The Bob Joke

This is our family's favorite joke:

Two guys are standing next to each other in a bar (sorry, Mom) and one of them, Bob, keeps having people come up to him to say "Hi" or clap him on the back.  This goes on all night long till finally the other guy, Fred, gets fed up and says "Do you know every darn person in this bar?"

"Well," Bob says, "as a matter of fact, I do know everybody here.  I know pretty much everybody you'd ever want to meet"

"Yeah, right!" Fred says.  "I bet you don't know Jay Leno."

"Yeah, I do."  Bob says.  So they get in a car, drive out to the NBC studios where the guard takes one look at Bob, waves them on in and they drive up to Jay Leno's parking spot where he's just getting into his car.  Leno sees Bob coming, gets out of his car and says "Hey, Bob! Great to see you ol' buddy. How are ya doing?"

Fred can't believe it but he saw it with his own eyes.  When Bob gets back in the car Fred says "Ok, so you know Jay Leno.  But I bet you don't know President Obama like that."

"You'll see," Bob says.  And they take a road trip across the country to Washington D.C., people waving to Bob and greeting him all along the way.  At the gate to the White House the Secret Service stops their car and Fred starts grinning....until he hears the agent say, "Bob, the President heard you were coming and wants to know if you can fit in time for a little B-ball with him."  Sure enough, when they get to the White House gym President Obama lopes over, slaps Bob on the back and greets him like an old friend.

Fred cannot believe it.  As soon as the basketball game is over he grabs Bob and says "Ok, Ok.  I see you know a lot of people.  But I know for sure the one person you don't know is the Pope. In fact, just to prove it, I'll pay to fly us over to Rome and you try to get in to see the Pope."  Bob just shrugs and off they go.

When they get to Rome they hear that it's a Feast Day and the Pope is going to make an appearance and bless the people, and the courtyard of St. Peter's Basilica is crammed with the faithful.  They can hardly move through the crowd.  Bob says to Fred, "See that little balcony up there?  That's where the Pope comes out to speak to the people.  I'll go in and come out on the balcony with him and wave to you and you'll know once and for all that I know the Pope."

So Bob disappears into the crowd and Fred keeps watching the balcony. Pretty soon, sure enough, Bob and the Pope step out onto the balcony.  Bob is looking down to see where Fred is so he can wave and he sees a big commotion where somebody has fainted dead away.  It's Fred.  Bob hurries back down to the courtyard just as Fred is coming around.  "Fred, Fred!" he says. "Was it that big a shock to see me with the Pope?"

Fred stares at him.  "No, it wasn't that.  It was when I heard all the people around me saying 'Who's that guy up there with Bob?'"

Back when we lived in Oklahoma City, Dennis was the "Bob" of our family.  We couldn't go anywhere that there wasn't someone who knew him.  Every restaurant we went into he knew someone who was there, and then he had to table-hop, of course.  It might be fifteen minutes before we got to order our food.  We might be standing in line at a movie, there would be someone coming up behind us saying "Dennis!  How have you been?"  Sometimes it was a little disconcerting to the boys such as when we were on vacation and just as we were going into a Dairy Queen in a small southwestern Oklahoma town  Dennis was stopped by someone who was coming out, chocolate dip cone in hand. Dennis had sold him land somewhere and they talked like old friends.

Well, it kept us out of bars and casinos, I guess, because you never knew who was going to be coming up to greet him. He had been in real estate for a couple of decades, chaired a lot of committees, been on boards of directors, taught adult Sunday School classes almost forever and made friends wherever he went.  And, hey, he's a memorable guy.

Now that Dennis has been mostly retired for a few years and we live in a different city it doesn't happen as much.  Meals out are a lot more peaceful. We thought.  Except now our daughter-in-law, Robyn, goes out to eat with us frequently.  She is a school teacher, and guess what.  Almost everywhere we go we hear "Mrs. Carey!  Mrs. Carey!"  and it's a student, a former student, or a parent who knows her and wants to say "Hi".  The torch has been passed. Robyn is The New Bob.

