Something's Missing

Costco is never out of ANYTHING, but now they are. You never see empty space like this in the warehouse:

However, our local store has partially filled the TP space with water, kleenex and wipes:

I've heard interesting reports from several of our So. California family members. Their Costcos are out of TP, water and rice. Rice! Yesterday I stopped at the Nampa Idaho Costco (on my way to T's), and they are also wiped clean of TP, sorry. There is some water left and several carts passed me holding 3 cases each. Perhaps the store has set a limit of 3? Today I heard the Pocatello Costco is also out of TP. While on my way to Idaho a friend sent me a message saying our local Costco had just gotten some in. Am sure it didn't last long.

I'm guessing the reason our Costco still has water is that people here in the Pacific NW are less likely to depend on bottled water, as our tap water is yummy. There's nothing about Covid-19 that says our plumbing is going to quit working, right? As for TP, Covid-19 rarely causes intestinal problems. However, if you're going to be quarantined, you definitely do not want to run out of the stuff.


This is all so interesting, to see how people react in a crisis and what they value.

MS's Gift

This girl has the longest, most serpentine tongue ever seen in a human being. She can curl it, roll it, and could probably pick up sticks like an elephant's trunk, if she wanted  to. I'm not a fan of public tongue displays, yet her's deserves a minute of fame. The best photo is the last!

Word Problem Anxiety

BART!

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42022551

The Simpsons's creators hit the nail on the head when they came up with this gem. Bart Simpson struggles with a word problem on a test. This was me. Bart probably had the "exam dream" for years after formal education was over; I know I did. After about 40 years they didn't occur anymore.

Are You Too Old to Trick or Treat??

Halloween is past, but just so you know for next year, here's how to tell if you're too old to trick-or-treat:


10--You get winded from knocking on the door

9--You have to have a kid chew the candy for you

8--You ask for high fiber candy only

7--When someone drops a candy bar into your bag, you lose your balance and fall over

6--People say, "Great Keith Richards mask!" and you're not wearing a mask

5--When the door opens you yell, "Trick or ---" and can't remember the rest

4--By the end of the night you have a bag full of restraining orders

3--You have to carefully select a costume that won't dislodge your hairpiece

2--You're the only Power Ranger in the neighborhood using a walker

1--You avoid going to houses where your ex-wives or husbands live

Furternity Leave

An amusing article appeared on a news website that I frequent. It is all about a new employee benefit that is popping up, called "Furternity." Furternity is like maternity leave, or family leave, except it refers to when an employee acquires a new pet. Seriously. An employee can work at home for the purpose of being available to acclimate and train the animal.

I have no objections to this, but it is rather indulgent. Until not many years ago a woman was expected back at work soon after childbirth (if she hadn't lost her job because of her pregnancy), and a man couldn't even work at home to be available to help with the new human in the family. Now it's acceptable to do so for pets!

This post is less about this policy than about the amusing misconception some of the article's interviewees have in equating raising pets with raising children. 

First off, a spokesman for the company that has pioneered Furternity admitted the company sees that new pets are almost as important as new children. Good heavens, who knew? The same person said that the company wants to given flexibility to employees when they're making a major life change (getting a pet). It used to be that you got a pet. End of story. Folks in past generations would laugh out loud at the thought of a new pet being "a major life change." That phrase was reserved for a move across country, a marriage, a death, or maybe even the birth of a child.

cute! (when small)

We are informed that 75 percent of folks in their 30s own a dog. I don't doubt that, as I found when knocking on doors for the Census Bureau back in 2010. Nearly 3/4 of the homes I visited had a dog, usually an obnoxious one. I love many dogs, just not the poorly trained ones who throw themselves at the door (or window!) hoping for a chance to chew an innocent stranger's leg off. 

What really got me in this article was the woman who said that raising a puppy "helped her and her husband learn how to act as parents." I tried hard to suppress a smart-aleck chuckle, and failed. She'll find out the hard way how ridiculous that statement is.

Personally, I see little correlation between the raising of the two. For starters, I can't imagine enticing a child to do a 'trick' (sitting up, crawling, riding a bike, etc.) by offering it a delectable treat, as we would with a dog, for instance. The child would perform for the treat, eat the treat, then keep on doing what it wants to do how it wants to do it. Maybe children are more like cats than dogs.

less demanding pets

If you own a dog and you work, you can either turn it out into the yard for the day or lock it in a carrier. Try doing either with a child. Flash a handsome smile for your mug shot.

