A GEM OF AN IDEA

Last week at the monthly Garden Club meeting, one of the members demonstrated how to convert old bowling balls into yard art. I was soooo excited because I already had my old bowling ball in the backyard, but it didn’t look pretty and sparkly like the ones on display at the meeting. I couldn’t wait to get to the craft store, buy a bunch of blue and green glass gems, a tube of glue, and get started!!

A few days ago I got my supplies, brought my ol’ bowling ball inside, and here’s what I have done so far. It’s slow going, since the gems tend to slide around before the glue dries, and Big Bore can’t stand the glue smell--but this is going ever so much better than my stained glass lesson/fiasco of last year. I intend to have my project done in a week’s time, followed by an unveiling ceremony in the backyard. Drum roll, please! Da-dum!! Applause, applause.

I fear that I am now going to have to hit up area bowling alleys in search of old balls because I am a woman possessed. I can’t stop when I’m on a roll.

MISS MANNERS

Last weekend Big Bore and I dined out with Big Sis, her husband Ken, and my 9-year-old great nephew Luke, who’d had a molar yanked out by the dentist the day before and was none too happy that he couldn’t partake in the complimentary chips and salsa laid before us on the table.

“If you get a piece of chip in that empty tooth hole, you’ll go ballistic,” we all warned him, as we chowed down in front of him.

I think we'd probably been there/done that at a younger point in our lives and truly wanted to spare him the agony. So Luke begrudgingly sat, watching the rest of us shove in the chips, until his soft food arrived.

Mid-meal, at a break in the conversation, Big Sis leaned over to him and, this time, quietly said, “Get your elbows off the table, Luke.” She is an example of all that is good and refined. I say that without sarcasm. She is a true angel. Luke obeyed, without comment, and went on eating.

Now what was slightly amusing, is that I immediately noticed where my own elbows were, and the right one was leaning right smack on the table. I quickly removed the offending arm, not saying a word, and continued shoving down my chicken fajita salad.

After we left the restaurant, in separate vehicles, Big Bore said to me, laughing, “Did you notice what happened when your sister told Luke to take his elbows off the table?”

“Yeah, I had my right elbow resting on the table and I removed it!”

“So did Ken and I,” he laughed.

Seems like the entire table, except for Sis, was in bad manners position, but poor Luke had to take the heat for all of us slovenly grown-ups. Fortunately, he didn’t take notice and protest, “Well, Aunt Nancy and Jeff and Grandpa have their elbows on the table, too!” --Which might have resulted in a food fight.

Big Sis was an elementary school teacher before retirement, and I suspect that, “Elbows off the table!” was her mantra during lunch period for so many decades that it’s just become second nature to her. It’s hard to break old habits. Even the good ones.
　

WATCH OUT FOR FLYING WIENIES

Sizzling news yesterday out of Kansas City, that hotbed of litigation. The Royals baseball team and its lion mascot Sluggrrr (Yes, that’s the way it’s spelled. Get it?) are being sued by a man who attended a game last September and is claiming he was injured by an errant hotdog that Slugrrr threw behind his hairy back into the crowd between innings. The flying meat allegedly hit one of his eyes, allegedly detaching the retina, allegedly causing a cataract.

Now, I don’t know if this claim is valid or if this man is just some kook trying to pay off his eye surgeon. Not having a degree in ophthalmology, I have no clue if being hit by a flying wiener can detach a retina. However, I figure his run-in with a Ball Park Frank is nothing compared to what once happened to Dr. Maureen at an ice hockey game we attended in Kansas City many years ago. She was hit by a hockey puck--and not one that was lofted into the crowd by some goofy mascot. Oh, no. This was a slap shot that was probably traveling at supersonic speed.

There was absolutely no time to react. The puck whacked her in the upper right arm, and the large Coke she was drinking went airborne. A team attendant whisked away her wounded, wet body to some medical examining room, but, like the stud she is, she returned to her seat before the end of the game, bruised and swollen and laughing about her brush with death.

Now, did Dr. Maureen, who was at the time an impoverished non-doctor, run off whining to a lawyer and sue the team five months later? No, no no. She did not. Instead, she enrolled in medical school and became wildly rich and famous on her own merit.

I suggest this wiener plaintiff should be happy all he got hit with was a 6-ounce piece of all-beef, tender frank. When one enters Royals Stadium, he or she is always subject to an array of life-threatening dangers. This man could have gotten drunk, stumbled down the steps, and taken a dive off the top deck. He could have been impaled in the chest, vampire-style, by a broken bat. A foul ball could have beaned him on his beanie. Or, worse yet, he could have been hit by a hockey puck, for gosh sakes!! I say, “Suck it up!!!”

A BUM DEAL

Big Bore thinks Howie Mandell should re-name his TV game show--from “Deal or No Deal” to “Greed or No Greed.” Or “How Stupid Can I Be?”

