Way-out food.

I know you've been wondering: What's Fred been eating? And I'm happy to say I've been subsisting on a totally far-out diet, man! 

Summer's here, and you know what that means:

Of course I'm referring to yogurt, or in this case the latest Yoplait varieties. I've tried their cross-promotions with Starburst, Skittles, Gushers, and Girl Scout Cookies, so Kool-Aid is hardly a stretch. And look, the logo is even busting through a wall like the Kool-Aid Man!

As is typical for Kool-Aid, the color is not something seen in nature. 

And the stuff tastes like Kool-Aid, too. What you think of that depends on how much you like Kool-Aid, or fear the Kool-Aid Man coming through your house. 

On a healthier note, here's another new varietal of apple that I like. Presenting the Cosmic Crisp!  

Like the SugarBee, which I reviewed in May, the Cosmic Crisp was cultivated from the Honeycrisp in Washington State. It's a cross between a Honeycrisp and an Empire, actually. It's a good, sweet eating apple, but is also recommended for cooking. The site says it's "ideal for snacking, cooking, baking, and entertaining." I mean, it's not that entertaining just sitting there, but your mileage may vary.

Very delicious, but whenever I eat one I hear Fred Schneider and the B-52's singing: 

Eat that thing all night long, eat it man you can't go wrong

Don't let it rest on the president's desk, rock the house

Cosmic, cosmic
Eat that thing, eat that thing, oh yeah

Which is a little disturbing. 

If you wanted to make a whole cosmic breakfast for yourself, eat the apple, forget the yogurt, and have a bowl of this: 

That might be a little too cosmic, though, without the aid of hallucinogens. 

Hither and thither.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Nah, I'll just show some pictures of where I've been lately and what they're all about. 

You all know how much I love my mulch. But this gentleman really went game. He got a pile of red mulch so big that in one of your flatter states like Florida or North Dakota it would have been considered a mountain range. Then he mulched everything, even this tree stump. 

So, what's the advantage of mulching a tree stump? Er... Well, his young kids like to play baseball, so maybe this is a warning track!   

From the window of a local Chase branch. Doesn't this look a little Christmassy to you? I guess they're stars but they look like snowflakes, most having eight points. Not sure what the idea is here. 

This is sad. After something like 30 years, the garden center/florist/café in town is closing. Actually, this is after the closing; they sold everything half off. The owners are very decent people but were getting too old for the work. They kept afloat for almost 20 years after a Home Depot and later a Lowe's moved into the area. They had a personal touch and a great location, and their plants were always in better condition than the ones at the big box stores. Still, with the competition I doubt anyone would have bought their business. 

I heard the people who did buy the property are planning to build a hotel, which is odd. This isn't the kind of town that screams "We need a Holiday Inn Express!" or the like. We shall see. 

Personal note: This store was the inspiration for Houghton Holly’s Garden Center in my MacFinster novels, although the hard-charging fictional owner, Holly Starke, is nothing like the nice people who owned this place. 

Finally, here's an interesting piece a neighbor put out on the lawn. It's a Farmall Model H tractor. The Model H was manufactured between 1939 and 1953, but I don't know the year of this one. I don't even know if it's in working condition, although it looks great. I'll let you know if I see it chugging down the street or around the yard. 

What is a weed?

What is a weed? Is weed just a mean term for a plant we don't happen to like? 

Merriam-Webster defines a weed this way:

a plant that is not valued where it is growing and is usually of vigorous growth

especially : one that tends to overgrow or choke out more desirable plants

Similarly, the Encyclopedia Britannica says: 

general term for any plant growing where it is not wanted. Ever since humans first attempted the cultivation of plants, they have had to fight the invasion by weeds into areas chosen for crops. Some unwanted plants later were found to have virtues not originally suspected and so were removed from the category of weeds and taken under cultivation. Other cultivated plants, when transplanted to new climates, escaped cultivation and became weeds or invasive species. The category of weeds thus is ever changing, and the term is a relative one.

So yeah, they're plants we don't happen to find useful, as food, ornament, construction supply, etc. Worse, they tend to "choke out more desirable plants." 

Is it insulting to call a plant a weed, then, just because we don't like it? No. Plants have no minds and no feelings and so you can call them whatever you want. 

Some people will defend weeds. They may point to particular ones that are actually useful (dandelions, for one, are edible), or are important for wildlife (especially as pollinators). That argument, however, isn't saying that weeds are good; it's saying that things we think of as weeds are actually not, because they have an important purpose. 

