Month: July 2008

Starbucks is _not_ closing its stores in Mashpee and Falmouth.

Peter compared my recent rotten luck with employers to Zsa Zsa Gabor’s eight, or is it nine, marriages.
Turns out, Ms. Gabor has been married to her most recent spouse, Fr

My granddaughter was telling us that the songs they sang at her old camp (she refused to go this year) were “stupid”.
This really bothers me. I don’t recall liking camp, but truth be told and it’s a mystery why, the smell of balsam brings back happy memories, and very often, I find myself humming or whistling some of the tunes we learned around the campfire.
So, here’s a partial list for Emme. Some in the second group I learned when I was a Counselor In Training (CIT), so while the lyrics are innocent, they still aren’t especially age-appropriate right now, but will be in a couple of years:
White Wings (a great song, the white wings are the sails of a ship)
Lord, Blow the Moon Out, Please
Two Wings
The Ash Grove
Tell Me Why
Rise and Shine
Dona Nobis Pacem
I’m Happy When I’m Hiking
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt
The Quartermaster’s Song
We’re here because we’re here
Boom Boom Ain’t it Great to Be Crazy?
When Sammy Put the Paper on the Wall
Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts
Do your ears hang low?
The Cannibal King (certain folk with a PC poker up their arses forbade this song at Girl Scout day camp but we sang it anyway)
On Top of Spaghetti
Here’s a terrific collection of lyrics but, unfortunately, no music to go with them: http://www.mikeleal.com/campsongs/index.html

So, the Obama campaign was compelled to fire off a self-righteous response to The New Yorker, of all publications, for its satiric cover cartoon depicting Barack, Michelle, a fist pump and paraphernalia related to unsubstantiated rumors about the candidate’s religion and ethnic sympathies.
I guess that means that if the country elects Obama, any criticism of the government would be repressed out of sensitivity to the President’s delicate sensibilities, something which, by the way, we haven’t seen during the Bush administration, even with its trouncing of Constitutional rights and civil liberties. For all his faults, Dubya does possess the ability to laugh at himself.
I thought Fox News was way out of bounds with its disgusting characterization of Michelle Obama as B-man’s Baby Mama, but it seems to me that the cartoon on the cover of The New Yorker is entirely in keeping with its tongue in cheek reputation.
Senator Obama does appear to have a skin problem, and it has nothing to do with color.

James and I took the WHOOSH “trolley” to Woods Hole the other day, and I’m sorry I forgot my camera.
This particular trolley (a bus, really) had a platform on the back where you could stand. It’s actually an advantage to be short, since anyone with a center of gravity above two feet would likely be pitched overboard, especially on bumpy Woods Hole Road.
We started at Pie in the Sky, spent some time at the playground, then stopped briefly at the Angelus Tower gardens, walked around Eel Pond and back to the ferry terminal.
James loves Woods Hole, absolutely loves it, and he was in such a great mood that he wanted to “make it up” to his brother for not allowing him to come.

Fresh, grilled bluefish and a caesar salad for lunch. Nothing better. Some might think so, but they’d be wrong.

I’ll be jiggered if I can find it anywhere, but I would have bet that the original version of “Bambi” had a song with the following heroic lyric, so typical of the 1950’s:
Bambi, Bambi, in spite of it all, little Bambi,
If you keep on climbing (5 forgotten syllables here)
You can get to the hilltop some day.

Continue reading Heck with It, Bambi

Youngest grandchild James and his sister are staying over, but James has been driving me nuts with his negativity.
When Emme wanted a drink, James assumed the worst: “Is she taking the last one?!” No, James, there are about a dozen drinks left.
When I offered to track down a stop for the Woods Hole (WHOOSH) trolley, James pitched a fit: “We have to walk a mile all over the place!” No, James, we’re taking the truck.
When I said that I have two tickets to the upcoming county fair, he got all upset, “Only two people can go.” No, James, I have two FREE tickets.
You’d think this child led a horrible, deprived life, the way he anticipated the worst about every situation.

To certain of my friends:
I love you dearly. I love you like sisters. But get off my case about whether or not my next door neighbor should or shouldn’t be home schooling her high school aged son.
About half of the taxes I pay to the town get allocated to the school department, and one of their jobs is to regulate situations like this one.
So, if those-whom-I-pay-to-worry-about-such-things think my neighbor’s son is being properly educated, then more power to his mother for pulling off the care and feeding of the rest of her family plus the running of a full-time business while home-schooling this particular child.
And, with all due respect and affection, why this should be any business of mine or for that matter, yours, is beyond me.

I’ve had a couple of nice outings this week: a cruise to and from the Vineyard with Robert, a hike in the Mashpee Woodlands with the boys and a tour of IFAW’s new green headquarters with Emme and Robert yesterday.
Last evening, I ventured to Osterville for one of the Citizen’s Bank summer concerts, but ended up visiting the shops that were open for Wednesdays in Wianno.
Afterwards, I drove to the end of Seaview Avenue to West Bay, always a pleasure to see how the other 1/10 of 1% live, and then to Dowses Beach, where I watched and listened to the Least terns and plovers wage their age-old war against the gulls that pilfer their nests.