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The Egg Beater, A Love Story

2/28/2023

…Continued from previous post:
The following morning, Tuesday, February 21, Tom and I checked out of the Berlin Resort.
But first, as it was a nice, sunny morning, we took a stroll around the grounds,

…stopping at the Children’s Village, the miniature play town, inside each building of which is a playroom, that our granddaughters used to love when we used to take them to the Berlin Resort every summer before COVID.

It’s been almost four years since we last took them here. I fear that if we took them back to the Berlin Resort again, by now they may have outgrown their once-beloved Children’s Village. But then, outgrowing childhood’s joyland is what children do. In any case, despite waxing nostalgic, we enjoyed our stroll.

After we checked out of the Berlin Resort, Tom wanted to stop by Lehman's, a hardware store he'd heard about located in Kidron, the next town down from Berlin. Lehman's was purportedly a strictly nuts-and-bolts, tools and equipment, no-nonsense old farmer dude kind of place where Tom hoped to find a scythe which which to chop down the winter rye he'd planted to replenish his garden.
Lehman's.

My first impression upon entering Lehman's was, Oh, this place is cute.

My second impression was, ...but it does not look like an old farmer dude hardware store.
Tom looked around and sighed. "The place must have changed," he said.

I agreed that, if ever Lehmann's was a dude store, it was now, indubitably, a chick store. And not the kind that farmers raise.
Not that there wasn't any hardware to be found at Lehman's. No, there were a couple of aisles of tools and other work-related accouterments.

But these seemed more token items,

perhaps a nod to Lehman's heritage,

...or maybe something to hold the guys' interest while their women and children prowled the rest of the store's vast expanse of appealing things.

And while the store didn't carry a scythe, which is what Tom had come there looking for, we did find it a hoot that there was a book on scythes in the book section.

I roamed around the store, picking up a few oh-so-cute trinkets for my grand daughters.
But it was the kitchen wares section that really pulled me in. There was such an amazing array of attractive, unique and useful things.

When I came upon this row of egg beaters, an old-school kitchen tool that I didn't know even existed any more, I couldn't resist taking one off the rack and playing with it.

To my surprise, I gave the handle barely a spin, but the beaters took off and kept spinning, fast, with barely any effort on my part. Wow, thought I, recalling my mother's egg beater and the egg beater I used to own and occasionally used, stiff, annoying apparatuses that gave one's wrist a workout every time. But this egg beater was like none I'd ever used before. It spun like a dream. It was one high-tech egg beater. I had to have it. This little baby, I decided, was going to put my old wire whisk out of business.

I tossed it into my cart with the rest of my acquisitions,

I then headed for the check-out counter, where the cashier proceeded to ring up my purchases.
When she came to the egg beater she stopped. "You want this one?" she asked. "This is the expensive one."
"Oh?" said I, trying to remember whether or not I'd checked the price on the thing before tossing it into my cart. As I didn't know what the price was, I obviously hadn't.
"There's cheaper ones," the cashier added, "but this is the expensive one. Made in the U.S.A."
Now, I wondered how much an expensive egg beater, one made in the U.S.A., might cost. However much it cost, the cashier apparently took one look at me and figured I couldn't afford it. The figure that popped into my head was twenty five dollars. Maybe thirty. But no, surely not thirty. Twenty five. Or maybe twenty. Which I could certainly afford, no matter what this haughty cashier thought.
"Do you want this one?" she asked me again.
"Well, how much does it cost," I asked.
She held up the price tag.

