The Pickleball Menace.

I'm not old enough, and perhaps young enough either, to play pickleball, but the intrepid New York Post makes me wary of the sport. "Pickleball Mania Leading to an Epidemic of Injuries Among Baby Boomers," reports the newspaper. Just looking at this ferocious action shot exposes the menace.

The Post reports, "Pickleball has been billed as a more accessible and a less intense tennis alternative, but experts say the popular pastime is still leading to a rash of injuries amongst the senior set. 'Obsessed' retirees are playing several hours per day, leading to overuse injuries. The older demo is also more likely to have weak bones, putting them at a greater risk for fractures."

The people profiled are not very old; we're not talking nonagenarians here. More like early sixties. Yet somehow, despite being able-bodied, they spend hours playing pickleball instead of working honest jobs. And they don't stretch enough, or take a break when they're hurt. It's just pickleball, morning, night, and noon.

It makes me wonder what other activities are causing overuse injuries in these crazy retirement villages. Is shuffleboard elbow a serious problem? Maybe mall-walking tendonitis? Croquet knee? Horseshoes carpal tunnel? Quoits wrist? I don't even want to ask what problems cornhole might be causing. 

I know a lot of doctors may be harrumphing at me; I can almost hear them through the computer. "Harrumph," they say, "a little overuse injury is nothing compared to the diseases of overweight and inactivity. Do you know that 80 percent of Americans don't get enough exercise, Fred? Well, do you, punk?" 

Well, I counter, do you doctors know that fully a third of Americans don't get enough sleep? Which problem is easier to fix? Mightn't a well-rested person be more likely to engage in exercise, and do it properly, with good stretching and other injury-prevention measures?

What I'm saying is -- avoid the pickleball menace and take a nap. That's what I intend to do, anyway. Maybe right now. 

😴

The power of clean.

 Ranked from weakest to strongest, the fundamental forces of the universe are: 

• Gravity
• The Weak Nuclear Force
• Electromagnetism
• The Strong Nuclear Force
• The Power that Attaches a Hair to the Side of a Toilet

Got the spider!

Baby dog Izzy was off to the groomer yesterday morning, so I put aside my paying labors to clean the bathrooms. It's very difficult to do any chores around the ten-month-old scamp, because when chores are attempted he goes through a few stages, all of which are useless:

1) Curiosity -- What is going on?

2) Participation -- I'm going to help!

3) Frustration -- This is boring and smells bad.

4) Interference -- This is stupid! Let's go play!

It's much better to take any opportunity when he is not around to get things done. 

So I'm glad that's done, but today is Ash Wednesday, which means it's time for me to consider cleaning something much more gross than any ol' bathroom -- my miserable soul. I'm not going into hiding this year like one of the Desert Fathers, nor have I planned to give up anything like chocolate, like one of the Dessert Fathers. (rimshot) I'm up in the air at this late date about what to do for Lent, but I'll do something. 

Meanwhile, remember how glad I was yesterday that I survived February without a big fall? Guess who stepped on black ice this morning and introduced his hip to the tarmac? Yes, your old pal Fred. Izzy sort of freaked out, while Tralfaz just laid on the snow looking at me. Man's best friend. 

Made it!

Thank God, we survived February this year with nothing horrible happening. Seemed like a close call a few times. We had more ice around than Saskatchewan, but I only took one fall, and it was facing uphill. 

Trust me when I tell you novenas were being said. We had gotten to feel like we could not get through February without illness, death, or injury, so this was a win. I greatly sympathize with all those for whom February has been crueler this year -- I know how you feel. 

That's about all I have to say, except, in tribute to frequent commenter PL Woodstock, I wrote the following:

The great actor Frederic March was known to drop into Maguire's Saloon now and then. One evening a few patrons noticed him enter, looking quite tired after a long day on the set. 

"The usual, Mr. March?" asked Maguire, behind the stick. 

"No, Mags, I need something to give me some pick-me-up," said March. "Goldwyn's got a party later and I have almost no energy at all."

"I got you, sir. Hang on." 

Maguire quickly mixed up his Electric City Special, named for his hometown of Schenectady -- cold black coffee with two shots of rye and a twist of lemon, on the rocks. "Just drink this down quick."

March did, and sat straight up on his stool. "Wow, that was terrific!" he said, but the drink went right to his head. He slumped onto the bar, out cold. 

"Didn't work, huh, Mags?" said Gig Young from down the bar. 

"Oh, you know March," said Maguire. "In like an ion, out like a lamp."