I was telling him about this contestant, a sweet gal in the swine business, who turned down over $200,000.00 to keep playing. She had two chances to win a million bucks and one chance at $400,000.00, so she apparently thought the odds were with her. So did her husband and father and best friend who kept egging her on. “No deal!!”

Of course, she also had five other amounts on the board, ranging from $10,000.00 all the way down to one cent. Well, guess what she ended up with? The penny!!! Poor swine lady. She went from her pig farmer rags, to riches, and back to pig farmer rags in less than an hour. Had I been in her pathetic shoes, I think I would have suffered a royal $hit fit right there on camera, or at least committed a serious felony against the so-called “support group” from home that I’d brought with me.

I wondered what I would have done with that 200 thou offer. I would like to think I’d taken the deal and gone home a moderately wealthy, happy person. Quit while I’m ahead, you know? But I’m not so sure I wouldn’t have been swept away by the excitement of the game and kept going for the million---almost five times the offer--exceedingly wealthy by the standards of my poor ol’ pocket book.

With Big Bore, though, there is no thinking about it. “Take the money!!!” He prides himself on being like Mr. Spock on “Star Trek”--logical. If it was enough to purchase a new pick-up truck, he’d take it in a heartbeat and be satisfied. Millionaire be damned. “Live long and prosper.”

--A penny for your thoughts, piggish lady. How stupid could you be?

TWO BLOW-HARDS

Old Big Bore and my even older brother-in-law Ken both had their birthdays in the past week, so I baked them a cake and we lit up a few candles to celebrate the auspicious occasion. They have 127 years between them. (I think that’s about 28 in dog years and 44 in cat years.)

When BB moved to Casa de la Flaming Bore 3-½ years ago, he was an old fuddy duddy who saw no reason to observe special days. Hrrumpphh! Well, he soon learned that his poopy attitude would not sit well with me. I don’t care if it’s just a cake and a card, birthdays are going to be recognized around here, even if we would rather be age 20 again. So, live with it! And he finally has. With gusto. Those candles were blown out in record time. Bring on the cake and ice cream !!

BEE ON YOUR BEST BEE-HAVIOR

The other night while I was on the computer, I overheard Big Bore talking back to the TV in the adjacent room. He was fed up with Aunt Bee and was chewing her out royally.

“Oh, Aunt Bee, you old bitty, make up your mind. You’re gonna make that kid (Opie) nuts!"

BB cannot stand Aunt Bee. Never has. Never will. She drives him up the wall and back. She’s always pushing her nose into other people’s business, making crass decisions, and then having nephew Andy clean up her messes.

“What’s Aunt Bee bugging you about tonight?” I asked Big Bore.

“Oh, first she doesn’t want Opie hanging around the sheriff’s office so much because she thinks it’s a bad influence, so she makes him come home and plant three rows of spinach. What kid wants to plant three rows of spinach?”

Well, he’s got a point there.

“Then,” he continued, “she decides she doesn’t want him underfoot at home after all, so she sends him back to the office. Make up your mind, you old windbag.”

So, if Big Bore has his panties in such a wad over Aunt Bee, why does he keep watching “The Andy Griffith Show” reruns from 50 years ago, you ask? I’ve posed the same question to him.

“Because it’s the way life really was back then,” he says.

Simpler times. Opie didn’t have to worry about any war in the Middle East. There was no economic depression and concern about health care. His dad had job security. His teacher Miss Crump wasn’t shoving No Child Left Behind or some similar nonsense down his throat. Ahhh. All he had to contend with was goofy Aunt Bee and her endless number of ridiculous decisions and awful recipes. We should all be so lucky.

BRUTE FORCE

Yesterday Big Bore and I ventured into southeast Kansas, and I insisted we make a quick, windy stop to see Big Brutus, a huge coal shovel that has been retired and turned into a tourist trap. I had not seen Brutus since my college days when “he” was hard at work in a large pit. One of my many diversions to avoid studying was to gather a bunch of friends and a picnic lunch and drive out to wherever Brutus happened to be digging away. We’d pass the time eating and watching Brutus do his thing. No one seemed to care. At least no one ever ran us off. It was a cheap thrill. And I was about as cheap as they came.

Recently some dimwit decided to base jump off the top of Big Brutus. Now, Brutus is tall, 160 feet, but he’s not exactly the Empire State Building. I’m no base jumping expert (surprise, surprise) but I suspect this man’s parachute scarcely had time to open before he smashed into the ground. He probably would have had a better chance of survival using an umbrella. But, alas, we’ll never know.

Still, the accident couldn’t keep me away since Big Bore and I were in the general vicinity of Mr. Brutus. I wanted to pay homage to his industrious past and my lazy past and get my picture taken with him. He’s not as much fun to watch as he was 40 years ago when he was belching steam and kicking up dust, but then I don’t suppose I’m quite the looker that I once was, either, --although my own belching has gotten much louder over the years. Great seeing you again, old friend.