A very young child can be awake all night long, or awake in spurts 4-5-6-10 times a night. They require constant attendance. Throwing out a piece of meat or treat to quiet them doesn't work like it does for a pet. You'll arrive at work the next day looking disheveled and worn, like you haven't slept in a year. And maybe you haven't. 

Would you be able to pawn the child off to a new home because he/she was too noisy--too destructive--too big for your tiny apartment? Or send your child to live with a nice farmer out in the country when you tired of his/her obnoxious antics? Didn't think so.

If you think pets are expensive, you'll be shocked at what children cost. And the equipment! And traveling with children isn't for the fainthearted. It would be easy if you could lock them in a carrier with a piece of meat, but no. Raising a child is vastly more complicated and demanding than keeping a pet. They're not even in the same league! I should know. I have five children and have had my share of pets.

My husband and I were born in the wrong century. To think that folks can work at home for their new pet's sake, when my husband couldn't even do that to enjoy our new babies!

Just for fun, here is a story about my sister's adorable furry pet. Mom was reading the newspaper very early one morning when she felt something brush her foot. She absent-mindedly moved her foot, thinking her robe was in the way. It happened again, the soft, gentle movement of fuzzy touching her foot. She bent over to look, then bolted across the room with a scream! My sister's pet tarantula had escaped its cage, and was attempting to crawl across Mom's foot! After that the spider's cage lid was weighed down with soup cans until my sister could find a new owner. No more escaped tarantulas in that house!

my sister had one of these pets until it figured out how to escape its pen

The Halloween House

A few blocks from us lives a family who is so in love with Halloween that they go to extreme effort to dress up their house every year. They're creative and gutsy, and it is always fun to walk by the place this time of year.

These photos don't do it justice. The magic of darkness transforms it into a place I would refuse to venture if I was under the age of 10. On Halloween night they add other 'features' such as smoke, a creepy farting clown, and eerie music. There are demons, witches and ghouls hanging from unseen guy wires in every direction. Crowds come from all around to gawk at the show. Tonight the sheriff parked a car across the street from the house and invited children to 'trunk or treat.' One year a local news channel reported on Halloween from this house.

Closer to us is another Halloween house that is just as good but in a different way. Every year they become more creative with their displays. They have a long driveway which you traverse at your own peril. They also give out full-size candy bars! I did not get around to taking photos of this one. All of the below are from the first house.

Happy Halloween!

Yum, Them's Good Eatin'!

We kids of the 50s--60s--70s ate tons of disgusting and unhealthy foods, when held up to the fresh high quality choices available today. It's a miracle that any of us who were born in that era are still walking around. Sorry that some of us aren't.

There was one type of "food" I craved around ages three to five, that I'm pretty sure no other human ate. Our beagle--Sunny--loved dog biscuits, and so did I. Yup, I craved them. No idea why. Nothing about this yearning makes sense. Dog biscuits were fibrous and gritty and dry without any alluring flavor that made them appealing (to a human); I might as well have eaten sawdust. They did not go down easy. The grit in them could bring on a choking fit that required lots of water after indulging.

Mom had a fit about my habit. She forbid me to eat them and stuck the biscuit box up beyond my reach. Didn't matter. I discovered that if I silently sneaked into the tiny one-butt pantry, did not turn on the light, climbed the shelves monkey-style to grab the box, I could remain in there undetected long enough to chow down a couple of biscuits. There was always a price to pay when Mom finally found me, but it was so worth it.

The cure came when mischievous, pesty Sunny had to go away to live on a farm. No more dog biscuits for me. Somehow I got over it and moved on to eat other, more people-oriented junk food. More about those foods another day.

my favorites looked about like this

this may not have been the brand that I craved, but what an adorable box!

maybe it was Gro-Pup that I ate?

Really Bad Remodel

This awesomely bad remodel job is on South Main street in Brattleboro, Vermont. It doesn't help appearances that the house is in derelict condition, but seriously, to throw on a hideously awkward extension onto the roof of the front porch?

