Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

QUAGMIRE IS NOT JUST A PERV ON FAMILY GUY

Scenario: if the atlanta hawks WIN on friday against the miami heat, then they will play the cavs on sunday at the "q" here in cleveland at 1 p.m. you have tickets.

your loft apartment is open and featured in a warehouse district tour on sunday between 2 and 3:30.

moral dilemma: do you root for the miami heat? discuss.

Never Mind Swine Flu, What About the Monkey Terror

I received an e-mail the other day.

I bring this up only because a case of swine flu popped up about 35 miles from here -- here being Cleveland, Ohio, which is a long way from Mexico City (!,834 miles as the crow flies), where, at this writing, over 120 people have died from swine flu -- yesterday.

And I checked this out -- Delhi, India, Deputy Mayor S. S. Bajwa did die from injuries received when he fell or was pushed from his balcony on account of a monkey attack. So, along with being very suspicious of everyone around me who is still breathing and may be carrying swine flu, I am also acutely aware of the danger outlined in the e-mail I received, the Monkey Menace.

[You see, I am not as eloquent and not so philosophically-inclined as she who occupies the right half of the screen as I look out at you from your computer.]

I will not bore you with the sales talk from the e-mail from a company called Indolite about ApeScare® , which the company claims "is the most humane, efficient and economical way to fight the Menace of Monkeys," but only quote the worthy benefits of fighting the "Monkey Terror":

With the vanishing wooded greens, the ideal habitat for these monkeys, they are strained to barge in areas inhabited by human beings. Monkeys are as agile on the ground as among the branches. Their playful pranks could lead to a major mishap.

Their interference in human life and the damage caused by these monkeys proved fatal in many cases and also lead to the death of Delhi’s Mayor Mr. S.S.Bajwa.

We are sure that once you install this you will find this worthy in many ways, such as:
1. HEALTH & HYGINE: Monkey Bite can lead to health hazards like Rabies.
2. EASY INSTALLATION: Very easy installation process. No special training required.
3. NO RECURRING COST: This engineering wonder does not need any maintenance post installation, hence no recurring cost is involved.
4. MAINTENANCE FREE: Virtually no maintenance is required. Being translucent, limits visibility, hence does not affect the looks of your property.
5.
6. NO DISTURBANCE TO AESTHETICS: Being translucent and colourless, mixes with the harmony of the property, thus does not affect the esthetics of the property.
7.
8. ENGINEERING MARVEL: It’s scientific design makes it’s possible to install it on any surface, glass trim, edge etc.
9. SPACE AGE TECHNOLOGY: Made of special grade engineering plastic, same material which is used in space crafts, airplanes and for making bullet proof screens/ sports car etc. Can withstand extreme temperature variations (+100o C to -20o C). U.V. stabilizers added to it make it Sun and Weather proof and assure a shelf life of 5 years.

I can but speculate about why No. 5 and No. 7 were blank.

Playful Pranks by Monkeys.

GO CAVS!

MAKE SURE YOU WATCH ALL THE WAY TO THE END!

REPOST: ALL MY LIFE'S A CIRCLE

originally posted october, 2004. wow. i'm old. cool.

wonderbread. it's not possible to feel ambivalent about wonderbread. the haters even go so far as to deny that it is, indeed, bread. i am not a hater. even today, wonderbread is amazing stuff. a fresh loaf of wonderbread - nothing compares. when your mom brought that fresh loaf out of the bag (the loaf maintains the loaf shape much better when packaged upright in a paper grocery bag. the plastic bags destroy a good loaf of wonderbread, rendering it useless for most culinary delights other than wonderballs), you HAD to have a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk. with the bread (one slice only) folded over - NEVER CUT. never. if you worked the milk and sandwich right, you might be able to avoid having to scrape most of the sandwich off the roof of your mouth with a spoon.

the next best thing to the peanut butter sandwich was two slices of american cheese in between two slices of bread. again, the milk was mandatory. the bread stayed fresh for four or five days at least (i'm not going to ruin my memories by researching the ingredients and the reasons for this). after that, it was toast or grilled cheese sandwiches with campbell's tomato soup.

it's funny how a sound or a smell or a taste brings you right back to another time and place. wonderbread brings me back to brooklyn acres. a housing project in cleveland (brooklyn) administered by the veterans administration to provide low-cost housing for veterans of world war II and their families. i don't know exactly how long we lived there; i was born there, and we stayed until the family fell apart when i was about 6. i think my family lived there for about 10 to 12 years.

my father was a veteran of the navy, having enlisted at 17, serving in the pacific, and earning a purple heart. i don't know the details. he was a hero to us for a while.

