so sez an THE ONION headline a few years back.  Can anyone argue with that?  This probably goes for you Canadians, and Europeans, as well!

I was at a home office work function/meeting a couple years back, and usually try to pick up a few copies of The ONION from a corner kiosk.  I give two or three away to co-workers who apparently can’t or don’t walk to the corner and get one for themselves.

I was sitting between meetings chuckling over my copy when co-worker John Duran walks up, wrinkles his nose, and says “You realize that’s bogus, don’t you?  Not real news, it’s all made up.”

It just so happened the main headline was that, above, in the title space.  I stabbed at the phrase with my index finger, announcing, “I don’t know what THAT means” (stealing a glance up at the ubiquitous ceiling monitor in the room’s corner), “but I think they’re on to something here.”  John sputtered for a few seconds, his initial look of concern and wanting to enlighten the idiot changing slightly to more concern mixed with disbelief.  He turned and walked away.

seasonsgreetings_jan_10

Please do try to “open” the above ‘link’ up.  (I don’t know why I can’t make it easier and visible here, but, well, if you can view it, “you’ll see.”)

It should show:  betty and ‘serena’ demonstrate the hypnotic power of the internet.

perhaps they are looking at HYPNO-TOAD from Futurama — or being asked to provide bank account information into which will be deposited the millions betty won from some huge on-lying lottery.

Serena, Magpie. and Jackychann sit too close to the big screen t.v.  They like “The Nature Channel.”

Nothing to do with glowing (w)rectangles here — Betty with her two grandsons and the grandsons’ mother.  Henry is one day old.

Smoked fish, anyone?

Rosco and ‘sonny-boy’ got hammered at a race (the Strawberry Shortcut 10k) in Glenwood Springs a few years back.  Age group winners received these — with small plaques on the handle with pertinent race data.

Betty keeps mine (it’s hers, now) in the kitchen to tap in tacks and the occasional nail.

I woke up at, uh, buddphughk-30 this a.m. and knew that goin’ back to sleep with any modicum of ease was not going to be easy, for many minutes. Many.

So, I thought. Real writers would get up at times like this and go out to the barn and put words to paper. Light a candle, or three, sit at the desk, and write. And coffee. And I had ideas. I was, well, not so clever, but clever enough … and the sentences and phrases kept on coming. Maybe not rectangles, but, at times, ovals, do they make screens in triangles? Anyway … I thought ahead to not so many months, not even years from now, when perhaps I would regularly get up mid-pre-dawn/post-midnight and go out to the barn and write. As the prescription recommends: two or so hours every day, first thing in the morning.

Maybe … I’ll adjust to that. (Butt) The force of sleep and sluggishness and inertia is strong in this one.