This and That

When there are certain emergencies that require you to dial Men-With-Butt-Cracks, try to avoid scheduling your nap when they occupy your home. You might be able to expand your Mr. Fix-it credentials.

I confess to enjoying the company of my computer while these Bob Vila clones are around, especially if I know there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell of my stepping up the next time the same problem occurs. But now and then, I pay attention, thinking, “I can do that.”

I am gaining bravado when it comes to the underpinnings of sinks, kitchen or bathroom—as long as I’m willing to dislocate a shoulder now and then.

Today was one of those days. I cleaned out a mostly clogged pipe under my second kitchen sink. Better yet, my shoulders are intact. Since very few scraps ever go down the backup sink, I have no idea how so much could congeal* there. Calcification, I get. I got rid of most of that as well.

I’m feeling so cocky, I just might tackle replacing a couple roof titles next week, or when the weather dips below 100 degrees. Must be September.

Last week I once again proved why women still need men. PJ had managed to entrap a large cricket under one of my serving bowls. The bowl had been handy in the bathroom because she had used it to soak her fingers. Women go soak themselves a lot. But she needed me to complete that icky task. I captured the cricket with a paper towel, but not so firmly as to harm it. I released it onto our patio table. For some reason it just sat there. I think it was an indoor cricket. I gave it a goose and off it flew into the wilds of Anaheim Hills, and smack dab into the middle of our palm tree. It fluttered to the ground, stunned.

With the current fire infernos in southern California, PJ is looking askance at our fire hazards. That would be our trees and bushes. She is hinting that I begin major trimmings, even if it meant yours truly pretending he is spider-man with a chain saw. Like that could happen. Men over fifty have no business out on limbs, endangering their limbs. I will get three bids. I have learned that what begins with a passing suggestion will erupt into a full-scale assault on my manhood, and time, in a few weeks.

That Tucson-style landscaping is looking better and better. Lower water bills, too.

*Okay so I used a cooking term, congeal, to describe a plumbing problem. It happens to cooks. It could be worse. I could have made a verb out of a noun and said, "...how so much could glob there.” Like that’s never happened before.

More Stupid White Men

I strive to stay on the sunny disposition side of my live-in ATM, just in case I ever need a hall pass. My pot roast recipe usually scores a weekend pass.

This past weekend I used one - - a pass, not the ATM.

I’ve done lots of stupid stuff in my life. I try to forget them. But that seems to be one vault in my memory bank that is fully functioning.

If mistakes humanize us then I have enough humanity to last two lifetimes.

I don’t purposely stammer something stupid in mixed company. I don’t consciously entrap my house to implode at inopportune times, just so I can prove I’m not related to Bob Vila, and am then forced to hire men with butt-cracks. I don’t purchase complicated self-assembly products made in China so I can create new words to add to my extensive profanity vocabulary.

When Forrest Gump plopped down $25,000 for a shrimp trawler, the seller looked at him and asked, “What are you, stupid or something?” To which Forrest replied, “Stupid is as stupid does.” Guilty as charged, robed one.

This past weekend I consciously, knowingly, with faculties in full force, added to my stupid list. I joined two buddies for a golf outing in Borrego Springs, California - - where, by mid-afternoons, the temperatures topped 120 degrees.

At my age this qualifies for the extreme sports competition.

When Michael Moore wrote his bestseller Stupid White Men, we three were not what he parodied, but the title stuck as much as our golf shirts.

My friends shall remain nameless, to protect their collusion, though not their innocence. Let’s refer to them as Dumb and Dumber.

The Dumber label belongs to the buddy who left work Friday evening and endured four hours of LA’s going-home, snail’s pace freeways, so he could get up at 6 AM to play golf in temps that reached 110 by 10 AM.

The humidity was so low the sweat evaporated by the time it broke through the skin pores. It was dryer than a Steven Wright comedy routine.

I seriously considered tossing clubs into the water holes, even after good shots, just so I could retrieve them. But I saved getting sloshed for the cocktail hour.

The wily coyotes lolled in their lairs while the desert bunnies bounded freely. The roadrunners walked everywhere, mocking the coyotes.

We drank a water bottle per hole, never once using the outdoor bathrooms (shrubs and trees).

As the guys’ weekend cook (the only reason I keep getting invited back), I didn’t bother igniting the stove. I sizzled the steaks on the patio pavement.

I would like to say that my reward for such bad judgment was a stellar golf score. I can’t. Some of my golf shots are listed in the “What the Hell was That?” golf shot Hall of Shame. You can add golf to my long list of engineering tasks I have never mastered, domestic or otherwise.

By the time we left, a cold snap was forecast for the next day - - 105 degrees - - which at least I scored less than.

I think I’ll pass on the next June pass, and make a pass at my ATM.