Mowing is called aggravation

It’s time to mow again. If I sound aggravated, I am. Mowing one’s lawn is supposed to be a happy chore: you strideacross your land pushing thunder before you, a trail of weeds and dominated grass spewing behind you. But for me, mowing is an aggravation. My grass is shin high and there are weeds that look as if they could beat me at arm wrestling. It’s time to mow again.

Once I became so aggravated at an amazingly recalcitrant mower, I pushed it down to the gully, swing it by the handles like an Olympic hammer thrower and tossed it into the ravine. Ask my wife. She’ll tell you. It’s a true story and I’m glad I did it. It’s probably still there.

The last time I cut grass I found the mower huddled in the corner of the garage like a hibernating animal. It had somehow built a thicket of chairs, a fertilizer spreader, boxes, a powered edger and somehow pulled our wheelbarrow over itself like a blanket. All my lawn mowing emotions had returned. All the hate I felt for weeds. All the glee at seeing decapitated dandelions.

I drug the lawn mower out of the tangle and hauled it into the sunlight, checked the oil and refilled the gas. I plugged in my iPod, twirled the volume to extra loud and donned my floppy hat with the bite out of the brim where Belle the dog got it. Unbelievably it caught on the first pull, then choked, coughed, convulsed and died. I pulled again and it started. Thank you Jesus!

I, lawn God, then strode purposefully into my deep lawn ready to mulch. Keep your fingers crossed.

Beef Tripe

Yesterday, I accidently brought home a different cat food than normal. I say accidentally when actually I did it on purpose, it was a buck fifty cheaper. Anyway, my finicky cat Boo wouldn’t touch, not even a lick, so I returned to the store to return with her preferred brand.

While wondering the food aisles -Tonda hates this because she never knows what I’ll return home with, I stopped in the canned food section and picked out a can of the generically named Potted Meat Food Product - yes, that was its name. The ingredients listed on the label (Andy Rooney has got me doing this now) include: Beef tripe, beef hearts, cooked fat tissue solids, and partially de-fatted beef fatty tissue. I’ll bet all that attracts a lot of picky eaters. This is not a product my Uncle Mike would eat.

I can hear consumers around the U.S. dinner table, “Mom, pass me some more of that partially de-fatted beef stuff.”

Also on the label was a well lighted and composed color picture of a brownish substance surrounded by parsley with an olive perched in the center. Is it just me or do olives look like frog eyeballs?

For research sake, I stopped at the meat section, rung the service bell, and asked the white stained apron clad lady behind the counter what beef tripe was. She looked at me like she hated to get those kind of questions, paused... and said, “I think it comes from around the stomach area of a cow.” I could tell she hates people who are retired and have nothing better to do than wonder around the store, but I thanked her and left.

I’ve lost my appetite after all this research, so I grabbed my stacks of canned cat food and headed home. Scares me to death to think about the ingredients in a can of Spam.

Trivia question of the day

(Try it without Google)

The answer will be in tomorrow’s blog.

Yesterday’s Question: What organization boasts that 27 percent of it’s membershipare blonde females? Mensa - the organization for the really smart. Does this debunk the “Dumb Blond” stories?

Today’s Trivia: Sellers of binoculars and telescopes gross about $400 million dollars a year from what group?

A Love/Hate Relationship

A love/Hate relationship

A 2006* A.C. Neilson survey claimed that by the time your child graduates from high school he/she will have spent approximately 11,000 hours in the classroom and 15,000 hours watching TV. During the course of all this, they will have watched over 350,000 commercials and seen over 25,000 killings.

However, television has brought instant, around the globe, news coverage to our lives and made it possible for us, at least vicariously, to be citizens of the world. It has allowed us to make friends with Oprah, Mr. Rogers, SpongeBob SquarePants, Charles Kuralt, Barney Fife, Andy Rooney, Ray Romano, Bill Cosby and many others. It has brought us much joy and, from time to time, some education.

Television has also stolen much from us. Today’s children who huddle around the television monitor are missing something that every previous generation has enjoyed - the magic of childhood. Television killed skinny dipping, Christmas tree forts, chasing butterflies, drive-in movies, capture the flag and follow the leader. Aside from the Harry Potter books, children, generally, don’t read non-assignedbooks or newspapers. Most future generations of kids will not get to explore man in Heinlein’s The Martian Chronicles, float a raft down the river with Tom and Huck or read Leslie Conner’s great book. Waiting for Normal.

My daughter Kelly, as a high school junior, was studying a classic book in her literature class. The teacher had advised her students to watch the video tape because the book was difficult to follow. It seemed like such an outlandish suggestion that I didn’t believe it and called the teacher at home. Sure enough she did make that suggestion to her literature students and couldn’t understand my concern. I was not a happy camper.

I hope the next time with sit and watch TV we really enjoy it. It had better be good because we’ve paid a big price for it.

*By 2009, viewing habits have changed, somewhat. Too many kids are either texting, twittering, sexting or playing violent computer games to read books or actually play real games.

Trivia question of the day

(Try it without Google)

The answer will be in tomorrow’s blog.

Yesterday’s Question: In 1950, 35 U.S. troops were sent to that country and thousands are still there. What country were they sent? South Korea

Today’s Trivia: What organization boasts that 27 percent of it’s membership are blonde females?