Guy's blog about life with pets in northern mich.

As Mark Twain said, “There isn’t a generalization that is worth a DAMN, including this one!” Stereotypes are generalizations so this means that we should be skeptical about believing them. Still, I imagine that along with prejudice, there is usually a grain of truth around which many stereotypes are built. Lets examine some. The Irish are portrayed as being cops, politicians, priests, or drunks. When this particular generalization was first made, shiploads of Irish immigrants were... Sign in to see full entry.

Just a couple of weeks before I fly out to visit my brother in New Mexico, the National Transportation Safety Board says that it is highly likely that catastrophic runway crashes will begin occurring more and more often. This is just what I need to hear! I am not a “Nervous Nellie” about flying, but stuff like this could make me one. There are a lot of nut cases out there, mall shooters, school shooters, airplane bombers and train bombers, and I halfway expect to hear about some overworked air... Sign in to see full entry.

Tonight, I am in a strange reflective mood. For some reason, I have been thinking about my family and remembering growing up with my two brothers and my sister, my parents, my grandparents, and the great-grandparents that I remember. Earlier today I was talking with my sister about the mysterious effects of our common genes on all of us siblings. From my mother’s side of the family we got, or didn’t get, curiosity, average life span, the genes that make one diabetic, a plodding, patient and... Sign in to see full entry.

Last night, just as it was becoming dark, I saw our friendly neighborhood opossum climbing up onto our pump house again. Pat the ‘possum thinks that she is a cat. It sounds like I’m slandering her but the truth is that all opossums are monumentally stupid. They are a bit higher up the evolutionary ladder than mollusks and catfish, but only a rung or two. They are not evil; in fact I think that that particular distinction is exclusive to intelligent bipedal primates. Evil requires intent and... Sign in to see full entry.

Does it seem to you that there are many strange ads on the ol’ square-eyed Cyclops lately? One of them tells us that $10 will feed something like 500 starving kids with rice that needs to be shipped from one place to another. Sounds like good results for a small price. In another they want $10 to buy a mosquito net that covers a bed. When I ran the family hardware store, you could buy enough cheesecloth to cover five acres for $10! I suspect that many of these charities milk well-meaning,... Sign in to see full entry.

If you are at all like me, you monitor how many people read your blogs, often. I monitor mine several times a day. I also re-read what I have posted for typos or punctuation errors, and I occasionally edit my blogs if I think that changing one word for another would be an improvement. I must have something like OCD. (Obsessive-compulsive disorder, AKA “Monk’s disease.”) Since Thanksgiving, I notice that I often go for a whole day with only one or two reads, sometimes less, and this makes me feel... Sign in to see full entry.

Well December and winter snow have descended on northern Michigan. It has been expected as these two friends come around these parts each year, about this time. I woke up at 3:00AM to discover the season’s first appreciable snowfall. It has accumulated about six inches so far, and it hasn’t stopped snowing yet. When I get out of bed, Baby also jumps down and accompanies me into the living room. This is what bodyguards do. He seems to be good at his profession; I have not been attacked by any... Sign in to see full entry.

I suspect that somewhere there is a huge warehouse filled with Clappers, Chia pets, facial hair pullers, nose and ear hair trimmers, popcorn poppers, hand-cranked ice cream makers, bread dough kneaders, Chinese made toys, crock pots, garish multi-colored holiday theme sweaters, men’s cologne and aftershave, mid-calf high, knitted (aptly-named) “slippers,” and a variety of cheap holiday gifts. These products have little reason to exist, but as gifts for distant relatives, in-laws, people that you... Sign in to see full entry.

An unmarried man over the age of fifty, has some things that he ought to know because women of this age all know these things, and would never dream of telling them to him. It is to the women’s advantage to keep men ignorant of these facts because the power curve has changed in men’s favor, by the age of fifty. Early in life, men are slaves to drives that aren’t under the control of their intelligence, to put it charitably. Women get to choose their potential mates and men are competing for... Sign in to see full entry.

In school, I learned that Christopher Columbus discovered the New World and claimed it, in the name of Spain. Disregarding the likelihood that earlier explorers were here before him, no teacher ever explained to me how one goes about “ discovering ” an occupied continent and then claiming it. North America had already been populated for thousands of years, by sophisticated humans with a variety of cultures spread throughout the whole continent. Europeans arrogantly said that they weren’t really... Sign in to see full entry.