Have A Hopping Happy Holiday

 Hopping Happy?

Well we’ve probably all heard the expression “hopping mad” right?  So angry we couldn’t stand still?  However, given we also celebrate “Happy” Easter and the mascot of that holiday since created by the Germans in the 1700s has been a rabbit/bunny, it seems reasonable to suggest we might be Hopping Happy as well.  

Certain folks are probably happier than others at Easter.  Depending upon your spiritual beliefs of course  it is a day of celebration, but that’s not all.   If you like candy eat candy or sell candy or if you fix the damage done to your teeth by candy.  Then you should be happy.  Americans alone buy over three billion dollars worth of candy for Easter including 200 million Cadberry eggs alone.  Also if you make cheap baskets out of “real” or plastic Easter is your jam… oh and that plastic grass?  Who came up with that idea?  I bet it was the tinsel people sitting in a marketing meeting and somebody said :we’ve done this in silver, gold, and some other colors and Marvin in the corner chomping on the last candy cane three days after Valentine’s Day said let’s try green.”  Now Mary pulled out her world famous eye roll but just before unleashing  a smart Alec remark licked her lips and said “Yep.. let’s do it.. let’s go green and put it in Easter baskets so parents trying to convince kids a bunny brings this stuff can make it look like there is more stuff by filling these baskets up with something they will call grass.”  We’ve already  got people buying eggs and someday they’ll believe the price of them is economically significant so they won’t buy as many to color them for the baskets… and so we have cheap baskets with plastic grass and we hide some of the candy to watch our kids search around  for things that will rot their teeth…but it’s fun right?  There are a number of apps that include Easter Eggs hunting in them so you can avoid the baskets and grass, however maybe that isn’t really in keeping with the spirit of the “hopping happy” holiday?  

Seeking Peace and Joy for Hopping Happy”

Well… maybe a hopping delivery bunny doesn’t make sense.  Maybe mounds of candy in a cheap plastic basket filled with plastic grass isn’t practical when you stop to think about it?  On the other hand or other foot —aren’t rabbit’s feet lucky?—and maybe the candy we give to kids and others are little shots of colorful happiness?  Maybe peace and joy comes in small doses.  Maybe we should imagine carrying these small gifts around with us and quietly distribute them in unexpected places?  Maybe people should be able to open up a hard shell and find something sweet inside?  In short maybe we all should go for a little hopping happy now and the? 

The world is out of order, perhaps

 A segment to be found in the upcoming “book” effort—

Table of Objects—

Warning!— This table (and the book itself) May Be out of order

So it is expected that written materials, well all lengthy materials will include a table or index to guide folks  to specific chapters, pages, sections, images or whatever.  When your organizing metaphor is a junk drawer  do you really expect traditional organization devices?  Well.. there will be a table of objects with a grouping label.  Just for fun a somewhat serious attempt will be made to present objects and experiences in alphabetic order.  Well not exactly.  You see when something is “in order” people generally don’t give the order of things much attention.  If, instead, you put a sign on something  that reads “out of order” it gets immediate attention.  We aren’t saying positive attention, however, it’s attention  none theses. Like for instance when you’ve had too much soda or coffee and you pull into the rest stop and walk quickly to relieve your bladder and you scout out the restroom only to see the dreaded words—“Out of Order”  that will get your attention.  When you have a craving for M&Ms  and a moderately large handful of change  and you find a vending machine next to that noisy ice machine at the hotel and then spot the nasty taped on half sheet or paper taped over the coin slot… well you get it—out of order  makes you take notice.  

The intent here is not to be annoying yet why not take advantage  of the out of order organization principle?  

Hmm?  

Actually sometimes compromise is the best route.  So If you look really closely to the objects table you might figure out that within the “categories” the objects are listed in order—reverse alphabetical order.  

Why “reverse?”  Generally because it will slow the reader down a bit and let things get a breath.  From the youngest  of ages we teach children the alphabet in alphabetic order  usually by singing that song.  We can recite A to Zed in record time, however doesn’t it take a bit more time and thought to do that in reverse order?  The objects in here mean enough that taking a bit more time is warranted.  Therefore, the section on “keeping Things Together” will start with Zip Ties and wander through to Athletic Tape.  

