The Curmudgeonly Professor

Downton Abbey and Then Some

Apparently everyone in the entire world has been watching the BBC Super-Soap called Downton Abbey.  I have found that boring conversations turn animated and protracted merely by mentioning the words "Downton Abbey."  Here is what I have learned from the first three seasons:

• The aristocracy spends a lot of time eating magnificent cuisine in ties and tails and splendid dresses while the kitchen help, which prepared the magnificent cuisine, is eating gruel down in the kitchen.
• When not eating splendid meals, various members of the aristocracy and the kitchen staff engage in petty intrigues, attempts at revenge, and loud arguments.
• Lady Mary, having deposed the poor Turkish guy early in the whole story, now has lost poor Matthew in a bloody auto accident so he can be resurrected and act on Broadway.  Was Lady Mary really so boring that Broadway was more appealing? 
• A very elderly lady with a sharp tongue was the star of the whole thing.
• Poor wimpy Lord Grantham apparently hadn't studied agricultural economics, or perhaps had also skipped tabulating debits and credits, and was about to sink poor Downton Abbey at which time they would all have to move into a thatched cottage in the village and take their meals at the local pub or B&B.   Of course, Lord G had already sunk poor Lady Cora's fortune on a kaput Canadian Railway.  Some time and heated arguments ensued before Lord G acceded to Matthew's superior insights and realized they needed to "modernize" or go to the poorhouse.  Fortunately, Lord G gained this revelation before poor Matthew met his bloody demise in time for the final credits for Season 3, leaving vast audiences in tears and ticked off that the Brits already have the next series and we viewers in the colonies must wait many months to be edified.  Too bad we can't come up with something to equal BBC here in the US of A.
• Other than presiding at dinners and hunts and appearing imperial and patriarchial in grand living and dining rooms, I was never clear on exactly what Lord G's duties were or what he did in his spare time when not eating or presiding.
• Lady Cora didn't appear excessively worried when Lord G informed her he had flushed her fortune down the creek, but Lady Cora rarely expressed herself in any emphatic tone.
• Poor Lady Edith.  Left crying at the altar by a rich guy who could have supported her in splendiferous fashion, she is now left to ponder her romance with Rochester, whose insane wife is locked away.  Oh, I forgot, this is Downton Abbey, not Jane Eyre.
• After marching poor Bates around the jailhouse yard for most episodes in Series 3, he gets a reprieve and is able to return to Downton Abbey, apparently no worse for nutritional deprivation during his lengthy wrongful incarceration. 

Meanwhile, the Sunday supplements today have counted up the number of marriages among the cast of our very own soap, The Young and the Restless.  Downton Abbey doesn't even come close.  Meanwhile, we start the countdown clock for next year's triumphant return with many months to construct our own version of what we think will or should happen

 

The Curmudgeonly Professor's Guide to Doing Last Things First

The late Stephen Covey became world famous for his book The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. These people weren't just successful, they were highly successful.  Then he followed up that blockbuster with another book titled Doing First Things First.  I never bought the 7 Habits book although the contents were so thoroughly publicized everywhere you couldn't miss having them memorized.  People needed a book to remind them to figure out what to do and then do it.  That may sound a bit flippant, but if you look around the world, ask yourself how many people actually know what they should be doing.  And then ask yourself how many people who know what they should be doing are actually doing it.  The same with Big Corporations.  The same with Congress and the U.S. Government.  Knowing what to do is obviously a long way away from actually doing anything.  So no wonder Covey's book appealed so many countless readers around the world. 

I bought the Doing First Things First book because I thought maybe it might be important to think about doing first things first.  I realized, however, after I read the first chapter that the book went against the grain of procrastination and put it in my bookshelf, never to be finished.  I just worried about the implications of the book every time I saw it.  So I eventually donated the book to charity so I would no longer be plagued by looking at it.  Unfortunately, this sequence of events concerning this book still weighs heavily on my conscience.

