Gearing up the gratitude.

With Thanksgiving nearly upon us in the United States, it behooves us to remember things for which we should have gratitude. Gratitude is the best cure for many social and emotional illnesses, which is one reason it is so despised by people who hate America. 

So first, I'm grateful that socialism was pushed further away from the body politic by the results of our last election.  

Closer to home, I'm grateful that the early snowstorm we had last week is a melted memory now. As it turned out, on our block we missed having long-term issues by a matter of inches. 

The local utility company is pretty good about getting out there when the sun is warm, taking down branches that will fall on power lines when the weather turns cold. But when the problem is a tree more than a dozen feet into someone's property, I don't think they have the authority to go tree-cutting. When our early storm hit, some trees still had leaves, weighing down the limbs, which subsequently fell off. And in one case, an elderly tree was entirely weighed down. 

Timber!!!

As you can see, it landed a ways over the curb, into the street. The homeowner has yet to chop it up; he may be pricing the job out. Fortunately it did not go far out enough into the street to be a danger to traffic.

Even more fortunately, it literally missed the power lines by inches. 

It looks like the tiny upper branches probably brushed the lines as the whole thing came down. If it had been just a little taller, lights out. 

We came close to having a bunch of houses without energy as Thanksgiving approached, with a problem that couldn't be resolved until the downed tree was completely removed. 

So I'm grateful for electricity and the genius of those who learned how to harness it for the benefit of humanity and civilization. And I'm grateful that the weather did not result in a local cut of electricity. And I'm grateful too that Communism has not taken over our country, because in many ways that means all the lights go out.

Catching up.

Sorry I've been away from the blog. Let's get caught up, shall we? 

For those of you concerned that I was eaten by the black bear that's been hanging around -- no, it did not happen. His doctor probably warned him I was bad for his cholesterol. No new bear sightings, not since this trash can raid on October 29. Well, it was either the bear or the raccoons are getting organized. 

I was and am grateful for the results of the elections last Tuesday, although as usual New York boned up. Ludicrous nonentity Kirsten Gillibrand returns to the Senate to be Chuck Schumer's flunky. And the state assembly has pulled a fast one, getting a proposition past the voters that will open the door to all kinds of shenanigans. This is what people who did not do their homework saw on the ballot: 

Abstract of Proposal Number One, An Amendment

Amendment to Protect Against Unequal Treatment

This proposal amends Article 1, Section 11 of the New York Constitution. Section 11 now protects against unequal treatment based on race, color, creed, and religion. The proposal will amend the act to also protect against unequal treatment based on ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, and pregnancy outcomes, as well as reproductive healthcare and autonomy.  The amendment allows laws to prevent or undo past discrimination.

It passed because New Yorkers are dumb and don't read, and they saw nice words like protect and against unequal and autonomy said all right. Okay, well, who isn't in favor of protecting against unequal treatment, right? It was sold as a means of protecting abortion, which former gubernatorial candidate John Faso accurately explained was horse hockey in the Albany paper. 

Of course, what this will actually mean is, first off, boys will be walloping girls in girls' sports. But that's just the beginning. It also undermines parental authority, in opposition to existing state law. When the state takes a 10-year-old away from his parents because he wants to get his willie chopped off and be a girl and they don't want him to do that, maybe someone will point out to those parents that they should not have voted this way. 

It is literally the only proposition on a ballot I have ever seen that the archdiocese and every priest in it begged parishioners not to support. Oh, well. Vote in haste, cry your eyes out the rest of your life. 

But the rest of the nation did all right, and I am grateful to them. So let's move on to thanksgiving! 

Thanksgiving decorations are more of a thing this year, or so I notice around the neighborhood, and maybe that's not a coincidence. This house chimed in on a popular Thanksgiving meme:

Another house brilliantly stuck it to a blog post of mine from TEN YEARS AGO. Way back in 2014, I wrote:  

Christmas is green and red. Halloween is orange and black. St. Patrick's Day is green. First day of school is red and black (schools and blackboards). New Year's is white, black, and silver. Easter is anything, as long as it's pastel. I suppose it's only a matter of time before porch lights are available for all these holidays and more. But Thanksgiving is restricted to the colors of late fall, and by the end of November there are virtually no colors left. The leaves have fallen, been raked up, mulched, gone. Bare trees remain, and pine cones. Thanksgiving is brown. Who does brown lights?

Well, now they have those strip lights that can be turned to any color in the spectrum! And guess what? I found a house lit up in brown lights for the season! Very nice, and I applaud their effort and the desire to celebrate the great Thanksgiving holiday. 

I couldn't believe my brown light tirade ran a whole decade ago. But yeah, I've been blogging on this site for almost eleven years, and on another host prior to than for a couple more. Maybe that's enough out of me already. 

2024?

Sorry for being so short today -- I actually had written a longer post that totaled all the things I hated about 2023 and all the things I expect to hate about 2024. But who wants that?

Instead I'll just wish you all a happy new year, and please accept my deepest thanks for visiting my blog. It's a humble blog, with much to be humble about, but it's mine, and you're reading this, and I'm thanking you, so there we are.

Good luck and God bless! Off we go into the wilderness of a new year! 

hooray.

 

What has two thumbs and is loopy?

