When the umpteenth variation of “Dead of the Living Night” comes on television, it’s tempting to deride the caliber of entertainment available today. And I do, but as human beings we’ve always had something of a spotty track record when it comes to spectacle. Imagine a huge tent filled with people waiting for somebody to be shot out of a cannon. Not long ago, that was entertainment. Before that, it was bear-baiting and feeding people to wild animals. Maybe we’ve come further than we think.
Big Shot
By Jimmy Johnson
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402 responses to “Big Shot”
And my last comment is in Moderation Heck because I put two hyperlinks in it. Oh well…
Oh, on the topic of drinking to drown fears or sorrows-you can’t really drown them; they just learn how to swim.
Ghost, so what does a PILOT think about snakes on a plane? I keep remembering Indiana Jones and the big snake in the biplane!
My “gardener” is out in back planting seeds for me. Either she is slow, has passed out in heat or gone back to stapling the trellis netting onto the 4 x 4 posts I have all up and down beds.
I am thinking I am being clever with this system, put them in pairs with a transom across top in spans down the three raised beds. Idea is if you want to run a row of green beans, etc. down the Long way you just stick the poles thru the open holes at top, then into soil at base. Ditto on strings to climb up. They can be configured in any shape, any pattern since they are four feet wide, same width as the beds and have the holes evenly spaced top and sides for about 40 feet times three.
Endless possibilities for horizontal and vertical supports for plants, putting shade cloths up, tenting for warmth or shade.
Of course I waiting 20 years to get them up and then had to hire it done!
Ghost, it is like the military! Cost overruns and all.
Love, Jackie
Good morning, Jean dear. Try your links again…I can use the entertainment. 🙂
This hospital plays the melody to the first two lines of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” over the PA system whenever a baby arrives in OB. A little corny but still nicer to hear than a Code Blue.
Jackie: Se Babylon, Hanging Gardens of. 🙂
Oops. “See”
Wireless mouse batteries dead. I hate laptop touch pads.
Good morning, all. Jean, mine are still inquiring about water wings at Wal-Mart. I am happy to say that I slept wonderfully and had only one nightmare, and that was just about leaving my dog in my car. I feel great today and got fussed at for dancing to the hospital doctor’s entrance. 😀
Just came across this Mark Twain quote in an email signature from a boating friend, “Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.”
Has to be Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer? Or a memoir of Twain?
I liked this one too, “Everyone complains about the weather but no one does anything about it.” I always thought that was Will Rogers and now find it was Twain.
Love, Jackie
Is the MG a hardtop? I would think dog could jump out of a convertible.
Love, Jackie
Ghost, glad your mom is better and may go home. I asked The Boss Of My Life if we would be celebrating National Cat Day and got a combination glare-lip twist that I shall treasure in my personal library of facial expressions. Her “No Cat policy” dates back from when The Boy In My Life had his cat disappear and she had to deal with it.
Jackie, to the best of my knowledge, all MGBs of that year were convertibles, though I have seen some nifty aftermarket hardtops to add on. Not that I am interested. I like to feel the wind in my hair. Neeshka has a special harness that attaches to the seat belt that keeps her from jumping out.
Munchkin, looks like you and I had something in common today other than being armed…we both had to go to a hospital early. I stopped in the DR for breakfast on my way in and noticed a large table with about a dozen paramedics and EMT’s around it, all having breakfast. I knew three or four of them and stopped to say hello on my way out. As I was leaving, I joked, “You know, if I were going to have a myocardial infarction, this would probably be a good time and place.”
“Not necessarily,” one of my friends grinned. “We all just came off shift.”
Back in the 70’s to 80’s I lived in a waterfront townhome with balconies/decks up to third floor levels. That was where I gardened mostly, although there was a small patch of dirt that might have been mine? Mike called me the “Hanging Gardens of Bal Harbour” (from Babylon of course)
I won Yard of the Month from the Nassau Bay garden club so many times it became a sore subject, since at the time we had a lot of nice homes in town! When I finally opened a flower shop they immediately disqualified me as ineligible since I was now a professional!
