Category Archives: That’s Life

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TILWROT VIII

I used to sing of Saints – but when I became an adult, I put away childish things – until I decided to do some research.

In Grade 7, I was reluctantly, shyly, protestingly, put in the school choir.  (I later realized that was why.)  Among others, we sang a song about Santa Lucia.  Recent childhood reminiscing brought it back to mind.  Other than the refrain about Santa Lucia, I don’t remember singing in Italian.  I decided to do some research.

I went to Bing, and just plugged in “Santa Lucia.”  I guess if your Tourist Board spends a couple of million dollars in promotion, the algorithm moves you to the top of the pile.  There was no mention of an Italian saint, or a cute song.  The entire first page was about Saint (not Santa) Lucia, an island near the Bahamas.

(Saint) Lucia’s father tried to sell her into sexual servitude through marriage, because it was standard procedure at the time.  She strongly protested, and insisted on remaining virginal, unwed, and a drain on her family – not because she objected to having some dirty old man stick it to her, but because he was a non-Christian pagan.

The surprise in my research about the song was when I found out that it wasn’t about Santa Lucia.  It was about the Santa Lucia cove section of Naples Bay.  It is a barcarole, a song sung by gondoliers, to entice potential customers to rent their boats.

Gondolas at Naples??!  We all know about them at Venice, where the shallow, deeply indented bay and canal system suppresses storm waves, and makes these oversize canoes reasonably safe – but in an open bay??

So, this little song was never about a purported saint.  It was just an advertising jingle.  I might as well have been singing about “Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.” only, those hadn’t been invented when I was a kid.

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Blog Theme Prompt – What Romance Means To Me

I envy those who marry for love – I really do, but despite the almost universal consensus of feel-good books and movies, I actually see it so seldom.  I only personally know of two couples who did it – and in one case, it was his fourth attempt, and her second – although, after more than ten years, it seems to be working.

My 35-year-old, divorced Mother returned to our home town.  Quite soon, friends and family introduced her to a 28-year-old bachelor from a nearby town – because they both needed to be married. There was some respect and admiration, but it was several years before they learned to live as a unit.  There were some sharp points that never got filed off.

Her younger, fail-to-launch brother lived at home until their parents both died, and he inherited the house.  Then, he needed someone to cook and clean.  The same group found him a war-widow from the same town as my Dad.  Their marriage lasted many years, but could best be described as an alcohol-soaked armed truce.

At least my 16-year-old sister waited until she married her hard-drinking, partier boyfriend, before she started popping out babies.  My brother quietly married his girlfriend shortly after they found that she was pregnant.  She waited till he went to work one Friday, and moved herself, their two high school-aged daughters, and almost all the furniture, out.

With my low-level autism/Aspergers, I didn’t (and don’t) catch social cues well.  In retrospect, I think there were a couple of females who made overtures, but I was not socially, emotionally, or financially ready for marriage.  If I’d got some girl pregnant, we’d have wound up living in a dead-end small town, with me working at a gas station, as my brother did for a while.

I absorbed as much education/training as I could, and got my first real, full-time job, before I married the first woman who seemed willing to put up with me.  This was the one who bragged to the neighbors that she married a smart man, because smart men made more money – enough to support her in the style that she wished to become accustomed to.  This was a socio-economic pact, similar to Middle Ages marriage contracts.  I do something for her, and our growing family, and she does something for me and the kids.

Her older siblings all seemed to have moved out and got married to escape an arrogant, overbearing, abusive, Catholic-crazy father.  Of the eight siblings, only one couple ever seemed to show true love and affection.  The rest were all the result of social expectation and financial support.  Romance did not seem to be in common supply.

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Silence Is Golden

Silence is golden.

“The universe,” wrote astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, “is under no obligation to make sense to you,” and, for the most part, it doesn’t, to anyone. Beyond the incomprehensibility of quantum mechanics—and our inability to reconcile the main branches of physics—we’ve only managed to discover, after 500 years of groping in the dark, a meager 5 percent of the observable universe. The other 95 percent, physicists tell us, is composed of imperceptible dark matter and dark energy, surmised to exist based only on its impact on the small sliver of reality that has managed to sift its way through our pitiable and corruptible senses.

Basing grand proclamations about the ultimate nature of the universe—including the existence or nonexistence of God—on this shaky and incomplete foundation is unjustifiable and, frankly, utterly foolish. Isn’t it clear, that we’re all, for want of a better phrase, just making shit up?

As long as your belief system allows my belief system to live, we can be friends.  However, if your belief system makes my belief system wrong or evil, I fear we will never walk this earth together in peace and harmony. 

The moment we step past what is immediately given and begin speculating about the “ultimate nature” of things, we invite agitation, disagreement, and distress. Better, then, to withhold judgment altogether.

