Signs.

Strange symbols appearing on the street:

My neighbor thought this meant they were going to tear up the road to go after the sewer lines, so we would have weeks of open sewers and no street. But I know better.

Aliens.

That's right: Landing instructions for the little green men. (They really are little and green, according to my secret UFOlogy connections. I'm not trying to be sexist here---they really are all men when they go on off-planet missions, but once home they can change back to one of their three primary genders: Male, Female, and Caitlyn.)

How do I know all this? My connections keep an eye on the spies planted by the little green men, the spies who go around painting landing instructions on quiet suburban streets, that's how.

I don't know too much more about the aliens, except that they intend to subdue us, have spent a lot of time on our planet, and they are said to be in control of all our major colleges and universities---which would explain a lot. I also have reason to believe these strange creatures are in control of the following:

• the We network
• Amway
• the Presbyterians
• Luxembourg 
• the zinc trade
• most U.S. Laundromats
• Kim Jong-un
• the Academy Awards
• Portland (both of them; actually pretty much anyplace named Portland)
• Hillary Clinton's e-mail server
• the weather

If you think about it, it answers a lot of strange and mysterious questions. Why is The Simpsons still on the air? Aliens. What happened to all the bowling alleys? Aliens. The popularity of soccer? Aliens. The EU not falling into smithereens? Aliens. Trump? Aliens. Missing socks in the wash? Do I even have to say it?

The little green men, by the way, have a terrible weakness for Easy Cheese, so carry a can with you at all times. Keep an eye out for mysterious markings on the street, and keep watching the skies.

Orion's back!

Was outside very early Wednesday morning and saw the constellation Orion just about peeking over the southern horizon.

Not my picture, of course; this comes from the Hubble Space Telescope, courtesy of the University of Arizona Astronomy Department. When I saw Orion yesterday he was almost sideways on the horizon---relaxing in the glow of dawn.

Wikipedia tells us that during the summer Orion is in the northern hemisphere sky in the daylight hours, so we can't see him. I'm used to seeing him in the evenings during the winter, and since we got the dog (and I'm constantly being taken outside) I've seen him more in the last two winters than in my entire life prior to this. In any event, I didn't expect to see him in August, and I gather it's because the days are shortening up. The constellation must have been rising after sunup through July; now it's just before sunup.

I've liked Orion for a long time. I liked the Jethro Tull song first:

(Except for that one rhyme---"I'm high on" always made me cringe a little.)

I also liked the fact that Orion is very bright and very recognizable. When you grow up in a big city you don't see many constellations.

Orion the hunter had a pretty rough time of it in the myth. He did some terrible things, but so does absolutely everybody in Greek mythology. He paid some pretty heavy prices for his sins, and his destruction came at the hands of the gods, at least according to some stories; Apollo either tricked his sister Artemis into killing Orion, or Orion went crazy and threatened to kill every beast on earth, so Mother Earth sent a giant scorpion to take him out. However it happened, Orion got smited, and was placed among the stars.

When I see Orion I know that winter is on the way, so we're all about to get smited, too.

Sic Transit Gloria EVOO.

Let me say up front that I have nothing against Rachael Ray. Or not much against Rachael Ray. It's always good to see something successful come out of Glens Falls and/or Lake George. So there is that.

The cutesy stuff annoys me, I will confess. "EVOO" for extra-virgin olive oil and "Yum-O" and the line of pet foods ("Nutrish"), all that stuff---I'm fine with cute stuff, but leave it to Hello Kitty. Then again, I'm not the target audience. I don't watch daytime talk shows (I don't hold it against those who do) and I generally only watch shows on Food Network that have some chefs in blood feuds against other chefs, because it combines sports and food, two of my favorite things.

I don't follow the Q Scores, so I don't usually know how well a celebrity is doing until suddenly his show is yanked and he winds up hosting a streaming video show out of a garage studio or, God help the person, writing a daily blog to get attention. I do follow the supermarkets, though. As the family shopper I see things all the time like this:

That was a Wheat Thins box from about 2007/2008, when you could not swing a dead cat in the supermarket without A: Getting the store targeted by health inspectors (dead cat -- come on) and B: Hitting something with Rachael Ray's picture on it. She was about as omnipresent as the Minions are now. I remembered this box because I was in the cracker aisle when I saw an old man and his son looking at it.

Old Man: "There she is again."

Son: "Rachael Ray?"

Old Man: "Yeah."

Son: "You don't like her?"

Old Man: "No, but... it's too much. She's on everything."

I remembered that exchange when I saw this for sale at the store a couple of months ago; 99 cents a box:

Instant oatmeal usually runs between $2.50 and $3 around here. This was a clearance sale. Is it the first sign that the Rachael Ray empire is starting to wane?

Well, she still has the talk show, and the appearances on Food Network, and the Nutrish stuff (Nutrish -- bah) is in the dog aisle, and I see Kohl's is still selling the EVOO crap. So perhaps not. Maybe the oatmeal was just a bridge too far.

Still, when you reach the top of the mountain, there's nowhere to go but down, and life doesn't let you just sit there. It's knowing when you're at the top that's the tricky bit---and the bit where the analogy falls apart, too. After all, when you get to the top of the mountain in real life it's not like you can keep climbing.

Well, Ms. Ray, take comfort in the fact that Target has dropped the Giada De Laurentiis line, so you have plenty of company. No worries---I'm sure neither of you is going to be hitting the bricks anytime soon. Or, God help you, writing a daily blog to get attention.

Dog toys.

Tralfaz and I disagree on a few things, as longtime readers of this space will know. Dogs and we have different priorities. I do not approve of his plan to lick the inside of my mouth to see what I've been eating, and have disallowed it. He thinks my refusal to provide treats on demand is some breakdown of the human/dog convention. We agree to disagree, though, and go on as best we can.

