Duck Tale

In the 27 years we've lived in this house, we've had our share of wild animals hanging around, even though we live in a pretty well populated neighborhood.  There's been the wily fox, the cunning coyote, the fucking deer, the putrid raccoon ... plus loads of squirrels and noisy songbirds.  But, until last Sunday, there had never been the friendly, but freaked out duck.

She nested in our flower garden on the east side of our house, and I didn't know she was there until I walked by on Sunday afternoon.  A burst of feathers and and duck heading straight for your head flying for her life is something you don't forget too soon.  Strange, I thought.  Aren't  ducks supposed to stay still and guard their eggs?

Well, she had four of them, and she didn't come back until evening, when I mistakenly walked by again and almost had my shoulder taken off.  Then she was gone until the next day, when she bushwhacked me again.

I figured the eggs had no chance, and if she was this freaky, they were as good as dead.

Which they were.

I went out this afternoon and found this ...

Duck Egg Mash Up

Either lady duck got super pissed off that her eggs wouldn't hatch and tore them to shreds, or a fox, coyote or raccoon/T-Rex found them .... AND ATE THEIR INSIDES!!

Mother Nature's a bitch sometime.  But at least there will be no more duck trying to take my head off when I walk around the side yard.  I hope she finds a better nest next time.

AND .... by the way, did you know you can by 100 little wire flags ... just like the utilities use ... at Home Depot for for 7 dollars?

Hours of fun!

I'm easily amused.

Moving Day ... And Other Shit

Last Friday, Jan and I bought a new couch and chair for our family/back room.  They will be delivered today, so we'll spend a couple of hours clearing out stuff so the movers can get in.  Jan is skeptical about the chair, but I like it.

Also, one year ago today, I had a stage 3 tumor the size of a woman's fist removed from my stomach.  Seems like it was much longer ago, but time stretches and shrinks according to how you think about things.  Glad to still be here today, even if it is chemo week (my favorite).

Also, looking forward to another week of rain.  You have to love the upper midwest to live here.

Random Thoughts Part ??

I was doing some deep thinking the other day and it occurred to me that I still had a web log.  So, I checked in and saw that the last time I had written anything was before Christmas.  Not much has happened in my little world since then, but thought I might add a new post, for those readers who may have written me off as vanished from the face of the earth.

I'm still semi-retired.  Not working during the winter is a mixed bag.  On one hand, you don't have to stress about what the weather is like and how the hell you're going to get to work on those mornings when it's snowing, and there have been a lot of those days this year.  On the other hand, you get bored easily, because you can't get out and do things.  So ... I've tried to keep myself occupied doing things like ...

Discount Double-Check
Jan and I visited our insurance agent last week.  Seeing as we are both retired, driving less, and my truck is 15 years old and the tires are worth more than the whole vehicle itself ... well, we thought we could save some money.  After a 15 minute rambling lecture on the sad state of the insurance industry, punctuated by my trying to get the asshole back on track to save us some money, two things were accomplished.  We saved about 20 dollars a year and came to the realization that we needed a new insurance agent.

Critiquing Daytime Television
As someone of some note said in the 1950's, television is the vast wasteland.  Especially daytime TV.  After flipping back and forth between ABC and NBC morning offerings for several months, I determined the following ...  Although Al Roker thinks Al Roker is funny, Al Roker is horribly mistaken.  There is an hour long abortion on at noon time named "The Chew", which features an insufferable 5 person cast who spend the hour doing their best to make you wince at their lame cooking and chatter.  After several viewings I crowned "Chef" Michael Symon as the winciest because of his constant high pitched giggle and total lack of charisma.

Now I just cruise Netflix and Amazon Prime ... and pray for warm weather.

Silently Yell At Cancer Commercials
I swear to all that is holy, that more money is spent on cancer treatment commercials on daytime television than is spent on cancer research itself.  I miss the days when laundry detergent and spray on starch ruled the commercial airwaves.  Cancer has certainly turned into a big time business.

Well, I've had my Sunday morning rant.  After 7 straight days of rain, I noticed that the sun has come out, and the weather dude says it might reach 60 this afternoon.  Time to do a little yard work and throw some chicken on the grill.

Until next time ...

The Moon As Garbage Scow

This morning, I'm catching up on my reading while waiting for what the local media describes as a "major snow event", which according to them will dump a whole 2 inches of snow on us.  It truly is the end of the world.

In my catching up, I came across an article about how much trash man has left on our moon since we started aggressive explorations in the 1960's

As an aside, why do other planet's moons have cool names like Japetus, Io, Titan, Europa, etc., and our moon is just called "moon"?  How boring.

Anyway, it turns out that we've left approximately 20 tons of trash on the moon in the last 50 years or so.  Here's a partial list of what's there for eternity, unless we send WALL-E up there to clean it up ...

• more than 70 spacecraft, including rovers, modules and crashed orbiters
• 5 American flags
•  2 golf balls
• 12 pairs of boots
• TV cameras
• film magazines
• 96 bags of urine, feces, and vomit
• numerous Hasselbad cameras and accessories
• several improvised javelins
• various hammers, tongs, rakes, and shovels
• backpacks
• insulating blankets
• utility towels
• used wet wipes
• personal hygiene kits
• empty packages of space food
• a photograph of Apollo 16 astronaut Charles Duke's family
• a feather from Baggin, the Air Force Academy's mascot falcon, used to conduct Apollo 15's famous "hammer-feather drop" experiment
•  a small aluminum sculpture, a tribute to the American and Soviet "fallen astronauts" who died in the space race -- left by the crew of Apollo 15
• a patch from the never-launched Apollo 1 mission, which ended prematurely when flames engulfed the command module during a 1967 training exercise, killing three U.S. astronauts
• a small silicon disk bearing goodwill messages from 73 world leaders, and left on the moon by the crew of Apollo 11
• a silver pin, left by Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean
• a medal honoring Soviet cosmonauts Vladimir Komarov and Yuri Gagarin
• a cast golden olive branch left by the crew of Apollo 11

Well, at least it's high-class garbage ... except for the poop bags and piss bombs.

'Tis The Season To Rant

Okay, so this morning I'm in Walmart (why don't we have one decent grocery store in my area?) buying Christmas cookie shit for Jan, and there's more than a fair share of old fat farts riding around on these little electric scooter things.

I shit you not, I think Walmart has more of these battery powered scooters than they do their clankity wheeled shopping carts.

Anyway, I'm standing on the far side of an aisle, and one of these old obese buzzards on a scooter rams right into the back of my ankle because she forgot to release the hand throttle and stop.  It hurt like hell and I was going to pop her right in her head, but then I figured I didn't want to stay in the lockup all day on a charge of assault.

These are the same stupid asses who drive around in their 1982 Mercury Marquis' and crash into storefront windows because they can't remember which pedal is the brake and which is the accelerator.

I swear to God, if you're too fat or just plain lazy to stand on your own two fucking feet and walk around a grocery store, then you're too fat or just plain lazy to be driving a car.

There's a grocery delivery service called Peapod.

Use it.

(End of rant)