 

I’ve got nothing else to say.

Do you have anything to say?

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Altered Allegiance

 

I recently read a blogpost from a guy who said that it just added up that Mathematics was his favorite subject as a scholar.  Post-post-secondary education, he began to read more and more, and for personal pleasure, not just mathematical problems.  A train leaves Chicago at noon, heading west at 65 MPH….

He found that he really liked language usage, and that English had become his favorite subject.  Hey, any friend of English, is a friend of mine.  He said that he came to appreciate the puns, the alliteration, the similes, the metaphors, the rhymes, and the plot twists in Shakespeare’s plays.

SCUREETCH!!  WHUUUTT??

I think he oughta read his Shakespeare again.  Even though his plays were performed at the Royal Court, Wild Bill wrote for the groundlings – the very common commoners.  He was about as subtle as a brick through a plate glass window.  We never discovered at the denouément, that Ophelia was an LGBTQ water safety instructor, that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were essential-oil MLM scammers, or that Yorick didn’t actually die.  He entered the Witness Protection Plan, and is happily working, making lingonberry Danish pastries in a little bakery in Copenhagen, under the name, Lars Larsen.

Read on, Macduff
I can never seem to get enough.

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Mistaken Identity

I once had to hire a Production Control clerk, a position that required a certain attention to detail.  The experience was…. interesting, amusing, and educational.

Back before the Interwebz were invented, hand-written and typed applications came flooding in, stapled to resumés, hand-delivered, mailed, and couriered. I didn’t feel that it was a good idea to examine each day’s batch, and then have to go back to review today’s against tomorrow – and tomorrow – and tomorrow.

I set a one-week limit, and blocked out a chunk of Friday afternoon to examine them all.  I had accumulated a pile of 50 applications.  It didn’t take long.  Within an hour, 45 of them were in the garbage.

The winner of the losers was a young man who claimed four years of experience at another, similar, metal-fabrication shop.

ONLY….

Not in Production Control, but as a machine operator in the plant.  He told me that he had put in four years, working for SAIL Engineering.  I would have given him credit for on-the-job training,

ONLY….

The company was founded by a local German family named SEHL, so the company was SEHL Engineering.

ONLY….

Three years before his claimed start date, it was absorbed by a larger corporation, and for the entire four years that he spent there, it was named Ledco.

I couldn’t doubt his employment stint, but I was amazed at his astounding lack of attention to the detail of who had been issuing his paychecks.  Thank you for your submission.  Don’t call us.  We’ll call you.

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Sex Across The Room

A youngish, socially-active, female co-worker once said to me, “Have you ever looked at someone across the room, and said to yourself, ‘I’m going to have sex with them?”

My response was that it was something that only females would say – unless the guy was like Bill Cosby, Jeffrey Epstein, or Paul Bernardo.

Much against the advice and urgings of her doctor, she insisted on having her tubes tied when she was 21.  He wanted her to wait until at least 25 – or better, 30 – just in case she decided, later in life, that she wanted to have children.  She at least was smart enough to know that she would never have made a mother, much less a good one.

I read the book, Men Are From Mars; Women Are From Venus.

A woman will give sex, to get love.
A man will give love, to get sex.

Biologically-speaking, it is to a man’s best interest, to have sex with as many females as possible, to spread and ensure the continuation of his genetic makeup.
Biologically-speaking, it is to a woman’s best interest to have a man around to feed and protect her and any offspring.

Neither of these paths are RIGHT, or WRONG, although the second option has almost universally been adopted, by almost every culture except the American Negroes, where the welfare state has caused the rate of single-motherhood to rise from 20%, to 70% in the last fifty years.

Many women have become so habituated to the social norm, that they grow to be as bad as some men in their entitled, controlling hold on their support partners.  To even mentally appreciate another female is viewed as a thought-crime, or worse, a sin, and fraught with ownership, and jealousy.

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Blogging Comedy

 

I started a blog about procrastination.  I’ll publish the first post tomorrow

Blogging is the only job where you can spend three hours writing, two hours editing, and the rest of the day refreshing the page to see if your mom left a comment.

I once wrote a blog post titled “How to Go Viral.”

It got three views—two were me checking for typos, and one was a bot from Russia.

My editor once criticized my blog….
….He said that double negatives were a “no-no.”

I wrote a scientific blog-post about Oxygen and Potassium….
….It was OK

I wrote a blog-post about pregnancy, and used ‘can’t, and ‘won’t.’….
….My first comment said, “You’re having contractions.”

A newly published novelist wrote in her blog that her 100,000-word thriller got her $1,000,000 from her publisher.

She bragged at a party that her words are worth $10 each. A slightly drunk guy walked up, confronted her by the bar, plopped down $10 and says “OK, wise ass, give me one of those $10 words.” The writer calmly stuffed the bill in her pocket, said “Thanks” and walked away.