Typical of the 19th century, house lots here were deep, yet narrow across the front. It makes sense, as before auto transportation people relied on foot travel for commuting to work and taking care of business. Thus towns were built compactly, houses close together.

Slapping additional rooms onto a dwelling was a common practice. Because lots were deep, extensions were built onto the back, one after the other. I've seen some old homes with as many as 5 different extensions in the rear. Subsequent additions rarely match what's already there. It gives the impression that the owner rolled out of bed one day and decided it was time for another addition, then used whatever materials were at hand.

The Postulate

 

Among the divers math terms thrown at me in my high school algebra and geometry classes was the term, 'postulate.' Love that word. Postulates are principles of math that require no proof, so if you know them, you already know how certain problems work. Some postulates have catchy names such as (don't bother reading the explanation):

AAS (angle-angle-side): If two angles and the included side of one triangle are congruent to the corresponding parts of another triangle, the triangles are congruent.
or
SSS (side-side-side): If three sides of one triangle are congruent to three sides of  another triangle, then the triangles are congruent.
or
SAS (side-angle-side): If two sides and the included angle of one triangle are congruent to the corresponding parts of another triangle, the triangles are congruent.

We had to memorize these and learn how to apply them in geometry. I would have forgotten all about postulates by now except that there was a guy in my class whose last name was SAS. Yes, his last name was Side-Angle-Side, as I and my friends called him. But after a while we shortened our chosen nickname for him to "The Postulate," as in, "Don't look now, but here comes The Postulate. Or, "Uh-oh, The Postulate is heading straight for you." The 'you' in this case was me. The Postulate had a major crush on me, but sad for him, his was an extreme case of unrequited love.

It isn't that he wasn't a good guy. He was actually one of the nicest and most polite of all the guys I knew. We just didn't click. He seemed dorky to me, but who am I to say that, because I was just as dorky as the next person in high school. He was over-attentive, and always in a too-cheery good mood, and maybe not the sharpest when it came to social cues.

The Postulate sometimes called me on the phone and with Caller ID a futuristic fantasy, I was trapped once I answered his call. In the outdoor halls at school I'd head another way if he was in view. After all, I would get enough chummy exposure to him in geometry class. After that school year we didn't cross paths anymore. If I ran into him now I would know him. He had the physique of a wooden telephone pole and a smile that lit up his face like a searchlight, displaying his braces in all their glory. The Postulate was a gentleman; I hope he has had a good life.

The Strange Disposition of Willie Keel

 the resting place of Willie Keil in Cowlitz County, Washington

Poor Willie Keil.  He so wanted to find "the promised land," and live out his life as a faithful man, raise a family, till the earth.   He did live out his life faithfully, but never got to have a family, and the only earth he "tilled" was that of his own grave.  We can assume he found his promised land on the "other side."

Willie was born in Missouri about 1836 to a father who was leader of a religious sect.  The Bethelites, as they were called, decided to head West in 1855 in search of their own personal promised land.  Practically on the even of departure Willie contracted malaria.  He insisted on a promise from his father to not leave him behind, no matter what happened.

Willie's father kept his promise.  On Willie's death a special coffin was built to transport him to the promised land with the rest of the Bethelites.  The coffin was lined with lead and Willie was laid inside.  Jugs and jugs of whiskey were poured into the box until Willie was immersed in alcohol.  The lid was nailed on, the coffin loaded onto a hefty wagon, and the party headed west with the young man saturated in 100 proof.

 Six months later the party arrived on the Washington Coast and Willie was interred.  Sadly, the gloomy sodden land was not what the pioneer group was looking for.  They packed up and moved south to Oregon, leaving Willie's stone-marked grave behind.  The colony they founded in Aurora is in a lovely fertile place where even now, hops and berries and flowers are commercially cultivated.  Schoolchildren take field trips to Aurora and are told the curious tale of Willie Keil.


Source: http://www.historylink.org/File/5453

It's Not About the Nail

The other day I put up two of my favorite youtube videos.  But the very best one, the grand prize goes to:

 "It's Not About the Nail."

Certain people will get this right away, and others will have to think about it a while. My husband shoes this in the class he teachers at church, which is on husband-wife relationships. He gets a puzzled reaction from some.