We also disagree on what his best toys are. He likes the kind you can fill with treats the best, but for outside play he's a big fan of anything you can quite literally sink your teeth into. He enjoys Frisbees, sure, but they aren't very pliable. A good, tough football-like object is more his speed. But not an actual football; with his teeth he would deflate that sucker faster than Tom Brady's equipment manager.

I, on the other hand, am a big fan of the Flying Squirrel by Chuckit!

It flies like a Frisbee, but it's made of a flexible fabric; that and its wingtips cause it to bank and even boomerang much better than a Frisbee. When thrown properly it can make amazing curves, banks, dips, and rises. It is extremely tough; Tralfaz has chewed on it hard and played tug-of-war with it, and it spent a month buried under semipermafrost in the backyard last winter with no ill effects. Tralfaz enjoys it, don't get me wrong, but it's not his favorite. It is mine.

Don't just take my word for it; here's a product review done by a thoughtful dog owner with more time on his hands than I have:

And remember, it's not all that weird to enjoy playing with your pet's toys, with or without the pet:

Munch!

Munch!

What's the Munch?

The Munch is essentially a peanut brittle bar, and, as you can see on the label, is made with all natural ingredients---and only six at that: peanuts, sugar, soy lecithin (yum!), corn syrup, butter, and salt. It is quite nice, a mild but delightful peanut flavor and a brittle that does not threaten to pull every filling out of your head while creating the need for new fillings.

The real mystery is, who makes it? I do not recall ever having seen it before, and I certainly had never eaten one. There are precious few American candies that I have not eaten.

The wrapper seems to be trying to keep its origin a mystery. In tiny print on the back---too tiny for my phone to photograph---it says it comes from the makers of the Snickers bar. Well, the Munch bar doesn't appear on www.Snickers.com, but Snickers is made by Mars. Sure enough, in microscopic print on the back of the Munch wrapper, you see the name Mars Inc. But the Munch bar does not appear on the list of brands on the Mars Web site either.

What the---? Did I get hold of a 40-year-old candy bar? Is there something toxic about the Munch bar that Mars wants to keep on the QT?

Wikipedia says that the Munch was introduced in 1970 as the Snickers Munch bar. They also link to the Munch Web site, which makes no bones about being a Mars candy. But here's where we see something interesting:

MUNCH^® Peanut Bar is a snack food with a low Glycemic Index. What are the benefits of eating low-Glycemic Index snacks? They may keep you feeling fuller longer, be part of a balanced diet, and provide long lasting energy.

Indeed, the Munch wrapper makes mention of its low glycemic index as well. It got me to thinking that the Munch bar might be one of those candy bars that are recommended for diabetics. I don't know much about diabetes, but I know that candy is useful for diabetics when blood sugar crashes; not chocolate, though, which slows the sugar from getting in the bloodstream. So is that connected to the glycemic index?

Apparently not, says the American Diabetes Association, which tells us that for people on diabetes the GI does not really matter. Besides, hard candy is the way to go for low sugar crises, and I don't think peanut brittle counts.

In the lack of other evidence, I have to conclude that the Munch bar, which considers itself a healthy snack and makes fun of other candies with long lists of ingredients (hmm... the Snickers contains artificial flavor, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, lactose, and palm oil, I see), may not play well in the sandbox with the other Mars candies. So Mars sort of pushes it off into its own health ghetto.

And way off---I found this Munch bar on a trip to Pennsylvania. The product locator on the Munch site says that there are none for sale within 15 miles of my zip code; the closest Munch bar is 16 miles from here.

Too bad---it was pretty good.

He kept his promise; you keep your distance.

August is the month of death.

I heard an ad for LegalZoom on the radio yesterday that said that August "is Make-A-Will-Month."

Seems a little morbid, doesn't it? "Hey, you! You playing with the kids in the yard! You with a box of hamburgers ready to grill, dance music on the speaker, guests on the way, pitchers of margaritas! You enjoying your life in the summer! GO MAKE A WILL BECAUSE YOU ARE GOING TO DIE."

We all should have a will, yes, and we're all going to die sometime, but this kind of puts a shroud over the proceedings, doesn't it?

Who decides these things anyway? We have three calendars in the house and none of them say it's Make-A-Will Month. Maybe if I had a complimentary calendar from a law firm it would say that, but ours are from the church (sponsored by a funeral parlor), Boys Town, and a Realtor. The funeral parlor might have wanted to slip MAW Month on---or maybe Buy-A-Casket Month---but perhaps the church wouldn't let them.

The totally unverified (and unverifiable) Holiday Insights site tells us that August is also:

• Admit You're Happy Month
• Family Fun Month
• National Catfish Month
• National Eye Exam Month
• National Golf Month
• Peach Month
• Romance Awareness Month
• Water Quality Month
• National Picnic Month

Who makes this stuff up? I'm sure the Peach Growers' Association or whatever they're called is behind Peach Month, and I could see Congress voting for Water Quality Month or Eye Exam Month or even National Picnic Month. But Romance Awareness Month? We need a month for this? Admit You're Happy Month? I don't even know what that means.

I guess they figure August is as good as any for Make-A-Will Month. If you're together with the kids just before they leave for school, maybe you will think about your will. You wouldn't want to in December; much as the winter's start makes us think about Death, the lawyers would not want to try to compete with St. Nick. January could be good, though. Spring would be a terrible time for Make-A-Will Month.

No, I'm thinking it should have been January. You can have a provision in the will that the credit cards from Christmas should be paid out of the estate. So if you die, you don't have to worry about them!