there were four girls and my mother and father living in that tiny house. i remember the back "porch" -- really just a couple steps leading up to the back door. the overhang over the door made it a porch to us. the porch from which we hung blankets from the overhang to serve as our stage curtains when we put on our "shows." i have no idea what these "shows" were about. all i remember is that i always insisted that i be the one to wear the deep red corduroy skating skirt with the pink satin lining (go ask your mother what i'm talking about).

the summers were the best. the v.a. building across the street was where we paid our rent, got our shots and medical checkups, and played in the playground while our parents were taking care of business inside. it was also where the v.a. staff sponsored and held children's fairs, contests, parades, and anything else they could think of to do with us to entertain us. i remember bubble blowing contests, bike parades, coloring contests, races, and LOTS of parties. i remember standing in line for our polio shots for hours, while the staff handed out balloons and coloring books and crayons.

the grownups were like mysterious giants to me. we weren't really very well taken care of by my parents. we pretty much took care of ourselves. i remember being left alone when i was 4. well not really alone - if you count my 3-year-old sister. the neighbors were always around for us if we needed them. they fed us and took care of our needs a lot. when i was 5, i attended afternoon kindergarten. i got ready (by myself) and began my mile and a half walk to school by crossing the busy street that ran along the back of our house. i ran and fell on the curb. the car that passed by me stopped to help. i was very badly scraped. i had fallen face first onto the curb, and my face was a bloody mess. mrs.o'malley came out and picked me up and nursed me all afternoon until my older sisters came home from school. and my dad came home from wherever he was. probably a bar or the race track. my mom always worked as a bar maid, she must have been bartending a day job then.

i loved the o'malley family. 10 kids, a mom who didn't work, a loving, always-employed dad, and walter, my best friend. when i wasn't with my sisters, i was with walter. we lived on one corner. the o'malleys were catty-corner to us. the schneiders (their dad was a DOCTOR! and the kids weren't allowed to play with ANYBODY in the projects) were across the street from us on one corner, and paul and paulette's family (i can't remember their last name - just that i had a HUGE crush on paul who looked like paul anka to me) lived on the fourth corner.

every once in a while my parents would host a party. probably 30 more adults crowded into this little house, only possible because there would be a bunch of the men outside smoking, drinking beer, and telling stories. there would be DANCING in the house. yes, DANCING. adults all danced back in those "olden" days. the women would be wearing tight, slim skirts, high heels, and pearls. the men in their suits! and they'd dance. the cha cha. the samba. and slow dancing. in our tiny living room. we four girls would be sneaking out of bed all night long to watch until we were caught. and then we'd sneak back again.

i guess we were poor. i don't really know. i know my parents were always behind with the cheap rent. i know they somehow had enough money to pay for their alcohol. i know my godfather helped. he sent money a lot. that was when mommy grocery shopped. and brought home wonderbread, peanut butter, and american cheese, along with the beer. she'd buy bologna (baloney), too.

wonder balls. formed by taking a fresh piece of wonderbread, eating off the crusts, and forming the soft, soft interior into a ball with your hands. you'd either eat the ball right away or have a wonder ball fight. then you'd eat it. it wasn't gross to us back then.

baloney. ahh. baloney. lunchmeat of the gods. and entertaining, too. kitchen ceilings in 1940's and 1950's houses were different back then. they were smooth. and shiny. they'd be painted with high-gloss white enamel paint so they could be washed. [have you EVER washed a ceiling?] we'd take a slice of baloney, hold it flat in the palm of our hands, and throw it straight up to the ceiling. it would stick. until the weight of the slice of baloney pulled it down enough to release the vacuum and allow it to fall. it was great. except for the round grease marks left on the ceiling that we never thought to clean up on our own. mommy would walk into the kitchen and IMMEDIATELY notice that we had been "throwing baloney at the ceiling again" and THEN we'd clean it up. and be in beeeeg trouble.

the smallest things in your life make an imprint, and you don't have any idea what will come back to you. i love thinking that this date may be a pre-anniversary of great importance to me some day. maybe my first grandchild will be born on this date. something awesome. i look for clues in old date books, year books, newsletters on what those past days may have portended for me/us. i like to think about how people we meet today may someday play vital parts in our lives.

bill and i were FINALLY allowed to go and watch jax play at open mic jam night at mccarthy's pub last night. i've heard jax play. but not with a band. jesus christ, he's good. i mean really good. he played some stevie ray vaughn, some hendrix, and the ubiquitous band song from my day, deep purple's "smoke on the water." i started off with my mouth hanging open in awe, bill said i kept turning around saying "holy fuck!" i don't remember that. i remember turning around to bill during the hendrix song and saying " we made that!" and then i started thinking during "smoke on the water" about the thousands of times we heard that song when we were kids and how crazy it is / blessed we are to be able to sit here and hear it again. like this. so many years - and "moments" - later.

life is sweet.

