The Joy of Flying

In order to "whisk" myself away to this little slice of paradise, I had to endure quite the gauntlet.

Newark Airport is a reasonably modern airport and VERY busy.  That must be why they haven't had the time to put clocks in the concourses to keep harried travelers informed.

And, of course, there's Homeland Security.  The very definition of wretched excess. They steered me into the line with those twirling machines that show off your whole body, but typically, the line was at a standstill.  When their backs were turned, I simply slid over to the normal X-ray line and zipped through.  

In either line, it's still no shoes, no belt, no wallet, no combs even: just you & your clothes go through.  If these new machines are so good, do tell - WHY can't they tell a comb from a weapon?

But there's hope: if you're over 75, you don't have to take your shoes off!  

Far From the Madding Crowd

I have whisked myself away to a quiet, out-of-the-way place off the coast of Florida.  You know, the sort of place that would appeal to, well, a curmudgeon.

I'm staying at a place called "Casa Ybel," which, I am told, is Spanish for  "the  castle - it pretty."  Although no castle is in sight, neither are crowds, loud radios, overweight people in thongs nor vigorous beach ball or frisbee competitions that are commonly found on New Jersey beaches.  Mostly sun, shells, sand, wind & waves. 

A bit of alright.

The Unshaven Look Pt. II

Painful as it is, I return (see last February's in-depth coverage) to this pox upon civilized man.  As I mentioned back in February, I was hoping it was just a fad.  Unfortunately, it has shown a regrettable unwillingness to wither and die as it should.

In the meantime, I have been searching for more courageous people to speak up on behalf of we more fully evolved sorts.  The Curmudgeon Society Generale, despite fierce lobbying on my part, hasn't taken up the cause.

Well, I've found the definitive movie moment that should give pause to followers of this odious practice.  In a scene from To Have and Have Not, Bogey, just back from a few arduous days on the high seas, moves in to embrace and kiss Lauren Bacall.  Looking at his scraggly appearance, she stops him and says:  "Why don't you shave for me and we'll try it again?"

Classy lady.

Kale Chips

The Curmudgeon has been put on a diet.  This couch potato life does have a drawback, in that snacks are handy and marathons and other forms of vigorous exercise are unlikely.

So I agreed to a diet.  They all have names, apparently, and although I'm not quite sure why the names have no relation to any of their dietary details, I was given one with a nice-sounding name: the South Beach diet.

The principle feature of this diet is to separate me from virtually every foodstuff I have come to love.  It is rife with vegetables (something any sane red meat eater would assume was just the garnish on his medium-rare steak platter), myriad forms of lettuce (often looking more like weeds one often sees at the side of the road), and not just jello but SUGAR FREE jello for dessert (isn't that stuff fake enough?).  The list goes downhill from there.

Then my sainted wife brought home the coup de grace: Kale Chips.  They are easy to describe - Letterman did so recently - they look just like you scraped that grass accumulation from under your mower and boxed it up for $3 an ounce.

Pretty much tastes like it too.  

The New World of Furniture

What is the point of "maturing" from cable-reel coffee tables and director chairs to real furniture that you can't put your feet up on?  All "real" furniture does is force you to polish it and treat it nice, like using "coasters" to keep it looking like new. 

Lines need to be drawn here - the way (and pace) my knees are going, comfort and convenience should be the driver, not keeping things spiffed up for the increasingly mythical guest.  I'm done spiffing - I think its high time I start to redraw the line, sort of let it relax as I age.  

I live in a neighborhood where the line is drawn pretty tightly - beautiful lawns, impeccable landscaping, freshly painted houses, tasteful interior decor.  Who wants to keep up with THAT load of crap?  The real estate person never mentioned these subtle, unspoken pressures when I was sold the house.

I should simply move to a less demanding neighborhood.  And put my feet up.

Socially Redeeming TV

It is rare that one finds a TV show that is intelligent, well-written, deals appropriately with social issues of the day, and yet entertains in a wholesome way.  Such is the beauty of South Park.