Before moving forward or backward maybe we should demonstrate that the traditional alphabet  isn’t getting completely disrespected.  After all, it has a long celebrated  developmental history starting way back in the ancient middle east and is sort of known to actually settled a bit by the time of the Roman Empire.  Of course the letters and the word alphabet come from ancient Greece  and speaking of ancient grease I just smelled some Mcdonald’s fries.  Anyway, after J became the final letter added to the modern alphabet  around the 16th century and the & sign didn’t hold onto the 27th spot, we had a system which could be used to “order” everything.   There are more things to be known about this and when you get to the “education” category you will learn more about writing, reading, math, and yes the alphabet and numbers too.  For now we will move ahead and simply acknowledge that the topics here might not fall into an easy order yet if we think about it we might ask—“Does life, time, and/or our experiences and the meanings we give them follow a lock step linear scheme?   

For now remember this

ZY X W V U T S R Q O N M L K J I H G F E D C B A —  Oh where’s the P?  Running down your leg.. didn’t we tell you the restroom was out of order?

 

A Double Shot Woohoo

Little things Help Everyone Keep It Together

 Keeping It Together in a Crazy world

Sometimes when you look in a junk drawer a bit of brilliance comes not from what you find so much as from what is missing. Today, I discovered zip ties, some bread ties (see “Daily Bread,” a very much used roll of medical tape, duct tape?—you really need to ask?, and a box of unused staples.  Now the staples were not the jewel-encrusted gold variety introduced by King Louis XV of France you understand, they fit the classic swing line model that has been in use for darn near a century.  There’s a small bungie chord and a few loose screws.  

Well before  we are accused of having a few screws loose—what’s missing from the list above?  The missing “gem” is a reasonable assortment of paper clips.  There is one.  It has been straightened  in order to slip one end into a small electronic device that has a reset button inside a small hole.  But I’m afraid that’s it.  There are 30 billion with a B manufactured and sold every year and only 1 ONE I SAY in my junk drawer!  AND since once we get past a case (24) of something and sometimes only a six pack, common knowledge of what some number means gets a bit fuzzy.  So let’s pause a moment shall we?

Thirty Billion 30,000,000,000  paper clips strung together would circle the Earth at the equator  more than 20 times and possibly 25 times.  You could string 30 billion paper clips together  and circle the globe then go to the moon and back.  Let’s not use the clips for that as we don’t want to encourage the idea of taking our red-tape and paperwork mountains off the planet.  

Why is this object so much coveted?  This object has served in four long-remembered  functions that need highlighted here.  

One of the objects in the junk drawer is my first harmonica.  The story of it will appear in another place —you know objects in your life that have meaning show up in a bunch of places and in one end of that harmonica?  You guessed it—a paper clip holds it together.  How long has this been there? Well it allowed me to do a train whistle at least a decade before Steve Jobs showed us the texting phone calling music player some people have now.  

On more than one occasion I’ve picked up any of several pairs of eye glasses only to come away with more than one piece in my hand only to find that a little screw has wandered off to the place where socks in your dryer and the right sized Tupperware  lids hide. But instead of being more than a little screwed a paper clip slides into the small hole and with a quick little bend the ear piece is useable and off you go.  

Missing a button in a not too obvious place?  Bingo!

Finally…nearly all glue works so well that once you turn it upside down to get some on the surface you are hoping to hold together it clings to the glue container or creates a glue bubble.  Well not if you stick a paper clip in the hole immediately after using the glue or to break through the glue bubble if you were not thinking about it at the time because it was super glue and your fingers are now sticking to each other.  

It would be good to give credit to the inventor/designer of the clip that we use today and it would be great to credit the folks who invented the wheel and perhaps also assign some blame to the folks who thought neck ties were necessary at all let alone expected business wear.  So we don’t really know.  There were patented devices in the 1860s but the clip really didn’t get popular until the 1890s.  There’s a big statue of the paper clip in Norway where the name of the clip is “gem” and of course that means credit is expected there, however  the gem design is not the popular bent steel loop set we use.  Before the paper in most the English speaking world red tape (yes that’s where the term comes from) was used to hold paper together.  

Now the paper clip is the universal symbol indicating an additional self-contained file has been attached to a sent document such as an email.  “Clippy” is the little Microsoft character that served as AI help within some of their most popular software offerings.  