Our Real-Life Twilight Zone or, A One-of-a-Kind Chartreuse Sofa

We moved into our one-bedroom student apartment right after our marriage in December 1974.  Our possessions consisted of a an assortment of dated clothing, a few pots and pans, a double-size fold-up portable bed my husband's folks gave us so they could free up space in their garage, a couple of beat-up end tables his folks didn't want any more, a tiny dinette table his folks also didn't want, and a couple of kitchen chairs my folks didn't want because the metal struts on the chair back popped out of the frame all the time, stabbing the sitter in the back.  His folks also gave us a lamp whose hardware was broken so that if we touched it in the wrong place we got an electric shock.  Nobody had a junky cast-off TV to give us so we had to do without one.

We craved something to sit on in the little living room, a place to be comfortable while we studied.  At the local Deseret Industries we found this odd-looking chartreuse sofa for not much money, which was delivered to us a couple of days later.  Its oddness was this: both the back and the seat portions sort of bowed out.  When you sat on the seat it was like sitting on a giant log because it was kinda rounded.  Leaning against the back was also like leaning on a huge log--you felt the curve in your back.  But it was a soft curve and we got used to it.

About a year later we had to move the sofa away from the wall for some reason, and suddenly, it fell apart.  I mean not completely apart, but the back fell away from the seat so that it was flat--ish (and that's a really big ISH), and we realized that what we had was not a sofa, but a bizarre type of sofa bed.   Mmm, that could come in handy for visitors.

When the visitors did arrive--my mom and my sister--we worked the sofa into bed-mode, threw a bedsheet on it, and invited them to make themselves at home for the night.  It was the worst night's sleep of their lives.   The curve of the seat and matching curve of the back made them both roll into the crevasse in the center, all night long.  It was like sleeping on an open hoagie roll--no matter how much you try to flatten that roll out, each side is always going to bounce back up.

Well, we had our first baby and I spent my days nursing him on the sofa.   My nights were spent holding my screaming colicky baby on that sofa, propping my eyelids open with toothpicks so I wouldn't fall asleep and drop him on the floor.  By this time we had a "loaner" TV from Craig's brother with 10-inch screen.  Re-runs of Ironsides and Mod Squad (go Linc!) and The FBI were my nighttime lifeline.

That kooky sofa was part of our lives for two years, and when we moved on we passed it on.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Or so we thought.

15 years later my folks were visiting us in Oregon when Ann, our children's piano teacher, stopped by to visit.  She also happens to be Craig's 5th cousin on one of his Mormon Pioneer lines.   All of us were sitting around the kitchen table having a piece of pie, when my mom suddenly piped up, "Remember that wacky green sofa you had in Provo--the one that fell apart into a bed but was never flat enough to sleep on?"

Ann's antenna immediately unfurled as we described this chartreuse sofa that just "fell apart" into a bed, a bed that wasn't really a bed in the traditional sense, given the center crevasse that swallowed up the occupant.  We could hardly get the words out we were laughing so much.  And then Ann announced that she and Brian had been the previous owners of that very sofa!

The Twilight Zone music played in the background as Ann exclaimed that there couldn't possibly be two sofas like that on the same planet!  This "heirloom" had belonged to her aunt who passed it on to them.  She had nursed their babies sitting on it, studied on it, and watched TV from its vantage point, just as we had.  When they moved away from Provo, they donated the sofa to Deseret Industries.  Some months later we came along and bought it.  Yeah, we unknowingly kept it in the family.  What are the odds? 

Two Favorite You-Tube Videos

I have a couple of favorite videos posted to YouTube that you may or may not have seen. 
 

The first one is done by a woman who created The Mom Song, a song sung to the tune of William Tell Overture by Rossini.   She wrote down the repetitive phrases she says to her kids in every 24-hour period and set them to music.  So witty, so hilarious, so true, I still burst out laughing when watching it.  It's crazy to think that a song about brushing your teeth and feeding the cat can be funny, but there it is.   Who knew there was such a universality among moms, and that kids are pretty much the same everywhere.  There are multiple versions on youtube, including some with lyrics.


The second video concerns a New York City cyclist who was ticketed by police for riding his bike "not in the bike lane."   The policeman told him he must ALWAYS be in the bike lane.  His "in-your-face" defense is that it's dangerous to ALWAYS ride in the bike lane.  His gutsy video makes his point well.

