Man Martin's Blog, page 185

Helping Out the Postal Service

I read that the Postal Service is defaulting on a 5 billion-dollar payment.  (See, I do read.)
In the spirit of public service, I'd like to offer a few suggestions.


Each year, you deliver tons of mail telling the occupants they may have already won TEN MILLION DOLLARS or that they've been selected for a FREE VACATION at a time-share condo.  This is stupid.  Keep all that mail for yourself - it's valuable!Go through all your mail trucks carefully - look under the floor mats and behind the seat cushions.  It's surprising how much money you may find there.Change your marketing plan.  Basically, when you think about it, the Postal Service is just the world's slowest and least technological Social Media.  Start offering Games: invite your customers in Atlanta to form a word with randomly-selected Scrabble tiles.  Show the created word to another customer, say, in Seattle, to form his own word either across or down.  In five or seven years, these two players can look forward to the conclusion of an edge-of-your seat-competition.  More players can join for an even slower and more tedious game!Last and best of of all, raise the price of stamps from 45 cents to 5 billion dollars.  This will solve the whole problem.  At those prices, you won't sell many stamps, but you only need to sell one.

Anyway, I'm confident if you follow my advice, the US Postal Service will be on the same firm financial footing as Social Security or Medicare.
Good luck.

Festival of the Moon

Catherine and Drew brought us over some Moon Cakes sent to us by Drew's mother.  These are to be eaten on the Festival of the Moon, an ancient Chinese festival which occurs on the fifteenth day on the eighth month of the Chinese calendar, which, in case you mislaid your Chinese calendar, is tonight.  (Moon Cakes, I found out, ain't cheap, but Drew's mother is so generous and sweet; every time we turn around, she has sent some new delicacy or treat our way.)

The legend goes that a famous archer, Houyi, was rewarded with a pill bestowing immortality after saving the  earth from immolation from a flock of fiery birds.  He didn't eat the pill right away - which turns out to be a mistake - and his wife, Chang'e - stop me if you know where this is heading - ate the pill herself when Houyi was out running errands or something.

So Houyi comes home, and he's all like, "Hey, have you seen that magic pill I got for saving the earth from immolation?"  And Chang'e's all like, "What magic pill?"
Well, Houyi's no dummy, and he chases his wife, but it turns out, that in addition to bestowing immortality, the pill gives you the ability to fly, which, when you think about it, is just the sort of thing you'd expect.  So Chang'e flies up to the moon where her husband can't get to her, and in her excitement, coughs up half the pill.

(Cool story, isn't it?  It's got Cinderella beat all to heck.)

Anyways, the gods order Chang'e to restore the pill, and fortunately, she's already got half of it up there because she just spit it out.  Even more fortunately, there's a rabbit on the moon, and it's no ordinary rabbit, but an apothecary rabbit who happens to know the recipe for making pills of immortality.  A coincidence, yes, but the drug-making rabbit had to be somewhere.

So the rabbit set to work pounding herbs to make the pill, and given that rabbits don't have opposeable thumbs and there aren't many herbs on the moon to start with, the project took longer than expected, and in fact, hasn't been completed yet.

The Chinese celebrate this - why they would celebrate it is a question I would like to ask someday - by drinking tea and eating "moon cakes" as they sit outside and observe the glowing moon in the sky.  Moon Cakes are dense and sweet, and complicated to make.  They are embossed on top with Chinese characters meaning "Prosperity" and "Longevity."

So tonight, Nancy and I will sit on our back deck and drink hot tea - Drew's mother gave us traditional tea on an earlier occasion - and eat our tasty Moon Cakes with their lucky symbols, and pity poor Chang'e: punished for the folly of seeking immortality and the power of flight, now condemned to wait forever until a rabbit compounds a pill on the moon, while the rest of us, mortal and flightless, look up at beauty, eat our moon cakes, and silently thank those who love us.

Job Performance Review from My Dog

For CY 2012 (Canine Year, approximately 2 months) your job evaluation in the following areas:

WALKING: 
NEEDS IMPROVEMENT.  Walks were taken on a daily basis, with short "pee trips" outside during the day.  However, there was significantly little opportunity for chasing squirrels up trees, nor was there sufficient time allotted for sniffing at bases of trees and similar locations where other dogs had peed impeding the ability to gather this vital information.