This guy! 

I just want to thank everyone again for your kindness, and a special shout-out to GregW for sharing his story and the link to Andrew Klavan's testament. For those who don't know, Klavan is a prolific writer and podcaster, son of New York radio host Gene Klavan, and fervent Christian and conservative. Funny guy, too. The video may be seen here: 

And let me just add that it had to have taken a minor miracle for Gary Carter to beat out a throw to first.

People wonder why there's so much insanity among the kiddos today, especially of the horrible type that leads to mass murder. Often this wave of killings, especially school shootings, is traced back to the Columbine massacre in 1999, and I think it's not a coincidence that by that year the Internet was up and running everywhere. Many of us from the pre-Net era have seen the unusual adverse effect of falling into the sea of digital humanity -- that it reveals our individual insignificance by the sheer number of human beings out there. 

Few things in real life can do that. Maybe if you come from a small town and move to a big city. If you just visit a big city, you have the specialness within the traveler to keep you apart from the masses -- I'm not part of that crowd; I'm me! But when you live there, it slowly sinks in that very few people know you and even fewer care. On the Internet, it's that times eight billion. Acts of extreme evil are one way, and the worst way, to fight against that feeling. It's a rare but powerful temptation, and we see the awful results.  

On the other hand, the Internet's saving grace is that it allows rare connections through space that would be impossible otherwise. Even this has its downside with people who work together for sinister purposes. But an online community that brings real camaraderie among people who would never ordinarily meet is very special indeed. I know most of you through the Great Lileks's blog, and it is the greatest chatroom (there's a bewhiskered term!) of which I know. 

So what am I doing now? Well, thanks for asking! I am taking your advice and putting my writing back up on Amazon, and I am not doing away with the blog. I can't commit to posting every day--thus the title change--but I certainly plan to do so most days. If the black dog bites again, I promise not to vanish over it.

I hope to see you around here, or elsewhere, and thank you for being my friends. God bless you and keep you, and keep supplying you with dad jokes and whatnot to bring your day sunshine. 

Words fail me.

Sadly, there's a double meaning to this entry title, but I'll stick to the good one. I cannot find the words to thank you all for your kindness over these last weeks while I was (and to a certain extent still am) stuck in a gloomy spot with no idea how to find a way out. You folks are aces. Special shoutout to Stiiv, and also his massive partner in crime Mongo. 

I don't know what to do about the blog. I was taking my books off Amazon, but perhaps I should put them back up. I'm out of ideas. Suggestions are welcome. 

I guess I'm still lost in the woods, but that doesn't mean the sunshine hasn't reached me. 

You guys are aces. (And PLW, that means you ought to be dealt with.) (Ba dum dum.)

Thanks a million and a half. 

Viral holiday!

Happy Thanksgiving to all our American readers! And as I mentioned yesterday, even if you're not in America or hate America or whatever, I hope you can still find something good to be grateful for today. 

I hope no one's plans are ruined because of the Chinese Death Virus -- Year #3 of it ruining almost everything, and enabling bad actors to ruin everything else. I'm glad I'm not a Foxconn factory worker in China, where it sounds like they're going through absolute hell with months of lockdowns in the factory. I'd like to point that out to people who despair that a representative government is bad at getting things done -- here you go, here's an example of things getting done in the other kind of government. Good job, Apple! 

So I'm glad I don't live under the ChiComs. 

I'm also grateful that when it came to sickness at Thanksgiving, the worst I can remember starting the day with was a cold. I feel like I had a cold every Thanksgiving when I was a kid, and I probably did. There are more than 200 rhinoviruses that bring us the colds we enjoy, and I guess I had them all by the time I was 12. Of course, my immune system forgot about them as we went along and we had to start all over again. I just remember a lot of car drives on rainy, chilly mornings to Thanksgiving afternoons at relatives' homes, feeling pretty crappy. However, I loved my family, and I loved pie, and I apologize to my family for bringing cold viruses into their homes. 

As to the pie, I regret nothing. 

It was kinda sucky to be sick on the morning of Thanksgiving, but they'd let me nap if necessary and I would rally. Much worse was to be sick day after Thanksgiving because the turkey had salmonella or the baby that was brought over to visit had norovirus. 

Either way, it was good to have the Friday off. 

Sick or not, eating pie or not, I hope you can find some joy, maybe even some fun on this most spiritual of national holidays. We're here, we're not faced with lockdowns or enemies sieging our ports, we're not personally on fire (well, I'm not), and we're able to read wonderful blog posts. Who's got it better than us?

Thank you, Stanley!

I would like to use today's space to thank Stanley Wheeler for interviewing me for his excellent blog. It was excellent before I got there and I hope it will recover its excellence afterward.

Stanley, Idaho's greatest son, is the author of a number of books in genres including fantasy, Western, and hard-boiled detective. He is a pioneer of "flintlock fantasy," regarding which I recommend you check out an interview with him on the Liberty Island blog.  

He's also a fellow Bleatnik, weighing in on important issues along with the rest of us on the Great Lileks's site, such as: What happened to all the motels? Why is foreign money so hilarious? Why do so many advertising mascots want us to eat their fellows? What is the main cause of gazebo collapse? And so on. 

What could be better than tomahawks AND
dragon fire?

