I Was God Once, It Was Great!

Long ago my sister had 3 adorable little girls. Actually she still has 3 adorable girls they just aren't little any more. Each girl had her distinct personality and each was as cute as a puppy or kitten. They lived in a mountain community a few hours out of Reno, Nevada. I would visit from time to time. I think they loved their Uncle Jimmy. I had occasion to phone my sister one day. The middle girl, Kathy, answered and I asked if her mom was home. She told me no and that mom went to the store and would be back in a few minutes. She didn't recognize my voice but they were young, their ages still a single digit. Now I've always liked the little people. One of their greatest assets is honesty. They are usually honest to a fault and thus they believe what people tell them... especially adults. These 3 little people were no exception. I don't know what came over me but when I heard that mom wasn't there and then little Kathy asked if I wanted to leave a message, well, I couldn't help myself. "YES," I said in a deep authoritative voice, "I WANT TO LEAVE A MESSAGE. THIS IS GOD CALLING AND I WANT YOU TO HAVE YOUR MOM CALL ME BACK RIGHT AWAY!" I hear a small voice saying to her sisters, "Hey you guys, it's God on the phone and he wants to leave a message!" Then I asked, "DO YOU HAVE A PIECE OF PAPER AND A PEN?" "Yes God." Kathy replied. "OK, WRITE THIS NUMBER DOWN 303-555-1234." "OK God." She said. Then I told her that God loved her and she said she loved me too. It was so sweet. She believed every word I said. So did her sisters, I could here the chatter in the background. God obviously had never called before. I felt rotten on one hand for fooling her and her sisters but then, on the other hand, it was just great to get away with it. My sister called about 10 minutes later. When I answered she asked to speak to God. I laughed and she told me that she drove up to the house and 3 girls came streaming out the door and down the stairs. One is waving a piece of paper in the air and all are screaming, "Mom, Mom, God called and wants you to call him back right away!" Over and over they yelled and Mom of course, couldn't believe what she was hearing. When she saw the phone number on the note she immediately knew what was going on. I talked to the girls on the phone that day and they took it pretty good that I had fooled them. What is so very cool about this story though is all 3 of them still remember their phone call from God. They refer to me as God some times and tell others that their Uncle Jimmy is God. I guess I left a solid impression with these young 'uns as they still remember that day. What I can't imagine is what went on in that house between the time I first called, or should I say when God called, and when mom drove up. That is probably the best part of the story. This had to have been 30 or so years ago and here I am remembering that time vividly. Julie, Kathy and Jamie. God still loves you.

Dead

I had a friend who was rotund. He was pretty funny and always had an opinion. He was successful. I was impressed by many of the pictures in his office because there he was with President Regan, various movie stars, a bunch of important local folks.

We used to meet most mornings for coffee along with a few others and solve the problems of the world. I remember one morning he was telling us about his latest doctors appointment. He said, "What do you do if your doctor tells you to lose weight? Get a new doctor!"

We laughed.

He died while having surgery to open clogged carotid arteries.

Where do you what to eat?

It must be genetic. My wife does this and so does her daughter. The granddaughter doesn't do this so much but she is young and still has mommy and Grammy traits to acquire.

I'm talking about going out to lunch. It goes like this:

Me: Hey darling, lets go out to eat.
Wife: OK, if you want to.
Me: Great, let's go.

We get in the car... I have a restaurant in mind.

Me: So, is the Sports Bar OK for lunch?
Wife: I'd rather not.
Me: OK, where would you like to go?
Wife: Oh, I don't care.
Me: OK, well how 'bout Red Robin then?
Wife: No, I'm not in the mood for Red Robin.
Me: OK, where do you want to go?
Wife: Oh, anywhere you want is OK with me.
Me: Well, how 'bout a little help here, what kind of food do you want?
Wife: Mexican is good... Italian is good too. Really, anything you like.
Me: OK, how 'bout Johnny Carino's?
Wife: If you want to. I guess that will be OK.
Me: We could go somewhere else if you would rather.
Wife: I really don't care where we go... just pick something.
Me: We could go to Burger King!
Wife: You know I hate eating there.
Me: OK, fine. Let's go to Jose's.
Wife: OK, that sounds good.

So we get to the restaurant get seated and she orders a salad. Not a taco salad, just a dinner salad.