There are just too many blogs – and I will discuss the problem in my next post.

I went to Church and said, “Father, I need to confess.”
He replied, “It’s okay, I read your blog.”

I blog, therefore I am….
….exhausted.

Blogged today. Survived another existential crisis.

If I had a dollar for every blog idea I never finished, I could hire a ghostwriter.

Fashion bloggers do it with style.

Food bloggers know how to dish it out.

Behind every successful blogger….
….is a neglected laundry pile.

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’26 A To Z Challenge – A

The Advent Of
Archon

The basis of my Archon alias is lost in the mists of history – literally.  My Grade 11 Greek history text had a story about the king of Sparta dying in battle.  His only son was just 12 years old, and the law insisted that he had to be 18 to assume rule.  Seven of the king’s closest friends and advisors formed a group of mentors called The Archons, who protected and trained him until he became of age.

That seemed to be the type of person I wanted to be, so I dragged the term with me through my life, applying it here and there, instead of my all-too-common and easily-confused real name.  When I registered with LinkedIn, it was as The Sage.

Later, I found that the term and concept also applied to other, and older, situations, especially among the fervently religious.  The name comes from the Greek, Arch – first, most powerful, most important.  My Bible with a concordance, says that there are 13 references to Archons, but they all speak of clan elders, city rulers, or chief Rabbis.  I cannot find the word Archon in the Bible.

Opinions are like assholes – everybody’s got one.  Some of the more-zealous Bible-thumpers think/believe that the Archons were the Nephilim – the giants who lived on the Earth before man was created.  Other equally-gullible convinced, feel that they are the seven arch-angels.  Another – just-as-sure and just-as-wrong – group insists that they are the seven major demons.  I found this bunch when I made negative comments on Christian blog-posts, and had them dismissed because I was obviously an agent of Satan.

There is only one Archon©™, accept no substitutes.  My super-hero name is much better than my secret identity.  Under it, I have had a paroled convict check in by phone – at 2 AM.  We finally listed the phone under the wife’s initials.  It helps sort out the scammers who want to talk to MR. J. T. Smith.

A teacher at the local Community College where I once attended, and worked for three months as a substitute teacher, has the same name.  I’ve been sued because a contractor from 50 miles away, cut down a tree to build a house further up my street.  I’ve been threatened – by phone – because somebody’s transmission fell apart.  The bank bounced three rent checks, because they couldn’t keep two accounts straight.  I got someone else’s dental anesthetic – and then I got my own, and my face fell off for the rest of the day.  Recently, I received mail for a guy who lives four miles away, in a different voting district.  I’m trying to find how the sender got my address.

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Blog Prompt 6-7/8ths

Scour the news for an entirely uninteresting story. Consider how it connects to your life. Write about that.

This prompt reads like it was composed by a Taylor Swift fan, or a MAGA hat speech attendee.  If it is entirely uninteresting, how could it possibly connect to my life??  Okay, here goes….

Back in January of last year, an ostrich farm in British Columbia had three or four of their flock die because of avian flu.  The owners destroyed the diseased birds, and there was no further indication of infection.  Around the first of August, the inappropriate government agency, working at the breakneck speed of smell, notified them that they had to euthanize the balance of a 3000-bird flock.  Appeal is still pending.

Watch how I string this together, like beads on a necklace.

I have attended several Renaissance Faires.  One of the few, historically-accurate foods sold, are entire, roast, turkey legs.  One of those will keep a normal adult male busy all afternoon – or a hyperactive kid about ten minutes.

Vendors would need larger roasters/smokers, and the captive-audience price could break the food budget, but a whole, roast ostrich leg could feed a family of four or five.

I had one emu burger at a French-fry wagon.  It tasted like chicken – ‘cause everything tastes like chicken –at twice the price.

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’25 A To Z Challenge – Z

This is the final episode of the 2025 A To Z Challenge.  I wanted to end the series with a bang, but this is what has become the standard, two-days-late, so I can’t do that.  Besides, it’s almost impossible, with a word beginning with Z.  I don’t want to go out with a whine.  I do enough of that without a challenge, so I decided to go out with a

ZHUZH

To make something more stylish, lively, or attractive:

It comes from a language/dialect known as Polari, originating in the mid-1800’s British theater workers, or gay community – often the same thing.

I’ve written about Polari before.  I finally, actually, saw/heard the word Zhuzh used, in a YouTube short.  We went to a party store, and bought a bunch of decorations to Zhuzh up the apartment for Christmas and New Years.  It sounds as gay as it looks.  I will not be using it in conversations or blog-posts – any more!

Some more (hopefully) humorous fibs will be coming up on Friday.  Hope to see you then.  😀