Finally, I wanted to thank Stanley for his thoughtful questions. This is one reason why I don't interview people for my own blog -- because my questions would probably all be like:

Regrets, I've had a few.

An article in the London Sun, linked on the New York Post site, reported a hospice nurse's experience with her patients, particularly the four most regrets they have revealed to her at life's end. Julie, an American nurse, had posted her observations on TikTok. 

Julie posted the video in the hopes that people watching would take away her advice so they would not have the same regrets when looking back on their lives.

     The nurse responded to a question which asked: "What kind of regrets do you hear? I feel like in the end, everyone's going to have regrets of some sort."

     She said: "Most people at the end of their lives have regrets about not appreciating their health.

     "Not appreciating being alive, the little things.

     "Working their life away.

     "And not spending more time with family."

It's hard not to see the wisdom in that. The story continues:

From her patient's confessions, Julie has learned to "Be in the moment, live presently, be grateful, don't take for granted your health, and little things about living life.

     "Don't work your life away if you don't have to, or make it so you don't have to.

     "Spend time with those you love, not necessarily family, but those you love and make you feel loved."

Sure, that's fine. However, most of us do have to spend most of our waking hours working at something, or traveling to and from work, or working on our domiciles, or plain running errands. And that's okay, actually. Work is important to mental health. Everyone needs a purpose. If that purpose is selling Chryslers or mopping floors to feed the family, supporting ourselves independently, preaching the Gospel to save souls, or organizing charity events to help the poor, or any other honest work, that shouldn't be disparaged as a waste of time. Of course, looking back on one's life, it's easy to think about all the dull hours spent in these pursuits, but that doesn't make them useless. To me, looking at it that way disparages one's achievements, no matter if -- or perhaps especially if -- those achievements are humble.

And on that note, one of the reasons I find it hard to live in the moment is that the moment can suck. "Yay, I'm living in the moment as a proofread the most boring book in the history of books." "I'm living in the moment while I'm wiping dog hair off the toilet." "Mhmhmsm mhmsh momnbent whilemn bbrushing muh teef." Similarly, no one wants to live in the moment in the dentist's chair.  

Still, the point is taken that we shouldn't be so busy providing for others that we neglect the others. My dad and a lot of dads I knew growing up were like that. They worked like dogs and then felt like the kids hardly knew them, and vice versa. My dad even said as much once to my cousin's husband.  

Anyway, I expect I'll have all those same regrets if I linger on a deathbed rather than suffer a quick demise, like getting thrown off a cliff by an enraged author. ("How DARE you correct my speling?!" "It's 'spelling.'" "AAARGH!") 

Being a special and sensitive soul, though, I plan to have some extra regrets as well. Such as:

• Leaving the oven on
• Not saying goodbye to my dry cleaner
• Leaving the car running outside the emergency room door
• Janet Schnorbuss (forgive me, Janet!)
• All the people I ran over on the way to the hospital
• That time I swam naked in the fountain at Charlotte Premium Outlets and told them my name was Stiiv 
• That awful All-You-Can-Eat Wednesday at Schnitzel's Hofbrau
• Lying to the dog (I still had the ball, Fazzy)
• Not buying Apple in 1999
• Pulling Wanda's hair in class (you'd think a college senior would have a sense of humor about it though)
• Rumple Minze -- let's leave it at that
• Taking the Work Hard Challenge (turns out putting your nose literally to the grindstone has its drawbacks)
• Investing in Acme Corp.
• Swimming with electric eels at Ocean Mystery World Park
• Reading a Tom Robbins book
• Anvil paragliding

So many regrets, and yet, so many joys. Life! Sweet mystery of life!

Gratitude garland.

I've kvetched in the past that Thanksgiving, for a very important American holiday, has little in terms of decoration. This year I've seen some lawn inflatables around, generally the classic turkey in a pilgrim hat type of thing, but I've seen far more houses where people have already put up all the Christmas stuff -- inflatable Santa, garland, candy canes, wreaths, twinkle lights, floodlights, the works. 

We had some nice days last weekend, the kind that might encourage people to get the outside decked so as not to have to do it in the freezing rain, but when people have done that in the past, they usually leave the lights off until Thanksgiving or so. Not now. I think it's all part of the Let's Shove 2020 Out the Door as Fast as Possible movement that I noted in September. 

Sadly, I no longer think that getting to 2021 will help. I think there will be more lockdowns, more panic, more nanny state, more spying on your neighbors, more useless regulations, and now with the full force of the federal government and its Silicon Valley enablers involved.  

Regardless, we soldier on, knowing that we all have things for which to be grateful, individually and as a nation. And I was pleased as punch to drive by this house:

The owners have lit up the joint with orange lights, but with the accompanying wreath and garland they look more Thanksgivingy than Halloweeny. And indeed, the pumpkin decoration in front of the staircase says "Happy Thanksgiving." That's what I'm talking about! As I've said before, the problem with decorating for Thanksgiving is that the predominant color of the day is brown (a serious hue), but here is a family that did it up right. 

We need more Thanksgiving decoration, which will help us celebrate the holiday properly rather than steamroll over it on the way to Walmart for Christmas shopping. I suppose it might make us a target for the Small Thanksgiving Police, but that's a chance we'll have to take.