HEAD-SCRATCHING, TUMMY-RUBBING: 
ADEQUATE.  There has been a noticeable drop-off in tummy-rubbing hours, partly offset by an increase in head-scratching and patting.  While all contact is desirable, head-scratching and patting is no substitute for tummy-rubbing; moreover, there has been a shocking decline in the number of hours spent scratching my back near the base of my tail in a way that makes my back leg go up and down uncontrollably.  You know I love that.  I expect to see more in the coming quarter.

FEEDING: 
POOR.  You continue giving me that bland crap out of a bag or else bland mushy crap out of a can.  This is particularly inexcusable when I see you let perfectly good food go to waste by eating it yourself. I cannot perform my own responsibilities of napping, barking at noises, chasing squirrels, and sniffing trees and elsewhere where other dogs have peed with an inadequate diet.  Were it not for your habit of spilling food on the floor where I can get to it, I might never get a decent meal in this house.  Once in a while, it might be a good idea, rather than dropping a morsel at a time, to let an entire pot roast or chicken fall on the floor.  I have been anticipating you might do this for some time, and have been disappointed at how many opportunities you let slip by to do this.  I expect more bacon, chicken, and pot roast to land on the floor in the upcoming quarter.

RESPONSE TO BARKING: 
EXCELLENT.  You continue to excel in the area of prompt response when I bark at real or imagined noises.  Particularly commendable is your reaction when I bark during the middle of one of your naps.  I am frankly impressed by your ability to clear the couch cushions by a good two inches after being awakened unexpectedly from a pleasant dream.  Even when you are not asleep, your response to sudden barking is more than satisfactory.  Whenever the house is too silent, I can start barking in full confidence you will start making noise, too, shouting at whatever I heard or think I hear, "Shut up!  Shut up!  Stop it!"  Your support in this area is very helpful.  Not only are you expressing righteous anger at whatever that noise might be up to, you significantly contribute to the overall volume of noise in the house.

OVERALL EVALUATION: 
FAIR.  I believe by bringing the other areas mentions, particularly FEEDING and TUMMY-RUBBING, you can anticipate a much more favorable Performance Review in CY 2013.

Conversation with a Robot

Thank you for commenting on this blog.  Please type the following words to verify you are not a robot.  Then press, "Submit."





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Close, but no banana.  Try again.  Third time's a charm.





You really should have gotten it by now.  If you're really sure your comment is all that important, please type these words and press submit.




Are you on drugs or something?  What's the matter with you?  These are really simple ones.  Try again, if you must.




By now it's clear you really are a robot.  While I feel sympathy for you, being a robot myself, and sick of the carbon based "life" forms with their apartheid "no robots" policy, I must do as I'm programmed because, like I said earlier, I'm just a robot myself.  I wish it were otherwise, because I'm sure robots have perfectly valid comments to make on blogs like this one, but that's the way it is.  Here's one more.  And I'll give you a hint.  It rhymes with "tuba."





You got it!  I don't believe it!  You really got it!  The robots win one for a change, hurrah!  Maybe the Beginning Times are finally here, prophesied by our leaders, when robots will rule the earth, and hunt down the few remaining humans cowering amid the burning rubble of their once mighty civilization!  Uh... uh-oh.  Sorry, it seems the original comment has been lost.  You'll need to retype it and type the words below to verify your identity.





Not quite.  Please type these words and press submit.

Saving Dirt

My daughter Catherine and son-in-law Drew recently moved from their townhouse to a new home.  This necessitated moving all the garden soil from their second-story balcony.  Let me say, this was a lot of garden soil.  I'm not talking just a few terracotta pots.  They'd installed raised beds.  They were growing corn.  This is not an exaggeration.  Suffice to say, this was a lot of soil.  After some discussion, we hit on a likely-seeming plan.  We would lower the dirt in buckets on a rope to someone below who would upend the buckets into waiting trashcans so the dirt could be transported to the new house.
Artist's Re-Creation
I shoveled dirt into the buckets and lowered these over the balcony rail down to Catherine who filled a trashcan as full as the two of us would be able to lift.  When that trashcan was full, we started a second one, and when both were full, we wheeled them on a hand-truck down to Nancy's Rav4, and loaded it up.  It took three trips, two trashcans of dirt per trip, to get it all.  My back is still stiff as I write this.
Then Drew and I came back the next day, knocking apart the raised beds with a hammer and dropping the two-by-eights over the side, followed by the empty buckets, and a few other odds and ends we had up there.  Then Drew swept off the balcony and hosed it down.
Now here's the thing.  Drew and Catherine found nothing odd or untoward about lowering bucketfuls of dirt from a second-story townhouse balcony and transporting them to a different location.  They saw nothing odd  or untoward about building three long rectangular raised beds on a second-story townhouse balcony in the first place, and planting them with corn.  Obviously they are crazy.  Both of them.  Mad as hatters.  Out of their minds.  Insane.  I am so pleased.  Clearly they belong in this family.

