Accumulated wisdom at summer's end, while autumn dwindles, and winter lurks, cold, icy, and menacing:
- I asked my neighbor how he and his wife were doing. He said, "Well, we can sit up and take nourishment."
- I criticized the leather jacket a female political commentator was wearing, whereupon my wife said, "I wouldn't think someone who wears a polo shirt 365 days a year is qualified to be a fashion commentator." Ouch.
- Today is election day. One can only hope for a constructive outcome. But the air remains clouded with bile, hatred, bias, bad economics, and wishful thinking. Fortunately, democracy somehow always survives.
- We had the second new freezer door installed on our two year old Whirlpool fridge two weeks ago. The ice maker stopped working after a few days. The repair guy came by today and ordered a new ice maker. This is about the sixth or seventh service call we have had on this wonderful maarvel of electronic mediocrity.
- The green tomatoes I picked the night before frost have all ripened. Now what to do with them. I have already made three batches of wonderful fresh tomato soup.
- I saw on the internet that if you are tired of a zillion little fruit flies in your kitchen, take a quart bottle, put a piece of banana or rotten fruit and some vinegar in the bottom, make a cone out of a sheet of paper with the top of the cone large enough to close of escape, and voila! Those pesky little devils are flitting around prior to their early demise.
- Sock lint remains one of the world's top menaces. I am disturbed that no one mentioned the problem of sock lint in this presidential campaign. I am more ticked about sock lint than I am with a zillion other pressing issues.
- I bought the Lion House soup cookbook a week ago and made chicken noodle soup, which turned out very well, and which I am still eating. There are 69 more soup recipes in the book and I intend to make all of them the next year, no matter what ingredients our how wierd the soup sounds. To get the book, go to deseretbook.com. The Lion House originally was the home for Brigham Young's family which, of course, consumed gallons and gallons of soup.
- Unfortunately, I started playing Snood on my iPad. I must get rid of it. After playing just one more game.
- I am following my audiologists orders and am wearing my two thousand dollar hearing aids all day now, trying to get accustomed to noise, which reverberates through my head.
- My son Jim received a "we want you back" invitation from the History Book Club. Four books for four bucks. Trouble is, he has been forbidden from ever joining again. So have I. I returned so many books last membership that I have never received a "we want you back" invitation again.
- With iPads and iPhones, one never need be sociable or converse with others. Just sit around and rub thumbs over the screen and text everyone you know while playing Angry Birds, Words with Friends, checking email, etc.
I know this list is long, but the Curmudgeonly Professor has accumulated vast reams of useful knowledge over the summer and feels compelled to pass it on to his readers. I am sure I have omitted some gems of information which I will think of and pass along later. Have a nice day.