As for me, I've got a little sign on the door and some patriotic motifs, because that was all I could think to do. I hope to do better next year, and I hope I and all of you will have more for which to have gratitude next year too.

Teeth so clean, you could eat off 'em!

It seems that a lot of people I know in person and via the Great Lileks's site have been visiting the dentist all at once, and probably not a coincidence. Dentists' offices, like most other businesses, had to shut down or severely limit patients for a while thanks to the Chinese Death Virus, and are just now getting caught up. As I write this, it is late Monday morning and I am leaving for my own checkup in a couple of hours. 

Current status: Worried; bug bite on ankle that will drive me nuts during the appointment; flossed recently; no dental insurance whatever.

The thing is, I am sure I have a cavity on the side of one tooth. When I was at the dental mill last year they warned me about this but wanted to take a wait-and-see approach. Well, I waited, and now I am about 100% sure it's a cavity (or caries, as the dentists insist on calling them). So I called this new dentist, a fellow in private practice, and had to wait over a month for this appointment. I guarantee the hole did not get better in this time. It may in fact have company.

I don't know if he will get out the drill and go for it today, or schedule me for a follow-up some time around Christmas. I also worry that I will not like this guy, because he came recommended by a friend and it will be awkward if I think he stinks. That's happened before. 

We now pause for a comical old piece of clip art, and I will report further beneath it. If I survive.

So here's the update:

My appointment actually was for tooth-hurty (2:30 har har har). My old dentist, whom I liked, was never safe to visit after lunch because he always had Chinese food and his own garlic breath could blunt the instruments. But no, this fellow was scentless and very good. Big-time COVID protocols, but I don't mind. As long as I didn't have to wear a mask during the exam (har har some more). 

I got off light. The cavity I worried about was not so bad. On the other hand, to fix it will probably require a crown. But we'll check again next year. Not needed now. Hooray! 

He did an old-fashioned cleaning all by himself -- that is, rather than blow the tartar off with a water jet, he used the little pick. My mouth was like that mine the Seven Dwarves worked in, without all the big pre-cut diamonds. Some people hate that kind of cleaning, but it makes me feel like the choppers are as immaculate as Queen Elizabeth's silverware. Of course, sometimes it makes me feel like I deserve an "I Gave Blood" sticker, but not so bad today. I did get the caution that more flossing will be appropriate to avoid gum disease, however. 

On the whole, for a dental appointment at tooth-hurty with an unknown dentist on a Monday near Halloween in 2020, I'm going to say it was as good as it could be. Drop that one in the gratitude box, and on to the next thing. 

P.S.: There was an incident this same afternoon regarding a fire alarm, a crazed dog, a business crisis, and a mad dash down a busy highway, but I may save that for another time. Right now I'm still enjoying my close escape from drilling. 

In which I rebut myself.

Yesterday I not only proclaimed that everything in life is a pain in the hinder, I wrote the lyrics for a song about it. Friend Stiiv has threatened to put it to music, so watch those Billboard charts!

Meanwhile, I heed the advice of BG Bear in cheering the %^*# up. And this is where we get to the spiritual side of complaining, as I mentioned yesterday, courtesy of everyone's favorite Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis.

The professor at work, rejecting my arguments
before I am even born

One of the things that made a deep impression on me when I started reading Lewis's nonfiction was his evidence for the doctrine of the Fall. Whether there was an Adam and Eve and serpent and Garden of Eden or something else or nothing, human beings of all stripes live and think as if the doctrine of the Fall of Man is an unshakable truth. That there was some Golden Age from which we have descended. Here is Lewis, writing in Mere Christianity, which I think is the only bit of the book I did not quote when I featured it in the book club last April:

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it?

There's more, of course, but it argues, in his typical clear manner, if we were creatures made for a fallen world, we would have no sense that things ought to be better than they are. They would just be part of the existence and we would expect nothing else. But we do expect better things, even in novel experiences for which we have no expectation of perfection, and even in repeated experiences when we should know better.

So you see? All my complaining yesterday, while it shows an unfortunate lack of gratitude -- my favorite and not-always-employed virtue -- yet it shows that we are creatures made for a better world, but through some flaw of our own have landed in this worse one. My complaining demonstrates a theological principle. You're welcome!

Lewis has some odd moments in his writing where he tries to square the circle, reconciling the Genesis story of the Fall with the fossil record. Better is his Space trilogy, a work of fiction where the other planets in our solar system are not fallen. It's a very interesting take on what such creatures would be like in worlds that still have entropy, pain, and death, but no sin.

Anyway, I complained yesterday; I shall try to be grateful today. But I doubt it will inspire a song. Sarcasm is more my creative type.

Grounded.

Essentially, the world has been grounded.

World, you've been naughty. Stay in your room and do your homework for the next two to six weeks. 

A friend says this is God's way of telling us to slow down, to be grateful for the many things we take for granted. I can kind of see that -- and I do believe that God can make good out of bad -- but you'd think we'd still be able to go to church.

All the religious outfits in town have closed, except for things like emergency food distribution. Religious services are nonexistent, and groups that normally rent church space, like people renting a hall, or AA or NA or Al-Anon groups, or even the local Weight Watchers meeting, have been left homeless for the time being. Ditto with all schools and nighttime school events.

