March Madness

I am so mad about this "madness" that I can hardly see straight.  As a curmudgeon, I don't even like it when US Presidents interrupt TV for various speeches, especially since rebutters and news "analysis" generally follow, adding nothing but tedium to the overall spectacle.

So I looked into this madness thing.  Apparently, it is nothing more than college basketball playoffs.  And this is worthy of interrupting my usual TV schedule?  Worse, there may have been a Matlock or Murder She Wrote marathon planned.  If I wanted to watch basketball, I would have gone to a game or subscribed to some weird college-covering cable channel.

But no - valuable major network time is squandered on this stuff.  This clearly demonstrates the value of "major network time."

History

History was perhaps the most boring class in high school.  It didn't help that the curmudgeon was trapped senior year in a history class - honors, of course - run by a pompous saved-only-by-tenure teacher who managed to put the final nail in the history coffin.

Enter the History Channel.  Suddenly history was interesting and engaging.  I finally learned what that yo-yo was pretending to teach in high school and appreciated it.  Then, idiotically chasing ratings, the History Channel decided to branch out into more generally popular entertainment shows.  I withstood the initial onslaught, ignoring the occasional Pawn Star or Ax Men, but when they hit upon "Full Metal Jousting," that was it.

I lost total respect for the history channel on this one.  Thank goodness for the H2 channel - it's safe for now.

The new world of Veterinarians

Let's be frank here: Vets are eschewing farm animal husbandry for the more profitable suburban pet business.  In addition, they are eagerly pumping this business for all it is worth by making pet owners feel guilty if pets don't get virtually human-like care and treatment.  

The curmudgeon, who rarely, if ever, needed to take his first cat to the vet has fallen prey to this insidious plot.  Having occasionally needed to board his cats when traveling, the first thing they got me on was the "your cats need a physical and be current on all vaccinations first" ploy.  Vaccinations??  Physicals??  Annually??  You know you're in for it now.

Then there's the "your cats should have their teeth cleaned" ploy.  This ploy attempts to avoid mentioning it will be $350 for fear of scaring off the sale.  HUMAN teeth get cleaned for way less than that.  And don't get me started on when a pet actually NEEDS to go to the Vet.  The sky's the limit.

One pines for simpler times, when the Vet was the last place you wanted to be, aside from your own doctor's office.

When technology bites you in the %#@

I used to know the intricacies of HOW things worked back when the technical world was my oyster.  Now it takes all my technical prowess just to try to figure out how to MAKE things work.  Currently I'm thinking I'll have to go back to the dealer just to sync my phone with the new car.  And it doesn't end there. I'm looking for a remote - I've pulled out 6 and no luck yet, I have 6 more in a drawer downstairs - nada, and I'm not counting the 5 cable remotes in service, so we're up to what, 17?

At least I know where the 18th remote, the one for my patio lamps is.  And the 19th, the one for the ceiling fan, and the 20th, the one for the air conditioner, but I really would like #21 for my outdoor speaker now that it's spring.

How can I float around in the pool this summer with my little remote #21 safely encased in a Baggie if I can't find the damn thing?  This is big.

The Color Blue

The color blue is a happy color - the color of the sky, the color of the ocean, certain birds and flowers.  It is all the more notable because it stands proudly in contrast to Nature's overwhelming greens and earth tones.  The curmudgeon was always partial to it and hence a blue sailboat, blue Director chair covers, blue awnings on the house, my starter BMW, even this blog.

However, it does NOT belong on fingernails.  Blue fingernails are downright scary.  Attached to the human body like that, blue becomes unearthly like the ick factor of tongues after eating a blue Popsicle.  Unnatural.  And scary. 

Wicked Witches of the North and their ilk wear blue nail polish - it suits witches.

Junior

Who nicknames their kid "Junior"?  On the receiving end, who would want to be CALLED "Junior" after, like, age 12?  It is questions like these that haunt the orderly world of a curmudgeon.