Here is the Curmudgeonly Professor's Guide to doing last things first:

    1. Today's last thing may be tomorrow's first thing.  You never know, so if you've already done today's last thing by tomorrow, and it turns out to be the first thing by then, you already have it done and you are way ahead of the game.

    2. Whether some task is actually the first thing is a matter of subjective judgment.  True, if you are freezing, you may rate that the first thing and turn up the thermostat.  Consider the task of returning book club cards before the due date so you don't get another batch of two or three books and then have to mark them refused and take them to the post office.  Actually, the book club will get sick of you and not send you any more notices or books, and you should feel guilty for abusing them.  Book clubs don't even send me stuff wanting me desperately to join them again.  I am on some kind of blacklist.

    3.  Doing the first thing first violates the Law Procrastination.  I bought a book once about procrastination, but never got around to reading it.  I know what procrastination means, however.  It means to put off stuff as long as your conscience can bear it and as long as you can stand listening to your spouse write notes about it, give you reminders, and threaten you with divorce.

    4. Many so called First Things may not actually be first things tomorrow or two months from now. Their importance may have vanished as circumstances have changed and you find you no longer need to do it.  For example, the wind may come up and blow your leaves down the street and then you would have wasted all that time cleaning them up, if you can stand a reputation of being a terrible neighbor.

    5. While teaching school, I put off as long as possible the task of making out exams, preparing lectures, grading exams, and attending faculty meetings.  In that way, my ideas were always more fresh and creative since my mind had to work quickly and not dawdle in the luxury of having days or weeks to do something.  While waiting for the last minute, however, I engaged in many scholarly pursuits of great magnitude.

This list is just a preliminary list.  I am still working on my eBook on weight loss, which I will finish when I get my new computer with Microsoft Word 2013.  Provided I can figure out how to use Word 2013 to format my wonderful eBook for Kindle publication.  I encourage you all to part with $2.99 to buy this epic once I have announced its availability.  I may then write a second eBook on how to do last things first.  Right now, finishing my weight loss book is probably my first thing.  And, sadly, I realize I have violated my own maxim to put first things off until the last.

 

Focus on What You Can Do, Not What You Cannot Do

One of the problems of life is that, especially as we age, that we can no longer do many of the things we could easily do when we were younger.  And, of course, these restrictions are not necessarily restricted to older people as people of all ages often face restrictions on their physical and mental capabilities. Here are some typical things that many older people can no longer do:

• Drive.  Not being able to drive presents an emotional dilemma, a feeling of being restricted and a loss of freedom.  However, once driving becomes risky, and you can no longer trust yourself to hit the brake pedal instead of the gas pedal, or if your reaction time or vision impairs you, it's time to give up the car keys.  Such loss takes time for adjustment, since you must depend on others to haul you to the doctor or to the grocery store or anywhere else.  The solution, however, is to concentrate on activities that keep you busy where you are. 
• Walk.  Many older people face walking stability problems and loss of balance.  Some have walking problems from hip and knee replacements and from sciatic and other nerve and back problems.  Not being able to put your tennies on at 7:30 a.m. and go for a 45 minute walk is a very, very painful adjustment.  Facing up to using a cane or a walking stick can save many falls and possible serious bone breaks.  It's better to feel steadier than to think you feel like an idiot or a useless old man or woman because you are using a cane or walking stick.  Just look around you when you are out and about and see how many others are using them.  There's nothing so special about you that you can't feel safer.
• Sleep.  It seems like about everyone I talk to these days has sleep issues.  They wander the house in the middle of the night, sleep in recliners for awhile, watch TV awhile, look at the moon for awhile, raid the fridge, read a book, fiddle with their iPad, or do anything possible to fritter away the night.  Then they sleep half the day to make up for being sleep deprived at night.
• People with hearing problems may not be able to go places with louder-than-home noise, as the noise gets amplified so much that they can't stand to be in such places.  This problem puts more restrictions on mobility.