Hearing my gasp and, I expect, reading the expression on my face, the cashier handed me back the one hundred and sixteen dollar and ninety-four cent egg beater and asked me if I would mind returning it to its rack while I picked out a cheaper one.
So, with a little pang of regret I returned the egg beater of my dreams to its rack and tried out several cheaper ones, all of which admitted on their tags to being made in China, and none of which worked like my dream beater.
I'd finally settled on some decidedly inferior, but vastly cheaper model,

...when my mate came up behind me and took from the rack the egg beater that I had just returned. He turned it over in his hand, gave it a spin,

...then handed it to me.
"Here, get this one," he said.
"What?...no!" said I.
"Aw, come on," he said. "Get it."
"Oh, no possible way," I said, returning the beater to its rack.
"Look," he said, reaching around me and taking it back off the rack, "I never buy you anything. You never buy yourself anything. You don't wear jewelry. You don't wear make-up. You don't wear clothes."
"Yes I do wear clothes," I said.
"You know what I mean." He again handed me the egg beater. "Please," he said, "take it. I want you to have it."
And so I took the egg beater from him, returned to the check-out counter, and made it my own.
And I've been greatly enjoying it,

As has my good food-loving mate.

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Doing The Amish Country Things

2/24/2023

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"TROPICAL DEPRESSION" BY PATTI LISZKAY IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER

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DOING THE AMISH COUNTRY THINGS

,...Continued from yesterday:
The following day, Monday, February 20, we discovered that breakfast at the Berlin Resort had been moved from its previous location in the lobby,

...to the hotel ballroom, which worked just as well for us, and apparently for everyone else.

After breakfast we headed out to town to find Amish Country re-opened for business (see yesterday's post, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/never-on-sunday-in-amish-country),

...and the tourists returned to spend the Presidents' Day holiday despite the overcast, drizzly weather.

Our first stop was at the 61 Surplus thrift store, a pair of buildings,

... located on a pretty country road,

...where all kinds of second-hand items are sold to promote a good cause.

Amish bonnets.

This set of dishes caught my eye,

...but I only looked then moved on.
After the thrift store we then returned to the main commercial strip through Berlin where our first stop was an indoor mall called the German Village Center.

We checked out the Gospel Book Store,

... where I browsed through some of the fiction. Most of it was of the squeeky-clean romance variety, the heroines being mostly Amish school teachers ,

...who had their eye on Amish bad boys,

...whom they managed to straighten out by the end of the book (as I learned by skimming through the pages from beginning to end).

I concluded that the Gospel Book Store would likely not be interested in carrying my books,

...even though the core themes - love and conflict - are about the same.
We made the rounds of the other mall stores,

...including the hardware store where Tom bought a bucket,

...and where they also offered an array of inspirational tee shirts.

We also looked around the grocery store.

We then walked across the parking lot from the German Village Mall to Sol's Palace,

...a vast country crafts Mecca on three floors.

...where one can find a finity of ornamental hangings bearing good-natured messages,

...and some less so.

In any case, at Sol's there's certainly something for every country craft afficionado, whatever their taste,

...or persuasion.

While looking around the bargain basement,

...I even found something I liked: these solar-powered light-up lawn birds for $19.99,

...one of which now sits on my living room buffet while I contemplate the perfect spot for it in my yard.

By the time we finished perusing all the nooks and crannies at Sol's it was time for lunch. We drove to the next town over, a place with the auspicious name of Charm,

...where we hoped to have lunch at our favorite of all favorite Amish Country luncheries, the Charm Family Restaurant,

whose veggie wrap and fries were to die for,

...not to mention their pie and ice cream.

But when we arrived we found, to our horror, that the Charm Family Restaurant had closed. Permanently.
And so I suggested that we return to the Berlin strip and try the Troyer Market, which advertised Good To Go (and like everything else in Amish Country, Wholesome) food.

We split a ham and Swiss sub which was definitely good.

In fact, for a plastic wrapped ham and Swiss it was better than good, as it was very tasty and fresh, as if it had just been made, which it might have been.
We shared our sandwich in the cheery little cafeteria (upon the wall of which hung a piece of cool retro-wall art),

...with the other folks who obviously knew how good the to-go food was here was.

After lunch we had a look around the super market and bought nice some produce,

...while enjoying the free popcorn.

We forewent the more tempting items,

...along with the not-so-tempting tempting ones.

After we finished our shopping we drove back down the strip to visit Loreen's Used Books,

...where the books were indeed wholesome family reading,

...except for a few of questionable rectitude.