Take a "Junior" I actually knew - I was 8 or so, and he was, like, 50 and bald.  He was somehow attached to our extended Maine family and therefore part of the annual visitation rounds we were dragged through upon arrival each summer.  I think his real name was Herbert, so I have a sense why he accepted "Junior" rather than living with "Herbie".  But, come on, he was no "Junior" to an 8 year old.

Then there's Tony DiNozzo on NCIS.  His father calls him "Junior".  The excuse there is that his dad is Robert Wagner, and, well, Robert Wagner can do pretty much whatever he wants in my book.  

So I repeat - who nicknames their kid "Junior"?

It's All In The Timing

Have you ever dwelt upon the timing of your existence here on earth?  Would you have preferred to have lived in some period in the past or even the future?

I have given this unusual topic considerable thought due to certain severe setbacks during my life.  For example, had I been born all of a year earlier, I would have been able to enjoy Senior Privileges in high school - you know, getting out of each class 3 minutes earlier than underclassmen so the seniors could socialize in the halls or go to their lockers to change books so they didn't have to carry so many around.  And don't get me started on missing out on the exclusive use of the school's front door for seniors.  After being the victim of these egregious privileges as an underclassman, they were yanked MY senior year!  Good thing that "bring a loaded automatic to school" thing hadn't been invented yet.

College was no better - maid service (weekly bed sheet changes and room cleaning) WAS YANKED my freshman year.  What the heck kind of Ivy League college does that?  No wonder we occupied the President's office.

So if one or two years could have made such a huge difference in my life, what difference might decades or centuries have made?

It fair boggles the mind.

Uniform Theory of Dress

Since I brought up attire last time, I feel I should complete my coverage of this topic.  There is all manner of devilry afoot, and you need to know.

In the past, when a young girl showed up on your doorstep in a Girl Scout uniform, you knew cookies were afoot.  If you saw a kid in a Boy Scout uniform, you knew you could be safely escorted across the street.  If you were in a hospital you could readily recognize a nurse.  These days, you don't know what the heck is going on. 

Where, one asks, are the uniforms that traditionally made this so simple?  We scouts wore our merit badges with pride.  Why, as late as the 70s, good ole' white nursing uniforms were still worn - cute hat included.  I know this to be true because I saw it on an old Hawaii Five-0.  And I know Jack Lord wouldn't mislead me.

Business casual was another nail in the proper attire coffin.  Some people actually had to be advised that sweat clothes were not what we had in mind when we said "business casual".  Others, trying to raise kids and live the American dream had never invested in attire that fell between blue jeans and suits, and were put out that they had to invest in new clothes.  All this, and the feeling that things weren't as crisp and organized as before - the very clothing style name has "casual" in it - didn't bode well for American business.

Proper attire DOES guide behavior.  Does no one remember the grade school story "Clothes Make the Man"?

Pajamas

Pajama bottoms in public - have you seen this?  It's enough to turn your stomach.  For the curmudgeon, it's enough to empty my stomach.

Heck, I was unsettled when sweat clothes began to appear in public places that had nothing to do with exercising.  All it takes is a trickle before the idiot floodgates open and we have once again lowered the "appropriate dress" bar.

History is clear on this.  For example, when my sainted wife and I honeymooned in Bermuda, we prepared for jackets and ties at dinner and golfing attire when we weren't at the beach - that was the appropriate Bermuda attire.  But one young buck showed up at dinner one night with just an open-necked shirt.  Did he slink out in embarrassment and return properly dressed?  Nooo.  And the next night other young idiots followed HIS lead.  A trickle of poor taste turned into a flood.

Such appears to be our fate - sweats are in restaurants already and soon, pajamas.  I fear what may be next.  Togas?  Just shoot me.

Driving Right - It's Not Hard

The curmudgeon has been driving for many, many years and I thought I would share some observations on driving behavior for the benighted drivers that clutter the roadways.

Driving Tips:

 - You are not the only person on the road.

 - If I am the only car in sight, no need to pull out in front of me.

 - A corollary is that if I am the last driver in a line of cars, carefully following at the correct  

    distance, it isn't an invitation to cut in front of me - wait one more car, it won't kill you.