Wrestler's Dilemma

Yesterday, I worked at a wrestling tournament, the 2009 ASICS University and FILA Cadet Nationals, in Akron, Ohio. Greco-Roman wrestling -- I got that from one of the referees -- if that's what they are called. I ran the clock. And one official sat next to me. There are two other referees -- if that's what they are called. I know almost something about wrestling. There were no turnbuckles like when Bobo Brazil was around.

I'm minding my own business, that is, running the clock -- I just pushed the button to start it with 30 seconds left (you see, they stop each period after 1 1/2 minutes and one wrestler gets down on all fours and the other gets to fall on top or lift him up or something like that) -- when the referee -- if that's what they are called -- sitting next to me asks me something like this, "He started from the diamond position. Why didn't he try the reverse penholder maneuver? That's why he was in the diamond. Oh, boy, this isn't the time to try the Karelin Discombobulator. What do you think?"

What do I think????

"Egregious tactical error. I don't know what he was thinking," I, of course, replied. "He was out of position for such an attempt," I added.

"For sure. See there, hmmph -- just like that -- that's bad ... two points blue ... another two ... two more," he pointed out.

"That's the match, then," I said. There was something about six points in a period. I had figured that out. And he lost the first period; so, the red guy lost the match.

I still know next-to-nothing about wrestling.

Lawyers in the News

There are blogs that have been keeping track of the large number of attorneys getting the ax at big law firms around the country because of the state of the economy. A number of large law firms have cut salaries and partners' draws, and some have even demanded that partners ante up and pay cash to keep the operation going. A couple firms have gone belly up. Many big law firms have delayed the start dates for many new attorneys they have hired, and many are cutting back on or totally eliminating summer intern positions, positions prized by many a law student for the wining and dining that was standard fare.

Doesn't that just make you almost well up and start crying ...

So, some attorneys take financial matters into their own hands.

For instance, a Chicago attorney, Nathan Billmaier, was convicted last week of delivering marijuana, tobacco, matches, and some ecstacy that were hidden in a stack of legal documents he was bringing into the jail for his client to review. He was charged with making only one delivery even though he had apparently done the same thing on five other occasions. Oh, he got paid, by the way. Now, he will find out that cigarettes are available at the prison commissary, as is Vaseline.

And please know that being charged with a crime doesn't mean that the person is actually guilty of anything, even if the act is caught on videotape; so, don't assume that Las Vegas attorney Gary Guymon did anything wrong. Apparently, Mr. Guymon was visiting a gift shop at the Sundance Resort a couple weeks ago, looked around, took a necklace off a mannequin, put it in a shopping bag, and then forgot to pay for it. So, he's up on a theft charge in Utah. When he was a prosecutor in Vegas a few years ago, upon the recommendation of a local organized crime figure, he would regularly hit up Cheetah's night spot for a lap dance or two before heading home to his wife and kids.

Then, there is Troy Ellis, who was the big shot attorney of Invista, the world’s largest producer of nylon and spandex. He was publicly reprimanded by the Kansas Supreme Court last week for getting his lunch in the company cafeteria and not paying for it, not once, but a number of times. The company installed a video camera and got him eight times over a five-day period, piling food on his tray and not paying. At his new job at SemGroup, at which he advises new businesses on structuring commercial transactions, I wonder if he tells them to install video cameras to tape commercial transactions. He wasn't prosecuted, but do you think he told his new employer about his eating disorder?

The Cavaliers Situation

Here's the situation.

We were having dinner with an expert witness and his lovely wife at one of the high-end restaurants in town a couple weeks ago.

The normally-reserved Stacey pulls out her iPhone and unabashedly shows the waiter her LeBron James Bobblehead app, telling him, "Go ahead, shake it!"

And today, I told her that Ray Allen, Boston Celtics guard, was suspended for one game, losing $158,000 in pay, for elbowing our neighbor, Andy Varejao, in the *ahem* balls during the last game against the Cavaliers.

The normally-reserved Stacey said, "Is that it?!? The fucker ought to be arrested for felonious assault!"

HAPPY EASTER!

our annual lamb cake looked a bit like a puppy this year.

Peeps Haiku Time

Peeps, marshmallow sweets,
Sugar-covered, scrumptious eats,
The best Easter treats.

I apologize for dropping the ball this year. I have not had the time to adequately prepare for and promote the Annual World-Wide Peeps Haiku Competition. What with the world economy in the dumper, I haven't been able to get together the million-dollar top prize that has been awarded in the past.

I do have a couple boxes of Jesus adhesive bandages, irreverant guy that I am, that I found at a great little shop at 6511 Detroit Avenue in Cleveland, Kitsch City.

Squeeze Bacon, Lettuce & Tomato

Since nobody reads this blog anymore, I can write about weird and unusual things from time to time: SQUEEZE BACON.

Combine it with mayonnaise and tomato puree in a squeeze bottle. You are on your way to a quick and easy BLT.