The Hispanic yardmen in community who kept up the homes weren’t “Professionals” I guess? That was so silly. That and fact I wouldn’t join the garden club because they didn’t truly garden?
Love, Jackie
We have a garden club here in town, and The Man In My Life belonged to it for a while. But they were always “suggesting” ways he could better use the beds, etc., that he quit going. He loves his roses and St. Augustine and his trees, but nothing else interests him. Except to come out and supervise me!
Ghost, that was pure BS. There is nothing the average EMT likes better than drama and playing doctor.
Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy! You lied to us! Arlo and Janis’ squash did not turn black on end because the Squash Gods were angry!
They had blossom end rot as a result of uneven moisture supply in soil! I just learned this five minutes ago.
I believed you!
Love, Jackie
The Cold War may really be back. Russia has bombers intruding into our (claimed) airspace, and we have submarines invading their (claimed) waters:
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20140809/191869986/Russia-Forces-US-Submarine-Out-of-Boundary-Waters.html
Jackie, the mystery of the ages. Sometimes you can even have good soil moisture, adequate calcium, and STILL the squash and tomatoes have blossom end rot.
Another Dispatch From A Hospital Room:
My boredom has reached the level where I’m surfing the InterWebNet. Where I just learned that the latest social media craze (craziness?) is the “back selfie”. That’s right, “celebrities” whose narcissism has reached the point they think their followers want to see photos of their freakin’ backs. I won’t give them any more undeserved recognition by using their full names, but you probably wouldn’t be shocked to learn that some of their first names are Kim, Justin and Miley. God help us.
David, what is your secret to keeping the moths from laying their eggs in the squash stems? I liked the “sacrificial acorn squash” suggestion, or at least laughed at it. I have tried the squash surgery to remove the larvae and the adult who is cuddled up in there. Like I had to bandage and replant those poor stems.
The patients died. Net says fall squash have less larvae since the moths have already gone elsewhere to incubate? Unless they have a winter condo in my yard and are overwintering like the “Winter Texans.”
Love, Jackie
Ghost, you are sick, sick. Do not look. I will find another sexy gardener.
Ah, Jackie. You have revealed another societal secret…Most “Garden Clubs” are social clubs, not garden clubs. When I first got out of the AF, I helped out a friend by working one weekend at a facility that was hosting a state-wide Garden Club meeting. You would not believe how many diamonds and pearls and expensive gowns there were…or how much blue hair.
I was serving as sort of a concierge, so I turned on the charm and tried to be really helpful. Most of them were very nice, and I scored some nice tips. After it was over, my friend said, “Wow, Ghost, you seemed to be a real hit with the ladies.”
“Yeah,” I told him, “now if I could just do half as well with the ones under seventy-five.”
Did someone say sexy gardener? 🙂
Bumper sticker: “Lady gardeners know how to get down and dirty.”
They used to ask me to design their entries for the floral design contests! I refused.
Funniest one was the local doyen who dragged in a giant basket of dead poinsettas for us to “replace because they were obviously defective.” We did (she had frozen them on front porch) and she showed a second time with same basket “still defective.” She was a terror, wrote for the Houston newspaper on gardening, didn’t have a clue.
One of my employees, trained by me, asked “Where are you keeping them? On t.v. is too hot! The soil is all dried out, this is how you water properly. Come back to sink, you let water run thru and drain, then replace in baskets and don’t put on t.v.!”
We watched speechlessly, afraid for her life. Did she have any idea who that was?
“Well, she didn’t know the least thing about how to water a plant or take care of a poinsettia” employee replied. She was not only a columnist but president of the local and regional garden club societies!
“Giada in the Garden” had her totally clothed. I am still looking.
Love, Jackie