 - The fast lane on a multi-lane highway is just that - whoever wants to exceed your speed gets it.

 - Waiting for that parking spot to open up for anything longer than a minute only broadcasts how

    astonishingly lazy you are - the walk from a more distant, currently open spot will do you good.

 - That lever on the left side of your steering column permits you to actually signal other drivers of

    your lane changes and turns.

More in the next installment of "Driving Right - It's Not Hard"

All Hail Lipitor

The curmudgeon was out recently dining with old friends.  Now the cynical among you might wonder - were they old in the sense that they had been friends for a long time (something a curmudgeon wouldn't like to acknowledge unless they too were curmudgeons) or were they, like yours truly, simply old age-wise.  In this case they were both, but it was the latter attribute that bears on today's peeve.


All we talked about were our medical "complaints"!  This is a scary sign of REALLY being old.  "My lumbago is acting up", "where do bunions come from anyhow?", "these are liver spots aren't they?", the scares just kept coming.  And try to change the subject while this frenzy is going on.  Forget it - the conversation eerily returns to things like "that reminds me - I get this weird pain at 2 in the morning", and "are your knees bothering you too?"   Worst of all are the free medical diagnoses - "you probably have what I had last year - try an herbal tea compress just before bedtime" - "I would try this new drug - worked for me."


And then there are the pill count comparisons: "yeah, I'm up to 3 pills every day," "that's nothing - I take 7."  And the inevitable "wow, we all take Lipitor don't we?"


To my great relief, the food arrives.

White Dust

I believe I mentioned in one of my observations that my wife likes to paint.  OK, OK, I mentioned it two days ago.  But, like an episode of Seinfeld,  I've got intertwined themes going here - I also mentioned painting was part of decorating creep.  As the dreaded creep is still underway, we have just lived through the painting part.


This time, much to the chagrin of my wallet, my wife actually hired real painters.  And repainting the new kitchen wasn't sufficient - let's repaint the hall and the stairway and the master bath, too.  Well, let me tell you, neither one of us realized what we were in for.  They taped plastic up to every opening in the house, draped plastic over coats INSIDE downstairs closets, put paper down on the floors, took an ENTIRE DAY just to apply spackle, and then the dreaded sanding bit commenced. 


White dust everywhere (my forced hot air heating system thoughtfully obliging by evenly distributing said white dust throughout the house).  A total of 4 days of going out for meals (plastic covering every kitchen surface and all), and trying to understand questions asked of us in broken spanish-accented english.


But, we're done and everything is beautiful - or one would think.  You didn't forget the decorating creep element in all this, did you?  Well, the master bedroom doesn't look so good anymore, and we were intending to redo the guest bedroom weren't we? 


All I can picture is white dust.  Does anyone have the number for the Merry Maids?

When White was White

The curmudgeon has considerable experience painting things: boats, houses, more boats, buoys, and did I mention boats?  Lots of them, lots of times (read: every spring).  And hated every minute of it.  I had no idea that when I got married, I married a painter.  My sainted wife LOVES to paint.  What a deal!


This is when I was shown a fact of life that I had been blessedly ignorant of: white is not always white.  Despite painting white boats white (did I mention over and over again?), I had never been privy to decorator's evil plot that white isn't merely white.  When my wife brought home a paint mysteriously labelled "OW-6", I assumed it was some secret trim paint formula.  Not so!  It actually stood for "Off White #6".  They were numbered!  There could be thousands!  


I reeled.


Today, the whites don't scare me as much.  But I need to double-check just what white I've been using on the boats all these years.  I need to know that it's just plain ole' white - no number.

Hard Water

Aah, hard water - tastes great, makes you feel squeeky clean after a shower, it is the stuff manly men are made of.  The curmudgeon, ever trying to convince myself that I am one, insists on hard water.  Also, since a water softener costs a lot of money and entails toting around 50-pound bags of salt, the call I made to stay with hard water was an easy one.