I'm not sure what to make of the fact that our favorite local Chinese takeout was shuttered last night, and will be for the duration of hostilities. So I went to get pizza instead. I was surprised to realize I had not left the compound all day. The town was very quiet for a Saturday night. The movie theater was closed, of course; the barbershop that stays open late, the library, so many other places, too. A lot of the restaurants have just given up for the present, or maybe forever. The pizzeria, always a bustling joint, was a ghost of its regular self. With no table service allowed, it was terribly quiet. Normally there are a stack of pizza boxes on the oven, waiting for their owners; last night mine was the only one.

Of the few cars around, half were being driven by idiots, so I guess some ratios never change.

Things seemed to be optimistic for a while, with China reporting that new infections had cratered and productivity was close to normal. Not surprisingly, it now looks like those reports were so much bat soup, to put it nicely. Since that duplicitous government has been covering up and lying about this thing from the start, it's pretty much what we should expect.

So, we remain grounded.

Many people have commented, especially those older than thirty, that they love to stay home, except when they are required to stay home, and then they resent the hell out of it. I'm seeing signs of cabin fever just outside my door. There are more pedestrians around lately than I might typically see even on a breathtaking May day. I am curious to see what happens Monday, which is supposed to be colder and either rainy or snowy, depending on which forecaster you trust.

But I'll bet people will still be walking, and dragging their kids along. Some kids seem to really be enjoying it; little boys love to run ahead down the sidewalk to see how far away they can get in one burst of speed. Children usually like spending time with their parents, but may regard being torn away from the screens as an enforced march. Teens may walk, but only with other teens. Babies are in strollers and they never know what the hell is going on anyway.

One of the cutest ideas I've heard is to put teddy bears in your windows. Little kids on one of these enforced marches will be looking for them. We might do that. And this big kid will no doubt be looking for them, too.

Anyway: Monday is the big announcement I have been promising all last week during the Crazy Freddie Kindle Book Giveaway (His Prices Were Nonexistent!). So please tune in tomorrow and see what I hope might be a publishing note of interest.

Meanwhile, chin up, eyes clear, upper lip sturdy; we'll see it through. As the great Red Green says, "I'm pullin' for ya. We're all in this together."

Last chance! Plus: Ain't that Stuf enuf?

Books! Woo hoo

Just using this Friday space to remind you that today is the final day of the Fred Kindle Giveaway. All of my novels for the Kindle and Kindle software are free! Every pixel must go! Get your shovel and scoop up some!

But if you feel gypped that all I'm doing here today is a commercial, and you're ready to throw down your Little Frederick Key Decoder Ring in disgust, let me fill the rest of the page with another brief adventure in the unending saga of Foods I Should Not Eat.

🍦🍨🍧🍩🍫🍪🍬🍭🍮🍯🍰

I was at a meeting last week, before everything got shut down, and these were the cookies on the agenda, lurking by the coffee:

And I thought to myself: Is this a Stuf Too Far? And: How much Stuf is Too Much Stuf? Is there not hubris in this bombastic bonne bouche? Does this Stuf fly too close to the sun? And: Is the coronavirus God's way of punishing us for building this veritable Tower of Babel Cookie? This Titanic of treats? This Sodom and Gomorreo?

And I thought: I gotta try one.

Look at the package! "Back by Popular Demand"! Nabisco didn't want to bring back the Most Stuf -- don't be crazy! We barely contained the Stuf last time! There are some things about which Man was not meant to know! Don't you remember what happened to Phil at the factory? But the public would not be assuaged. THE MOST STUF! they demanded. And so, with a heavy sigh, and a glance at the sycamore tree planed out front ("In Memory of Philip Klopnik / Perished in the Great Stuf Debacle"), Mr. Nabisco gave the order.

I was never a Double Stuf kind of guy. I for one have never seen the chocolate cookies in an Oreo as just a device to convey the filling. Perhaps most are, and after they've parted the cookie and scraped off the creamy inside they lose interest in the chocolate. No, to me, the Oreo is a great balancing act of chocolate and cream, and to Double Stuf would be as silly as to add a third chocolate cookie to the outside.

But I have to say, the Most Stuf almost changed my mind.

It's almost like eating a little slice of cake, with a crisp crunchy layer on either end. The Stuf, being made of sterner stuff than buttercream, is not too much to take in a larger amount. I'm not part of the all-important milk-dunking demo, having eschewed dunkage for most products, so I can't vouch for that. I thought it was pretty good, though. And in fact more satisfying in a way, One Most Stuf was probably as satisfying as three normal Oreos.

Still, I prefer the perfect balance of a standard Oreo,

In the end, though, I have to say -- one should be happy with one's Stuf, however modest; if we cannot be grateful for the small Stuf, we can never be grateful for the most Stuf either.

Requiescant in Pace, Phil Klopnik!

Last reminder: If YOU want a sweet treat, download those sweet books and read to your heart's content. Tomorrow they cost real money again!

O happy day.

Thanksgiving is a happy day, one of the greatest holidays ever put on ours or any other calendar. You may know how important gratitude is to me; it is perhaps the highest emotion a human being is capable of enjoying and expressing.

