It is Sunday, July 26 and there are only 158 days until Ryan Seacrest once again fails to fill Dick Clark’s shoes on New Year’s Eve.  Today we remember the birthdays of George Bernard Shaw, Pearl Buck and Stanley Kubrick.  On this day in 1775 Benjamin Franklin became the first Postmaster General, in 1848 the first Woman’s Rights Convention was held and in 1947 the Department of Defense was established.  In Sweden it is Bellman Day, honoring Carl Michael Bellman (not the people who take your luggage in a hotel), in Liberia it is Independence Day and in New York it is Ratification Day.

I made the mistake recently of sort of paying attention to commercials.  As a result of this error, I can make several observations.  One, and it is one I have made in the past, is that there are a lot of people getting paid good money to develop some really junky commercials.  Insurance companies are spending huge sums of money to come up with some really lame stuff.  One tells us that we may not be covered when our car is crushed by a huge snowball thrown by the Abominable Snowman.  When the lovely Elaine and I contact our insurance company after we move, I will want to clarify that coverage.

Another insurance company takes a completely unrelated incident and says, “When you fall and rip your pants you get them repaired.  It’s what you do.  When you need auto insurance you go to us.  It’s what you do.”  Huh?  Yet another insurance company continues to annoy us with commercials including Flo.  Doesn’t she ever go on vacation?  Again, I have said this before and it still holds true – I cannot stand Flo!  There are other commercials that when they have finished I am not sure what they are selling.  One example of this is the one with the family riding along in a car and all of a sudden one of the children sings one line of a song.  The next line is sung by another child.  Mom and Dad each get their own line, another child gets a line and it finishes with everyone singing something about Buddy Holly.  I spend so much time trying to figure out how they got from the first line about “homies” to Buddy Holly that I have no idea what they are selling.

There is a series of car commercials that has come out recently where people get so worked up by the cars and the options they are getting that they start to swear and there is a lot of bleeping.  Is this really necessary?  It makes you wonder how good their cars are if they have to resort to that kind of “Bleep” to sell them.  Other companies have spokespeople who are in every commercial.  If you want to sell a product, give me a good deal on a quality product and I will buy it.  I will not buy it simply because you have a girl in a bikini and a talking horse.  One final note to companies – don’t use cartoon figures or talking condiment bottles to try and sell something to me.  I have a hard time relating to that type of thing.

I hope you will forgive my rant on commercials.  They just make me crazy.  For example, who thought two men wrapped in towels in a locker room, chewing gum and talking using arm farts with subtitles was the way to go for that product?  It makes no sense and is not funny.  And yet, there it is on our TV’s , touting a product that is not really related to the scenario that is shown.  Okay, I’m done now.  Thank you for your patience.

The lovely Elaine and I are getting closer to closing on our new home.  We have selected the colors for the various rooms and I think they are good choices.  We spoke to the lawyer’s office the other day and were told that the closing is tentatively set for the 30^th.  Elaine said, “What do you mean tentatively?”  It seems that they are still working on the title search.  I understand that it is a law office and we are not the only clients, but this date has been set since back in May, now a week before the date we are told it is tentative.  Elaine explained that tentative is not an option.  She pointed out that we have several painters and floor people coming in the day after to give us estimates on work we want done.  It might just create a problem if we can’t let them in because we don’t own the house yet.  Stay tuned for more on that issue.

We have a huge motorcycle store near our current residence.  I have not been in there yet, but am interested just to see what they have.  Driving by the other day, I noticed that they were having a big sale on jet skis.  I suggested that we go in and see about buying one.  The lovely Elaine took a moment to question my sanity and then asked what I would do with one.  I pointed out that they had a small pond in the community we were moving into and we could use it there.  I got the look.  She then asked me not to get us thrown out before we even had a chance to move in.  To quote my older grandson, “I’m not making any promises.”

In looking up this week’s fact, I came across two that I thought were interesting.  The first one tells us that Napoleon’s penis was sold to an American urologist for $40,000.  I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why someone would want that.  I also wondered what kind of authentication they had to prove it was his.  Finally I thought surely the doctor could have found something better to do with that money than to buy something that probably looks like a two hundred year-old shriveled up cucumber.