The Mysterious Disappearance of Olive, My Trusty Green Train Case

If you don't know what a train case is, meet Olive:

 

Back in the day we didn't travel so light like now.  We packed an enormous suitcase (sans wheels!!) full of a vast array of clothes we would probably not wear AND we lugged along a train case full of personal items such as cosmetics, large hair brushes, jewelry, bulky feminine products, etc.  The cases had a nice size mirror mounted inside the lid.  This ridiculous method of travel was a holdover from the days of elegant train travel when women journeyed in silk gowns bedecked with diamonds and porters hefted their multiple trunks onto the train, then delivered them to their mansions upon their arrival.

 

Olive was a gift to me from my folks about my 12th birthday.  I lugged her around the country a zillion times over several decades.

 

Unknown to me, Olive had a twin sister who made an appearance on the baggage belt one fateful day about 30 years ago.  She wasn't an identical twin, but you can see why the two got mixed up when they were not standing side by side.

 

 

I stood in baggage claim waiting for Old Yeller (my giant yellow suitcase, a story for another day), and then for Olive, who was nowhere in sight.  Bags disappeared from the belt one by one, and then only one remained, which you see above. 

 

Mmmm, it wasn't hard to put two and two together.  Someone had mistaken Olive for their own train case and absconded with her to points unknown. 

 

I did what one does in this situation: reported her disappearance to the baggage dude and filled out a detailed report.  My only hope was that Olive's thief would miss her twin as much as I missed Olive.  I left the orphaned case on the belt for baggage dude to deal with.

Well lah-di-dah, I had barely stepped in the door from the airport when the phone rang.  It was the thief, or more kindly, the careless person who had grabbed the first green train case she saw.  You must realize something before I go on.  Portland International Airport--PDX--is the only major airport in our entire state and also serves southern and eastern Washington.  I feared that Olive ended up hours and hours away and how would we get her back if she was hold up in Roseburg (3 hours away) or Klamath Falls (6 hours!)??

Careless person found my phone # on Olive's tag and asked if I had her case.  Sorry, left it at PDX.  I asked her what town she was visiting?  Beaverton!  Oh.  My. Heck.  How could I get so lucky??  We live next to Beaverton.  What a grand relief!   I inquired as to where in Beaverton--give me an address and I'd be happy to run over.  Well, we're at a house on Ridgetop Lane, she said.  Double OH. MY.  HECK.  I live about 20 yards from Ridgetop Lane.  We're visiting G&H she said.  They're my neighbors!   With all the possibilities of Olive's whereabouts, there she was, a 30 second walk around the corner.  I was just sorry I hadn't brought their green case home so we could make a simultaneous exchange, you know, like when you see spies in old movies exchanging the goods while standing on each side of the East German/West German border. 

Olive returned home and all was well.  Last year we endured a painful separation when I gave her up to Goodwill.  Hope she's found a loving home.  Ah, happy memories.

 

My All-Time Favorite Far Side Cartoon

PDX Carpet

Few airports in the US have carpeted floors, and I know of no other airport carpet, aside from dear old Portland International Airport carpet, that has its own website and Facebook page and online store.  Yeah.  You can buy t-shirts, pillows, posters and shopping bags festooned with the PDX carpet pattern.

We Oregonians love our PDX carpet.  We know we're home sweet home when our feet grace the familiar and the welcoming aqua greenish carpet splashed with the airport runway design.  Who the heck tweets about their airport carpet, or blogs about it?  Oregonians do!

home at last!

gotta have it!

my unhappy granddaughter defiling the PDX carpet

Sadly, PDX carpet has reached the end of its useful life and will be replaced within a few months.  It has reached the ripe old age of 27 years.  Look below for a sneak preview of "son of PDX carpet."  The colors are familiar, and it still has the spirit of the old carpet about it.  I think we'll get used to it and down the road it will be just as near and dear to our hearts as the original version.  Out with the old, in with the new!

A Few of My Favorite Dorky Music Videos

Feeling lazy today.  If you want a smile check out these links to music videos that for one reason or another are excessively dorky.  I don't sit around all day surfing youtube.  When I was laid up for months after surgery one day I was tired of reading and watching movies on my computer.  Instead I watched youtube videos of some great old songs . . . and not so great music videos.  They made me laugh when I really needed it.