You may have trouble feeling gratitude this year, for whatever reason. Maybe you're out of work. Maybe you have to work. Maybe you're spending the day with dread, knowing that tonight you report to the store where a mob of idiots is going to appear like magic for the sometimes-too-aptly-named "doorbusters." It's okay.

You may be alone, or feel ill, or be grieving, or have to deal with family members that drive you up the wall faster than a German shepherd drives a squirrel up a pine. I know the feeling.

I've had Thanksgivings where a bunch of people were crammed in a little house and everyone got sick. I've had years when a death in the family made me want to spend the day alone, guzzling beer and watching thirty straight hours of quality television (I was not allowed to). We got through.

You have worries, problems, concerns, fears. So do I. You've seen me vent that spleen on this page many times, you poor thing. But not today. Today I am putting all that crap on hold for 24 hours. All that garbage will be waiting for me on Leftovers Friday. Today is the day to think of things to be grateful for. If I have to work hard to do it, that's okay too; as long as I do it.

And hey, I can always start by being grateful I am an American. Other people live well in other places, maybe even better, but I'm telling you, if you ain't an American, you're missing out on something good.

Happy Thanksgiving.

PilGRIM II.

In the homestretch for Thanksgiving! Had to hit the store on Monday, and the celery-hoarding pigs were out in force. Hope you don't need to stop for just one more thing--you might not make it out! 

One thing I noted on Monday night was that the moon is filling out nicely -- should be full soon. In fact, it will be full Thanksgiving night--12:39 a.m. Friday morning Plymouth Rock Time, to be precise. Shortly after midnight. 

This inspired the sequel to the video game I designed a couple of years ago: PilGRIM, a Thanksgiving-themed XBox game for kids who like violence but don't like football. Here's the box for the new one:

WHAT HORROR LURKS IN THE NIGHT? SOME CREATURE THAT EATS HUMANS?

GOBBLE GOBBLE.

Whatever you do on Thanksgiving, we at the blog wish you a lovely and thankful one. If you live somewhere outside America and don't celebrate Thanksgiving, well, have a nice Thursday, and don't forget that there is always something for which to be grateful. We don't need roast turkey and yams and cranberry sauce and pie to be grateful.

But it does help. Especially the pie.

Another page turned.

Here we are, peeling back a little farther on the banana that is 2018. Every year feels like that, the slow peeling past the annual events -- holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, duties. Presidents Day? Check. Dental visit? Check. Memorial Day? Check. September 11? Check. Wife's birthday? Check. And so on. Sometimes these dates feel like stepping-stones, rocks to jump on, one to the next, to get across the rushing river of time. Some rocks are large, like Labor Day, some small, like my annual physical. And then there's the four big rocks near the end.

Halloween has become a big event; Thanksgiving always has been; Christmas more so; New Year's marks the end of so many things, being the last (and first) rock on the river. They seem like a strange collection of events, things that don't quite go together, holidays that collected at the end of the year in strange ways, but in fact, I'm starting to think they fit together quite well, and in order.

Thanks to BGBear for the awesome picture. Halloween cheats at cards, BTW.

Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's. Fear, Gratitude, Peace, Renewal. Four phases we go through to end the year. Four phases we go through, period.

Notice that the gratitude must come before the peace, before the new beginnings. I think that's the key, something I need to remember, because fear strikes us all at different times and reasons, and there seems to be no cure for it. I must try to have courage, but that gets me through fear; it doesn't solve it. Gratitude is hard, maybe harder than courage, but I've found it to be a better treatment for the affliction of fear. Gratitude is the enemy of fear. It doesn't make it run away--sometimes fear wins. But not always.

Fear has its place; it is the great motivator. Peace is the destination we want, and gratitude is the way to find it. It is not always easy.

People say the holidays are a trial. They can be a trial, and they can also be a trail, one we can follow to a new and better place, where we can try again.

Happy 2019 to you--but let's get through the rest of 2018 first.

Week from heck.

Longtime readers may know that yesterday's hilarious tomato gag was in fact a holdover from the old defunct blog. They may not know that I grew all those tomatoes in pots on my porch. That goes back to the days B.D. (before dogs), when pots full of dirt on the porch could be safely unmolested.

Anyway, that was yesterday, and it was not the entry I would have wanted to run on Fiction Friday!, but this was the week from heck. My life isn't so bad that I have really had weeks from hell, although some have come close. My idea of a real Week from Hell might be June 28-July 4, 1863, for the people of the United States in the vicinity of Gettysburg.

Some of my issues are luxury problems. I have a lawn. It was long and wet because it's been raining like God is mildly sore at us but not quite furious. I asked a service to cut the lawn and they could only come Friday. (My electric mower could in no way handle this mess.) Sure, I said. Then, the driveway guys I originally contacted last fall finally said it was dry enough to come... Friday. I got the lawn guys to come Thursday with a tip and some mild begging. And the very big dog got sick and had to go to the vet Thursday, where he becomes a very loud, very whiny pain in the butt. A very big dog pain in the butt is a YUGE pain in the butt. And at that exact moment my wife had to go to the doctor for an unexplained injury. We're awaiting the result of X-rays. (I blame Paul Manafort, because everyone else is for everything.)