The other fact, listed right after the Napoleon one, tells us that nearly 3% of the ice in the Antarctic glaciers is penguin urine.  Don’t cruise ships brag about taking the ice from glaciers to use in your drinks?  If you are on a cruise to that area, take your drinks straight up.  I think Frank Zappa put it best – “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow.”

It is Sunday, July 19 and there are only 85 days until Columbus Day.  I think we should all make a plan to get lost that day in honor of that intrepid explorer.  Today we remember the birthdays of Roald Amundsen, Barbara Stanwyck and Orville Redenbacher.  On this day in 1439 kissing was banned in England, in 1769 Father Serra founded Mission San Diego, the first mission in California and in 1951 “Catcher in the Rye” by JD Salinger was published.  In Bolivia it is La Paz Day and in Washington, DC it is District of Columbia Day.

Recently, the lovely Elaine and I were out running some errands.  It was getting to be dinner time and it occurred to us that, once again, we had failed to plan for dinner.  When I brought up the subject of eating, she asked what we had in the freezer at home.  My reply was that we had nothing that would thaw in time for us to eat it that night.  We decided that we would eat out that evening.  We then began the conversation about where to go eat.  “I don’t know.  Where do you want to go?

“I don’t know.  What do you feel like eating?”

“I don’t care.  We should eat, but I don’t know what I want.”

“Neither do I.  I suppose we could just go to the diner.”

“Which one?  We haven’t been too happy with any of them lately.”

“Let’s go to the so and so diner.  We haven’t been there in a while, maybe they’ve improved (they hadn’t, by the way).”

I did not indicate who was saying which line because the conversation is always the same, but it could have been started by me or Elaine.  The worst part is, that once we have been to eat and been disappointed, we go home saying that it will be some time before we go back.  In the next few days we will read about a restaurant and remember that we had heard about the place and thought we should go there.  The problem is that we never think of any of those places when we are having the above conversation.

Anyway, the reason I brought this whole thing up was to talk about a phenomenon that occurs when eating certain types of food.  Specifically, pancakes or waffles.  Have you ever noticed that whenever you have pancakes, either at a diner or at home, you always end up with syrup on your fingers, the table, your silverware, etc.  Don’t give me that  “what kind of a slob are you” look.  It happens to all of us to some degree.  I am not talking about syrup running down your arm and chin and dripping onto your lap.  I am talking about the little that always seems to come from the bottle or pitcher and ends up on your fingers and then transfers to your fork and the handle of your coffee or tea cup. 

What makes it worse is that no matter what you do, you still end up with some of it on your hands.  You go to the restroom to wash your hands and figure you have solved the problem.  You come back to the table, pick up your cup to finish your coffee and get the syrup from the handle and start the fun all over again.  That happens to me all the time.  No matter how careful I am, I still end up with some syrup on my hands.  On our last foray to a diner, I felt like having pancakes.  They served the syrup in sealed packets so I thought I would be safe.  I would not have to worry about syrup left over from previous users and I would be able to control the situation.  WRONG!

I was very careful pouring the syrup and disposing of the packets.  I tried to be as neat as possible while eating.  I made sure that my utensils did not slide into the syrup.  I was studious in my efforts to not drip syrup on the edge of the plate or the table.  And yet … by the time I was halfway through my meal, I felt that familiar stickiness on my fork and coffee cup.  I finally surrendered to the syrup god, realizing that there are certain things you just cannot avoid.  When I finished eating, I went to the restroom, washed my hands and returned to the table being careful not to touch anything on the table.  But, on the way out to the car, I felt just a little sticky between a couple fingers.  I think I will just have cheeseburgers at the diner from now on.

On the new home front, the lovely Elaine and I are moving ever-closer to closing on the new house.  We are packing things like crazy, but I am not sure there are enough boxes in our town to hold all the bubble-wrapped items we have.  In our spare time we are also scheduling the various inspections that still need to be done, scheduling appointments with painters for estimates, planning to have a carpet person come in to give an estimate for one of the rooms, still trying to narrow the paint color possibilities down to 20 or so and making a list of all the people we need to notify once our address has changed.  Phew (at this point I have done the symbolic wiping my hand across my forehead)!  I am not too concerned.  I am confident that we will get everything done.  The lovely Elaine is not so sure.  We will see.