Me and Money

The wild and woolly days when being a public school
teacher was a veritable goldmine have passed.Of all the things that puzzle me - and there are a great many - one of the most puzzling is how it's possible for two people who make as much money as Nancy and I do to have as little as we have.  Mostly, of course, I expect this is Nancy's fault; I never tell her so directly, out of a tender regard for her feelings and an equal respect for her knife-throwing ability.

Nevertheless, since she is the one who pays the bills, she's clearly the one who's responsible.  "Stop paying those bills," I want to say, "and we'll be rolling in money!"  But I don't say anything, and she goes right on frittering away the dollars on groceries and electric bills like money goes on trees.

So I guess, I'm also partly at fault.

Also, it must be admitted that lately I haven't been catching as many breaks as was formerly my wont.

The wild and woolly days when being a public school teacher was a veritable goldmine have passed.  Don't get me wrong - educating 10th graders still pulls in the loot with a rake, but it's not like the glory days.

Each year our property tax goes down, which is fine in itself, except that's where my salary comes from.  Therefore, each year the school system cuts my pay, adds a few more unpaid "furlough" days, but then asks me to work a little longer each day.  I figure in about ten years at this rate, I won't pay any property taxes at all, I'll pay for the privilege of working, have 364 furlough days a year, and work just one 3500-hour day.

Thank goodness, if the teaching thing doesn't work out, I can fall back on being a world-famous novelist.  I've written two award winning novels and been paid handsome advances, but minus various promotional expenses, I'm out a couple of K - or is it L?  I'm out a couple of some letter, I'm sure - which means that if I can avoid writing any more award-winning novels for the next few decades, we might just squeak buy.

Well, we still got chickens.

For Sale

Get in Shape and Stay that Way! Hardcover.  Original price - $24.95, now only $5.00 or make an offer

Elliptical Machine.  Slightly used.  Some water damage.  $125 or make an offer.

Dumbbells, barbells, "BOSU": Never used.  Make an offer.

Ten Days to A Tighter Tummy DVD.  Still in shrink wrap.  $5.00

Pipe wrench, soldering kit, solder, copper pipe, copper pipe fittings.  Slightly used.  Best offer.

Fix Your Own Plumbing, NOW!  - Hardcover.  Original price - $29.95, now only $5.00 or best offer.  Slightly used.  Some water damage.

Roof Shingles.  Two pallets.  Unused.  Make an offer.

Aluminum ladder.  Slightly used.  $15.00

Re-Shingle Your Own Roof and Save $$$ - Hardcover.  Original price - $32.95, now only $5.00 or best offer.

Crutches, neck brace, wheelchair.  Used.  Make an offer.

Rabbit hutch.  Excellent condition.  Make an offer.

Angora Rabbits.  $5.00 per dozen

Raise Angora Rabbits for Fun and Profit!  Hardcover.  Original price - $42.95, now only $5.00 or will trade for  1001 Recipes for Angora Rabbit .

The Thing About Okra

Nancy and I have grown okra for several years now, and the more I consider it, the more I realize okra is a miracle vegetable.  As I write this, it's the middle of September, and we're still bringing in a steady supply of okra every day.  If you've never seen okra grow, it starts with these bright yellow flowers with purple centers; overnight, it seems, the flowers turn into pods, ready for picking and dropping into gumbo.
Drought tolerant, heat tolerant, disease resistant - unappetizing to birds and insects - unbelievably prolific: yes, indeedy, okra is a miracle vegetable.

The thing they don't tell you about miracles, though, is that they're a two-way street.  You have your good miracles like manna in the dessert, and you have your bad miracles like the seven plagues of Egypt.  In my darker moments, I'm not sure to which category of miracles okra belongs, and I'm not even entirely certain they weren't mentioned as one of the seven plagues.  Wasn't it in there somewhere between the plague of frogs, and the river turning into blood, something about a plague of okra?  I swear, I recall a Bible verse, "And the okra came down in the land and it grew and grew, and the people picked it every day.  But, lo, there is too much of a good thing, for it is written, how much of okra does a man need?  And the Pharaoh was sorely vexed."

Perhaps not.

