Baffled By The Wear

I've tried - I really have - but I just can't grasp the concept of displaying underwear.

I'm not talking about underwear seen in advertisements, on clothes lines, or on fashion models. It's the men and boys' boxers appearing in everyday life that has me baffled.

Somewhere along the way it became fashionable to let the waistband of boxers show above the pants.  Then belts were discarded to allow for the daring "oops" of a little more exposure.

Gradually the street urchins, as I call them, decided there was no need for underwear to be under anything anymore. Giving full disclosure meant lowering pants to a level where gravity should have taken over but somehow didn't.  Why bother with pants at all at that point?

Today I saw an adult (I use the identifier questioningly) crossing a city street with the tops of his pants stretched across his thighs; leaving no question as to where the boxers stopped. This - person- had found it necessary to return his belt to service as the only way to keep his pants above his ankles.

Was I wrong to want to jump out of my car and tighten his belt to the point where the next attempt at a step would have landed him face first on the asphalt?

Surprised?

First of all - why is anybody surprised by the news the U.S. may not be a good investment? 

The only surprise should be that a country struggling to climb out of a seemingly endless Great Recession and getting by on a wing and a prayer would have continued to be viewed as a credible place to invest some cash.

Speaking of credibility - Standard and Poor lost theirs (from my perspective) when they owned up to a 2 trillion dollar error in their analysis documents but said that didn't change things. 2 trillion seems like a pretty significant number to me.

Apparently being a financial analyst is a lot like being a weatherman, you can be wrong - big time wrong - and still keep your job.

Which leaves me surprised that... anyone, anywhere is believing any economic news they hear.

Apologies for straying into the political arena. I promise to get back into a stress-free zone with future blog posts.

Concocting the Recipe

With a relatively good garden harvest this year, Motivated Mom and I have been "putting up" pickles, cauliflower, salsa, and spaghetti sauce.  Well, okay, it's been mostly Motivated Mom doing the putting up but, hey, I grew the vegetables.

We found a new pickle recipe on the internet this year and have been excited by the results. Some of the ingredients are familiar - sugar, onion, vinegar.  Others are a little more unique - such as one inch of cinnamon stick and 6 allspice berries.

And I got to wondering...  What in the world inspired someone to try putting a cinnamon stick in the pickling mix - and how did the person decide one inch of cinnamon stick was better than two inches? And then there's those berries. Six. Really?  I mean, why not five or ten?

It would have to be a dedicated "putter upper" to come up with such precise counts.

Budget Balancing

I received an e-mail today.  I don't know if the content was factual, but I definitely liked the message so I thought I'd share.

According to the e-mail, the following statement is attributable to Warren Buffet.

I know how the U.S. budget could be balanced quickly. Pass a law that anytime the national debt goes beyond 3% of the GDP, any seated U.S. Senator or Representative is ineligible for reelection.

Just How Did You Come By Your Trade?

The book stood out in sharp contrast to the others on the library bookshelf - Hair Styling for Dummies.

With that title, I just had to look.  I pried the book loose and, with mingled surprise and horror, observed a great many dog eared pages.

Just how many people, I wondered, had been using this book to learn how to cut and style hair?

I decided then and there that the next time there's a new employee in the local barber shop I'm going to take the time to scrutinize his barber license.

Fish Wisdom.

Fish are smarter than some people might think.  Take the free smorgasbords that go untouched on a daily basis along the Delaware beaches.

Every pleasant weather day during the summer hundreds of fishermen stand at the water's edge and cast hundreds of rods bearing fishing line fitted with hundreds of hooks loaded with hundreds of bite sized morsels into the ocean.  You might think the nearest fish might yell free food thereby triggering a feeding frenzy.

Not so.  Every half hour those hundreds of fishermen haul in their hundreds of lines and shake their heads as they worry over why the ocean's inhabitants don't find the offered bait appetizing.

I don't think appetizing has anything to do with it.  I'm convinced fish live by the same adage as our own learned ancestors.  If it seems to good to be true, it probably is.

Hmmmm.  Perhaps if the fishermen baited their hooks with beets.....

Express Dining

Move over Burger King, Wendy's, Arby's, and McDonald's. I've got the ultimate in express dining.

I pick a vegetable combo from my garden and deliver it directly to my dining room table. No traveling, no lines, no preservatives - and bursting with fresh flavor.

Tonight I had the tomato and cucumber combo with an unsweetened tea.

Tomorrow it will be green pepper and tomato. Perhaps I'll splurge with a side order of cucumber and an icy cold soda.