punny road signs, et alia

Some while back - last year, too - a friend had posted these punny photos on facebook.
Might it have been my outlaw Bunny?
Perhaps!
In any case, these were on the billboard for the Indian Hills Community Church.
I'm glad to know the folks in Lincoln, Nebraska, have such a delicious sense of humor!
The photo above, taken on a foggy morning, reads:
"Tried to grab the fog.
I mist."

Hahahaha hahaha!

Here are the others that tickled my fancy, sans photos for brevity.

"If you suck at playing the trumpet,
that's probably why."

"Irony.
The opposite of wrinkly."

"Big shout out to my fingers!
I can always count on them."

"In search of fresh vegetable puns.
Lettuce know."

"I'm friends with 25 letters of the alphabet.
I don't know Y."

"Despite the high cost of living,
it remains popular."

"Cow stumbles into pot field.
The steaks have never been higher."

"Turning vegan
would be a big missed steak."

"Ban pre-shredded cheese!
Make America grate again!"

"Electricians have to strip
to make ends meet."

"For chemists, alcohol is not a problem,
it's a solution."

"Crushing pop cans
is soda depressing."

"Our mountains aren't just funny,
they're hill areas."

"Remember, if the world didn't suck,
we'd all fall off."

"Well, to be frank,
I'd have to change my name."

"When you're down by the sea
and an eel bites your knee,
that's a moray!"

Okey-dokey, folks, time for me to step away from the computer!
(smile!)

resolutions check up

I made two resolutions for 2019.
one which I have shared with many
and one that I have kept silent.
The one I have been open about is
related to food intake.
I have opted to strive to eat at least the minimum amount of the protein my body requires daily.
I had read that the optimum was one gram of protein for every kilogram (circa two pounds) of body weight.
That meant I needed to eat at least 116 grams of protein daily.
Considering that 3 ounces of lean chicken contains 18 grams of protein, I needed to eat about 20 ounces of that chicken.
That's one pound, 4 ounces of chicken breast, folks, each and every day.
I've been making that happen, too, although it made a dent in my grocery bill.
Well, today I found out that I've been overdoing my protein intake.
A little research here and there has revealed that the correct correlation should be
0.8 g of protein per kg of body mass.
Once I changed my math, I found my target value should have been 83 grams.
I'd been overeating protein by 33 grams a day.
That equates to six ounces too many... daily.

So, now I'm in a quandary.
When trying to lose weight, more protein intake increases level of fullness.
My weight loss has hit a plateau for more than two months, i.e., longer than I've been minding my proteins.
That means that my higher level of protein has not adversely affected my weight loss.
It also means that change has not been particularly beneficial.
So, do I stay the course with my current protein intake instead of lowering it?
Or, would it be better for me to change to the 83-gram plan?
I will give the 116-gram course two more weeks, for a total of seven weeks.
If the scale has not budged appreciably, I'll try out the 83-gram plan for seven weeks.

My second resolution, the one not voiced to anyone until now, was to stop playing games on my computer.
I've been doing that idle-time time-consumer ever since I was in graduate school in Florida in the late 1980's.
For the better part of the past two decades, online sudoku has been my poison of choice.
I've been known to play for more than three hours without a break... and that's just nuts to sit nearly immobile for that length of time.
In front of a great, unblinking, eye.
I already spend far too much of a day - or a night - sitting, sitting, sitting.
For 2019, I decided to make a change and giving up online sudoku felt right.
Sure, I still play it the old-fashioned way, using pen on paper.
I still work my crossword puzzles and the Jumbles from the various newspapers in print.
Online games, though, are no longer part of my daily habit.
On this day of Lent, I promise to continue this resolution, this giving up of something I have so enjoyed and for so long.
I don't even have that webpage bookmarked anymore.
That's good.

through a film guy's eyes

Let me tell you all a story
'bout a man named Jim,
a guy here in Savannah who
had a yarn to spin,
his tale grew longer
as the day grew dim,
and for three and a half hours
we walked along with him.
(smile!)
In case you're wondering,
that poem was composed with
"The Ballad of Jed Clampett"
playing on my mental jukebox.
Why? Who knows!

And just who is this Jim?
Well, he's the almost-50 man
in the glasses, creating his
first-ever walking tour, with
the gracious help of Bonnie Blue,
a superb tour guide for years.
Titled "Savannah Confidential",
the tour primarily covers Jim's
first impressions to his new life,
in his late teens and early 20's,
as a young film student at SCAD,
a new transplant to this seaport,
and an aspiring musician in the
downtown clubs of the mid 1980's
to early 1990's.