This week our fact tells us that many species of birds copulate in the air.  I wonder if they have a mile high club?  In general, a couple will fly to a very high altitude and then drop.  During the descent, the birds mate .  Sometimes, they get too involved and SPLAT!  And people get angry when a bird craps on their windshield.

It is Sunday, July 12 and there are only 166 days until Christmas, and no the lovely Elaine will not bend on the Christmas music issue.  Today we remember the birthdays of Josiah Wedgewood, George Eastman and Andrew Wyeth.  On this day in 1543 King Henry VIII wed Catherine Parr his sixth and last wife, in 1862 Congress authorized the Medal of Honor and in 1962 the Rolling Stones had their first performance; it was at the Marquee Club in London.  In Northern Ireland it is Orangeman’s Day, in Rhodesia it is Thodes Day and in the Central African Republic it is Independence Day.

My question for today is directed to those of you who either live alone or spend a lot of time by yourself.  Do you find that you spend a good deal of the day talking to yourself?  Or, at least talking out loud as you go through the day?  I do.  Before the lovely Elaine retired, I used to speak out loud to myself all day.  Generally, I did it as a way of reminding myself of what had to be done and what had already been accomplished.  It was a way of having a checklist without having a piece of paper that I would usually lose anyway.

The problem now is that I spent a couple years doing that while the lovely Elaine was at work.  Now she is home and I still have the habit.  She complains that she never knows if I am talking to her or myself.  I find it amusing that she has to spend time figuring out if she is supposed to respond or not.  She does not.  The other evening, I got up from the love seat in the living room and began talking as I went into the kitchen.  When I came back, she complained that she did not understand anything that I had said.  I said that she didn’t have to because I was not talking to her.  I got the look.  I think she also said something else unkind, but I am not sure if she was talking to me.

Another issue that I am experiencing, along with many of our friends, is my hearing is going.  I can attribute some of it to having spent over three years as a jet engine mechanic in the US Air Force.  Some can be blamed on getting older and some because I do not always pay attention to conversations.  To be honest, if a discussion topic does not really interest me, I feign attention, nod my head and smile when the others do, chuckle when they do, etc.  This is a practice that works well when I am at a party or some other large gathering. 

Because of music, other people talking and just general ambient noise I cannot always hear a complete conversation.  In fact, I once spent the better part of an evening at a function where I did not hear most of what this one woman was saying.  She held court at the table for most of the evening and I simply responded based on how the others at the table responded.  I wondered later how many of them heard what she was saying.  Wouldn’t it be funny if no one actually heard her and we all just responded to her cues? 

We recently went to dinner with friends of ours.  They are a few years older than we are and they have the same auditory issues that we have.  The restaurant we went to was not real loud, but it was busy and there was the usual clatter and clamor.  We spent the better part of the evening repeating ourselves because not all of us were able to hear what was being said.  We kept having to lean in or across the table so that our conversation could be heard.  I am relatively confident that not one of us heard everything that was said.

Even more entertaining was an evening we spent with a small group of friends.  We were out on the deck at our friend John’s house and we were having a pleasant evening.  But let me set the scene for you.  Present were John and his wife, the lovely Elaine and I, John’s friend Charlie and two other friends of John’s who have strong Russian accents.  The two with the accents were the youngest, next were Elaine and I and then the other three were the elders.  One of the interesting parts of the evening was the fact that there could be several conversations going on at one time.  Not so much because we were chatting in small groups, but more because we did not know that the others were talking.  What most of us needed were those horns that old people were always shown holding up to their ears so they could hear.  There was a lot of “What did he say?” followed by the response “I have no idea.”  You see, we talk out loud to ourselves because that is the only way we can hear what we say.

The lovely Elaine and I are still getting ready for the big move.  We have used enough bubble wrap to cover the house we are buying and the one we are selling.  The good side of that is that once we unwrap everything, my grandsons will be kept busy for days popping it all.  That should make us popular with our new neighbors!  We have spent a considerable amount of time trying to decide on paint colors.  What makes some of this difficult is that two of the rooms need to match our existing furniture.  In an effort to get that choice right, we have been sitting in a room by a window looking at color chips next to pillows from the couches we are trying to match.  What fun!  I will let you all know how it all comes out.

This week our fact tells us that men who are castrated are less likely to go bald.  History tells us that they will have much higher voices, too … but I digress.  Frankly, I think that is a rather extreme measure.  I would rather give the Rogaine route a try first.  Realistically, being bald would be a lot less extreme.