Other people just like weeds because they are what nature would do if we weren't interfering. In the comic strip Miss Peach, scrawny weird kid Arthur was known for growing a weed garden. The character seemed to find identification with the unwanted plants. Perhaps Arthur thought that, like a weed, he was useless and ugly, but darn it, he was also persistent! Ironically, cartoonist Mell Lazarus said Arthur was his most popular character.

But are any people really like weeds? Should we not agree with Ars Nova, who sang "Fields of People / There's no such thing as a weed"?  

Yes and no; yes, because all humans have an intrinsic value and natural rights; no, we shouldn't, because it's an inexact analogy. A decent person can turn bad and become a vile slob; a sinner can reform. But whatever stinkweed does, it's never going to be a strawberry rhubarb pie.

The main thing about weeds is that they grow like, well, weeds. It's a symbol of this fallen world that the plants that help us to survive and thrive have to be brought along with effort, while the useless ones proliferate like crazy. No one ever found a field that just automatically produced delicious potatoes or amazing rows of corn.

Sure, sometimes you can find wild blueberries or bunches of coconut trees or other wonderful things, but those are the natural exception rather than the rule. One estimate says that only around 10 million humans could survive if we were all hunter-gatherers. That's roughly the population of Michigan, for the entire planet. And fewer would survive if they were vegetarians. 

Modern agriculture (and aquaculture and animal husbandry etc.) gets the credit for the survival of the other 6,990,000 of us. 

Seeing how vital plants are for us, heck yes, there are weeds. We ought to make sure there's nothing particularly useful about them before we murder them, but then it's fair game. Bring on the corn flakes! Say no to stinkweed flakes!

Back in the tube.

Long-suffering readers may recall that back in February 2020 I had a spinal issue that put me in the hospital for a couple of nights. At that time the Chinese Death Virus was just a rumor for the most part, but a month later we were all wearing masks and gloves and desperate for toilet paper. 

What with COVID and all, I didn't go to see the pain specialist in person again until last month, for a follow-up. I wanted to know if he thought it would be safe for me to get off the medication I was on for nerve pain, the antidepressant Cymbalta (duloxetine), which seemed to be useless for my mood but great on nerve pain. Also great on making me have to nap. I don't think I've made it through more than five days without a nap since he put me on it. But, if you recall the harrowing details of my hospital trip, you can understand why I've been scared to stop taking it. 

He suggested I get an MRI and see what my lower back looked like now. 

So Saturday morning, I was back in the tube. 

This time it was at a local radiological clinic rather than a hospital, and the staff was great. I wondered if I would feel once again like I was being buried alive, but I guess I'm getting to be an old hand at this. I got no music, no peephole to the outside world, but I just closed my eyes and lay still as the tech moved me into the machine, and stayed like that for the next twenty minutes. Of course my ear started to itch as soon as I was inside. With nothing else to do, I started praying, and my first prayer was Lord, please stop this ear from itching. And it did, soon enough. 

Some people find the noises scary in the MRI, but I almost found them soothing. The vibrations felt nice on my back. I almost fell asleep. Then again, I'm currently a napaholic, and I've also had a long history of falling asleep in the dentist's chair during procedures. 

I thanked the tech when it was over and went about my day. I'll be seeing the doc on Thursday for the results, and I hope maybe he can give me a jab with the steroid needle and take me off the pills. I love to sleep as much as anyone, but this daily one-to-two-nap schedule is cramping my lifestyle. 

It's not an active lifestyle -- closer to inert -- but it could be much better. Wish me luck!

Is it that obvious?

 

A test of Mettle.

It's been very pleasant to see the Beloved Mets riding in first place in the National League East. They've mostly had trouble with West Coast NL teams so far, but aside from that have been true powerhouses this season. Of course, taking the two-game set from the Yankees for city bragging rights was most excellent. 

In the midst of this I was reminded of something I had forgotten, if in fact I ever knew it. 

Everybody knows that Mr. Met, abetted by the lovely and talented Mrs. Met, is the mascot of the New York Metropolitans and has been since the team's inaugural year of 1962 -- except for a period in the late seventies when he was put in cold storage. 

It's more proof that everything sucked in the seventies. 

Cast your mind back to 1976. Disco, polyester, The Big Bus, Ford and Carter. The Yankees were heading for the World Series. The Mets had treaded away Tom Seaver, the Franchise, for nothing much, and Tom was leading the Reds to the World Series and a four-game sweep of the Yankees. The previous two years the Yankees had been playing at Shea Stadium, and all Yankees fans could do was whine about how bad Shea was, while the House that Ruth Built was literally falling apart. 