After Loreen's we strolled up the street, looking at the shops.

We stopped in the Main Street candy store, which offered a wide array of uncommon flavors of soda,

...most of them not particularly appealing,

...some less appealing than others.

The store also offered a 25-pound gummy bear that looked somewhat the worse for wear.

Then we drove for a while around the pretty countryside that begins as soon as the main Berlin drag ends.

When dinnertime rolled around we headed to the only restaurant opened in Berlin past 5 pm other than the Burger King and East of Chicago Pizza, the Farmstead, which stays open until seven.

The menu reminded the customers to say their grace before their meal.

As we dug into our hearty, tasty Amish buffet food, Tom and I pondered what it was that kept us coming back to Berlin, Ohio year after year, staying at the same place, spending all day moseying up and down the same tourist-trappy street and meandering through the same tourist-trappy stores looking at the same tourist-trappy stuff that we seldom have the least interest in buying, and the whole town closes down at 5 pm except for the Burger King and East of Chicago Pizza.
Neither of us could say. But we started talking about we hoped that by our next anniversary the Charm Family Restaurant would be reopened and the nightly room rate at the Berlin Resort would still be $116.95.

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Never On Sunday In Amish Country

2/22/2023

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"TROPICAL DEPRESSION" BY PATTI LISZKAY IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER

NEVER ON SUNDAY IN AMISH COUNTRY

Last Sunday, February 19, being Tom's and my 46th wedding anniversary,

...we decided to head back to our old pre-COVID anniversary go-to spot, the Berlin Resort in Ohio Amish Country, where we hadn't been in three anniversaries.

Now, I had originally wanted to book us a room for Thursday and Friday nights, but as those nights were already booked up by the time I got around to making the reservations, I knew of no reason why we shouldn't spend Sunday and Monday instead. The reason I knew of no reason was because I didn't know about Sundays in Amish Country.
And so we were blissfully unaware of what awaited us - or, more accurately, what didn't await us - on this sunny Sunday afternoon when we took off from our neighborhood,

...and picked up U.S. Route 62 where it passed through our suburb of Gahanna, then drove north east through the farm country that begins where metropolitan Columbus ends.

It had been our plan to stop after an hour, as we usually do, for lunch in the town of Danville.

...an Amish Country exurb about 45 minutes from our destination of Berlin.
However our Danville lunch spot, a terrific little eatery called The Hangout, where they serve the best veggie sub on the planet and probably the best fries as well,

...was, to our surprise and disappointment, closed for the day. In fact, the whole town appeared to be closed for the day. But, we figured, Danville is a small town, and so maybe there wasn't enough commerce to warrant the businesses staying open Sunday.
And so we continued on through the pleasant Ohio countryside,

...until we reached the next town, Millersburg, which was deep in the heart of Amish Country and bordered our destination town of Berlin, which was deep in the tourist heart of the area.
However, Millersburg appeared to be just as closed down as Danville was.

That's when the though hit us: Could it be possible that Ohio Amish Country, aka Ohio Tourist Central, closes down on a plum tourism day like Sunday? Never having been in Amish Country on Sunday, we didn't know the answer.
But that, in fact, turned out to be the very case. We drove into Berlin to find every store, shop and restaurant on the main drag empty and shuttered tight.

It was our good fortune, though, that there were, in fact, three places open in the area where one could procure some nourishment:
A Subway we found in a mini-strip mall on the outskirts of Millersburg where we snagged some lunch,

...a Burger King on the edge of Berlin,

...and the sole establishment open on the Berlin main drag, and an East of Chicago Pizzeria.

It even occurred to us to wonder whether the doors of our hotel might be closed on Sunday.
But no, the Berlin Resort was open for business as usual.

The lobby was as bright and cheery we remembered it,

Our room was clean and pleasant as past rooms had been,

...with a view of the grounds from our balcony.

After we settled in we did a once-around-the-place.