It is Sunday, July 5 and there are only 25 days until the lovely Elaine and I close on our new home (more about this later).  Today is the birthday of Phineas Taylor Barnum, Henry Cabot Lodge and Julie Nixon Eisenhower.  On this day in 1643 the first recorded tornado in the US hit in Essex County, Massachusetts, in 1811 Venezuela became the first South American country to gain independence from Spain and in 1989 Rod Stewart hit his head while on stage and knocked himself out.  In Algeria and Venezuela it is Independence Day, on the Isle of Man it is Tynwald Day and in Rwanda it is Peace and National Unity Day.

As you all know, yesterday was Independence Day here in the US.  During the American Revolution, the legal separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain occurred on July 2, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence that had been proposed in June by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia declaring the United States independent from Great Britain.  After voting for independence, Congress turned its attention to the Declaration of Independence, a statement explaining this decision. Congress debated and revised the wording of the Declaration, finally approving it on July 4.  Tradition has us celebrating on the date that was on the document rather than the date the resolution on independence was actually approved by congress.

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors and tortured before they died.
Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.
Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army, another had two sons captured.
Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

Just some more information that you can add to your 4^th of July Trivia Folder.

When I was a youngster, way back when, my friends and I used to look forward to today, the day after the 4^th.  We would get up early, jump on our bikes and ride up to the stadium.  That was where everyone went to watch the fireworks the night before.  We would spend the next hour or so searching the stands and surrounding grass hills for the change that had fallen out of pockets the night before.  We usually did pretty well.  This only lasted for a few years.  After that, more kids found out about the potential windfall and cut down on our take.  The other problem was that pants were being made to fit a little snugger, so less change fell out of pockets.  Oh well, it was good while it lasted.

Fast forward to July, 2015 and the lovely Elaine and I are preparing to close on the house we are purchasing.  After a search that has lasted for months, we have found the house that suits our needs, gives us the space we want and puts us a mere 10 minutes from the kids.  We are pleased with our choice and are looking forward to being in the new home.  The lovely Elaine is not looking forward to all the stuff that has to be done between now and when we move.

Until you actually have to pack stuff up and get it ready to be moved, you never realize how much you have accumulated.  We have lived in our current home for 36 years.  This has given us ample time to collect things.  We had the additional benefit of having a basement.  This allowed us to put stuff down there and forget about it.  Part of our basement was finished and we had a TV and a game console set up down there, but other than that we never really used the space.  As long as we had a clear path for the meter reader and kept the space around the TV clear, the rest of the area was storage.

We are now clearing that area out.  We have decided that if we have not used or touched an item in the past three years, it is going to Vietnam Veterans.  We have called them several times in recent months and they have come and taken an incredible number of bags.  We have given them clothing, shoes, CD’s, some cooking utensils and a number of decorative items that seemed like a good idea when we bought them.  Fortunately for us and our heirs, our new house has no basement, which cuts down considerably on the clutter we can collect.

Elaine keeps telling me that I need to start clearing out my workbench area and my stuff in the garage.  I keep pointing out to her that I cannot do that until the house is ours and I can see what kind of space I will have in the garage for a work area.  When I figure that out, I will know what I can keep and what will go to my son or Vietnam Veterans.  The good thing is that I will not have to bubble wrap my tools and carefully pack them in boxes.  I can just load them into whatever containers I have and move them to wherever they are going.  Part of the issue for me is that we are moving into a house that is relatively new, so there will not be much in the way of DIY projects for me to do.  That makes it difficult for me to justify keeping some of the tools I have.  My son will probably get a lot of my stuff and he can sell what he doesn’t want or need.

I will keep you informed on how things are progressing as we get closer.  There are still issues that have to be addressed, of course.  We have to select paint colors for the various rooms, we have to decide on carpeting for one room, we have to get someone to do the painting and carpeting, and so on and so on.  I am sure all that will be a snap (note the sarcastic tone in my voice here).

This week our fact tells us that little known Cathedral Caverns near Grant, Alabama has the world’s largest cave opening, the largest stalagmite (Goliath) and the largest stalagmite forest in the world.  Hey Pat, this sounds like a great vacation idea for Kate and Smiley!