola.  That is 23 cents including tax and deposit if you buy it on sale. Add a spoonful of Cool Whip, say 2 cents worth, to the top, and you have a tall, cool drink for 25 cents that looks just like this $4.25 Frappachino. When someone asks you what you have, gurgle the straw a bit as you say "It's a Frappacheapo." 

 Frappacheapo, or the Real Thing?

Only you can tell the difference.

Sixteen, going on Ninety

That's me today: sixteen going on ninety.  It is a clear and warm Saturday morning.  I mount my scooter and leave my room.

Mac and Wil are supposed to be in the parlor bringing us their homespun humor and mountain music.  No show.  A lot of entertainers who schedule for the old folks home fail to show.

I check the other scooter owners to see who wants to go where.  The Zoo is twenty minutes in one direction and the Mall if ten in the other.  The market and any number of fast food places are within five minutes.  Starbucks is next door.  Wilma is watching Tom Selleck and cannot come.  Emma is still in bed.  Discouraged I pass on the other four electric chair and scooter owners.  One day I will get us organized.

I cruise by myself thinking, what would I be doing if I had my absolute choice.  Answer:  Rowing.  Rowing was great.  If you felt energetic you rowed around the Island in the Marina.  If you were lazy and merely wanted to relax, you drifted.  There were plenty of boats to watch in either mode. If I really were sixteen, I'd be rowing or at the beach.

                         

In my middle years I flew.  My little two place low wing monoplane, an Ercoupe, gave me hours of pleasure.  It had a sliding canopy so you were open cockpit in nice weather.  You put your elbow on the window sill, and drove your convertible through the sky.  I was part of the 'jet set'.  Breakfast in Corona, Lunch in Long Beach, and home to Van Nuys for supper.  I have seen Disneyland and the Queen Mary both from the air in the same day.  I have landed at the "Airport in the Sky" at Catalina Island.  To take off you do not climb.  You fly level right from the runway to the sky.

In other years I drove.  The San Gabriel Mountains are a delight.  You climb from Los Angeles high to Mount Wilson, or Lake Arrowhead, or Big Bear looking back out over thePacific Ocean. Then you pass over the crest and down into the desert among the Joshua trees and the sage brush. 

So today I went around the block in Merced and came back to my room in the old folks home and wrote in my journal.  Eighty has its charms too, I guess.

Losing touch with an old friend, Pinky

.One of the problems with getting old is losing touch with old friends, namely my toes.

Been a long time since I had close visit with my toes. In fact, I even have professional help in trimming my toenails.

The Podiatrist comes to visit the old folks home quarterly. Then I, and other folks whose feet are out of our reach, line up in the activity room, baring our feet. The doctor sits in a chair in front of us and slides along, examining feet, trimming toenails, checking foot health, and accepting a twenty dollar bill. The twenty he pockets, literally, in his left hand pants pocket. Sounds a little suspicious, doesn’t it. A doctor accepting actual CASH from the PATIENT as the service is RENDERED.

It is a convenient service for us. We can go to his office a block away, wait to see him, and let Medicare pay the bill. But here is a doctor who does make house calls That is worth the twenty, I believe.

I have only one foot, having been wounded in WWII. I should have to pay half price, but he has not offered, and I do not negotiate with terrorists or medical doctors.

As he was sliding toward me I asked, “Have you ever treated any patients with six toes?” He had, but it was very rare. In fact “I have removed a sixth toe.”

When he reached me he looked at my toenails and when he reached my pinky he asked this wonderous question: “What happened to this toenail? It is gone.”

GONE? Gone where?

“Looks like it has been torn off.”

Torn off? Wouldn’t I have noticed?

I can see the note that will go out in the junk mail

--Have you seen me? Toenail missing in California since July 8, 2005. Answers to the name of Pinky--

He put on Betadine and a Band Aid, trimmed my remaining nails, and cautioned me to “watch that toe” as he pocketed my twenty.

Watch it? I can barely see it. I guess I will ask the caregivers to be ‘toe sitters’ for me.

But the question in my mind is: Where is it? I haven’t been barefoot anywhere but in my apartment. “The missing toenail is right in this room,” I hear Ellery Queen saying.

Was I ravished in my sleep by a toenail terrorist? I don’t sleep that soundly. Perhaps, disheartened by my lack of attention, the toenail quit the premises. “So long, fellows. Better luck with Chuck than I had.”

What seems to be the truth: I am falling apart, literally.

Sparklers in the Sunlight

   At the old folks home, we voted to have our fireworks at eight PM.  They were afraid that the olf folks wouldn't stay up until dark at nine PM.  Actually that was a compromise.  They proposed six, and I proposed nine, and we compromised at eight.  That is not really a compromise, because it is still daylight at eight.  Even then the caregivers fudged and started lighting them off at 7:45.