Among the amenities are the pool,

...work-out rooms,

...aerobics/yoga room,

...basketball court, massage rooms, barber shop and beauty salon,

...and several areas just to hang out with (or without) a hot drink always available from the machines in the lobby.

And then there's our favorite amenity, the mini-movie theater inside the hotel.

We took a dip in the pool, then when dinner time rolled around we drove into town,

...to where the only action was, East of Chicago Pizza.
The place was not as crowded as one would have expected for it being the only eatery open in town,

...unless everyone else was at the Burger King or the Subway, or else eating at home.
In any case, the service was good and, in the opinion of this amateur food critic and East of Chicago Pizza aficionado, the pizza was delish,

...as were the newly added items since our last visit:
hot subs,

...mini-stromboli's.

...and chicken and french fries.

And then there were the cinnamon rolls, which I can eat my weight in.

After our very satisfying dinner we returned to the Berlin Resort.

When 8pm rolled around we headed down to the movie theater to watch that evening's feature,

..."Daddy Day Care," an entertaining flick starring Eddie Murphy.

And so went our Sunday afternoon in Amish Country. It was actually nice enough. Though we decided that next time we'll come on a Monday. Or a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. But never on Sunday. (And never on Saturday, either, because Saturday in Amish Country is waaaay to crowded!).
To be continued...

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Stacy And Michael's Wedding

2/18/2023

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"TROPICAL DEPRESSION" BY PATTI LISZKAY IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER

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STACY AND MICHAEL'S WEDDING

...Continued from yesterday:
The following day, Saturday, February 11, the day of Stacy and Michael's wedding, began with breakfast in the cheery hotel dining room,

...where we enjoyed doing more catching up with the relatives.

While Tommy opted to spend some time hanging out with his cousins,

...Tom and I decided to do a practice drive out to the wedding venue, which was in Hastings, the next town over.

On the way there, as we traversed the the snowy Minnesota countryside,

... I kept hearing in my head the the theme from the movie "Fargo" - which actually takes place in Minnesota.

Along the way also crossed the Mississippi River.

When Tom and I returned to the hotel in Cottage Grove we found some of the relatives gathered in the dining room playing cards,

...and doing nails,

...until it was time to set up for the pre-wedding luncheon,

...provided by Mary Jan and Ken, parents of the bride.

Kathy and me

A few hours later if was time to leave for the wedding, which began at 4:30.
Me, ready for the wedding in my sparkly shoes.

The wedding shuttles.

Tom and I, however, opted to drive to Hastings, retracing the practice route we'd taken earlier in the day.

The venue was located at a cute place called "Pioneer Village," an area that was set up to look like an old-timey town with vintage buildings.

The wedding took place in the Little Log House,

...a pretty, rustic building that the family had decorated with beautiful simplicity.

Taking photographs was not allowed during the wedding, but the ceremony was lovely and and heartfelt.
The newly weds

The flower girls.

We walked from the Little Log House to the reception hall,

...which was beautifully decked out for the occasion,

...as were the tables.

Ken and Mary Jane, parents of the bride.

Christie, mother of the groom,

Jeff, father of the groom.

While we waited for the arrival of the bride and groom we munched on yummy hors d'oeuvres,

...and socialized.

Tom and me

When the happy newlyweds arrived we welcomed them with toasts.

And after a prayer of thanksgiving by Tom,

...the feasting began,

Dessert was a delicious variety of bundt cakes, large and small.

After dinner there were speeches by the father of the bride,

...the sister of the bride,

...and friend of the groom.

Then Stacy danced with her dad,

...and Michael with his mom.

...after which we all joined in dancing,

...playing,

...and otherwise enjoying the evening, until the evening was over.
But for Stacy and Michael, the best was just beginning.

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Off To Minnesota For Stacy And Michael's Wedding. But First A Stop At The Mall Of America

2/15/2023

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"Tropical Depression" by Patti Liszkay Is Now Available For Preorder

OFF TO MINNESOTA FOR STACY AND MICHAEL'S WEDDING. BUT FIRST A STOP AT THE MALL OF AMERICA

Last Friday, February 10, Tom and I flew from Columbus, Ohio, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, for the wedding of my niece, Stacy, and her fiancé, Michael.