South Park tackles the tough issues of today in an informative and balanced way.  For example, they exposed parental fear of sex and bad language rotting their precious offspring's brains while these same parents fiercely defended violent shows and games; they've touched upon theology, as in a well thought-out history of the Mormon faith; they've explored typical childhood lessons, like Butters starting an innocent girl-kissing business at school that turns into a pimping business.

Plus invaluable insights into the wretched excesses of Homeland Security and the dangers of leaving the toilet seat down(!) and even late-breaking news!

I sleep better knowing informative TV like South Park's got my back.

Color Organs

What, you may moan in despair, is the curmudgeon on about now?  Well, dear readers, I, too, was youthful once, and had my moments.  One was to design and build what was being referred to in the music world as a color organ.

A bit of history will no doubt help here - it was 1969, Jimi Hendrix was actually alive, and the Filmore East was using lame colored oils on a vu-graph machine to keep the acid heads entertained visually while Jerry Garcia was off on another riff.

A color organ was a better device to make music come alive visually.  Remember - 1969 - no MTV, no cable TV, Bonanza was the #3 show only because Gunsmoke was ahead of it.  The term "visual vacuum" barely covers.  Anyway, in a color organ, different colored lights in the unit would blink in time to music with the colors depicting different frequencies.

But the decisions - how high are the high notes you want to see in blue, which bass notes deserve red alone, letting yellow and orange handle voice?  Plus discrete circuit design gets into which resistors are needed, how big a power transformer, how to get the gated transistors to fire right.  But I persevered!  My mission was compelling (good sex this year at college) and my college room senior year was going to be the bomb - control panel for music, lights, alarm clock, even electric blanket control integrated into the top of the color organ, manly brown burlap on the walls, a built-in fridge.  Heck, the stereo would come on as I unlocked the door.  

My reward?  Fantastic sex, no?  No, a young woman screeching "a room full of toys!!" about sums it up.

Ahh, but the color organ never disappointed - good design.  Poor design intent.

Opposable Thumbs

I must admit that I am quite pleased to have opposable thumbs.  As we all know, they come in quite handy (heh) and are a key evolutionary reason for our success.

So I have to wonder why anyone would intentionally thwart that very feature of the human anatomy.  I'm speaking, of course, of people with ridiculously long fingernails.

I was at the drug store recently, and when I went to check out, I got a cashier with nails over 2" long.  She, needless to say, was able to do all that checkout stuff, but it was literally painful to think about how she handled certain fundamentals of life - you know, intimate personal things...powder room stuff.  Yecch.

I guess a career in watch repair isn't in her future.

Curmudgeons Rule?

I recently saw the movie "Contagion."  Of course, being a cheapskate, er, careful with money that is, I waited until it showed up on cable.  And I learned an important lesson from this movie - curmudgeons are ideally suited to resisting infections spread by touch or through the air.  Think about it - we naturally eschew companionship, rarely expose ourselves to crowds, shop intelligently at hours when things are least crowded - in short, we have developed a key survival skill.

And we do so naturally.  No wonder our kind has survived through the ages. We probably skirted the Black Plague, dodged the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, and laughed in the general direction of the swine flu.

As odd as it may sound, Curmudgeons rule!  Fine by me.

Push Buttons

Knowing my dear readers as I do, I'm sure you fondly remember the '60s.  There were modern gadgets aplenty, and all sorts of things working with push-button ease.  Why, I even had a fine Dodge Dart with push button gears.  Remember those?  I still don't get why they never took hold.

But, I digress.  My grandfather's avocation was electricity - he took great pride in wiring the main cottage in Maine for electricity back when Central Maine Power was GIVING IT AWAY FREE to encourage people to trade up from kerosene lanterns to that newfangled electricity thing.

But, racing forward back to the '60s: he installs a new circuit breaker box in the cottage that has PUSH BUTTON BREAKERS.  Whoa!  Très moderne, no?  Wave of the future, no?