Meanwhile, back in heck....

I have been working all week on jobs I wanted to get out of but couldn't. I think my clients thought I was playing hard-to-get, but I really needed time for all the things that were going on. I did avoid some work, despite being desperate for money to pay all these doctors and service professionals, but had to work on a total bloody Mary Sue novel. It was the kind of book where people are made to seem much more cruel and murderous than anyone the writer has ever known, so she can hold up a mirror to her twisted characters and say "See how evil people are?" (Yes, they are, in your books. And hey, nice anti-Trump wish fulfillment.) Plus the characters in the book were all so clueless that I hoped the villains would kill everybody in the last scene, but alas, the villains were stupid too.

People may say that Harry Potter turned kids on to witchcraft, and Twilight made girls want to bompf the undead, but the Hunger Games has made idiot children even dumber than they were before.

Workwise it was a long week.

And that doesn't even get to my own health issues.

They claved me, man.

But that's a story for another time.

While driving home I was listening to the Larry Miller podcast, and he was talking about how hot it had been that week in Los Angeles, and how when his father was a poor kid in Brooklyn they had no air conditioning, no one did; they had to sleep on the fire escape to get a break from the city heat. And it reminded me that, if nothing else, my family went in one generation from sleeping in the park to escape the heat of the city at night to full-time central air conditioning.

So whatever else is going on in my life, it's not that bad. If this is heck, I can live with it.

Appreciate or else.

The first full week of May is Teacher Appreciation Week. It is Thursday and I haven't blogged a thing about it. Well, I often handed assignments in late.

I don't want to make it seem like I don't appreciate teachers. Heck, no! Where would little Johnny and Janie and Gender To Be Named Later be without teachers? Home making Mommy and Daddy nuts, that's where!

Teacher Appreciation Week and the more specific Teacher Appreciation Day seem to have been cooked up by the National Education Association, which is like if I came up with Fred Appreciation Day and stood around shaming everyone who didn't appreciate me. Hmm... maybe they're onto something.

So I've come up with some memes to show my gratitude for the teachers of our idiot children.

Ooh, that seems kind of bitter, doesn't it? It's not, after all, just teacher salaries and generous benefits that cause my school taxes to be more than a third higher than my local taxes for all other services combined (government, cops, fire department, EMTs, roads, social services, trash removal, etc.). No, it's also... um... well, I guess it costs a lot to run a school, is all I'm saying. And just because I'll never be able to retire because of all the money I pay in taxes? Hey, I remind myself that they're churning out a smart citizenry ready to take the lead in society. And then I look at our college students. And then I wonder if I should start taking powerful narcotics.

Honestly, though, I admire teachers, especially ones in the inner cities. There's probably no harder job on earth than to try to teach something to kids who are not just not getting support at home, but who are getting pressure from their peers to remain ignorant. I used to work with a guy who got all excited with a mission to leave the publishing game, get his education degree, and teach in the inner city. I don't think he lasted a year. Seriously, he's working for another publisher now, probably making less money than he used to.

And isn't that true? Maybe being a teacher of sweet little children in a suburban kindergarten seems like a piece of cake, but teaching surly teenagers in Detroit? Not so much. Corrections officer seems like a better gig. You can pack heat, or at least a truncheon.

Teachers used to be able to count on Mom and Dad standing behind them, but that's not even the case anymore. Poor kids in fatherless homes, being raised by grandparents or exhausted single moms or fosters or whatever? Upper middle-class kids whose parents demand that their child get an excellent grade, even if they have to take it out of your hide? Seems like everyone either ignores or has it in for the teacher who wants to actually teach and grade fairly. Sure, these are stereotypes, but that doesn't mean there is no truth to them, sadly.

You can only outsource your children so much.

So maybe teachers deserve to be proud. Like librarians, they seem to honestly want to impart information and drive out ignorance. I guess I'd be less grumpy about it if they weren't so often engaging in politics or social engineering. And always, always tooting their own horn. Ever been to one of their conventions? I have. Sheesh.

Yeah, you scientists and doctors and nurses and popes and things, you're just a bunch of lazy skells compared to teachers.

Oh, the heck with it. Maybe if I ever thought I could retire I would be more cheerful.

Bright, sunshiny friggin' day.

Blarg.

Pardon me if I growl and spit.

Growl. Spit.

Thanks.

Sorry, but Wednesday was a beautiful sunny day and it kind of sucked. It sucked for various reasons, some mildly bad, some more bad; none awful, but all sucky. With your patience I shall briefly describe the reasons, in no particular order, in sections I shall label Trash, Blood, Dog, Envy, and Elvis.

TRASH
Yesterday was recycling day, which means bottles and cans and paper -- all things that are reusable and lightweight. Last Wednesday it snowed; no pickup. The two Wednesdays before that it was windy, and my crap blew all over the street and I had to go chase after it. Trash can blew over, cans and stuff everywhere. The week before that, same thing. Yesterday there was no snow, so of course there was wind, because it's winter and everything sucks. But I said Aha! I said. I will use my heavy trash can, the mighty can that I use for trash instead of the lightweight one I use for recycling. Contamination be damned! So later I was working in my office upstairs when I heard the thump outside... of the heavy can blowing over and my crap blowing all over the street. Which I had to chase after.