Yelling Fire

Except for the time the gas stove caught on fire at my sister's and the firetrucks came* we have only had to have the fire department come to our house for a fire twice. ( It doesn't count that time a little old lady couldn't get her breath and thought she better get oxygen or something and the fireman were the first responders and when she saw that the firemen in their uniforms these days are amazingly healthy looking, even though they were about thirty years younger than she was and she could suddenly breathe just fine but it WAS pretty hot in there and---where was I?)

Oh, yeah.  Right after we moved to Oklahoma City our friends from Los Angeles came to visit us and when we returned late at night after taking them back to the airport we turned onto our street and there was a huge firetruck in front of our house and some firemen were on the roof and some others were getting ready to take one of  those big hatchets to the door to get in the house.  We got the key to them just before the first blow.

Apparently our house had been struck by lightening and the roof was on fire but the neighbors across the street saw the flames and called the fire department. If you have ever been close to a lightening strike you know that the sound is louder than seven sonic booms, so when we unlocked the door to let the firemen in, our thirty pound dog, who had been born and raised in California where they almost never even have thunder storms made a flying leap out the door and into my arms about ten feet into the yard, her feet never touching the ground.  I would tell you that she had diarrhea for about six months after that but it would be too much information.  And the rest of her life she sensed storms coming at least two hours before Gary England, the weather guy, and glued herself to my legs, shaking like a California aftershock, until they passed.

The weird thing about the lightening strike was that, while there was about a ten foot square hole in the roof, inside the house only the low-voltage things were affected: the doorbell, the answering machine, the ice-maker. Some of the ice cubes actually had burn lines across them. Did I mention that the lightening had struck right above the refrigerator? God may have been trying to tell us something.

Here is what you are supposed to do when there is a fire:  Wake up your spouse, wake up the kids, grab the pets if you can and get the heck out of there and call 911 from outside or a neighbor's house

Here is what we did the next time our house was struck by lightening:  Ginormous bang louder than a truck hitting the house and exploding.  We sat up, looked at each other and said "What was that??" and went back to sleep.  Then, about an hour later, Dennis: "Do you smell something funny?"  Me: "Yeah, do you?"  We got up and sniffed around the house.  It smelled kind of like plastic burning. We looked everywhere. We talked about it. We looked some more. We went upstairs where the smell was stronger. Finally we decided to get the kids up and out.

Jake had a friend spending the night and when Dennis went into their bedroom and told them to get up we probably had a fire, the friend turned over to go back to sleep.  "Jake!  Your dad's goofing around again."  Finally, we got them up along with Josh, over whose bed the lightening had struck---you could see the sky through a hole about the size of a quarter in the ceiling---and the insulation around the ceiling beam was burning.  The kids all got in the car in the garage, we moved the car into the driveway and somewhere in there we called 911.  Even after the firemen had come and were going through the house looking for hot spots, the telephone that was in the garage started ringing and I couldn't stand it. After about 11 rings I and went in and answered it.

Do as I say and not as I do. Make a plan ahead of time, you never know what's in store. When there were grass fires so close to their house last summer that the fire department was telling our kids, Josh and Jerilyn, to be ready to evacuate at any moment, Jerilyn got the kids, the pets and some food into the car and was ready to go. Josh came home and, following the plan he had laid out in his mind---no doubt sometime when he was remembering that hole in the ceiling over his bed---came in and got important papers, Jerilyn's wedding dress (isn't he sweet?) his military coins and other irreplaceable things. This was because this time they had warning. You don't always know ahead of time.  I heard once that you should have a "Grab and Go" box with important papers in it where you can get it out in case of  fire. But mostly, you go.

We haven't had any grass fires that close here yet, but getting struck by lightening twice is plenty for me.  I'm going to start listening really hard to hear if God is trying to get my attention and let Him do it a little less forcefully from now on.

*See my first blog: In The Beginning..." from 7/7/11

It's My Birthday

Today is my birthday so here's what I'm thinking:  A fire in the fireplace, an old movie---I've got "North By Northwest" recorded on the DVR---the dog curled up in my lap, and  I'll just laze there all day. All the other stuff can wait for today. After I let the dog out, of course.  And put down his food and fresh water. And feed the cat and scoop the litter box. And I may as well empty the dishwasher as long as I'm in the kitchen.

I'll have to go get the firewood, of course. And build the fire.  But then I'll lie down on the couch and enjoy the crackling of the flames.  Of course, I have to get dressed if I'm going outside to get the wood.  It would be nice to lounge around in my pajamas all day but it's pretty cold outside, so I'll get dressed.