We arrived at the Minneapolis airport around noon,

...the plan being that we would pick up a rental car then wait until our son Tommy arrived several hours later, at which time we would pick him up then drive all together the thirty miles to the Minneapolis exurb of Cottage Grove, where the wedding guests' hotel was located.
As Tom and I had almost five hours to while away before Tommy's flight was scheduled to arrive, and as the airport was just a hop and a skip away from the fabled Mall of America, we figured that might be as good a local indoor attraction as any to check out on this freezing, single-digit-temperature Minnesota day.
Quite impressive from the outside,

...I was surprised that on the inside the Mall of America looked pretty much like any other upscale mall,

...except that it went on and on,

...and had an amusement park in the middle.

After wandering around a bit we discovered the food court,

...where we procured some tasty lunch from the Panda Express.

After lunch we roamed the mall,

...until we spotted a Dunkin,

...where we made a donut stop.

When the time came we picked up Tommy.

Then we headed to Cottage Grove to our hotel, The Radisson at Cottage Grove, a homey place,

...where we met up with relatives who were there for the wedding.

After we settled into our rooms,

...Tom, Tommy and I walked to the Applebee's across the driveway from the hotel.

Tommy and I had the Impossible Burger, which we found to be acceptable, if not outstanding, fare,

...while Tom was likewise satisfied, if not thrilled, with his chicken.

The desserts, however, were sublime. Tommy had a warm blondie with ice cream which he pronounced delicious,

...while Tom had donuts with caramel and chocolate dipping sauce, which he likewise throughly enjoyed,

...and I had plate of mini cinnamon rolls with cream cheese icing for dipping, which transported me to dessert nirvana.

After our okay dinners and fantastic desserts, we headed back across the driveway to our hotel and our rooms,

...in anticipation of the big day to follow.

To be continued...

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Goiter Guy Hangs Again

2/12/2023

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Coming In April, 2023

"Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

GOITER GUY HANGS AGAIN

A few months ago I posted a blog about the random pieces of art hanging and sitting around my house and their random origins (see https://www.ailantha.com/blog/art-in-the-family).
Among the pieces I mentioned was this one, which hung in our home when I was growing up and which one of my siblings - or it could have been myself - christened "Goiter Guy." *

"Goiter Guy" was made of ceramic and cardboard on wood, and was made by one of my father's artist friends. (Though my father was a doctor, he hung with an arty crowd). The piece depicted a person with a swelling on their neck as described in an ancient manuscript by the Roman poet Juvenal. (Or so goes the story connected with the piece).

The artist made the picture in honor of my father, who was a distinguished endocrinologist and whose specialty was diseases of the thyroid, one of which diseases, purportedly, was the cause of the thing on Goiter Guy's neck.
Here's an old picture of a painting of my father that I believe still hangs in the halls of Thomas Jefferson University College of Medicine, where my father taught.

Anyway, when the time came for my siblings and me to see to the disposition of my parents' house and all the things in it, Goiter Guy was destined to be among the disposed of, as none of us wanted him. For one thing, the tip of his hat had broken off.

However, Goiter Guy was saved from what likely would have been an indignant terminus in some landfill when one of my daughters decided that she wanted him, broken hat and all.
My daughter wanted him, but as it turned out, not right away; alas, there was no room for him in her current digs. She asked me if I would keep him until she had a space big enough to hang him.
And so for over two years Goiter Guy sat in an upstairs closet in my house.

But then a couple of months ago while I was roaming through the contents of the closet it hit me: Why keep Goiter Guy stuck away in the closet? Though my daughter may not yet have a wall on which to hang him, I do.
But first I needed to fix his hat.
One of my neighbors, a talented home-improvement artiste who owned a tile cutter, offered to help me. I needed only to supply a piece of tile and a template of the piece I wanted replaced.
I looked around local supply stores and online but couldn't seem to locate any place where I could purchase a single tile in close to the same shade of glazed Fiesta blue as the Guy's hat.