BLOOD
I had a bad experience over the weekend at a blood drive. I don't want to get into it here, as I filed a complaint and am expecting to hear back, but I thought I was treated pretty roughly for a guy who has been a steady donor for a long time and have previously endured poor treatment with little complaint. I've sat outside in the rain because the Bloodmobile had no room and no one thought to bring an extra tent for the people waiting; I've had phlebotomists so concerned with where they were going to drink after their shift that they lost track of me and my draw stopped after half a pint and they had to throw it out (after I'd been lying there quite some time in pain, and for nothing); I've started a drive and I've given at drives and I've invited friends to give blood with me and I've even subjected readers of this blog to entreaties to give, and I've never gotten any reward more than one coffee cup, one plastic bottle, and a bunch of Oreos. But I will not be treated like cattle. (These examples, by the way, are all about the New York Blood Center; I've also given through the Red Cross too and they've never been anything but nice.)

DOG
Once again, Tralfaz the big dog cannot sleep through the night, and wants to go pee at two or three in the morning. He is four years old; he is too young for Depends and too old for Pampers. The vet thought it was anxiety, and wanted us to dope him up, but we have been reluctant to do so. So one of us, often me, has been taking him out when all the world's asleep. Broken sleep is among the things for which I too have gotten too old. We're trying different things, but nothing has helped and so there's no end in sight.

ENVY
I was working on a book written by a guy who has become a millionaire cranking out volumes in a popular series. I think they're cute, but formulaic, and I've seen the quality plummet and the political correctness rise as his books go on. But what really bugs me is that he is so goddamn rich and popular now that he can put out garbage like this last book, which really was lousy, and he and the publisher know it will sell like crazy. And I imagine it must make other writers of quality fiction, writers who have slaved away in obscurity for years, sink into an impenetrable morass of envy, sin, and loathing. Not that I know anyone like that.

ELVIS
I had one of my all-time favorite sandwiches for lunch Wednesday, the peanut butter and banana sandwich. That would refresh the day! I always think of Elvis when I have one, although he liked his with bacon, too. Lately, though, I find that PBB causes me indigestion. (TMI follows!) Maybe the binding quality of the banana is duking it out with the laxative quality of the peanut butter, a free-for-all in my GI tract. It makes me wonder how Elvis ate the stuff he did. Then I remember that when Elvis was my age, he was dead. So that doesn't make me feel much better. As Lewis Grizzard once noted, Elvis Is Dead and I Don't Feel So Good Myself. And guess what? When Lew was my age he was dead, too.

While there were genuine reasons for my discontent, or at least proper targets, I know the bulk of my problems remains between my ears, not in my gut or anywhere else. If my character flaws were not running rampant, half these things wouldn't bother me. Sometimes I have a very hard time with gratitude. Sometimes I just can't let go of things.

Sometimes the best thing I can do is look at the nightstand clock and say, well, at least I didn't die or kill anyone today.

Old toys.

I had heard the View-Master was coming back, but I don't think I believed it until one day in Staples...

View-Masters have been around since 1939, and I'm sure you've stuck your eyes in one at some point in your life. I don't think I ever had one, but plenty of my friends did. In those days 3-D movies were a headache-inducing novelty and considered an old and failed theater promotion, but 3-D pictures were still pretty neat. With the View-Master's stereoscopic reels, you could view all kinds pictures -- often nature or science scenes, but a lot of cartoon stories and other lighter fare -- as if you were looking at it through a pair of binoculars. Hours of fun? No, not really, but of more than passing interest.

We have a tendency to think that these days the young whipper-snappers have no desire for old-fashioned toys, what with their jetpacks and hovercars. And there may be something to that. Kids are notoriously fickle and easily bored. The View-Master Classic, seen above with nature reels from Discovery Kids, might excite children who really dig wildlife (and there are many), but leave others bored.

But now there's also the View-Master Deluxe Virtual Reality Viewer, a collaboration of Google and Mattel, which uses apps and a reel and sound and all kinds of I don't even know. All I can tell is that it is a much more immersive experience from the old 3-D reels, or even a mere iPad game, and over $20 more than the old low-tech Classic set. I guess it would more closely track what kids today expect out of a toy.

My point today is not about the superiority or inferiority of new toys or old toys. New toys have novelty, which is a positive quality and prevents staleness. But old toys have endurance. What's simpler than a basketball and a hoop? And yet suburbia is riddled with them.

I will say that the happiest Christmas morning face I saw was on a little girl who got her baby doll. Just a simple doll; I don't think it even cried or wet like the old-school dolls. The key was that a sweet baby doll was exactly what she wanted and exactly what she got, and the joy on her face looked like something I'm not sure an adult can even feel. Pestered as we are by worries and duties, by the long view of love and loss, can an adult even have that complete and unmitigated joy, especially from something so simple?

When Jean Shepherd says at the end of A Christmas Story that he had gotten "The greatest Christmas gift I had ever received, or would ever receive," you understand. In life our loved ones may give us things of greater value, gifts even of great sentiment or sacrifice, but to be a plain and grateful recipient of a heart's desire is not something of which many of us are capable as adults. The gift of gratitude is the gift we give the giver and the gift we give ourselves.