The tour began in Monterey Square,
the first square on Bull Street,
north of Forsyth Park.
That was especially nice as this
was Pulaski Day and the square
has the Pulaski Monument!
Was that because Jim is Polish?
No, that wasn't it at all.
It was because he had an unusual
encounter there, on his first day
in town, and had a story to relate
involving a finger and a request.
That's all I'm sayin' 'bout that!

Let's take a tack back to Casimir
Pulaski, shall we?
He was a Polish nobleman who fought here in the famous Siege
of Savannah during the American Revolutionary War.
He died during that battle, but his name has lived on with the monument, the fort in the marshes, a local elementary school, and also here, with Pulaski Square.
Why isn't the monument in the square of the same name?
Who knows? Anyone? Bueller?

Hey, my guess is that he would know that as much as anyone else!
So, is this yet another statue dedicated to the memory of the Pole of Savannah?
Not quite, but as we were making the rounds of houses Jim had inhabited, we came to Wright Square and I snapped this photo.
That's the Gordon Monument, installed over the original gravesite for Tomo-Chi-Chi, whose aura adds
a bit of extra illumination.
How beautiful!

Right place, right time, with my odometer at 204994 back home again.
Thanks, Jim and Bonnie, for the free tour!
Thanks, Brenda and John Mattingly, Jay Sinclair, Joe and Lois Buttner, and others for joining me on this walk down not only Jim's memory lane, but my own as well.
Perhaps next time, Pulaski Day will be a good deal warmer.
(smile)

ripple in an ocean

The special General Conference called last month for the United Methodist Church population was to decide the new direction for the ministries under its umbrella.
The vote would decide whether all would operate under the (p)flag of One Church or would continue with the banner of Traditional Church.
The Traditional won the vote, 55% against inclusion, 45% for inclusion.
How absolutely amazing!
Given that 43% of the UMC's population is in Asia, Africa, and Russia, with all three domains voting unanimously as a bloc, that means they were only joined in that decision by 12% of the population in other geographic locations.
How absolutely amazing!
Those results challenge us who believe that all are God's children to stay the course.
Change is most assuredly coming.
The tiny ripple started by "Reconciling Congregations" in San Francisco in 1982 had little effect in the great ocean of churches in the United States.
Thirty years later, that ripple had grown to a small wave, brushing up against these Georgia shores as Reconciling Ministries.
Now, almost another decade after it first formed in California, that ripple is now a wave gently washing along the vast coasts of India, thanks to its dominant youth population, young people requesting acceptance of all in the Hindi faith.
That's right, that's occurring in India, part of Asia.
Notice that change has happened in only two generations' time.
How absolutely amazing!
i thank You, God.

double dhamaal for cuatros amigas!

Another beautiful Saturday in Georgia and I was at the Royal of Pooler for a little day of vacation, via a double dose of Bollywood!
First up was "Total Dhamaal", and it was certainly a healthy portion of old-fashioned 'total fun' - just as the name promised!
We laughed and laughed, as did the family of kids behind us!
Imagine this: five teams of two, using various means of travel, converging at a zoo, where someone has hidden 500,000 rupees!
How could we not have found the proceedings hilarious?
Honestly, the plot reminded me of the funny Burt Reynolds-Dom DeLuise cross-country races portrayed in "The Cannonball Run" movies, back in the early 1980's. I loved those!
I loved this movie, too, and would have seen it again, but more fun was forthcoming... and almost immediately, too!

We had time for a walk around the building before
we were back in the cinema for "Luka Chuppi" -
no time for 'hide and seek' for us!
This one truly was a Bollywood film, loaded with
singing and dancing, but also romantic comedy.
Guddu and Rashmi were just investigating a story,
for his news station, of course, about couples
choosing to live together before marriage.
So, that's what they secretly did -
only others found out they were cohabiting -
but they had fallen in love and decided to
really get married by that time -
only they had to first convince their parents
they had already secretly done so -
and then their attempts to really get married
kept going terribly astray.
What a wonderfully zany ride that was, with so
many twists as the couple tried to do the one
thing their parents thought they'd already done!
After more than five hours of laughing and dancing in our seats, we were ready for supper!
Supper! Where are you, supper?
Never mind, that was an inside joke between me and my ex, usually said mere moments before we headed out to a restaurant.
(smile)
Most likely that popped into my head because that's exactly what Barbara, Carolyn, Sandy, and I did, right there in Pooler.
Jalapenos was the place selected, primarily because Boo wanted ceviche...
and the driver always gets what they want!
What a fabulously fun evening with friends!
(smile)

i thank You, God.

it's just a jump to the left...