Well that brings us to the place where we try to pull all this together into something that makes sense  to keep together.  In our world today it seems like many people try to get the benefits of keeping people and thoughts apart.  The paper clip has been a little warrior in the battle to keep things usable and together.  It’s hard to measure  how important keeping things together can be, however if you want to walk a mile in my shoes  in order to understand some of the things that keep my thoughts together  you can find out just how far you’ve walked  by linking paper clips to each other and when you’ve reached 49,106  or so you’ve gone the extra mile and that my friend is greatly appreciated and will bring Peace and Joy to this here life.  Bottom line it takes a lot of little things to keep your sh## together.

Give Us Today Our Daily Bread

 Give Us today Our daily Bread

Now we’re going to start with the notion that “bread” has many forms and many names worldwide.  Of course Texas Toast is not the same as a crumbly crouton.  Also in the U.S. most of us think. Of a loaf of sliced bread not realizing that prior to Otto Rohwedder’s 12 year effort that came to fruition in 1928 (less than a century ago) sliced bread didn’t come from the store in a plastic bag with red, blue, and yellow dots on it or any other bag for that matter.  Because sliced bread per se wasn’t a thing.  This of course leads to many questions like how in the world did we make a grilled cheese or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in 1843?  Well it’s likely we didn’t.  So what did we eat with tomato soup?

Well there are some things this and future generations will never know.  However there are somethings we do think we do know about bread.  Like we sort of think that bread became a known food thing somewhere around 12,000 years ago most likely when York the cave dweller said “I could really go for a Wooly Mammoth  on Rye.” Well maybe not.  However it seems that a flat bread  is recognized as the first form of bread and records indicate  it dates back that far.  Now bread has evolved and served many purposes.  We might think that bread as a slang term for money was a late 1960’s and early 70’s thing.  Wrong again. Bread was actually used as currency during some periods of history which probably was the forerunner of cooking the books?”  After graphite became a material used for writing and drawing and before the widespread availability of industrially manufactured rubber, bread was used as an eraser.  This of course led to the small student’s explanation to his school teacher—“well.. I have lots of mistakes and my homework is only part done because my dog ate some of it and part of my pencil too.”  

Okay let’s move to a bit more current era.  In the United States current data indicate that there are somewhere around 100 varieties of bread sold in stores in restaurants, and in specialized bakeries and we eat a lot of it.  The latest stats show that every man woman and child consumes around 53 pounds of bread a year.  However, fret not.  Wheat is the most frequently used grain to make bread and we produce our share and then some.  In the late 1990’s and ever since then the state of Kansas alone has produced enough wheat to feed the entire planet.  In fact, in 1997 statistics showed that Kansas produced enough wheat to bake 6 loaves  of bread for every man woman, and child on the planet.  There’s a lot of choosey mothers out there so I doubt if Skippy or Jiff  can claim the same.  

Okay that’s enough about the bread—how about the “daily?”

In the “Lord’s Prayer”people request their daily bread.  Maybe in seeking peace and joy we could focus on being satisfied with having our circumstances be such that we only sought food  and other possessions needed to get us through the only day we ever live which of course is today.  There are people going hungry and daily bread would be great for them and there are people who have enough bread to provide loaves (and fishes) for everyone on the planet  for days and days and days and days  (you get the picture.  The point is this… there is probably enoughbread out there  so that everyone could have some daily and we would probably live fuller lives if we lived each day on what we have instead of trying to collect material things that often grow stale and grow green stuff that only once in a great while turns into a cure for disease.  In short perhaps there would be more peace and joy if we appreciated our daily bread and offered to share enough that everyone  had a slice.

Sing Along Part 3

 Well as the Yule  crashes down upon us here’s the third of three Bah Humbug Sing a-longs.  There is a time and a place for celebrating peace on earth and joy to the world and all the Christmas tunes by all the artists who feel the true spirit of giving.  However, it they are singing for the cash, then that’s in the pre-heart expansion Grinch category and well there’s forgiveness for that we suppose.  For now enjoy this last tune for this year.   Peace  and Joy to you all.

Christmas time of Your life  

It’s another Christmas morn full of boxes and those sacks

Your wallet lays there empty and you credit card’s on max 

I hope you were successful helping that Santa guy

I hope the elves did all their work

And the reindeer they did fly

Its something unpredictable and in the end there’s right

I hope  the kids are happy Christmas night

How to explain Santa I’ll leave that up to you

Good luck with the tooth fairy and the easter bunny too

You want to get kids what they want  and of course the things they need

Well you know from time to time it’ll make your budget bleed

It’s something unpredictable and in the end there’s right

I hope your kids are happy Christmas night

It’s something unpredictable and in the end there’s right

I hope the kids are happy Christmas night

Bah Humbug Sing-along Part Two

 Bah Humbug Sing-along Part 2

Well… the previous entry brought you  The Real Elves Opera   and now we line up a jingle bell never to be classic inspired  not by St. Nick but by Saint Mick? (And friends?