Me: Is that all your having?
Wife: Yes, I'm not very hungry.
Me: Then why did you care if we went to the sports bar?
Wife: I told you I didn't care where we went!
Me: No, you said you didn't want to go there.
Wife: Your problem is you go to restaurants to eat!
Me: Yea. I'll confess to that. Why do you go to restaurants?
Wife: You wouldn't understand... just eat your lunch.

ICE

The weather man said it may snow today. He is wrong more than he is right but once in a while he gets it right. Sometimes you can tell just by the tone of his voice if he is right. I think most weather people know they are 80% bluff or BS however the other 20% they know what they are talking about. Like a couple of weeks ago I was listening to the local news and he said there was a 30% chance of snow and he said it with conviction too... I didn't have the heart to email him and tell him it was 100% chance of snow at my house.

Anyway, the weather man is saying snow, again, maybe. So yesterday I decided I should break up the ice in the fish pond before it gets freezing cold for 8 more days and instead of having 8 inches of ice I'll have something less.

Armed with my trusty 20 pound iron bar I started beating the ice. A crack here and a break there. It slowly started to break. I beat on it, punched holes in it, cussed at it and I finally did break it up. Huffing and puffing I put my tool of destruction back in the garage and congratulated myself on a job well done.

This morning I looked out at the pond and instead of having a smooth layer of ice I now have a bumpy layer of ice. I'm pondering where my logic went left while I turned right. What the hell, I needed the exercise.

Looks cloudy out... might snow.

What did you call me?

My wife rarely uses "bad" language. I accuse her of using big words when we have "discussions" about things we don't agree about. For instance, I might say, "It's going to be a nice day." Her reply, "Don't count your juvenile poultry before completion of incubation!" I'll say, "It looks like the clouds are clearing out." She says, "I see delineations in the cloud cover."

So with this in mind, when I tell you she called me an asshole you have to understand she didn't actually say "asshole," today she just gave me the "look" and then told me that if I didn't "shut up" she was going to hit me. HA! She is all of about 100 pounds and I might just scare a retired Denver Bronco Line Backer.... well, maybe scare is a bit strong.... Anyway, she could hit me all day and it wouldn't hurt... at least not much.

What really scared me was she didn't use a big word to say she was going to hit me. It's like she really wanted to warn me to shut up.

I was just hav'n a little fun. Trying to add a little raz-a-muh-taz to a Saturday evening. Nothing bad... honest, I was just teasing. You know what's really bad though? I don't remember what I was teasing her about.

I do remember shutting up!

Did Hell Freeze Over Too?

After 8 days and nights of freezing cold today it finally WARMED UP to a balmy 35 degrees Fahrenheit.

I have a fish pond on the backyard and you could ice skate on it if you wanted. I picked up a cobble stone that was pretty heavy, maybe 15 pounds or so. I lifted it over my head and threw it with all my might on the ice. It bounced! It left a small dent. Didn't even crack the ice.

If I were a fish I don't think I would want to live in my pond over the winter. Do fish hibernate?

On the 5 o'clock news the temperature had already dropped to 28. Tomorrow it is supposed to get to 39. Think I'll break out my shorts and tank top.

Zombie Chickens

And you thought there wasn't any life left in that 'ol spent hen. Guess again.

Chickens that have lost their usefulness to chicken farmers have to be, shall we say, administered to. The cold reality in the chicken world is when you can't make the grade in egg production there just isn't room for you.... anywhere. Many chicken farms take these "spent hens" and put them in a box filled with carbon dioxide and then bury their lifeless bodies to make compost. Some of these chickens aren't "euthanized" properly and they "come back to life" and crawl out of the compost pile. These crawlers are call ZOMBIE CHICKENS!

Let's get a few things straight here. If you are euthanized you are dead. If you are dead you can not crawl out of your grave.... you can't crawl anywhere... only live chickens crawl out of their grave. So the chickens that are called zombie's are really chickens that should be dead but are not either for tenacity on their part or stupidity on the part of the human who was supposed to euthanize the creature. In either case it doesn't speak well of chicken farmers.

There are a bunch of folks that are pretty upset with zombie chickens. It upsets some that they were not killed correctly. It upsets others that they are being wasted in a compost pile. And still others think they should be put out to pasture and live happily ever after. I don't know exactly which group I would line up after but I certainly don't want to be seeing a bunch of ZOMBIE CHICKENS cruz'n the 'hood. Did you ever hear the story about the chicken heart, lubdub, lubdub....