🥁

Total commitment.

Unlike the other guys, Phil never neglected leg day.

 

No brainer!

There resides among us a woman named Adrienne Sioux Koopersmith, and she is exceptionally notable. The legacy of any a prominent person has resulted in the creation of a holiday, but Koopersmith has gone beyond that by far; she is responsible for more than 1,900 of them. 

As explained by CNN in 2018, 

The undisputed champ of holiday creation is Adrienne Sioux Koopersmith, a Chicago woman who bills herself as "America's Premier Eventologist."

     Koopersmith started creating holidays -- or "holidates," as she likes to call them -- about 30 years ago, almost as a form of therapy after she got mugged in the lobby of her apartment building by a robber who smashed her in the face with brass knuckles, she said.

     "This was an event in and of itself that would change the entire course of my life," she told CNN.

     In order to deal with the trauma of the attack, she started writing and creating cartoons, which she merged with her love of holidays.

     She thumbed through a book that listed holidays and thought a lot of them were dull and stupid.

     "Why not do events that are fun and whimsical?" asked Koopersmith, determined to complement traditional holidays with days a little more fanciful.

She's still at it as I write this -- and that brings us to the holiday she created for today, February 27: No-Brainer Day. 

Koopersmith created the holiday in 1995, according to the site National Today, to encourage "people to stop overthinking things, criticizing themselves, and loosen up and unwind. Things are simple, and the multiple problems we face daily may have easy solutions if we stop stressing and take things easy. As it implies, ‘no-brainer’ means making choices that require very little thinking or work."

I think that's a pretty good idea, especially when the day falls on a Sunday, the day of rest. We do tend to complicate the hell out of things. A friend of mine says he can complicate a glass of water. That sounds hard to do, but toss in a dash of our cultural catastrophizing and it's a piece of cake, er, water:

• I want a glass of water
• Glass or plastic cup?
• Glass: breakable, dangerous
• Cup: Possible phthalates; poisoning?
• Large container or small or medium? 
• Regular or "company reserved"?
• Water: Tap or bottle?
• Tap: Contaminates in water supply 
• Bottle: Ecological garbage
• Cold or warm?
• Cold: Refreshing but requires electricity in summer
• Warm: Not as refreshing
• Add-ins? Kool-Aid? Tea? Tang? Lemon? Ice? Twist? Carbonation? Booze?  
• Coaster available?

It's a no-brainer! Get some water and drink it! Good grief, we're turning into Buridan's ass, dying of thirst from overthinking, except no donkey in real life would be that dumb. Being that dumb and possibly crazy requires the sophisticated human brain.

So today: No-Brainers all the way. I'll tell myself KISS: Keep it simple, suckah. There will be plenty of time Monday to screw everything up again, and I'm just the guy that can do it!

Seasonal song.

Long-time readers of this blog (who are all smart and good-looking) may recall that I have a penchant for amusing myself with making up songs when under duress. And surely one of those times is while standing in the frigid blasts of February on the ice, waiting for not one but two dogs to find a place to weewee. They're good boys, but I think there are two issues at play here:

1) When things are suddenly covered with ice or snow, their sense of what makes a good spot is compromised; and 

2) They're both built for cold and/or rainy weather by nature and they like being outside, and they're not above dawdling to stay there.

So I started singing them a little song. In my mind it goes like a jaunty little number from a musical, maybe mid-sixties, the kind of piece that hits the audience before they get restless, and maybe becomes a standalone hit if the rest of the production bombs. And it goes like this:

🐕🐶🐕🐶🐕🐶

Let's go

Let's go out in the snow

Let's go out and go pee

It's good for you and it's good for me

We'll go

And yes, we won't be slow

What a happy chap you will be

Once you're relieved of all that pee

[bridge]

Call it urinate or micturate  

But don't you dawdle or diddle

It's freezing cold and I'm feeling old  

So buckle down, boys, and piddle

And you

You might even go poo

You might even go prance

Over the yard with a song and dance

[bridge]

A winterscape that you must escape 

But you're a most lucky fellow

The gals go marking their names in dark ink  

But you write 'em in yellow

And then

You'll be finished and when

You and I go inside

I'll warm my hide by the fireside

Then how happy we'll be

'Cause you'll have gone and gone pee. 

🚽🚽🚽🚽🚽🚽

Hey, if this thing could have a good run in New York, why not?

The training is incredible.

 

"He's going into the back room and -- Oh, crap! Dude! Sheila's
in there and now she's got a gun on him! It's a double-cross!"