If I'm already up and dressed, we might as well go on up to the church and ride the bikes like we are supposed to do on Wednesdays.  I kind of thought about taking today off, but the doctor told Dennis yesterday his good cholesterol was down and he needed to exercise more and that is about all the exercise he gets so I don't want to miss it.

We can drive through and get coffee (and my Diet Coke) on the way home.  I guess I'll make breakfast once we get back after I take a shower.  But after I clean up the kitchen I will lie on the couch and watch the fire.  Except for letting the dog in and out about every fifteen minutes it will be very restful. Unless Dennis drops something and can't see where it is to pick it up.  His fingers are pretty stiff with arthritis these days and he drops things a lot.

And then I'll lay on the couch and think about past birthdays.  I've had so many now I can't remember them all.  Some stand out.  Like the time I was ten and had long hair which caught fire when I leaned over the cake to blow out the candles. Luckily my grown cousin was in town from Arizona and he was sitting next to me. He whacked me in the head till the flames were gone. That may explain some things that go on in my head sometimes. Not sure about that.

Dennis has given me a few birthday parties in my time and the thought was very sweet, but let me go on record to say:  Women are not as thrilled about being reminded of their ages as men might think.  Just have the family over, take me out to dinner and give me a nice present.  You don't have to announce to the whole church and neighborhood that I am passing another decade, thanks anyway.  A friend of ours rented that big bull on his wife's birthday, you know, the one the size of a school bus, that they used to have outside Western Sizzlin', and put a sign on it saying "Happy Birthday 50th Birthday Arlene" and set it on the side of the main road to their house.  Had I been she, the next day's headlines may have read "Man Mysteriously Crushed By Plastic Bull". I'm pretty sure Dennis knows better than that by this time.

So I'll get calls from the out-of-town kids and my sisters, lots of greetings on Facebook, though some people aren't sure if they are wishing Dennis or me a good day, since our Facebook page is in both our names, and maybe go out with the in-town kids for dinner.  And hugs from the grand kids.  What more can I ask for? I think it will be a very good birthday.

Slow Dancin'

I didn't go to my senior prom.  Or any of the school dances, for that matter. My parents were convinced that dancing would lead to hugging and hugging would lead to necking and necking would lead who knows where and it just wasn't done by the Baptist preacher's daughters back then, or any other really devout Baptists in Missouri for that matter.  So the night of the prom Dennis and I went across the river to St. Charles to our favorite parking place on---I swear I am not making this up---Dingledine Road.  And necked.

In grade school one of the sections of the P.E. curriculum was square dancing.  My dad sent a note to school and I was in charge of the record player while everybody else danced.  This was in the 'fifties, Elvis made his scandalous appearance, gyrating like a whole herd of ants had gone down his pants, convincing my folks that things were just as bad as they expected, then came Chubby Checker and the Twist, which even Jackie Kennedy did in public, and the world was obviously going to hell in a hurry to the blast of an electric guitar.

I guess dancing is like learning languages: best started when one is a child, because even though I don't have the same spiritual reservations myself these days, the few times that I  tried to dance at weddings and such, my feet went one way---actually, two ways---Dennis's feet went another, the rest of my body a third, and to avoid being the comic relief for the whole reception, we gave it up. That whole "...fallen and I can't get up" thing would have detracted from the bride and groom anyway and we wanted to be polite

We were surprised to learn when we moved to the South that standards were somewhat looser.  The deacons' little girls all took ballet lessons and maybe even the preacher's daughters. Kids came to church the morning after prom still wearing their tuxedos & fancy dresses instead of pretending they had not gone, and nobody seemed to mind. Some Baptist places still stuck to the old customs, though, because when each of our boys attended Oklahoma Baptist University there was a "No Dancing  On Campus" policy.  It lasted until late last year when we heard that they had their first sanctioned dance on campus since their founding in 1910. Of course, Oklahoma did have an earthquake centered near there just a few days later.  Just sayin'

Okay, so I can't dance, but I can walk really fast.  I cling to these things.  My dad had very long legs and I used to walk with him when I was little and fast walking is almost the only way I know how to go. But Dennis, good Catholic boy that he was, who went to all the CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) dances and Teen Town too, doesn't dance any more or walk fast at all now.  In fact, since he broke his leg in three places and it has never healed properly, there are snails in our back yard that have gotten across the patio in less time than it takes him to get out to the car.  So, that's a problem: I walk ahead, then wait for him, then walk ahead again. Not very considerate of me, is it?