Many other issues restrict what we can do, and are not restricted to older people.  Problems with sight, hearing, body functions, are continual issues.  Too many people I know have had serious falls, some times from just the first rung on a step ladder, or falls in a bathtub, or just a misstep around the house or the yard.  Making tubs slip-proof, installing raised toilets, putting grab bars everywhere possible, all may sound silly in your 50s or 60s, but you will need them as you grow older.

The solution to the problem of facing up to what we can no longer do is to focus on the things we can do.  Some people become artists.  Others embark on learning activities and learn a language, study classics, or relearn information in their fields they have forgotten.  The miracle of electronic transmission and information retrieval opens the entire world and all the information in it to anyone in the most remote or disadvantaged situation.  You don't have to go to the library and spend hours going through the card catalogue, making tedious notes.  Just ask Google.  Google knows all and will give you a thousand pages of info on whatever you want to know.

Too many old people think computers are beyond them.  Wrong, wrong.  If eight year old kids can use iPads (or even three or four year olds), you can learn to use computers and iPads too.  Rather than feel sorry for yourself, get someone to teach you how to use electronic stuff.  You can stay busy forever after you get the hang of a few simple tricks.  Do genealogy.  Research stuff you are interested in.  Write your memoirs.  Keep a journal.  Write short articles.

I am learning to cook.  I like collecting hundreds of recipes and reading cookbooks and trying all kinds of stuff.  I spend hours and hours on photo editing and have over 150,000 photos on my hard drive.  Don't get addicted, however, to video or computer games and waste the rest of your life on this meaningless addiction.

Well there you have the basics.  Just figure out some stuff to do.  If you are handy with tools, which I am not, make furniture.  Learn to turn bowls on a lathe, like my brother in law does.  Plant an indoor garden in pots and planters.  Get a cat or dog to keep you company (not something I would do because I don't want to take care of them, but it's a great idea for some people).  Skip 90% of what's on TV.  Buy meaningful DVD sets like Downton Abbey and travel videos.

Above all, remain thankful for everything you have been given, for all of your life's experiences, for all that you have now, for each new day, for each sunrise and sunset, for those you care for and for those who care for you.  My wife always says, "It will be all right."  So quit moping and complaining and get with it.  Happy New Year.

The Curmudgeonly Professor's To Do List to Be a Snowbird and Fly North

The uninitiated may think that life is a breeze to be a snowbird, fleeing south when the North turns cold, and fleeing North when the south turns into a furnace.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Here is a partial list of stuff I have to do to go back north as the temperatures in St. George begin crowding 100:

• Find the box of books I brought to St. George last winter expecting to read them and never unpacked them, leaving them in the box so they would be easier to haul back north again.
• Change addresses on about 30 or 40 periodicals.  Typically, five or six of them never get changed and I never see them again.
• Put the TV and internet on vacation hold.  Apparently this cannot be done until ten minutes before you want this hold to take effect.
• Stop the newspapers.  Last year, the newspaper carrier kept delivering the papers a couple of weeks after we told them to stop delivering them.  
• Start the newspapers up North.
• Change the telephone service between the two phones.  Some times this gets taken care of, some times it does not.  Depends on whether any one does what they are supposed to do.
• Start the internet up North.
• Making changes in TV, phone, cell phone, and internet typically takes a couple of hours on the phone listening to "you're call is terribly, terribly important to us, and that is why we make you wait forever to talk to a robot while you listen to this goshawful noise and clamor that is supposed to be music."   Then, listen to the following list of 27 options.  No, no, I just want to talk to a human being and not a robot and tell them what I need to do.  We're sorry, you can only talk to robots.  Do you mind if we put you on hold for a few moments while we look up your account?  Help yourself, I say.  A half hour later, after finishing their lunch or whatever, we get "I'll have to transfer you over to xyz department because I don't handle that stuff; translated, meaning I don't know what the heck I am doing because I have only been imprisoned in this cubicle for two days and I have no idea what to tell you.  Another half hour of listening to noise.  Are you having a party there, I ask, since it really sounds loud, and the answer is it's always noisy here because these cubicles are not very high and we are really packed in here.  I felt like asking, "where do you keep the robot?"  About two hours later and I have been assured that my tv, internet, phone, cell phone, etc., have all been put on hold in one place and started up in another.  I have heard that song before, only getting to the other place and having to call up saying, "I thought the internet, or whatever, was supposed to be hooked up today," whereupon the voice on the other end may say, "I have no record of that."  Believe me, this has all happened before.
• Now on to the post office, where the kindly postal clerk was obviously being besieged with snowbirds changing their mail delivery from the hot place to the cold place, only to get frustrated filling out the forms.  Three years ago, we didn't get our mail forwarded for three months because the sorting center for USPS erroneously kept our old address card and did not substitute the new one.  
• Then it's just a minor matter to throw out all the crud that has accumulated for six months.  It is useful, however, to have an opportunity to go through the pile of to-do stuff I brought down here that needed urgent attention and which I never got around to giving it any (attention) due to my busy, busy schedule as an emeritus full professor of economics.  So now I have to haul all this stuff back up north again with the hopes I might get inspired to look at it there.  If anything is really important, some one is being paid to call and bug you about it a half dozen times, anyway.
• Whatever else you do, take all battery chargers, phone chargers, a bushel of computer cables, software backups.  It helps to put a tape ID on the cords saying where the heck they are attached to so you don't have to say bad words at the other end trying to hook all this electronic stuff back up again.
• Clean out fridge, pantry, freezer; toss out all frozen remnants you never got around to eating.
• Mop and vacuum all floors.
• Check tire pressure and car.  My neighbor snowbird from Chicago was ready to leave the other day, all loaded and primed, and his car wouldn't start.  It was a hybrid with a dead battery.  And he being a professor of engineering. 
• Figure out how to get all your junk into two cars.
• Hop on I-15 headed north, preparing to stop in Beaver at the cheese factory, and Santaquin at the apple barn.  Wave at all snowbirds with Montana, North Dakota, and Canadian license plates as the parade of fifth wheels, travel trailers, mobile homes, etc., clogs I-15.
• Arrive at destination.  Unload junk.  Wonder why you went to all this effort.  Check TV, internet, phone, etc., to see if people did what they said they would do.  Lots of luck needed here.  Turn on water, AC, etc., making sure everything works and you don't need the plumbers and air conditioner guys the first day you are back.
• Check to see what time Matlock comes on.
• Wait five or six months and go through all of this torture again.

 

 

Typical Conversation Between Wife and Husband Who is Supposed to Wear Hearing Aids

Here is a guide to conversations between wives and their husbands who have spent thousands of dollars on hearing aids:

    Wife: Dear, did you put your hearing aids in?

    Husband (Dear): What?

Quotes for March 3 2012 from Michael J. Fox

Here are two quotes from one of our all-time favorite actors, Michael J. Fox, on reaching his 50th birthday, as quoted by Dotson Rader in Sunday's Parade Magazine:

"I don't look at life as a battle."

From Michael's wife, Pollan, who writes:

"Michael says there's no point in worrying because if something [bad] does happen, then you've lived it twice.

A Nickel For Your Thoughts? Canada Does Away With the Penny

Canada has announced that it is doing away with the penny, which costs more than one cent to make.  So, rather than subsidize pennies, all transactions will be rounded up or down to the nearest nickle.  What if this decision is made here in the US of A?  We will have to change many things, including:

• The cost of a thought will rise from a penny to a nickle.  Instead of saying "a penny for your thoughts", we will have to gt used to saying a nickle for your thoughts.
• No more pennies will fall from heaven.  Instead of pennies from heaven, we will have nickles from heaven.
• No more penny ante.  Nickle ante will take its place.
• Not worth a red cent will become not worth a red nickle.
• Penny pinchers will become nickle pinchers.
• Ben Franklin will have to arise and rephrase "a penny saved is a penny earned" to "a nickle saved is a nickle earned."
• Henny Penny will become Henny Nickle.
• Little girls will have to be named Nickle, instead of Penny.