I decided to see if I could get away with making his hat a bi-colored affair by replacing the tip, not in the same blue as the rest of the hat (which I couldn't find anyway), but in a cream color to coordinate with the cream in his robe,

...this shade being conveniently close to the color of my kitchen tiles, of which I had a few left over from when the new backsplash was installed last year.

Having my material now at hand, I proceeded to cut a hat-tip template from a piece of cardboard.

I then gave the cardboard template and a tile to my kind neighbor, who cut a wee little triangle from the tile which I glued onto the top of the hat with rubber cement then outlined with a black Sharpie, so as to resemble all the other ceramic pieces that the artist had outlined in black.
As it turned out, Goiter Guy's new off-white hat tip skewed just a bit, but rather jauntily, I thought.

So Goiter Guy, after two years-plus in the closet, was ready to hang again. I found a nice spot for him in the dining room,

...where I hung him a few days before my daughter and her family arrived from Los Angeles for their Christmas visit, and from where he oversaw the numerous holiday festivities.

One day during their visit my daughter shared with me that one of her daughters told her that she hoped that Grammie and Grandpa (myself and my mate Tom) would never sell our house because when she grew up she wanted to move into the house.
"Tell Grammie and Grandpa to never change a single thing in this house," my grand daughter told her mother. "Except for Goiter Guy. They can get rid of him."

* It has been recently pointed out to me that Goiter Guy might in fact be a Goiter Gal. Yeah, I think this could be true.

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Yo, Joe―Do More Speeches!

2/8/2023

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COMING OUT IN APRIL, 2023

"Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

YO, JOE―DO MORE SPEECHES!

Last night I, probably along with many of my fellow citizens, tuned into President Biden's State of the Union speech expecting to be considerable underwhelmed. What a surprise when old Joe grabbed that speech and knocked it out of the park!
There he was, looking cheerful and relaxed at the podium, warming up by joking and making friendly with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and even saluting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The President then hit the ground running on the state of the economy, reminding us of his not insignificant accomplishments during his first two years: the passing of the infrastructure bill, construction of the Ohio Intel chip factory, investments in the social safety net, affordable health care legislation, prescription drug price reform, legislation to fight climate change and promote clean energy, a minimum 15% tax rate on wealthy corporations, and creating more jobs in two years than any other president created in four years.
He talked electric vehicles, conservation, gas prices, manufacturing, a billionaire minimum tax, cracking down on wealthy tax cheats, banning non-compete clauses, passing a "Junk Fee Protection Act" to ban those sneaky fees that airlines, hotels, ticket vendors and others add on to the listed price of their goods. He talked China, immigration, democracy.
The President showed empathy to those Americans suffering hardships, heartbreak, injustice. Over and over he asked us to let him finish the job. He riffed and spoke off the cuff and from the heart.

There was no question that Joe Biden was crushing this State of the Union. He was energetic and in the zone. He looked good. He looked presidential. But the absolute show-stopping pièce de résistance of the night came when he brought up that there were some Republican members of Congress who, instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes, wanted to balance the budget by cutting out Social Security and Medicare. This brought cries of indignation from the Republican side of the room.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, of course, channeled her inner middle-schooler and began calling the President of the United States a liar.

But then in a few brilliant moves Biden not only maneuvered the Republicans into publicly standing up for the preservation of Social Security and Medicare, but checkmated them into giving him a standing ovation in the bargain.

It was priceless.
And of all the takeaways from Joe Biden's aced State of the Union address last night, to me the most obvious one was this: He needs to do what he did last night more often. Give more speeches. More press conferences. More televised events where he gets out in front of an audience and reminds us what he's accomplished and what he strives yet to do. If Joe Biden wants the nation behind him as President, he needs to keep speaking to the nation as he did last night.

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Bye-Bye, Balloon

2/5/2023

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Coming Out In April, 2023

"Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.

