Little Miss Odd Jenny

I can't believe no one called me out on my Peter Graves reference! Are you all too young to have watched Airplane? Lloyd Bridges redeems himself for the three seasons of Sea Hunt we watched as children? Nobody? Moving on ...

Once upon a time, a young apprentice hoped to one day earn full electrical certification from The Ontario College of Trades.  To achieve this worthy goal, he worked all week fetching and carrying for a real electrician, then attended classes on the weekend at community college. This was the eighties, and these boys were just out of high school.   So, every Saturday at noon, thirty horny, long-haired, bedraggled & hungover young men huddled outside the front doors of the college, smoking heavily and regretting most of their previous evening's decisions.  Into their midst wander two spectacular looking young ladies, fragrant with baby powder and lilacs. They are also attending weekend classes. They hope to become dental technicians!  "Isn’t that just a wonderful coincidence?"  On Tuesday evening next week, they had their live lab module and needed volunteers.  This would involve sitting in the chair, having said young ladies bend over them for an hour while they practiced with that mirror thingy.  Afterwards, flush with their imminent success, they liked to go for drinks.  Doesn’t that sound like fun?  The stampede caught my buddy unawares, and he missed out on one of the eight spots.  He blamed his hangover. ” I just didn't move fast enough!!” 

     Fast forward to the following Wednesday morning.  My buddy greets one of his faster, therefore chosen, co-workers with not a little envy.  “How was it?”  “Oh, it was great.  Never saw those two smoking hot girls again.  Mine was large.  Very large. She had one walleye and smelled like cabbage.  Jab, bleed, spit.  Jab, bleed, spit.  Like that for an hour.  Then I rode the subway home early, by myself, with gauze stuffed in my cheeks like a frigging chipmunk.  You know what? I think those hot girls came from the esthetics class and were not dental students at all?? 

Right there and then, my buddy learned a valuable lesson. Letting the herd leaders leap into the crocodile invested river before you ... is occasionally the wise choice.

Thought Experiment

While digging the foundations for a small apartment building under a former army base in Nome, Alaska, workers discovered a secret vault. The pre - WW2 doomsday experiment froze two volunteer officers in an exotic fluid. One was a former auto mechanic and one a home builder. I will spare you the entire sordid tale, but they were both successfully revived. Still with me?

After an extensive debrief and batteries of tests, the auto mechanic had to find work greeting seniors at the local Walmart. He had taken one look under the hood of a modern car and recognized virtually nothing. The materials, the electronics, the transmission, the engine ... not the foggiest idea how any of that worked. The home builder was luckier. He showed up first day on the job with his 1935 home building skills, a hammer and a lunch box.

His supervisor had to check him out:

• Concrete foundation? Check.
• 2 x 8 stringers for the ground floor? Check.
• Hardwood over plywood flooring? Check.
• 2 x 4 studs on 16" centers for the walls? Check. Fiberglass insulation? Check.
• Gabled roof trusses covered in plywood? Check. Asphalt shingles? Check.

He started that day and they promoted him to site supervisor a week later. Almost every aspect of our lives has changed beyond all recognition in the past ninety years, with this one glaring exception! It might be argued that they made better homes back then. Below, I have posted a link to the article that got me off on this tangent. It is important to note that while both North American governments wrestle with a housing crisis, we might want to start with the technology? Then move on the use of public land. Then remove a ton of zoning restrictions! Everything this guy writes is good.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/18/opinion/editorials/housing-costs-modular-homes.html

My Optimum Week

Very quiet other than a small grocery trip and hitting that 20K in points for spending $100 at the garden center. Flamingos bitches! It did put me over that threshold I thought I would not reach this week, so I got the 17, 500 as well.

My Zehr's had a hundred of those nice woks from the Swedish cookware stamp thing piled up in customer service and I had an unused book. I was in about four days later and they had ten left! I now have two of them and two small non-sticks pans in storage. I think I can add: buying cookware to the: things that I will not need to do again in this lifetime ... list. I do not suggest this to be morbid or introspective, but it frees up the wallet slightly? Your 70. You are buying (e.g.) a lawnmower. How many more are you going to buy? Might as well get the one you want?

The new glassware stamp program is not going nearly as well. This week, they are offering two for one and that program just started? I assume the stuff is piling up in Sweden? Flyer was just average but I did find one offer that prompted some digging. It led me to the Lassonde family in Quebec and they deserve their own blurb. Next week. In the meantime, orange juice is again an option for those of us not supporting the fondling father down south. It is on your list. There is a 25K offer for spending $100 on small appliances, clothing, etc. and McCain bought a plant based food company that I think you should try. There are four varieties and they have an Indian vibe. Highly discounted trying to hook you? Here's the list:

... and finally

Every once in a while, I try to introduce SWMBO to a new food group. I usually hear "What is it? Followed shortly thereafter by "I don't like that" I went crazy a few weeks ago and brought home a bag of Yukon Gold potatoes. Shoot me now. Remember that piece in Forrest Gump where his black buddy lists all the ways you can eat shrimp while tramping through the jungles of Vietnam? It was like that. I boiled em, baked em, air fried em, pan fried em, French fried em, scalloped them, wrapped them in tinfoil and threw them on the frigging BBQ! Nope. I wonder how she feels about eggplant?

Mitch & Maddie