And you can probably think of other drastic changes to our lore, culture, and everyday language.  So, hoard your pennies.  Penny collections may become as rare as $2 bills unless our productive Congress decides to forestall the end of pennies and continue to produce them as a public service and as a means of preserving tradition.  A Lincoln Nickle?  Who ever heard of such a thing?

What is Your Favorite Flower? I Will Start to Count Them

I often get asked the question by people who know I am the neighborhood character who goes around taking pictures of everyones' flowers "What is your favorite flower?"  My answer typically is "The last one I photographed."  When I started this blog nearly four years ago, my intention was to opine on life's inane nonsense and preach about correct economics.  I still do some of that, but mostly my blog has turned, unintentionally, into a flower blog.  Once I started taking pictures of flowers and then editing and posting them and printing them and emailing them and giving them away and making photo cards of them, I realize that flowers had saved me during a rough patch in my life.  How can one be angry and sad and disappointed when looking into the heart of a rose?  And so I went on a journey in search of flowers: roses, tulips, hollyhocks, pansies, fenstemon, iris, apple blossoms, redbuds, wild roses, blossoms on weeds, purple thistle crowns, cactus blossoms, petunias, geeraniums, mums, snapdragons, marigolds, zinnias, daffodils, narcissus, crocus, dahlias, gladiolas, alfalfa and clover blossoms, rosemary blooms, the flowers on desert shrubs, poppies, and on and on and on.  So today I thought about my life's journey through a flower laden path, through gardens rimmed and crowded with blossoms of every color, formal and random, with palettes of brilliant colors in every direction, and wondered which flower I could identify as my favorite flower.

Oh, I thought day before yesterday when I saw oceans of brilliant white blossoms brightening the sky, these white blossoms must be my favorite flower.

But then a day went by and I saw the redbuds in bloom and I thought, what could be more beautiful than these pinkish-red blossoms?

Then I remembered the poppies from last year, glorious in red against the puffy white clouds and blue sky and I thought, "Poppies must be my favorite flower."

But could I forget the pink rose with drops of water when I feel sad?

And then, I remembered "the little flower that lasts an hour", my neighbors pristine white cactus blossoms that preen in beauty for a few hours and then disappear.

And so many, many, many others.  They are all my favorites.  How can one prefer one beautiful creation over another?  The tiny flowers that bloom on weeds. The nostalgia and affection engendered by wild roses.  We give flowers for expressions of love.  A surprise of a $2.99 bouquet from the grocery store works as well some times as a $50 bunch of gorgeous roses.  We give flowers to the sick, to help people heal.  We give flowers to the sad to help them find cheer.  We give flowers to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, the birth of children to honor the milestones of life.  

We look at flowers, we study flowers, we ponder their intricate designs and perfect composition, and we thank God for such splendid creations that calm us, heal us, make us smile, and make us feel that life is worth living.  But we must never, never take a flower for granted.  Even a daisy that has lost nearly all of its petals has some redeeming virtues, in life as well as in a bed of flowers.  Perfect beauty is stunning in a perfect flower, but not all flowers are symmetrical, without blemish.  And, if we look carefully, we see beauty and redemption in every flower that blooms, every blemished blossom, and every troubled person.  So, what is my favorite flower?  I'll let you know if I ever find one.

 

Unexpected Drop-Ins Interfering with Lady's Social Life

We just heard news about the dear lady who lived down the street from us here in St. George for years.  She moved to Montana to be in assisted living near her daughter.  Meanwhile, my wife acquired her great computer desk.  We heard that this lady was wishing her daughter would call ahead of time and make an appointment to see her because her unexpected drop-ins were interfering with her social life. Point to ponder.

Rejoice Football Widows: Your Dear Husbands will not have Time to Annoy You for Months

At last, the summer doldrums are over.  Trying to watch television during the summer is like hoeing sugar beets: You hoe out two weeds and five more sprout up to take their place.  I tried, I honestly did, to find something to watch.  After all, I have been retired for eleven years and do not have to prepare lectures about how a progressive and equitable tax system takes a higher percentage from the rich than it does the poor.  Nor do I have to answer the usual questions: "Do we have to know that?" and "Will it be on the test?"  No, dear blog reader, I have time to twiddle my thumbs and flip the TV remote endlessly in a futile quest for something to watch.