A very 60's music video . . : It's the Sign of the Times by Petula Clark; the gal in the orange hat is really into it

I have loved Petula Clark since grade school for her upbeat music, perky personality

Ride Captain Ride: see a guy rocking out in a zebra suit with Buffalo Bill fringe (only not as classy).  Give this group some credit for not lip-synching!



Shoulda Been a Cowboy: Toby Keith wearing the world's Best.  Mullet.  Ever.

Toby Keith is proud of his mullet, and he should be

As Tears Go By: Marianne Faithfull was only 15 in this video.  She rose straight up out of her grave to lip-sync her most famous song for us.  Me thinks she would rather be back 6 feet under . . .

Ooops!

For 3.5 years (until this past June) I was a Cub Scout Bear den leader.  I loved it, and enjoyed taking the boys on monthly field trips, especially the historic ones.  The photo below shows the Imbrie House, which is a couple of miles from where we all live. It was build about 1866 and housed the Imbrie family for over 100 years, before it was converted into a restaurant. The Cubs are always speechless when they are shown the "birth and death room," a long narrow room on the north side of the house where, surprise, family members were brought into and led out of this world.

About 20 years ago the McMenniman brothers bought the place; if you're not from here you haven't heard of them. They buy up old schools, houses, and other historic buildings (sometimes saving them from the wrecking ball) and convert them into restaurants, pubs, guesthouses. When they bought the Imbrie place it was in reasonable condition but not large enough to be a successful restaurant venture, so they built a large building behind the house for that purpose (it has an 1800s appearance). There was also an octagonal barn on the property that was in a sad state of disrepair. They fixed it up nice for use for parties and wedding receptions. They created beautiful grounds that connect all the different buildings.

One structure they built new is the brewery. Not being a drinker, I didn't even know they had one, until this one day with the Cubs when we opened the door of what I thought was another barn. And voila! There was the brewmaster with his contraption going full steam. Of course the boys could not go inside, but the brewmaster invited them to watch, and then he gave them very complete lessons on how to brew beer. It was rather amusing, because not only were they wiggly 9 year-old boys, but they were wiggly 9 year-old Mormon boys . . . who now know how to brew beer.

my grandson on the left and his Cub Scout den

A Bit of Grog, or How Mr. Sean Evans, Garage Man, Took Me on a Wild Goose Chase

the Atlantic Coast near Dingle, County Kerry Ireland

Curses on Budget rental cars. I'm like the battered victim who keeps coming back for more. In this case, I have rented and re-rented cars from Budget. Why? Because they're within my budget, ha. I already covered the East Coast Adventure involving a Budget disaster. And now, my international debacle.

In 1990 I landed at Shannon Airport in Ireland; my husband Craig would follow in a few days for a week of sight-seeing together. It's unnerving to step off a long international flight at 7 a.m. local time when your body tells you it's midnight-and-time-to-turn-in, then pick up a rental car to head out for a 3 hour drive to your ancestor's domicile: Dingle, County Kerry. Oh yeah, and you are driving on the "wrong" side of the road for the first time in your life!  That's a biggie.

My crystal ball smartly announced there was a potential serious problem in my future when the Budget counter handed me a bent key for the automatic compact car I had reserved. Yeah, the key was bent like a willow leaning from the wind. My mind's eye visualized me out on the remote Dingle Peninsula and not being able to get the key out of the ignition, or in, for that matter. I asked for a different key and the clerk informed me that was the only key for that car.  Really? You don't make copies of your keys?  Mmmm, who doesn't keep a spare car key? He insisted there was no other key, so I requested a different car. The only other cars were manuals, and I decided it wouldn't be smart to be managing a manual transmission when I was going to be driving on the "wrong" side for the first time. I took the automatic with the defective key. Bad choice.

The car was fine for 4 days as I jaunted around the Dingle Peninsula researching my Irish ancestors. On the 5th day, just before my zip up to Shannon Airport to pick up Craig, I stopped at a cemetery in Anascaul to look for O'Donnell gravestones. For some dumb reason I locked the car. Sheesh, I was out in the countryside a mile from civilization . . .  and I locked the car. After a soaking in a short squall, I went to unlock the car and, the key broke off in the door lock . . .

