Are We There Yet?
January 7-13, 2019
By Jay Edwards
jedwards@dailydata.com
There it is then. Another Christmas past. I got, and gave, the usual amount of presents, from and to, the usual suspects.
I got some stuff to make me smell better. It’s aftershave. Obsession, they call it. KM seems happy with it.
I got a lot of books, always a good thing. One is the Tiger Woods bio, the one with half his face on the front. It’s called “Tiger Woods.” Makes sense.
And I got “The Point Of It All,” by the late Charles Krauthammer, who I’m a big fan of and who’s easily my favorite conservative. Yes, it’s a pretty short list, so let’s just say he’s pretty high on my list of witty thinkers who write. Here’s an example: “Consider the oddity of those drug commercials on television. Fifteen seconds of the purported therapeutic effort, followed by about 45 seconds of a rapidly muttered list of horrific possible side effects. When the ad is over, I can’t remember a thing about what the pill is supposed to do, except perhaps cause nausea, liver damage, projectile vomiting, a nasty rash and sudden death. Sudden death is my favorite because there is something comical about it being a side effect. What exactly is the main effect in that case? Relief from abdominal bloating?”
I’m with you Charles.
But my favorite and funniest book I got is “Calypso” by David Sedaris. There is one problem in it however, where he makes fun of aftershave for no good reason. I think it was actually his partner, Hugh, who disses it, as in something like, “I could never be with him, he wears aftershave.” I don’t get that. Maybe I’ll write him and ask just what that means. But don’t let it stop you from buying the book.
As I write this I’m craving Chinese food all of a sudden. Maybe it’s a subconscious thing, because don’t people seem to eat a lot of Chinese food on Christmas Day? Or maybe it’s because nothing else is open. Like in “A Christmas Story,” when the Old Man takes the family out to Bo Ling Chinese Restaurant after the Bumpass hounds destroy their turkey. Trivia: If you look closely at the neon sign in front of Bo Ling’s, you can see a burnt out letter W between the O and the L.
My son Matt gave me a DNA tester from Ancestry. You are supposed to swab your mouth and send in the saliva to a lab, where they perform tests to tell you all the nationalities you’re made up of. I’m looking forward to the results. Unless I’m part Taliban or come from some culture that embraces cannibalism. Who knows, maybe I have a long lost uncle named Bo Ling out there somewhere.
I gave KM a nice pair of Diamondback binoculars, which I plan to steal from her. They’ll be good for the trails I hope to venture on. I also gave her one of those Keurig coffee makers, which I’ve already been stealing from each morning. I finally broke down and got one for her, not because I don’t still believe it’s just a gimmick, but because I ran out of good gift ideas. Truthfully, it is tastier than my old Mr. Coffee, which is the model I’ve stayed with since 1978. If Joe DiMaggio used it, it was good enough for me. On that first one I bought, Joe was giving a $5.00 rebate. The rebate certificate had Joe’s signature on it, which I saved, figuring that Joe DiMaggio’s signature would be worth much more than five bucks somewhere down the line.
In the commercial where Joe tells about the rebate, he was at his Tuesday bridge club with all his girlfriends, who were all very thankful to him for saving them the five dollars. That bothered me at the time, Joe in a bridge club. But 40 years later I understand a little better that when you get old your social options become somewhat limited. Still, a bridge club?
It’s just so depressing. One minute you’re the Yankee Clipper and sleeping with Marilyn, and the next you’re in a Tuesday afternoon bridge club drinking coffee.
Oh well, Happy New Year anyway.