Recently on TV I saw Mark Kelly walking with Gabby Gifford down a sidewalk.  She made Dennis look like a speed-racer but her husband effortlessly stayed right by her side the whole time.  It was kind of like a beautiful slow dance. It made me think. Maybe even I can do that.  Besides, when we were in St. Louis a few years ago we drove out to try to find Dingledine Road again.  It is the main road in a subdivision now with houses all around.  I might as well start working on my slow dancing.

I Used To Be Cheap But Now I'm "Economically Correct"

I did something last week that was so far outside my comfort zone that I could barely bring myself to unclench my hand to do it.  All my life I've tried to avoid it.  I had spent months looking at the elements, trying to figure another way out.  It was something I had never done before in my whole life, no matter what the circumstances:  I threw out those little pieces of soap that are left when you use the bar up till you can't hold onto the nub any more.

There were about five of them sitting around the soap caddy in the shower.  They just stayed there, taunting me.  In the past I have always been able to mush them onto the new bar of soap, or use them until I could barely see them and the last sliver the size of an almond slice fell down the drain.  Something is different about the Dove soap these days.  I don't know if it is harder, or shaped infinitesimally differently, or what, but try as I might, I couldn't get the old chunk to stay on the new one.  Then the new one would get used up, the old piece was still in the dish and then there was a new new one and it would start again.  Before you knew it, there was a whole litter of those little suckers and something had to be done.

It took me almost a month to get up the courage, although I had been toying with the idea for quite some time.  And then....I just grabbed them and tossed them.  It was very, very hard.  I can't quit thinking about them.

"I've been rich and I've been poor and rich is better." Mae West said that first but I can relate.  Not that I've really been either, but let's say that I've been richer than I am now, and poorer too.  It doesn't matter how "rich" I was, I still could never give in to wasting something.  You know those pump bottles of hand cream?  When you can't get any more out you can take a kitchen knife, cut around the bottle about a third of the way up from the bottom and there is still an inch, maybe more, of good cream in there.  Same thing with liquid dishwasher soap.  Don't believe my kids if they tell you I take the toothpaste tube to the garage and run the car over it to get the last little bit from the tube, but I am a pretty strong squeezer!

Here's one I bet you didn't know.  The straws from Quick Trip can be cut in half to a size to use for kids' cups (bring them home when they give them to you at Olive Garden or wherever)  and they then fit in the dishwasher on the prongs of the top rack and you can just keep on re-using them.  And, of course, I always take my cups back to QT for refills. (They go in the dishwasher too.)  You save a dime on your next drink.

My mom used to go to the Goodwill that was on the street behind our high school while she waited for me to come out sometimes and I thought I would just DIE.  "Don't tell anybody you're my mother!"  Now some (most) of my favorite clothes are from Goodwill.   I do draw the line at re-using aluminum foil or washing zip lock bags to re-use.  My mom did that.  Come to think of it, she cut up the plastic bags from the cleaners and used it instead of Saran wrap for wrapping leftovers. There are levels to which I won't stoop.  But I do re-use stuff.  What used to be pickle jars now hold home-made strawberry jam (Yes! I washed them.) and those plastic bags from Wal-Mart line my trash cans.  There are Christmas gift bags here that have gone back and forth between Robyn and me that are older than the grandkids.

Okay, so I'm cheap. I admit it. But, guess what!  If you live long enough things tend to come around.  When I re-use stuff  now it's called "Re-purposing."  When I use real plates instead of disposable ones and cloth napkins instead of paper ones (no, paper towels are NOT napkins, that's just tacky) it is "Gracious Living".  And not wasting gas by letting the car idle while I'm just sitting forever in the drive-through, or especially if I am already home and gathering up my stuff or talking on the phone is "Environmentally Friendly."

Now, if I could just think of a way to re-cycle some of this extra weight I'm carrying around...


