This, That, And The Other

Here is a comment I received after my earlier blog entry regarding Sicilians I have known, wherein I expressed doubts that ALL Sicilians are fastidious and are mellow-voiced crooners -- "Siamo tutti i peccatori. Lo perdono per la vostra eresia. Non sin non di più. Canterò voi quando siamo nel cielo."

Since I neither speak nor read Sicilian (Italian?) I resorted to an online translation -- the result was: "We are all the sinners. The forgiveness for your heresy. Not sin not more. I will sing you when we are in the sky."

How sweet . . .


Luckily, yesterday morning my camera was close to hand when I looked out the front entrance window and caught a wily culprit in the act of committing mayhem. A pesky Ground Squirrel was nibbling on JoAnn's lovingly tended plant.

Cameras are everywhere these days . . .
careless miscreants don't have a chance.

Yesterday when I bought a 3-lb. stalk of bananas at Circle K, I decided to purchase another chance on the Powerball drawing. I had won seven dollars on each of the two previous purchases of same, so I thought, what the heck, why not?

But unbelievavbly, the new clerk, a young bespectacled boy (appearing to be about the age of fifteen) actually asked me if I was twenty-one. Me... a wrinkled old codger of 71. At first I thought he was joking but then I realized that he was serious. He was doing exactly as he had been taught to do.

Good Lord! It's a wonder that he didn't demand to see a picute ID.


On my walks I have been snapping pictures of all the trees that catch my attention. Below is one that I beleive is a Eucalyptus Tree, but I'm not sure.

I'll ask an expert if it is or not.
And I know just the guy to ask.

Recently I had occasion to look up the word 'egotism' and found that it is a noun defined as 'self-importance' -- some synonyms are: arrogance, boastfulness, bragging, conceit, immodesty, narcissism,pride, self-absorption, self-admiration, self-aggrandizement, selv-centeredness, self-praise, selfishness, vainglory, vainness, and vanity.

Note: egoism is an attempt to get excessive personal recognition for yourself while egotism is an exaggerated opinion of your own importance

So it goes . . .

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A Hodge-Podge, Of Sorts

Well... I've been living here in Tucson for more than two months now, and I must admit that I am being affected by the hot, dry, sunshiny atmosphere. Living so close to the border of Mexico is causing me to change some of my attitudes toward life in general. Or is it? I'm not sure if I have adopted the Manana Is Good Enough For Me lifestyle or if perhaps I have always believed and acted in that way.

Peggy Lee says it well on Youtube . . .

Manana Is Good Enough For Me

On a completely different note...

Is this not an excellent statement of scientific thought?

I am NOT an Atheist. But neither am I a Deist. Nor a creationist. I am not a believer in a 'personal Savior'. I do not feel that being a member of The Human Race is anything special, anything to brag about, anything beyond natural happenstance.

I'm more of an I Don't Know And I Really Don't Care type of guy.

But I don't feel like delving deeply into any of that right now.


Recently. Eva was sniffing and snuffling, nose to the trodden surface of the swimming pool deck, as she is often wont to do, when all at once she jerked her head erect, shook it from side to side and then explosively sneezed... twice. Without wasting an instant for thought, I looked down at her and said, "You are SO good-lookin'!"

And if you don't understand that... if you don't see the humor in it... well, then. you are evidently not a Seinfeld afficiancado.


Whoa Nelly . . .

The Onion has an article titled: The Massive Flow of Bullshit Continues to Gush From BP Headquarters. I found it to be quite entertaining. Check it out... HERE.
(nyuk, nyuk, nyuk)

And . . .

I read the following yesterday in The Independent:

Naughty By Nature: Why Has Britain Become So Rude? Below is an excerpt:

God we're rude, aren't we? The British are so rude. We're obsessed with bums, tits, willies, lavatory humour, vicars, knickers, smells, foreigners, fat tummies, fat slags, Fat Les, fat wrestlers, Benny Hill, Carry On Up The Khyber, Viz, Private Eye, men dressed as laydeez, women dressed as anarchic schoolgirls, sitcoms that offer howling tsunamis of verbal abuse, from The Young Ones to The Thick Of It. We love to see an irate, fictional British hotelier smacking his Spanish waiter around the head. We admire the host of BBC2's Newsnight when he roasts politicians with scarcely believable belligerence. We quiver when a middle-aged, redheaded quiz-show hostess tells her guests how thick, ugly and badly dressed they are. We lap up radio shows in which grouchily opinionated men insult members of the public who hold views contrary to their own. We celebrate Christmas by buying our loved ones "lavatory books" with titles like Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Complete Shit In Pants?

Wow! The Brits do seem to be inordinately rude.


Finally... AVT has been waxing nostalgic lately regarding Sicilians and how ALL of them can sweetly croon and how ALL of them are fastidious about small details such as personal appearance and other things of a similar magnitude of importance

I have met a few Sicilian-Americans in my time -- Bruschetti, Correo, and others... and not only were they not crooners, they were not particularly fastidious; in fact, Bruschetti was a fat and slovenly gravel-voiced slob of the first order. And Correo, possessing horribly neglected crooked brown-stained teeth, had the disgusting habit of scarfing down odoriferous home-cooked Italian Food his Mama sent him from NYC (via the USPS) with his perpetually-dirty fingers, loudly smacking his lips wetly and eating (always) with his mouth wide open.

Don't tell me about ALL Sicilians, please.


A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule.
--Michael Pollan