Apparently no - when our "moderne" electrician took a look at it this year, he said "gee, I've never seen one of THESE before - it's gotta go."

What is it with push buttons?

Fine Dining

I recently had occasion to take my sainted wife to a very nice restaurant, one we were familiar with and I had actually used for celebrating her 40th birthday with 40 or so of our closest friends.  It still even retains a dress code - as these things go these days - so we got all spiffed up for a nice evening.

I grew up in a largely British/New England household, two places that are not especially renouned for their cuisine.  So, fancy dining was a discovery later in life, and this place certainly fit the bill.  For an appetizer, I had a rare treat - steak tartare (get the clever pun?).  

But when my main course, Filet Mignon came, it was a tad undercooked.  I wanted to send it back, but I had just consumed RAW beef.  How could I make my case?  

Before I gave myself a headache, I just ate it.

Big Box Stores

"Oh goody!," you may have exclaimed when one of those "big box" stores moved in somewhere near enough for you.  "Now, for a small annual fee, I can load up on huge packages of paper towels, toilet paper and garbage bags and save big!"

When my sainted wife had this reaction, completely overlooked was that her husband would have to build an entirely new storage area to turn our former "house" into the big box store's "distribution point." 

Worse, a close review of the financials will no doubt show that careful management of local grocery sales will deliver the same savings without requiring that one borrows a friend's SUV to fit everything.  

They also give you bags when you check out.

High School Gym

In this rare photo of the Curmudgeon-to-be participating in some dreary high school gym "sport" are the seeds of a life-long dislike of organized sports.  Due to memories that can't seem to be undone, I recall this being a "game" called War, which was sadistic in the extreme.

But there was a bright side.  My good friend Tom was the designated attendance reporter in my gym class.  Since I was excused from class during wrestling season on Doctor's orders, Tom graciously hid my lack of attendance from what followed wrestling - square dancing.

I took what little relief I could.

Movie Madness

I happen to be a real movie fan.  I may despise opera and the theater, but movies rarely disappoint (especially when you wait for them to come to cable so you never associate the occasional stinker with a price of admission).  All is well, you may aver.  Alas, not quite.

There is an entire category of movies that are guaranteed to suck.  No doubt I'm referring to all those new zombie or vampire movies you might suspect?  Nope.  Then surely I must mean musicals/dance movies?  Nay, it is the tediously similar and endlessly depressing "Post-Apocalyptic" movies.  And, speaking of endless, so, apparently, is their supply.  Heck, they're invading your TV space even as you read this.

They ALL have the exact same view of a dystopian post-apocalyptic world, and frankly, once is enough.  Only a masochist would go see a second one.

Or a real dimwit.

Refridgerator Wars

I have an important recommendation for those of you who may be leaving for a week or so on vacation: be sure the fridge door is fully closed.  Regrettably, I somehow managed to skip this important step during my recent two weeks in Maine.

It would alone have been a disaster if the food in the fridge hung around at room temperature for a couple weeks with the fridge constantly running, but OUR fridge has no less than 3 of those little 40 watt bulbs in it.  You gals who had Easy Bake ovens as kids know where this is going - all that food slow cooked.

On the bright side, the fridge was due for a good cleaning, and boy, is it easy to clean an empty fridge!  It looked so good when we were done, I didn't want to spoil things by putting new foodstuffs in.  And therein lay another bright spot - when we were done restocking, it was still quite empty. 

Some sort of clutter poltergeist must visit my fridge at night and plant all the other stuff I'm apparently not missing.

Lawn Mowing

You would probably be thinking that as a curmudgeon, I would grudgingly mow my own grass to be sure it was done right.  Not so!  I hire "people" to do it and whine at them if it isn't done right.  Not good for employee relations, but right up a curmudgeon's alley.

As it turns out, I live in a neighborhood that is crawling with "people" hired to do lawns.  They make a LOT of noise, but at least are quick.  And they're all the same: 1) Mow, 2) Whack, and 3) Blow.  Each step noisier than the last, it is the blow bit that really gets my ire.  These "people" seem to believe deep down inside that if you blow refuse, it magically disappears.  Of course, we all know that they're busily blowing it into your neighbor's yard whose "people" will blow it back, thereby guaranteeing eternal employment for all.