But, there is a downside...well, a few downsides.  Lime and calcium deposits coat the inside of pipes (in a 70 year old house, like cholesterol in a 70 year old body, this is not necessarily a good thing), cling to faucets, make rings and other icky stains in toilets, etch clear glass shower stalls...all manner of evidence of being a stoic manly man.


And the lawn and gardens love it.  Who am I to argue with Mother Nature?

Allegedly Fast Food

I have a peeve.  "Say it isn't so!" you may cry, but as a curmudgeon I am duty-bound to report such things.

As background, I must also report that I am quite the fan of fast food emporiums, be they McDonalds, Wendy's, Arby's or yes, even Taco Bell.  Good food fast, generally handily close by (unless you live, as I do, in one of those self-important New Jersey towns that do not permit such scum to sully their quaint historical image), and still a reasonably good deal.  So how can I have a peeve, you may ask.  Easy: Drive Thru vs. dining inside.

These places actually measure how long people wait in their cars in the Drive Thru lane so they can make sure lazy customers are not disappointed by a long wait.  Good for them, you may aver, but the crux is that THOSE DINING INSIDE GET SECOND PRIORITY!!  As an inside diner, I have observed this inequality personally - and gosh do I get steamed.

But I need my fast food fix, so I simply behave sullenly.  Hah!  I show them!  Anyway, who can imagine trying to eat a Taco Bell menu item in a car?  It fair gives me the creeps.  

Denny's

As much as it may pain you, stalwart readers, to hear this, but the curmudgeon is not perfect.  I have my weaknesses.  They are, of course, few and far between, but there it is.


Denny's is one.  How can you beat a casual eatery open 24 hours a day, serving up cholesterol-ridden meals, and best of all having specials like baconalia and cheese sauce month?  This is a diet I cannot refuse.  Unfortunately, this being New Jersey, the nearest Denny's is 20 miles away in some central NJ town called Avenel.  This is not good.  We're talking 20 miles of central NJ traffic, not a Texas cakewalk on the Interstate.  And worse, when you arrive, you're in Avenel (it's near the Jersey Turnpike, so you get the picture).


You might have noticed my use of the word "stalwart".  Well, I too am stalwart and I bear the pain of a nearly Denny's-free existence stoically.  I also race to the nearest one when I'm out of town.

Cleanliness is next to...

The curmudgeon is desperately trying to get used to his new granite kitchen countertops, but it seems a hopeless quest to discover if they are clean.  The busy pattern, of course, cleverly hides all manner of spills and the usual detritus of the cooking bit.  


Whose idea was this?  My Formica counters literally broadcast where they were dirty.  Granite HIDES the dirt - in the very place you want to be assured things are clean!  It's like all the new densely patterned persian rugs that the curmudgeon's sainted wife couldn't resist at Einstein Moomjy's going out of business sale - when one of the cats horks up a hairball, you don't know it until you step on it.


The reverse is true for the current popularity of stainless steel appliances - they broadcast every chance encounter with the human body: fingerprints, swipes, you name it.  Happily, we didn't fall prey to this insidious plot and are awaiting the resurgence of sanity and properly (read non-70s) colored appliances.


I, personally, blame HGTV.

Entertaining

The curmudgeon's sainted wife loves to entertain - candlelight dinner parties, pool parties, riparian dinners, the works.  I, on the other hand, am a curmudgeon.  This is essentially the antithesis of entertaining.  The Curmudgeon Handbook doesn't even cover this topic since it was written, well, by curmudgeons.  The word on the street, though, is just to lay low and concentrate on your favorite Matlock for strength.


The scariest thing about my wife's entertaining, however, is not the event, but the fact that she loves to try out fancy new recipes ON GUESTS.  The first time she did this I was horrified.  Not only because the guests were my family, but also because back in my pre-curmudgeon wild & crazy single days I had practiced all my recipes on myself before I sprung them on unsuspecting guests.  The second time she did this, it was a crown roast, and as I pranced into the butcher to pick it up, I confidently whipped out a 20 only to discover it was more like $50.  


It rode home with a seatbelt on.