My search for television fare was hopeless.  At least five bra infomercial programs dominated the airwaves.  I had no idea.  I had no idea that women buying bras was such a technically difficult and profitable business.  No, I did not watch them.  Also, numerous infomercial and other programs were concerned with building sexy bodies, sexy swimsuit bodies, and, trust me, one program (which I definitely did not watch) was called "Brazilian Butts."  What is a Brazilian butt?  Is a Brazilian one any different than a US of A one?

I tried other sports.  I know there are soccer fanatics and they revel in watching people run all over a big field for hours butting heads and committing unseen fouls while trying to kick a little ball in a tiny net.  But I usually lost interest after the first five minutes.  Then there was championship poker, bowling, and major league baseball.  I am sorry, baseball fans, but I lose interest in a 13 inning game when I don't know anyone on the teams and all I get to watch is closeups on the batter and the pitcher.  I wait until the losing teams all get weeded out and then watch the World Series playoffs and that is quite fun.  But that doesn't happen until fall.  Golf fanatics ooh and aah over each swing of the golf club while watching the ball float through the air and land anywhere from a half mile to six inches from the hole, but if you're not into golf, it's like waiting for water to boil at a high altitude.  And then there are sports like pool, billiards, table tennis, and who knows what else.  If you are a parent of a male heir of younger age, you will be spending all summer traipsing from one Little League field to another chronically certain that your little future major leaguer is getting short shrifted by the coach and that the umps are doing your own team in.

But I digress.  Last night the summer drought was over with a string of football games.  Yes, football.  The sport where boys and young men beat the living tar out of each other to move a little funny shaped ball up and down the field while thousands of maniac fans act like juvenile delinquents and make loud noises from the stands.  The Utah Utes raised questions about how ready they are for the Pac-10 as they played an anemic game against my master's degree alma mater, Montana State.  I cheered for the Bobcats and they played a better game than the Utes in the second half ending up only a few yards short of Utah in total yardage.

When babies are born in Utah, they are mostly born Republican until they go to college and study economics, and they are born either red (U of Utah) or blue (BYU).  What makes football so much fun and causes football to generate so much interest is that generations of genuine hatred exist between the blue and the red.  Now we can skip the political bloviators with their perpetual bloviations and can ignore the two or three dozen GOP Prezidential wannabes for a little while as they weed each other out with imaginative name calling, creative dissembling, and ego swaggering.  Yes, we can focus mainly on football and life is back to normal.

So wives, your dear ones will be sitting on the couch all weekend for several months.  Go out and buy stuff.  Stimulate the economy.  Your couch potato maniac husbands are not going to make any trips longer than to the bathroom at halftime, so don't fight it.  Thank your lucky stars they won't bug you for awhile except for cold beverages, sandwiches, chips, ribs, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, and other gourmet items.  If you have little kids, do not trust husbands to take care of them or change their diapers during their football trances.

Yes, the summer doldrums are over.  Now on to Ole Miss and BYU tomorrow, not to mention a few dozen other games.  No more AhBra infomercials or gas producing bloviators.  We have genuine entertainment to take our minds off problems like unemployment, trillions and trillions and trillions of debt that little Murgatroyd age 2 will have to pay off, and the people who enter WalMart through the Exit door and exit WalMart through the Enter door.  Happy football watching.