Or, perhaps, it's a step to the right?
Whichever direction and whatever move made, it's very much a time warp!
Here's the difference, though.
This particular dance number hopscotches through the twentieth century, sometimes skipping forward a few decades, then bouncing backward briefly before rebounding. That's basically the motion of a Super Ball, as it careens from surface to surface around a room. Quite entertaining to watch!
The same is certainly true for "Hello Again", a musical which debuted two decades after Dr. Frank N. Furter came upon the scene.
Get it? Pun intended, y'all!
And why not?
This latest adventure in Collective Face Ensemble's season of "ruptured romances" has folks coming and going all over the place.
And there I went again!
Hahahaha hahaha!
But seriously, this truly appealed to me for so many reasons!
First and foremost is, naturally, my complete and total love of musicals.
Bring on the Bollywood, please!
Make sure I can hear the children singing, too!
Got an opera or two? I'll take those, gladly!
Country music, pop music, chitty chitty bang bang - I love it all!
(smile)
Secondly, I adore burlesgue, ever since my exposure to them in the Navy.
There's a pun hidden in there, somewhere. No, it was certainly not intended, it just popped out.
As I said, I adore burlesque, especially southern-style!
I like it even better when a bit of Tim Burton madness reigns onstage!
Let's face it: if there's fringe involved, I'm your gal!
(smile)
Thirdly, I enjoy watching the interactions of people from different walks of life..
If they're in R. Kelly's closet
, trying to break free, I'm there!
How about those from the P-FLAG sphere, whether from this country or abroad, whether of recent vintage or nicely aged??
I even relish the antics of folks closer to home!
(smile)
That last entry featured another thing I mightily relish: time travel!
Primarily, I satisfy that itch in the form of film. "Tomorrow I Will Wake Up And Scald Myself With Hot Tea". "The Age of Adaline". "Wolverine". "Peggy Sue Got Married". "Groundhog Day". "Next". "Christmas All Over Again".
(smile)
So, what did David Poole have for me this time?
A musical...
with a burlesque feel to it...
featuring people of diverse nature...
being bounced about in time travel!
(smile)
That's not to say the people were conscious of any time travel occurring.
No.
The time travel aspect was for our benefit, the audience at this peep show into the lives of various characters as they carried out age-old power plays.
As Shakespeare has said, there is nothing new under the sun... especially when it comes (there's that word again!) to human interactions, where the currency is sex.
Soldiers and whores, would-be starlets and film makers, demure housewives and traveling husbands, politicians and pretty young things, bored wives and naive students, aging businessmen and young seekers of security... they were all there, as well as others.
It didn't even matter, really, whether the vignettes were set in 1901 or 2002 or 1956 or 1929 or 1989 or at some other random year.
Those same powerful thrusts between takers and givers has existed for as long as humans have roamed the globe.
Thanks, y'all, for daring to put it all out there tonight!
(smile)

oh, the words i have learned!

One usually does not consider an improv comedy show as a locale to acquire an expansion of one's vocabulary... but that becomes a mistaken assumption if one is speaking of the erudite entertainment emoted by Odd Lot.
I suggest, for your edification, the fore-promised summation of the performances observed last Saturday evening, during their special "Games Night".

The first word learned was "gabelle", the first word in the first game.
"Pants On Fire" featured Dom, Thomas, and Jason, backed by Trick, Chase, and Justin, with Darren as host.
The object of the game was to have the two contestants determine which Odd Lot player had related the true definition of the word.
That meant the other five players, as bespoken in the refrain of the Castaways' 1965 revamp of a children's song, were creative liars.

Quite humorous, I must say, as well as elucidating!
My favorite was the odiferous "oxter", but Amy and Jeff took a shine to the melodious "doodlesack".
All three of us, though, giggled about "bibble", no doubt with someone in mind!
The fellow from the Research Triangle, Josh W, won the game, by the way, with both him and the other contestant receiving prizes.
Good of them to volunteer!

The Odd Lot followed that game with a few of their favorite skits.
"Switch Change" had the four players vying to be the best contortionist - nice splits, Jason and Chase!
Later, Trick was featured as the "Soothsayer", with my ocean scarf wrapped around Jason's neck as a Soutn American strangler snake - bwah ha ha!
"Objection" pitted the players in a stream of consciousness argument about "proposal".