In the spirit of Honky Tonk Women.. here’s Holiday Season (black Friday Blues)

V1 

I went down to the mall to visit Santa

He’s at a spot that used to be The Gap

He said he’d get me all I want for Christmas

But I sure as hell ain’t sitting on his lap

Chorus 1

It’s the HOLiday Season

I hope the liquor store don’t run out of booze

It’s the holiday season

And I’ve got those lousy Black Friday Blues

V2

I saw the reindeer flying over Cleveland

They have to fly through Detroit  on the  way

The elves flashed some gang signs by the chimney

Now there’s only six deer left to pull the sleigh

Chorus 2

Now it’s the holiday season

Gotta have enough lights to blow a fuse

It’s the holiday season

Lord I hate these old black Friday Blues

(Talking interlude

Now I know it’s supposed to be a season of giving and smiles and the like so  let’s give this whole thing  one last go shall we?

V3

Now  the Angel says that I should count my blessings

And I have a lot  to count both big and small

So I’m sending thoughts of peace on earth  it’s needed

And let’s add in some good will for us all

Chorus 3

 It’s the holiday season

We can make things better if we choose

It’s the holiday season 

Good-bye  you no good Black Friday  Blues

(Video coming soon )

Fabulous New Holiday TunesPart One

 Christmas  sing-Along sort of?

Well.. this blog has taken a bit of a holiday so to speak.   It’s not that the world is producing less noteworthy content or that the need for seeking peace and or joy has suddenly hit a decline.  It’s a strange combination of time constraints and the need to reset.  And so that happened.  In the meantime we have wandered through a few days and about 40 gazillion  versions of 17 Christmas tunes.  Now these songs do put some spirits in better places—like for instance more whiskey and tequila under  the collective sinks and in the collective liquor cabinets of many.  Having said that often times people want “new” Christmas songs or artists doing their versions so the decision here was to take the Wongs of some well-known folks and plug in some “Christmas related” lyrics.  

These lyrics work… they have been applied and heard.   So now that we’re back on the camel and watching the star with a tail as long as a kite here you go. The Next three entries will be some “never to be classics…but enjoy (There are music videos out there or on on the way too.  

Song Title —Real Elves Opera-Time for Me to fly

Sing  to the basic themes in REO Speedwagon’s  “Time for Me to Fly”

V1

I’ve decked the halls for you

Built millions of dolls for you

Every engine has a fire chief

I’ve landed on roofs for you

Dodged Reindeer hooves for you

But I can’t get any relief

I’ve had enough of the shopping malls and the Ho-ho-ing

Every time I go outside it’s always snowing

I just want one day where it’s warm and dry

I believe it’s time for me to fly

V2

The Christmas spirit’s gone 

They can get things from Amazon 

And they bring it right to your door

And Santa  I’m getting pissed 

Reading the naughty  list

Must be four billion  names maybe more

And they don’t care what we put in their socks now

They just want the new iPhone or an x-Box now

I’m going to walk south and drink Canada Dry

I believe it’s time for me to fly

Chorus 1

Time for me to fly 

I’m gonna hi-jack the sleigh

Time for me to fly

Go to New York or L.A.

Tell Mrs. Claus she makes a good Christmas pie

But it’s time for me to fly

V3

I was your favorite elf

But one bad day and I’m on the shelf 

Oh Santa why can’t you see

It was your old reindeer 

Who got into your favorite beer 

And Prancer tried to hang that on me

I’ve had enough of the hot chocolate and gingerbread cookies

I’m sick of the Star Wars toys  especially the Wookies

I’ll turn in my curly shoes  and my red pajamas 

I want to spend Christmas time in the Bahamas 

Oh Santa Claus  I gave it a try

But it’s time for me to fly

Chorus 2

Time for me to fly

I’m gonna hi-jack the sleigh

Time for me to fly

Tell Vegas I’ on the way

Find me some gummies  and get really high

Yes it’s time for me to fly…

Tell Rudolph he can kiss my A$$ good-bye  

‘Cause  it’s time for me to fly.