P.S.  Just so you know, I couldn't stand it.  I dragged the soap pieces out of the trash, soaked them in a bowl of water until they were about the consistency of cookie dough, wrapped the dough around the new bar and now it is good and stuck and it's like the large bar instead of the medium. You suspected it all along, didn't you?

O Christmas Tree

     I walked out to the parking lot at Wal-Mart yesterday through their Christmas tree lot. They had about nineteen trees, three of which were standing upright, and there was no pine smell! I went over to one of the trees wrapped up in netting and sniffed it and…nothing. I don’t know what was up with that. I’m sure they were real because there were needles on the ground but, nothing!
     When you buy a “real” Christmas tree part of what you are buying is the smell. Our first Christmas tree cost the grand sum of seventy-nine cents and was about two feet tall. This was a good size for our student-housing apartment in college since it was the size of a bread box. And besides, we were going to be gone the whole Christmas break but we just couldn’t resist having a Christmas tree that first year we were married.

     We bought two boxes of little ornaments that were, I think, thirty-nine cents a box and dumped my brush rollers out of the bucket I kept them in….(what, you don’t know what brush rollers are?  Those instruments of torture like little porcupine logs women used to put in their hair at night and try to sleep with them sticking into their scalps so they would be beautiful in the morning but who could be beautiful with no sleep?  Do I have to tell you everything??)…Anyway, we dumped the curlers out of the bucket, set the tree stem, I mean trunk, in it and filled it with rocks and it made a pretty good tree stand. We were college students. They innovate. The teeny ornaments, the last one of which is on our tree today, made it one of the most beautiful trees we have had over the years.
     The next year when Dennis had graduated and we had real jobs we bought our first normal size Christmas tree and normal sized ornaments. Our angel looks like Carol Channing and is still on the kids’ tree. I made some lovely ornaments with little cork balls covered with sequins and beads threaded onto straight pins stuck  into the cork. Very chic.

     Tinsel back then was the aluminum kind that came in long strands and there were two schools of thought for applying it: laying it on strand by strand, the RIGHT way, which could take until Ground Hog's Day to finish the whole thing so usually the tree had tinsel about two-thirds of the way up. Or standing about three feet back from the tree and tossing it, which some people though was hilarious!  When we discovered those fat trees that don’t have room between the branches and the kind of tinsel that was like a furry aluminum rope you wound around the tree instead of hanging the silver strands it was quite a relief, I’ll tell you.
     Getting the tree home was another adventure unto itself.  The year we had a tiny Fiat convertible we drove it home in freezing sleet with the top down and the tree sticking up from the back seat. Usually it was crammed into the trunk of the car, the trunk tied down with rope borrowed from the tree lot guy, and we tried not to hit too many bumps. And then we had to get it into the house...wait! You’re supposed to saw some of the trunk off so it can absorb water...back outside, then into the house again, backing through the door so the branches don't all splay out on the door frame. Figure out which is the “good” side that will be facing the living room, and fit it into the tree stand.

     I’m going to let you in on a little secret: Dennis and I never fight. We did fight a lot before we were married. I guess we got it out of our systems then. But since we were married, we don’t. I have heard many times that if you don’t fight you don’t have a good marriage but that’s just the way it is.  We are never so adamant about something that it is worth hurting each others’ feelings and besides, when those guys who write the books about fighting have been married fifty years like we have and still want to be together, they can call me. Except---

     One time a year, when we would try to get the Christmas tree straight in the stand, something just came over us. Dennis would be lying on the ground twisting those pins into the trunk that are supposed to keep the tree up, I would be holding the tree and he would say “Move it over.” I would move it over. “No, I said over!”

     “I did move it over.”

     “The other way!  Not that much! Back the other way.”

     “Do it yourself then.” But, of course it took two people. And it went on until the thing was as straight as it was going to get and we were exhausted and soon the tree was beautiful again, at least in our eyes, and the annual fight was forgotten. 

      A real tree will give you pine needles in the carpet till Easter no matter how carefully you choose at the tree lot. I’ll tell you why. Unless you go out and chop it down yourself it is likely that your “fresh” tree was cut down in August. Really, August! I’m not making this up. I used to work for a railroad and typed up bills of lading for the trains bringing in the trees and they started shipping them in August. So you have to keep it watered really well and check it each day in case the tree was really thirsty that day or the dog has found it a convenient water bowl. 

