An Ode to Sugar Breath.

I was talking to Lady Di last night about a cool app on our semi-new i-Phones: a free sample of Discover Magazine in the i-NewsStand. The issue is "Vital Signs" and it included a little vignette where symptoms are given, and you follow along as they figure out what's wrong. The one I read had to do with subtle changes in the smell of one dude's breath. Lady Di, ever the health educator, offered that it was probably ketoacidosis. One of the things that can cause ketoacidosis is diabetes. You can read up on it in Wikipedia (you can try the link, but ever since Blogspot changed the format, it's kinda hit or miss...  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketoacidosis Anyway, the name of the ailment sounded familiar to me... Ah, Mary Poppins! Remember her and Bert dancing on roof tops? At one point or another they sang Supercalifragisticexpialodicious, which sound like the perfect place to plant ketoacidosis. Anyway, first, my take, then, for the purists, you can listen to Mary and Bert.

An Ode to Sugar Breath (sung to the tune of Supercalifragilisticexpialodicious)

It’s too bad we have to smell that ketoacidosis,
Even though a whiff of it is worse than halitosis,
If we complain too loud, they’ll say we have neurosis...
Super stinky sugar breath, it’s ketoacidosis.

Because I was afraid to speak,
When the big guy reeked too bad,
The odor gave me nose a tweak,
Enough to drive me mad.
But then again it can’t be helped,
The situation’s sad,
The super stinky sugar breath, It’s ketoacidosis.

Everything Reminds me of Food...

I saw a stash of failed fountain pens in an office waste basket the other day. Made me hungry. No, I'm not a pen chewer. It's just that, where a lot of folks would just see a pile of pens; I saw food. Specifically, I thought of last week's stirfry. Check it out below:

See what I mean? Tell me you're not at least a little hungry?

You Might Be an Observant Muslim if...

Most folks in these parts are fans of Jeff Foxworthy and his "You Might Be a Redneck if..." routines... and mugs... and calendars. My brother, the Amazing AndyMan, got me a "You Might Be a Reckneck If..." calendar last Christmas. There are some good ones, some okay ones, and some "365 days is a lot of days to come up with a different You Might Be a Redneck If joke" ones. I've gotten a bit behind in both my posts and in my calendar adjustments, so I was going through a couple of weeks of calendar readings this morning, when I caught the one for Friday, October 26th, pictured at left. I'd put it in the "okay" category. It's mildly amusing: You Might Be a Redneck If... Sitting on your sofa means waking a relative." But wait, what's that little observance notation above the date?


Go ahead and look below.

  

It says Eid al-Adha. I know President's Day, Christmas, Hannukah, and even Canada's "Boxing Day", but what the heck is Eid al-Adha? Apparently,  Eid al-Adha is a Muslim Holiday in remembrance of Abraham's obedience to God's demand to sacrifice his son, who is spared when God sends a substitute ram at the last minute (you can read about that in Genesis, if you want. It's in the Bible, so Jewish folks and Christians are stuck with it, but most of the priests that I've heard talk about this one sort of hem and haw. Islam, apparently, celebrates it. You gotta figure that family reunions at Abraham's place were, uh, strained. Abraham, "Isaac, could you please pass the yams? Isaac, "Sure, Dad, as long as I get to carve the turkey. You know how you get when you get hold of a knife!" Gales of laughter ensue.) Anyhow, I never thought of any of the Four Horses of The Blue Collar Comedy Tour as messenger of Muhammad. But then, maybe I'm a Redneck.

The Prodigal Son Returns.

Oldest son, his fiance, and their dog, just returned to the Palmetto State from South Korea (they may not forgive me- well, the dog (in the yellow tote) will- for using this photo of the quite road-weary warriors at left). Davis had been gone for more than two years. It's great to see him. His sibs are happy to see him, too, but it's not difficult to pick up a subtle "what's the big deal?" vibe. Reminds me of a story: In the parable of the Prodigal Son , Jesus relates the story of an irresponsible kid who cashed out his inheritance, and went abroad,  leaving his brother to continue to tend to the family business. After wasting all the money on wild living, he found himself starving, and he returned  home. He expected to be rejected by his pop, but his dad was just glad to see him. No lectures; just a big celebration. Prodigal's brother was not pleased. He'd been responsible, hadn't he? Dad didn't throw him any party. He'd been working his tail off, and he railed about how unfair it all was. Pop tells him he appreciated all the good son did, but not to be so hard on his brother: he was lost, but now he's back home. The parable is widely cited as a tale of redemption and forgiveness of the wayward child, and of God's unexpected and unearned mercy toward each of us. We're all that child from time to time... but we're also the good son sometimes, aren't we? We can be jealous of unexpected, and unearned, mercy given to others. So, cheer for the Prodigal Son, but pray for his brother, too!

I Want My Baby Bok.

Normally I oppose child labor and imports from China, but I must say this baby bok choy worked well in Lady's Di's most recent stir-fry. For what it's worth, we got a big sackful of produce from the local farmer's market to keep this little fella company. So bok off, m'kay?

Some Days are Diamonds; Some Days are Rocks... or Stone... or Rust.

I got my car, Duke, a nice spot at the Coastal Electric Co-op annual meeting on Saturday. Ah, it's nice to have that "nose out" parking job, when you're the lead car in a stack of two! ...unless, of course, it turns out that you're the middle car- the ONLY middle car- in a single column of three. That, actually, kind of sucks.

Life's like that, though: some days are diamonds; some days are rocks.

Triple Crown Me!

Miguel Cabrera has done something that hasn't been done since the Sox' Yaz did it in 1967: he had a better batting average, had more home runs and more runs batted in than anybody else in the American League.I'm a Johnny-come-lately to baseball. My brother, the Amazing AndyMan, was always a baseball fan. I wasn't a great fan, largely because I wasn't a very good baseball player. Football? No problem. A guy might outweigh me by fifty pounds, but I knew I had lots of gear on, and I could hit him back. In baseball, you're just wearing regular clothes. A guy would throw a ball right at you, and if you couldn't hit it- which I could do only rarely- you'd just have to let him. I didn't play it well, and I didn't originally enjoy watching it, because baseball games moved too slowly to suit me. Andy tried to inform me about the rhythm of the season, about streaks and back stories, but for years I remained indifferent to America's pastime. Prior to the advent of the Tampa Bay Ray's, Tampa's "local" team was the Atlanta Braves. The Braves were useless for years, but got good in the 1990's, and I jumped on the Braves bandwagon. I've enjoyed watching baseball ever since. My bride, on the other hand, grew up in Dearborn, Michigan, as an avid Detroit Tigers fan. We struck a deal early on: she'd root for my Florida State Seminoles and the Braves, if I'd root for her Tigers and the Michigan State Spartans. As a bonus, I get to root for the Detroit Red Wings in hockey, if there ever is hockey again. We're free-lancers in professional Football: I can root for the Bucs, and she can root for the Lions as we please. But I digress... It's been a pleasure to root for the Tigers. I even caught a Tigers game in Comerica Park this year. Imagine my thrill to be rooting for a team that has produced the first Triple Crown batter in 45 years!