I hoofed the mile into Anascaul, the nearest town, ducked into a pub to ask for advice, and was told the only "garage-man" in town was across the way, Mr. Sean Evans. When he answered the door he told me was "just havin' me a bit of grog" and would be out in 15 minutes. The "havin' me a bit of grog" part was a red flag, but I had no choice but to engage him in solving my problem.

the emerald countryside near Annascaul

Long story short, grizzled Mr. Sean Evans thought by driving me back into Dingle town to the locksmith we could get the key fixed. It was then I realized he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. Apparently the locksmith already knew that--he declined to get involved any further than explaining the obvious to Evans: it's impossible to make a new key from 2 bent and broken pieces, even if he could get the piece out of the lock.

Dingle Harbor with St. Mary's Catholic Church in the background

After a couple of wasted hours w/ this not-too-bright and slightly tipsy garage man, we stopped at Mr. Sean Moran's garage in Dingle town where I explained our situation. And Mr. Sean Moran took charge. Over the phone he berated Budget in Shannon for sending me out with a defective key, and then handed the phone to me. I told them that when my husband landed that evening he was to be given a new rental car at no charge. Furthermore, their defective rental was sitting out in front of the Anascaul Catholic Cemetery, locked with the broken stub of the key in the car door (!), and they were welcome to come and get it at their convenience. And that is what happened. Craig was paged in the airport, received a new rental car, and met up with me the next day. We had a marvelous week together meeting my relatives and touring this most scenic spot in Ireland. We even took the St. Mary's Catholic Parish clerk (Padraig Lynch) on our day trip to Ballyferriter. He showed us amazing stuff that isn't in the tourist books. And as we passed Anascaul Cemetery on our way to the airport, Budget's troublesome car was gone. All turned out well!

Ballyferriter is the westernmost point in Ireland, and in Europe; if you venture any further west you're in a boat on your way to America!

This One's For You George (or, The Exploding Whale)

thar she blows!!

Last Sunday a well-known Oregonian passed away. If I mentioned his name you would not recognize it, because his fame did not make himself a household name. But if I tell you what he did, you will laugh and nod your head and say pitifully, "oh yeah--that poor guy."

I'm referring to the 1970 Adventure of the Exploding Whale. And George Thornton was the man responsible. George was 84 at his death last week. In 1970 he was an Oregon Department of Transportation [ODOT] highway engineer, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because all of his associates had conveniently ditched town for deer-hunting season, you could say he drew the short straw. And this straw was downright stunted. George was given the job of removing a deceased 8-ton beached sperm whale from the lovely south coast town of Florence Oregon.

You are probably wondering why an ODOT highway engineer, of all people, was given the job of removing a dead whale from a public beach. Back in 1913 Oregon beaches were declared to be state highways, that's why.

The beached whale was a tourist curiosity for about 2.5 days. Then it deteriorated into a rancid reeky rotting carcass, so ol' George was called in to take charge. The carcass could not be buried, for the tides would uncover it. . . could not be dragged to sea as it was already decaying. . . could not be burned because yikes, can you imagine the aroma of burning rancid whale?

But never fear, for George had a great idea--dynamite the thing! It would take only a half ton of explosives to do the job. And once the carcass was blown to smithereens, the seagulls, crabs and other hungry sea scavengers would dispose of the leftovers in no time. Problem solved . . . mmmmm.

November 12 1970 was the big day. Spectators were kept at a quarter-mile distance on the surrounding dunes when the plunger was pushed. I won't say too much more because this video tells it all. Let's just say that the ODOT crew, the spectators, and the news media went home that day plastered with foul, putrid bits of dead whale all over their clothes. And one spectator struggled to explain to his insurance company why he  needed a new car. When humor writer Dave Barry first heard this story in 1990, he said it was the funniest story he had ever heard (and he hears lots of funny stuff).

Poor beleaguered George Thornton never lived down the incident. Every November on the anniversary somebody from somewhere contacted him for comment, and he could only say that his method was effective and the media ruined his life, basically.  May you rest in blissful peace, George.

A couple of related links:

http://theexplodingwhale.com

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/11/01/242347861/man-behind-oregons-famous-exploding-whale-dies