Five Gumdrops. Honest. Plus Sage Commentary on the State of the World in the Dog Days of Summer

 
Some days I wonder, "Why do I spend so much of my time taking, editing, uploading, posting and otherwise fiddling with pictures so someone in India or England or Alaska will glance at them a few seconds?  And some times I run out of stuff to take pictures of, especially in the dog days of summer.  We all know what the dog days of summer are.  Unless you like major league baseball, soccer, tennis, golf, world class poker tournaments, Lockdown on MSNBC in lieu of news reporting they are supposed to be doing, and Congressional childish wrangling over who hands over whose Tonka toy first to the hated enemy, summer is pretty deadly.  First, summer in St. George is hot.  Early day Mormon church official J. Golden Kimball is reputed to have said, "If I had to choose between living in Hell and living in St. George, I would choose to live in Hell."  Of course, that was before air conditioning, and J. Golden could only speculate about how hot Hell would be and since he was a righteous man other than a bit of slippage on damns and hells, he probably was excused from finding out.  Thus, we count the days until fall college football starts which, blessedly, won't have a lockout.  We hope the new season will be devoid of the usual spate of scandals.  But then the tug-of-war among millionaires in the NBA and NFL bodes ill to see who is going to have to sacrifice a Ferrari here, hot dog concession receipt there, to put all the spoiled brats back on the field and on the floor to beat each other up for another year.  At least the autumn months won't be so hot.  And at least we still have M*A*S*H reruns which should be good for another century.  Sorry Matlock, I'm sick of your reruns, and only a few episodes remain that I can still stand.  But I have digressed.  I don't know why I spend (waste?) so much time photographing, blogging, Twittering, and facebooking while we debate exactly how Paul Revere rode his horse and in what state of the Union he rode his horse in and whether stashers of wealth in off-shore accounts should cough up a few bucks to help us poor old sick people out for a few more years.  Have a nice day. (Memo to GOP: Ask your grandma if it's ok if you dim the lights on her Medicare).

My Wife's Guardians and Protectors

 
During the darkest and most difficult days of the last six months, when my wife was going to dialysis three days a week, cancer infusion two days a week, plus other appointments in pain management, dermatology, and dentists, I looked for anything I could think of to bring a smile and some encouragement.  I settled on a lion, a tiger, and a green caterpillar.  Now my wife is off dialysis, at least for now, and may soon go down to one cancer infusion per week while on remission.  We attribute much of the reason for her improvement to these faithful protectors and guardians who watched over her day and night and brought a smile each time my wife saw them or thought about them.

The Curmudgeonly Professor's Toiletry Chronicles Part 2: Shampoo and Conditioner

The Curmudgeonly Professor has prior heretofore enlightened my viewers about the difficulties of choosing a deodorant, opting for Old Spice with odor fighting "atomic robots" that "shoot lasers" at "stench monsters" and replaces them with clean, masculine "scent elves."  Since the world did not end yesterday, as planned, I have had the benefit of those scent elves and atomic robots shooting lasers at my stench monsters.

Which brings us now to the choice of shampoos and conditioners.  Unfortunately, my supply of alternative choices in this category has diminished.  For shampoo, my choices consist of (1) VO5 Herbal Escapes clarifying shampoo with "kiwi lime squeeze (registered trademark), lemongrass extract, promising richer lather and a clarifying shampoo.  On the back of the bottle, I find  I will experience ealth and vitality of natural herbal essence formula with the "fresh fragrance of sweet kiwis and tangy limes."  Moreover, the "clarifying formulal" includes rosemary and lemongrass extract, rosemary not being mentioned on the front of the bottle.  I have a monster rosemary bush by my front door and once in awhile rub a sprig between my fingers to have rosemary linger with me all day long. Now the second choice (2) is Suave Naturals "Juicy green apple, infused with apple extract and vitamin E, with longer lasting fragrance.  Besides it is hypo-allergenic.  Now here is a possible advantage:  Do I want to smell like a juicy green apple longer than I might otherwise have expected?  The back of the bottle promises the "crisp scent of orchard-grown apples as gentle cleansers to bring out the natural beauty of [my] hair.  Since my hair is thin, I'm not sure that natural beauty is a critical factor here.  Now for choice (3): Suave Professionals New 2 in 1 plus ph balanced for all hair types para todo tipo de cabello shampoo and conditioner.  But what will I smell like if I use it?  No promises are made.  Finally, in case I want to use a conditioner, I have a half-bottle of Suave naturals Citrus Smoothie infused with citrus extracts and milk proteins with the "fresh scent of oranges and grapefruits in a formula that restores shine to each strand."  Now this is critical, since my strands are fewer and farther between, so restoring shine to each strand could be a determining factor.