   It was all right though.  Fireworks nowadays are spectacular.  They burn long and bright and leap and flash and bang and whstle.  They cast out sparkles of green, gold, red, and blue.  I was impressed, daylight or no, because I was raised on  roman candles that you had to shake, sometimes exploded in your hand, and fizzled out after eight shots at most.  Anyway, it all worked out.

   Something about the summer weather fries the brains makes it seem all right to do weird things with fire works.  Like Roman Candles.  It says right on the candle DO NOT HOLD IN HAND.  Do you know anyone who shoots a roman candle in any other way? What could that be? Stuck in the ground?  Held in the teeth?  My Uncle Kenneth had one explode just beneath the spot he was gripping.  He was lucky, he did not lose any fingers. Did he light another right away?  Of course, the summer weather had fried his brain too. 

   The summer weather fried the brain of the Santa Monica, CA, City Council too.  About twenty years ago, they decided that the fireworks on the pier caused too much traffic and was a hazard to the city.  How did they solve this problem?  They scheduled the fireworks for five AM.   At least that was before daylight.  They "reasoned" that fewer people would come at five am, and therefore there would not be a traffic jam. It may have worked.  My friends and I solved the traffic jam problem another way.

   We spent the evening before the fourth on my cabin cruiser at Marina del Rey.  We partied and laughed and joked and visited from boat to boat.  At one am we cast off and cruised along the shore to Santa Monica.  The night was beautiful and guests asked me about one particularly bright star.  I got to show off my astronomical knowledge that night.  It happened, that on that particular night, due to some combination of circumstances of luminosity, and nearness, Mars was the brightest that it would appear during our life time and several lifetimes to come.  I pointed that out, and I got the credit for producing a gorgeous star for their entertainment.

   We got to Santa Monica and shut off the engine and drifted.  There was sort of a traffic jam there in the ocean, but that was no concern of the city council.  The fireworks went off on schedule and were beautiful.  After the fireworks we motored home in the dawn.  We docked and went home to bed. 

   I love the fourth of July. 

  

Book Review -- Fluke

Fluke, by Christopher Moore, caught me unaware.

I had just recently finished Lamb by Moore and was captivated by its slangy contemporary view of Jesus' life as a youth.  It was a slightly irreverant view of a serious topic: how did Jesus become the man he was. Just how does one prepare himself to be the messiah?

So I dug into Fluke with a will in high expectations.  Here was a scientific mystery story searching an honest biologic qauestion: Why do Blue whales sing?  Their low pitched songs can be heard for an honest thousand underwater miles. The protagonists, Clay and Nate use their years of experience in ceteology and the best scientific methods to search for the answer.  Fascinating study, no?

Then suddenly, 37.8% of the way through (I actually measured later) the genre flips, and it becomes a book of magic, with an approach that Harry Potter would understand.  I threw the book down in disappointment.

Days later, I picked up the story again, accepting the fact that it was a fantasy.  As a fantasy I slogged on to the finish. 

As a fantasy it is so-so.  However, it brought up some philosophical questions that I enjoyed exploring. It even inspired me to write a self-examination for my blog.  It got me to wondering what my purpose in life is, in the fantasy I call my life.  Clay and Nate solve the question of the Blue Whale song, and it leads them into a program to conserve the whales and help protect them from extinction.

   At the conclusion of the narrative, Moore explains which parts of his tale are magic and which are science.  Had I read this first I might have made the transition from one genre to the other easier.  On the other hand, I probably would not have read the book at all.

If you like Magical tales and you like scientific discovery tales, and you like them mixed, it is Fluke, or I know why the winged whale sings by Christopher Moore, Perennial, a division of Harpers.

Cool Hand Chuck

So I cut my afternoon nap short because I don't want to miss the "Root Beer Floats Time" in the Bingo room.  But when I get there I am told that the activity director went home ill. It's about a hundred degrees today.  Root beers floats are cancelled.

Doesn't bother Cool Hand Chuck, he has a scooter and Starbucks is just across the parking lot.  So off I fly.

At Starbucks I order a "tall mocha Frappechino," their special iced coffee.  "Three dollars," says the clerk.  I hand it over.

"Three dollars?" I think.  "Last time I paid $4.25, and the time before that I paid $3.95.  Never the same price."

Then I was handed my one quart Frappechino in a one PINT container.  When I said tall, the clerk heard small.  Oh, well, better luck next time.

I scooted home with my tiny iced coffee.  There on my desk was a printed slogan from Cool Hand Luke.

"What we have here is a failure to communicate"