BYE-BYE, BALLOON

Alas, the journey of the wayward Chinese balloon is over. Yesterday afternoon it sailed off the Carolina coast and out over the ocean where American fighter jets popped it.

It's likely that U.S. Navy SEALS are now combing the sea to recover the balloon's parts, the sum of which will surely not equal the balloon as a whole. At least not in our imaginations.
Fess up, everyone: Who hasn't been enjoying the Chinese balloon story? All right, it's serious business, I get it: this was some kind of Chinese spy gizmo and it invaded our airspace (which is ours, not God's right?).
But, come on, people, if we're telling the truth, who didn't find the whole thing funny and whimsical? Who didn't chuckle picturing a big white Chinese balloon floating over Montana?

As if out of a scene from "Nope?"

Next thing we heard the balloon was floating over the Carolinas, and, really, who could keep from cracking up over that tweet sent out by the Sheriff of York County, South Carolina?:

And even better were some of the responses the Sheriff's tweet generated:

In fact, witty folks were quick to create an abundance of funny internet balloon memes, such as this one starring Homer Simpson:

And then there was last night's hilarious Saturday Night Live skit.

In truth, who among us wasn't hoping the balloon would float over their neighborhood along its way?
But the now the Chinese balloon is down and our bit of fun is over. Now we have to sit back and watch American and Chinese leaders bicker and posture and toss back and forth macho threats and hostile language and ramp up world tensions, as if things aren't already tense and bad enough, and scare us all to death. And instead of being able to enjoy the good laugh we had over the Chinese balloon, all 326.7 million Americans now have to to be enraged against all 1.393 billion Chinese and they against us. All so a few alpha males at the top can engage in a club-swinging contest.
But then, most of the world's trouble and suffering come from a few alpha males at the top who need to engage in club-swinging contests.
They sure know how to spoil our fun.

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It's Time For We The People To Repeal The 2nd Amendment

2/3/2023

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COMING OUT IN APRIL, 2023:

"Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.

IT'S TIME FOR WE THE PEOPLE TO REPEAL THE 2ND AMENDMENT

Now, everybody knows that what's preventing American lawmakers from passing effective gun safety laws in this country is not the 2nd Amendment, the 1791 wording of said amendment being open to a number of 2023 interpretations:

No, what everybody knows, whatever their side on the gun issue, is that the 2nd Amendment is just an excuse that lawmakers use so that they won't have to address the scourge of gun violence in this country, as taking any meaningful action would jeopardize their copious flow of cash from the National Rifle Association and the gun manufacturing industry.

It's time to take this excuse away from them.
Everybody knows that the Founding Fathers didn't really mean that any enraged, mentally deranged man with mass murder on his mind should have the right to own an arsenal of assault rifles with which to massacre his fellow citizens,

...so that members of Congress could make a fortune by allowing it.

And if the Founding Father's did mean that, well this concept now needs correction, as have others of the original concepts they wrote into the United States Constitution. By way of joint resolutions of Congress or state legislatures, we've amended our constitution over time to outlaw slavery, give women the right to vote, ban alcohol, then repeal that ban when it proved not to our national taste.
So there's precedent for adding and repealing amendments to our constitution.
It's time for We the People to demand the repeal of the 2nd Amendment and that it be replaced with sensible gun safety laws. Otherwise how can we enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,

...if we risk these things every time we enter a public space?

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​"TROPICAL DEPRESSION" BY PATTI LISZKAY IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER

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"TROPICAL DEPRESSION" BY PATTI LISZKAY IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER

DOING THE AMISH COUNTRY THINGS

STACY AND MICHAEL'S WEDDING

OFF TO MINNESOTA FOR STACY AND MICHAEL'S WEDDING. BUT FIRST A STOP AT THE MALL OF AMERICA

GOITER GUY HANGS AGAIN

COMING OUT IN APRIL, 2023

YO, JOE―DO MORE SPEECHES!

BYE-BYE, BALLOON

COMING OUT IN APRIL, 2023:

IT'S TIME FOR WE THE PEOPLE TO REPEAL THE 2ND AMENDMENT