I lay awake nights worrying about the interaction of odors and smells from different toiletry products.  If you start out as a crip juicy apple, dump on some oranges and grapefruit, and then sic on the nucular atomic robots, won't all these scents get confused?  And we haven't even come to hair gel, shower soap, shave cream, after shave, or nasal decongestants.  Do these competing odors get confused if a plethora of multitudinous odors get applied one after the other?  And who or what takes priority?  Shouldn't we have a "juicy green apple suite" that includes all toiletries we need for the day so that we can, in fact, be infused with juicy green apple scent?  The Curmudgeonly Professor remains confused by the proliferation of alternative odors and scents and about how they all come together to produce one big obnoxious smell.  Have a nice day.  Watch for further installments of the Toiletries Chronicles.

The Curmudgeonly Professor Decides Which Deodorant to Use on the Last Day of the World

I wondered to begin with if I should even bother with deodorant today.  Like, who cares about deodorant if we go blooey at, what, 6:00 p.m. Pacific time?  In that event we will clearly have nothing whatsoever to worry about, including whether to use deodorant, and then, more complicated, what kind to use.  I usually collect toiletries based on sales stickers and then choose one at random.  Taking inventory this morning, I found three kinds of Mennen Speed Stick, one Arm and Hammer invisible solid, and one Old Spice deodorant.  My Speed Stick options were (1) great clean scent of ocean surf; (2) great clean fresh scent, and (3) great clean active fresh scent.  Quite a dilemma here:  All three options were great clean scents.  Did I want to smell like the ocean, to use plain old fresh, or did I need active fresh?  Only the Ocean Surf promised I would smell great all day.  Mennen is quite businesslike and straightforward with its deodorant container labeling, so the choice options were uncomplicated.

Then I checked out the Arm and Hammer Ultra Max which didn't promise anything, except to indicate the scent was fresh.  I hope so.  But the hit of the day came from my first time reading of the back of my Old Spice deodorant.  The front sounded promising, indicating that the deodorant was a long lasting, high endurance, Pure Sport scent.  But then, dear viewers, let us go to the revelations on the back:  "Contains odor-fighting 'atomic robots' that 'shoot lasers' at your 'stench monsters' and replaces them  with fresh, clean, masculine, 'scent elves."  That did it!  Nucular atomic robots shooting lasers at stench monsters!  Fresh, clean masculine, scent elves!  With those nucular robots attacking my stench monsters all day with lasers and providing me with a whole batch of scent elves making sure I smelled masculine, fresh, and clean, what more evidence did I need to be forced to choose Old Spice?  All day I will thank those nucular robots and scent elves.  Whoever wrote that bit of nonsense had obviously been the class clown all the way through school and found his or her niche in the advertising industry.  Happy Apocalypse Day!  And you can feel jealous if your deodorant is not as good as mine.

Good Samaratan For April 30 2011: Money isn't Everything

In this day and age of high repair bills, frequent breakdowns of all things mechanical and electronic, we tend to get a bit defensive and cynical about how often we need to fix things and how much it costs to do so.  Then along comes our water filter man who replaced the filters on our reverse osmosis filter in the kitchen to keep the crud out of the drinking water.  Then he noticed the water heater was about to go kaput, so to speak.  So we had him replace that.  He worked an hour and a half, and charged us only for an hour.  Then the next day we noticed a loud whine coming from the water softener filter, so we called our water filter man who promptly replaced the filter assembly.  Then he charged us only for the part.  No labor cost.  I protested that he needed something for his time.  To which he replied: "You have become my good customers.  Not only that, you have become my friends.  Isn't that what friends are supposed to do, take care of each other?"  I was stunned with admiration for a good and kindly man.  If only we could have an epidemic of such people.