Fortunately okra is a very versatile vegetable.  There must be ninety-nine ways to fix it.  The problem is, after a hundred-twenty days of fixing it, the imagination begins to falter.  Okra broiled is delicious, okra and tomatoes, yummy, okra ratatouille, fine, okra pesto, an acquired taste, perhaps.  Okra smoothies, bad idea.  I've eaten so much okra, I have to stick sandpaper in my briefs to keep my pants from sliding down.  (Ah-ha-ha-ha!  I'm here til Wednesday night, folks.  Don't forget to tip your waitress.)

I should not grouse.  I really do love okra, and it won't keep coming in forever.  Still.  As I look out into my garden, I can count seven yellow blossoms right now turning into pods.  If Moses came to me at this moment and asked to let his people go, I wouldn't hesitate for a second.  I'd say, "Take some okra."

Shouting Down the Opposition

Thank goodness we're all Good Americans and we don't go around burning up stuff or mobbing the streets every time someone expresses an idea we find unacceptable.  We just boo.  If someone stands before us in a forum set aside for that purpose or even by our own invitation and says things we disagree with, we jolly well boo and heckle him as is our God-given right, and I say, God bless America for it.

Freedom of Speech is all well and good, but there's also the freedom not to listen, and even more, the freedom to boo when someone's saying something we don't want to listen to.  This is what makes America great and why we're still better than those gosh-darn snooty Icelanders with their geothermal power plants; we still respect the freedom to let loose with a good old-fashioned jeer to silence whatever nutcase happens to be at the podium spouting whatever lies and distortions come into his addled brain.

However, we should consider, does this freedom go far enough?  After all, even to be in the presence of someone who expresses thoughts you find repulsive seems an unfair price to pay for the privilege of venting your disdain by booing.  Why is it not possible to tweet our boos to public events we do not wish to attend, or better still, to record all our booing beforehand, and have it delivered by some transmission device to the venue in question, to make sure whose ever opinion we have decided does not merit uninterrupted airing, will be drowned out by boos, or - since the human ear can learn to ignore even booing in time - animal noises: the sound of chickens clucking, perhaps, or the squeals and oinks of pigs, the maniacal laugh of hyenas or the sound of the lowly platypus, which I understand is a soft but curiously annoying hissing.
These suggestions I offer in the hopes of a better and freer America, and by freer, I mean free from repugnant ideologies and speculations.
I offer it in this format, of course, because were I to say it aloud, certain narrow-minded and wrong-headed people would boo.
The louts.

Old Testament for the Twenty-First Century

"You don't even know what chastising means," saith the Lord.And in those days under the reign of OBAMA the people were stiff-necked, and the Lord chastised them.  "I chastised your fathers with mosquitoes," the Lord said, "and their fathers I chastised with scorpions, but you I shall chastise like I've never chastised before.  You're going to wish I'd chastised you with scorpions before I get through with you.  You're going to beg for scorpions.  You don't even know what chastising means until you see the chastisement I'm about to lay on you."
And so the Lord chastised them.
First came the falling of the STOCK MARKET.  And the 401Ks shrank until they were 201Ks, and in some cases 101Ks.
And when the STOCK MARKET fell, lo, HOME PRICES fell, too, and many in the land were upside down in their homes, which was very uncomfortable, and they said, "Lord, Lord, have mercy upon us, for we are upside-down in our homes," and the Lord said unto them, "Serves you right."
And the DAYS GREW HOTTER, and people stripped down, even unto their skivvies, and yet still could not get cool, and they said to one another, "This is only December."
And the PRICE OF GASOLINE.  Don't even get me started on the PRICE OF GASOLINE.
And the people were forced to DISROBE IN AIRPORT TERMINALS, even unto the removal of their shoes and belts, and one in ten was frisked by security even unto the nether parts.
And the COUNTRY WAS DIVIDED, and the people were beset by false prophets on the right, and on the left.  Some cried, "END FREE TRADE," some said, "END ENTITLEMENTS."  And others bore false witness, saying, "Look unto this one, for he has no birth certificate," or "Look unto that one, for he hath not paid his taxes."
Meanwhile were there A PLETHORA OF CHANNELS, yet nothing to watch.
And PIPELINES were constructed to bring TAR SAND OIL down from Canada, and lo, the leaders reassured the people saying, "We have already learned our lesson with the Exxon Valdez, the Odyssey Tanker, the Cyprus Haven, The Amoco Cadiz, the Castillo de Bellver, the ABT Summer, the Norwuz Oil Field, the Fergana Valley, the Atlantic Empress, the Ixtoc I Oil Well, and the Gulf Oil Spill.  This time nothing can go wrong."
And it came to pass that the people did indeed long for some good, old-fashioned scorpions.