My favorite, though, was "Good, Bad, and Ugly" - ant just because I'm a Clint Eastwood fan!
Nor because my query - how to tell if spaghetti is done - was the first to be answered.
The Good, from Thomas, was "Throw it against the wall. If it sticks, it's done."
Fairly standard cookbook advice.
The Bad, from Jason, suggested "Throw it against your partner. If it sticks, then it's done."
Hahahaha! Of course, retaliation may be in order!
But it was Trick, tasked with the Ugly, who advised
"Take a bath in it. If it sticks to you, it's done."
Ewwww... but great visual!
(smile)
After intermission, the entertainment resumed, this time with another audience-participation feature.
Justin, in a dead-possum wig, first pulled Danielle's name from his hat...
and I'm sitting there, praying to have my name be next, please, please...
and it was!
i thank You, God!

And so it came to pass that she and I faced off in "The Match Game", trying to guess the answers that the Odd Lot crew were madly scribbling to Justin's questions!
Early on, Jason seemed to be reading my mind!
Justin set the scene that "Rotten Rodney was in a grade school that was so rough, instead of jumping rope, they jumped ____."
I replied with "barbed wire"... and that's what Jason had written!
The emcee next spoke of "Loopy Lou, a judge, once owned a deli. Instead of a gavel, he banged ____."
Of course I said "pastrami on rye", right? So did Jason! Wow!
Then, came the best scenario from Justin! "Little Cindy Lou accidentally swallowed her flute. Now, we here "Yankee Doodle Dandy" every time she ____."
How precious, right? Especially if you think of the Whoville waif, as we all did!
Appropriately, then, I responded with "toots", followed by explaining that it was the polite word for "farts", just to be clear for non-Southerners.
(smile)
Bless Pete, I scored two points that round, with "farts" from Trick and Dom with "toots"...
but no match with Jason.

I ended up winning that game, wonder of wonders.
Danielle and I both won prizes, too, just as the
two guys had in that first game.
She has a lovely bunch of sloths in a calendar...
and I have a gnome in residence!
Yes, I went on to play "The Dating Game", along
with the winner of the first game.
But you already know about that, right?
(smile)

mardi gras breakfast

Happy Mardi Gras, y'all!
(smile)
What a Fat Tuesday I'm going to have, including multiple strands of beads from the Rio in Las Vegas!
First, I have raspberry paczki for brunch, with a meaty omelet.
Later, I'll deliver Willie's box of sweet treats to him, then I'll deliver a pint of life at the Red Cross.
Tonight, I dine with Kevin and we'll finally watch "Cold Pursuit"!
Que magnifico!
(sonrisa!)

turkey Turkey TURKEY

"So, are you going for a riff on that 1970 war movie?"

Maybe just a little bit, but mostly I was pointing out how that one word had three different meanings tonight.

"Really? Were you at Philo Cafe for a discussion?"

No, I was at another Odd Lot show, the Monday night one that I have always enjoyed.

"I thought you had movies in Pooler to attend or something. Hadn't Carolyn asked about that new Indian film and when you might go?"

Yes, she did, on the way to meet with Sandy at Barbara's Oscar-viewing party. How very nice to be able to see it on a regular-sized television set!

"Yes, it was, as opposed to last year or in years past. Now, what about the possible trip to the Royal? "

Oh, yes, I had to tell her 'no' for tonight. Lord, do you know who I just thought of when I said that? Jim! Old Jim Trott of...

"...of "The Vicar of Dibley". Yes, dear, I know. Whyever does your mind keep straying so far off course? "

Sorry, love. Let me see, I was saying... yes, I had to tell Carolyn 'no' because I had promised myself more Odd Lot and Mondays are only $5. So, that's where I was tonight. I think Wednesday is looking good for maybe an Indian doubleheader, catching up on last week's "Gully Boy" as well as "Total Dhamaal". Of course, that's if I can get the times to mesh a bit better...

"Please, work on that another time. Right now, I'm just trying to find out why you titled this post about a bird."

Au contraire! Ce n’est pas seulement un oiseau, mais aussi un pays et un bowling!

"Um, okay. Something something bowling..."

My bad! You know, I have so missed the Francophone Film Festival this year, now that Armstrong has been completely merged into...

"Sigh. "
(Tapping foot and arching eyebrow.)

...But that's neither here nor there, is it? Yes. As I was saying, the word 'turkey' not only refers to a bird, but also to a country and to a term in the game of bowling.

"And those Odd Lot folks used it in all three ways, did they?"

They did! You would have been so very pleased! One of the skits had Zach, Jason, and Bobbi Renee pose as bowlers. Zach played this obnoxious over-achiever that managed to score strikes on adjacent lanes using just the one ball! That's when someone asked "If he does that for all ten frames, does that mean he gets a double turkey?" LOL! I'm pretty sure he would have been disqualified if he was bowling in a league! Also, it takes strikes in three consecutive frames to have a turkey. Whoever it was talking about the sport thought a perfect score of 300 was a turkey. I guess that's because of the three in a row needed...