It really frosts me when I try to drive by one of these jujubes thinking they're blowing stuff on the street into another dimension when they're actually peppering passing vehicles, like mine.  The other day I was cleaning the interior of my car in the driveway, and the crew working next door blew grass clippings into the air - presumably to disappear - and promptly deposited them in my clean interior.

And I ain't got my gun.

The Gardening Buddy

If you have a sainted wife who loves gardening, as I do, and are totally disinterested in gardening, as I am, you owe it to yourself to find her a gardening "buddy."  This buddy is some rube who will garden endlessly, BECAUSE GARDENING IS NEVER DONE. 

There are pots to be filled each spring, plants to be moved here and there, soil to be augmented, mulch to be spread, things to be cut back, groomed, clipped, shaped, garden centers to wander around..the list is endless.  And so is the work.  All this crap then has to be watered...lots.  And that, of course, requires finding special sprinklers, timers, quick-connects, non-kink hoses, hose reels, etc., etc.  For gardeners, this is heaven.  For the rest of us, this is hell.

Find a buddy for your gardening partner before it is too late, or you will never get any peace during the summer.

The Quicky Mart

It seems that more and more often, when I go to my local "Quicky Mart," my experience is anything but quick.  I, like you no doubt, taking my cue from the catchy name, presumed that when I needed an item or so from a grocery store, a "quick" stop at a much smaller emporium would gleefully fulfill my need whilst speeding me on my way.  And, I was willing to pay a small premium for the convenience.

Then came state lotteries.  Whoa, what genius - fantastic moneymakers for little stores and, of course, states.  Never mind that you, the player, were more likely to be hit by a bus, attacked by a shark AND struck by lightning all on the same day - play the lottery!

Odds aside, the impact on we normal (non-lottery) humans is that "Quicky Marts" arent so quick anymore.  I, to my great regret, now seem to unerringly get behind some blighter speaking lotterese to the checkout person, boxing this and that, scrolling through a fistful of lottery receipts, and ALL I WANT IS MY #%@! MILK.

Quick no more.

The Buzz Chronicles II

Closing up a cottage on the coast of Maine for the winter would seem to be reasonably straightforward: white sheets on everything in sight, screens in, empty the fridge and lock up.  Poof, poof, you're done.  Hah!  Not so fast - you're forgetting all the boats, moorings, buoys and crap you've put in the water.

Do you have any idea what grows on submerged things in Maine waters?  Let me hasten to assure you, you don't WANT to know.  Slimy greenish brown stuff (after 50 years I still don't quite know what it is) grows on mooring lines, marine life forms of all descriptions take to the underside of your boats, and to top it all off, YOU HAVE TO TOUCH THIS STUFF while putting everything away for the winter.

The curmudgeon policy is one of NOT touching stuff like that - the Handbook specifically mentions staying away from any ill-defined slimy life forms.

This is why we keep Buzz around.

Green Grass and High Tides

With 10 foot tides, the landscape of Maine's harbors and bays changes considerably over the course of the day.  High tide brings a beautiful scene: the waves lap (or scenically crash upon) the rocky shore right in front of you, there is a gentle incline to walkways down to docks, boats seem nearby in the intimate settings of small harbors, you really get the whole Maine coast package.

Low tide is an entirely different matter.  It is rarely a thing of beauty.  Worse, it really aggravates the access to boats as well as boat access to all those places no longer covered by the tide.  Very annoying.  Although tides advance about 1 hour a day, so one day's low tide is next week's high tide, pick the wrong week and it, well, sucks.

As I age - none too gracefully - low tides are getting to be a royal pain.  I've gotta start scheduling my vacations better - no low tides during the day - I'm way too old to clamber over seaweed-covered rocks.  I need a boat boy.  Maybe a lake.  No tides there.