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It Almost Felt Like Spring

My Obsession with Weather
I didn't feel so gay in a melancholy way, but it might as well have been spring. I think it was when I let the dog out for her morning tour of the perimeter when I first felt it. I didn't have a jacket on. Yet standing there, waiting for Lucy to return with her report of any incursions on the borders, I felt comfortable. It was nice to feel the sun on my face. I didn't have to wrap my arms around my body to conserve the warmth. And then I heard it. A bird chirped. Optimism? Yes  Putting away the snowblower? I'm not that stupid.

A Cautionary Tale

I'm going to let all of the ladies, here assembled, into the locker room where men allegedly speak ill of women. Allegedly, we refer to women in terms only tolerated in detective novels and pornographic films. The truth. We probably sound a lot like women who relieve their frustrations with other women complaining about men. It appears that men discuss very similar subjects. Certainly, as we go through the process of reassigning roles and responsibilities, housework hits the top of the charts under the category of who does it and how.

Recently, I was sharing with a friend that I had finally reached the point where my wife didn't remake the bed after I had just completed making it. He told me he had similar complaints from his wife. He asked me how I changed things. I told him I just started making the bed the way she preferred even though I learned how to make a bed from a TV segment conducted by none other than Martha Stewart.

Martha doesn't believe in all that tucking and pulling a bed together. She demonstrated that by leaving the sheets, blankets and spreads draped over the bed, untucked, it was easier to get into bed. In addition, most of us who are over five feet eleven will probably have to kick out the bottom tucks anyway. Over tucking also puts a lot of the blanket and sheet under the mattress instead over the occupant, where one would think it was intended.

Then I asked if his wife was raised by a former serviceman. He said yes. So yes, this anecdotal, but the weight of the evidence convinces me that the guys that learned to make their beds so you could bounce a quarter off it are the problem. So it's Uncle Sam or Martha Stewart. Who would you trust to make your bed? It seems when they were girls and learning to make their own beds, their fathers taught them to be little tuckers.

Let Me Rant for Moment, Then I'll Shut Up
Many of us knew through the glory years of the Johnny Carson Show that if you caught his monologue at the beginning of the show you got most of the juice out of that orange and you could go to bed.

That seems to be the State of the Annual Academy Awards ceremony. (We watched "Manhunt" and "Seven Seconds", both streamed from Netflix.) The next day I watched Jimmy Kimmel's opening monologue. I like this guy a lot. He's funny and famously genuine. His jokes were kind of inside the click. but we understand it. And, I'm sure, most of us laughed. Harvey Weinstein? Probably not.

For those of you that don't know, I dislike and pretty much ignore the Oscars. My wife generously volunteers to check out the fashion statements made by the female stars, by buying 'People" magazine so I don't have to sit through, what, even the Academy admits, is a time problem. I think teir a posturing. They love taking up the time and running over. It's kind of like the old joke where the arrogant guy says to his date, "Enough about me. What do you think of me?"

When a film critic or a gaggle of them tell you what they think is the best film they are making a professional decision. I feel that when the Academy members vote for the most part it's based on emotion.

Now, that's fine, but as moviegoers, it should mean nothing. I don't believe there is such a thing as the best picture. Or the idea that someone wrote a script better than the another is ludicrous. As George C. Scott said," if they want to say whose best, they should make us all play the same role."

Partially, I think the show is a vanity piece. No doubt another facet the audience wants is the fashion. It is also a reflection of our need to Rate things, for what reason I do not know. Many if not all of those pictures, actors, and collaborators are worthy ventures with a varying degree of achievement. But to say one of them is the best? Hogwash.

As promised, I will now shut up.

With warmest regards from north of the tension zone
Poppa Jeff


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