"Jeez Louise! You were so jam up and jelly tight, my girl, and now you're rambling like you were the other day! You need to listen up and let me tell you this: we are not going to be up until 4 AM tonight, no we will not."

Gnome, we won't be, I promise.
(smile)
And you can blame the running bear for this ramblin' road! When he saw the photo on fb of me with my prize, he'd quipped a little faux talk.
Him: Is that your date?
Me: Gnome it is not.
And that's when I realized how much it 'sounded' like someone saying "no ma'am", but slurring it together into one work, like we do down South.
Pretty cool, right?

"Yes, that is pretty cool. He's Southern, too, so he probably did that on porpoise."
(grinning widely)

Exactly what I was thinkin'!
So, where was I... oh, yeah, telling you about tonight's improv. So, I've talked about the bowling turkey. The word next appeared in a skit I've never seen before, called "Dubbing", in which a volunteer from the audience pantomimes while one of the odd Lotters provides the dialogue for the volunteer's character, like for foreign films.

"Got it. So who was in the skit?"

Well, Trick provided the voice for the volunteer. Bobbi Renee was also in it, as the 'wife'. They were on vacation in the country, Turkey, or so they had thought. LOL! Skyler was also in the skit, choosing to serve as a tour guide. He was, too - but of a turkey farm or turkey ranch or whatever you call a place where turkey fowl are raised! It was hilarious! Add in that the 'husband' was afraid of turkeys and the 'wife' had taken him there to help him get over his fear. Very funny stuff!

"How about that! Two turkeys in one skit!"

Exactly! I just laughed and laughed!

"Like you did on Saturday night? "

Yes, though maybe not for as long, as this was a much shorter show. Saturday's show was so long that it had an intermission, so it was 10:30 before it was done. I was back in the car before 9:30 tonight.

"You think maybe all of that laughter ramped up your serotonin levels so much that you couldn't get to sleep?"

Well, I think that's a pretty reasonable working hypothesis. After all, that molecule is known to be active in the central nervous system for the regulation of mood, appetite, and sleep.

"Well, look at you, still talking science!"

Oh, you betcha. Why wouldn't I be? I've been doing that for more than half my life!

"Yes, you have, my dear. Even in high school, even in the Navy, really. Electronics is scientific, too, based in physics, rather than biology or chemistry or anatomy."

Yes, ma'am! Even subconsciously, my brain still keeps working to solve puzzles, putting together bits that don't seem to have any correlation.
This amino acid is decarboxylated to form serotonin. Notice the bi-cyclic core both molecules have.

"You mean those two rings with the arm hanging off the smaller one? Yes, I see the similarity!"

Well, this amino acid - drumroll, please - is tryptophan, the amino acid purported to be responsible for causing drowsiness after consumption of turkey at Thanksgiving.

"Sure, I've always heard that! Because turkey has so much more tryptophan in it than any other meat does, right? But, wait, you used that word 'purported', like it's an urban myth or something."

Well, that's because turkey-induced sleepiness is a myth. Turkey has no more tryptophan than does chicken or beef or lamb or pork or most meats. Overeating carbohydrates, like the dressing and pies and cakes, is the true source of all that sleepiness. You can read all about it right here.
That also explains why I sleep so well when I have a little bowl of cereal before bed.
(smile)

"Wow. And you put all of this together based on the turkeys in the improv show?"

Yeah. Pretty wild, right?

"Right."

The story gets wilder. Just you wait.
I almost didn't go to the show. In fact, I'd pretty much decided to just stay home, but I could feel myself being pushed out the door.

"Right place, right time. "

Right place, right time.

"i thank You, God."

Absolutely. And because I was on fb earlier, I realized that tomorrow is Mardi Gras. Tara was talking about King Cake in the stores and I knew what that meant - paczki time was finally here again!
The show was over in plenty of time for me to run over to Publix for my fix!

"Yes, I know you love those raspberry ones. Don't forget about Mister Willie!"

Oh, don't you fret! I picked up a box of the apple ones for him and Gloria! In fact, the one box of raspberry and the one of apple was all they had left! None had been out, so I'd asked the bakery clerk about them and he came forth with them from behind the counter. Hallelujah!

"Yes, dear! I guess you've had one? "

I have... and I don't think I'll need cereal to sleep well tonight.
(smile)

"Sweets to give you sweet dreams... what a perfect end to the day! Time to say good night, dear."

(Yawn....)
Good night, dear.
(smile)