Mets fans forget that '76 was not a terrible year for the Mets, who finished with a winning record but in third place. But for half of 1977, and for the next four seasons as well, Joe Torre was the manager of the Mets, and the Mets lost games by the dozen. None of that Torre brilliance on display twenty years later with the Yankees was seen with the Mets. 

Stepping into this hot, dreary era of stagflation and shame was a mule named Arthur, now rechristened Mettle the Mule, as the new mascot. 

He looks happy.

Mettle's new name came from fan Dolores Mapps, reflecting the name Mets (duh) and the fighting spirit of the ballclub. Little of this spirit was visible, as the team would lose more than 90 games a season. 

Mettle was kept in a pen near the bullpen, and was probably better behaved than the relief pitchers. Loren Mathews, the promotions manager for the team, told the Chicago Tribune in 1992, "Actually, there was serious talk in spring training [in 1979] by the de Roulets [the team owners] to have the relievers come in from the bullpen on the mule. I told them there was no way I could in good conscience tell Bob Apodaca that from now on he’d be coming into a game with the tying runs on base, bottom of the ninth inning, riding in from the outfield on a mule."

This was still the era where relievers were brought out in bullpen carts, some of which were weird, so the idea of a pitcher coming into a game on a mule, or maybe a mule-powered chariot, was not all that way out. Stupid, but not especially so. 

It's no fault of Mettle's that the team was so bad, but after the last-place 1979 season, new ownership came in and Mettle was put out to pasture. No one seems to know what became of him afterward, but we thank him for his service. Anyone can be a supporter of a winning team, but it takes a little badassery (har!) to be there for the team when they suck. 

Hard sell.

Yesterday morning tiny little 82-pound baby dog Izzy had to go to the vet for his first annual checkup. In future, his shots will be staggered, but on this one he got them all at once: Lyme, bordetella, rabies, and so on. He passed his physical and was very well behaved (why can't my doctor give ME cheese during an exam?). But he was completely wiped out afterward. So, in fact, was I. 

We were conked out in the living room when Izzy suddenly got an interior call on the Bladder Hot Line, and I woke to him whining. With no thought to my own bladder, I whisked him outside, where, like any dog with a strong urge to micturate, he started wandering around by the sidewalk, looking for the perfect spot. And that's when two things happened that led to my Irritation of the Day. 

First, a young guy pulled up to me riding a hoverboard. He had a lanyard and a clipboard, so I knew this wasn't going to be good. 

Worse, he had barely started into his pitch (Today only! Deep discount! Trucks in the neighborhood!) for lawn pest control when a pal from around the corner stopped his car on the way and said hi to both of us, him having used pest-control service. Now the salesman knew I live in this house, not just walking the dog past it, and he has a customer he can point to as a success story. 

The pitch continues, and continues, and continues. I keep saying no as nicely as I can. 

Why? After all, readers of this blog know I hate every critter this guy shows on his kill list, from wasps to spiders to ticks to mice. But I will not be driven into a snap decision when one is not necessary, and I despise the hard sell. 

Can't stand it, always have. Once when I was a kid, my parents made the mistake of going for a tour of a time-share outfit in Florida. For our willingness to look around and listen to the pitch, the salesman promised a gift certificate and some novelty prize. Well, my parents had a bad feeling about the whole deal (the same one many time-share customers would come to have) and their answer was no. That salesman went from funny young man to blank-eyed casino owner the moment we got in his office. You could not tell him no in any form or language that would lead the conversation to end. We would still be there to this day, us kids grown-up and the remains our dead parents, with the guy waiting for us to agree -- but finally my parents just got up and we left. If I had been younger I would have screamed "I pooped my pants!" to help them get out sooner. 

As much as I admire energy, get-up-and-go, and hard-charging ambition, I will not be told that I have to make a decision now, not unless someone is literally going to die. And when a salesperson asks "What is there to think about?" I shut down entirely. 

I swore I would call him if he'd give me his number, and I would have, but he wouldn't let go. I used my wife as my excuse for not agreeing to anything, and said she wasn't home, and no I could not call her right now, and finally got away. 

During this whole exchange, poor exhausted Izzy had flopped on the sidewalk, and neither of us had peed, and we were both losing our joie de vivre quickly.  

I should have yelled "I pooped my pants!" and run.

You know I've had it when I would rather have the four- and six- and eight-legged pests than that two-legged pest. 

UPDATE: The town has sent out this notice: 

We have received several reports from residents regarding recent door-to-door solicitation from a pest control company.  Please be aware that the Town has not issued any Peddler's Permits for this solicitation, as required by Town code.  Those who have been issued a Peddler's Permit by the Town should always be able to present this permit when asked.  Please exercise caution and do not invite strangers into your home.