     It’s been a few years now that we have had an artificial tree. The cost of the real ones just went through the roof and this one has paid for itself by now and it is really very pretty and we don’t have to go out in the freezing cold wandering through tree lots looking for one we both think is perfect and there won’t be pine needles in the carpet after we take it out.

     But I think I’m going to go find another lot when I go out today and walk through and sniff the trees.  Surely there are some out there that still smell like Christmas.

Run For Your Life, The TV News Truck Is In The Neighborhood!

A frightening trend has been going on according to the Television News reports:  Fat people have no heads. Have you noticed?  Every time the news does a report on obesity, which is about 3.2 times a week, they take their cameras to the streets, pan the crowd, and lo, and behold!  Not one fat person out there has a head.  There are plenty of huge stomachs, the approximated size of Volkswagen Beatles, plenty of legs like tree trunks stomping along, and the occasional, perhaps female, derriere whose owner, if asked to "Move your rear" would have to make four trips.  What has happened to these poor peoples' heads?  And if they have no heads how is it they are able to eat enough to maintain that girth? And why do I identify so closely with these headless creatures?  I have a head and the rest of their anatomies bear a sad resemblance to mine, so does that mean my head is endangered?  I worry about these things!

Television is a medium all to itself.  They are unusual creatures there.  We once had a white cat with blue eyes and everyone who saw her asked if she was deaf.  Apparently the gene that causes the combination of blue eyes/white fur also causes deafness most of the time.  I tell you this because I think that there must be a "Journalism/Attractiveness" gene since there are obviously no talented journalists who are not reasonably attractive or they would be on the national news programs.  Even when a correspondent  is reporting from a war zone, wearing a helmet like a turtle's shell and wind whipping sand around his or her head, the hair, though flying, still looks soft and supple, and the make-up is in place.

And, curiously, television journalists never age.  This would be a great gene to have.  Yesterday I saw Barbara Walters interviewing the president of Syria on Good Morning America.  Admittedly, she began her career when the standards for beauty were somewhat different than they are today, but, my gosh, the women is, I think, ninety-eight years old and she doesn't look a day over sixty.  Or maybe fifty in my case since people were asking me how I liked being sixty just a few days after my fiftieth birthday.  I may have the anti-journalism gene.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule and television weather people, excuse me, meteorologists, are exempt from the need for the "Journalism/Attractiveness"  gene to secure a job unless they are in the major markets. The network weather reporters must cross-train so they can sit in the anchor seat on holidays when the Talent want the day off and they must also look good announcing the floats coming down the street at the Rose Bowl Parade on New Year's Day or holding onto poles with the wind knocking them off their feet when standing outside during a hurricane instead of high-tailing it out of there like sane people.  Willard Smith doesn't count.  He is a throw-back to another age, since he is over one hundred years old, and must have sneaked in from a station in Lower Boise.  Local meteorologists can, and do, look like real scientists, which they are. Their anchor desk partners, though, still adhere to the strict standards of beauty/reporting that the major networks do since they may, at any moment, be called up to The Bigs.

Another standard that television news people meet is that not one of them even approaches obesity even though the morning shows, at least have cooking segments with banquet tables laden with every food imaginable and they all gather round at the end of the show to taste oysters sautéed in champagne or some such by Emeril Lagasse at nine o'clock in the morning, for goodness sake!  And not one of them has ever said "Yuck, how can you eat this??" but finds it fabulously delicious.  It may be because they have no feet or legs. Perhaps they borrow  them for the trip out onto Rockefeller Plaza for the food. Or maybe only morning anchors have to have legs.  It is probably a temporary condition and they will shed them like tadpoles in reverse once they secure positions at the evening news anchor desks.  You've never seen legs on any of those people, have you?  I believe their bodies are intact only from the waist up.

Maybe there is radiation or something leaking from the television cameras. The anchors have been exposed to it for a long time, hence the elimination of their limbs.  Fat people are only photographed from afar, so it is just their heads....for now. Forget all that scare stuff you hear about watching too much TV.  It's being on TV that is dangerous.  If I see a news truck in the neighborhood, I'm out of here!