Lookin' Good

What with such a late spring , the flowers in Mary's garden got off to a slow start, but now she thinks they have reached their peak of beauty, and that's not bad.  What was it - three months ago that we had such a deep snowfall.  Most people had put their snowblowers away and had their lawnmowers ready to go.  It's a good thing I went around the yard yesterday morning with my camera because I came upon a running water hose she had forgotten about.  I suppose the extra water bill will just come out of my allowance.

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 Speaking of the wife, I drug her kicking and screaming to The Lone Ranger on Sunday.  It took a couple weeks of pleading, but finally she relented.  Of course, what were the first words she spoke as we walked to our car after the movie, "I really liked it!"  There are some good laughs in the story.  Tonto always made sure to feed the dead crow he wore on his head for good luck.  A little fantasy is good for anyone.
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An article in this week's Time magazine finally educated me as to why there is a big environmental pushback trying to prevent the Keystone Pipeline from being built - that stuff is really gunky and dirty. 
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What's with the television station in California that reported on the pilot's names of the Korean airplane that came in for a hard landing.  There must have been a bunch of slugs running around in that studio and in front of that camera to say these names out loud: Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee F__ , and Bang Ding Ow. I choose not to fill in the blanks on the one name, but it's easy to figure out.  If that's not outrageous enough, here is another to add to it.  A newspaper in Chicago wrote the headline "Fright 214."  They got in trouble because it was perceived as a slur to Asiatic pronunciation of an English word.  

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The Zimmerman case in Florida brings out more racial anger.  Of course, mobbery erupted in protest.  And our role model,  the Senate argues.  The House of Reps argues.  No one gets anything done.  I spent a little time the other day looking at a magazine in Barnes and Noble - American Cowboy, August/September - and read an essay written by President Jimmy Carter in honor of John Wayne.  Of course, with Carter being a liberal Democrat and John Wayne being a conservative Republican they were bound to disagree.  But Carter liked the man immensely.  Here is a quote from that article: What I learned from him as we engaged during my tenure as president was that patriotism, policy debates, even major disagreements about the nation's direction need not be hostile or personal or contentious, and that no matter how much we disagreed, we had more in common than our differences might suggest.   If only we could have people like that around today.  The democrat Tip O'Neill and the republican Ronald Reagan fought during the day but were great friends at night.  Something seems to get in the way of that occurring today.

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Ole and Lars were working for the city public works department in Fargo.  Ole would dig a hole and Lars would follow behind and fill the hole in. They worked up one side of the street, then down the other, then moved on to the next street, working furiously all day without rest, one digging a hole, the other filling it in again.  An onlooker was amazed at their hard work, but couldn't understand what they were doing. So he asked Ole, "I'm impressed by the effort you two are putting in to your work, but I don't get it -- why do you dig a hole, only to have your partner follow behind and fill it up again?  Ole, the hole digger, wiped his brow and sighed, 'Vell, I suppose it probably looks odd because ve're normally a three-person team. But today Sven, who plants da trees called in sick.'"