Happy New Year! Happy 2014!

Happy new year to everyone reading this. I'm staying in this year, New Year's Eve being the original amateur night and the police being serious about this drunk driving business. In my younger days I used to go out and tear it up pretty good on New Year's Eve. Then I started doing the hotel room package deal, which worked out real well. These days I just don't feel up to screwing around with a roomful of obnoxious drunks. Here's a tip of the old Fedora and a hoist of the happy hour bourbon glass to all the people who have to work tonight. I hope you all have a real boring shift, but I'm guessing you won't. Please stay safe out there while you're dealing with the drunks, family squabbles and house fires. Thanks for your service. See you all in 2014.

Robert Burns Dinner 2014

Pay attention, sit up and stop mumbling.  Two years ago Big Mike, Lash and I attended the Scottish event of the year in Columbus, Ohio.  I wrote about it here, in the Robert Burns Dinner in Review. Well, it's on again. Check the official website at Robert Burns Dinner, read my review if you want to know what to expect, then plan to attend the event at the Smoke House and have a roaring good time. Big Mike and I will be there, Lord willing and the creek don't rise.

Merry Christmas

Yeah, that's right.  Christmas.  Not 'Happy Holidays' or any of that other happy horseshit.  Keep reading for a politically incorrect view of Christmas and a recipe for egg nog that will flatten all but the professional drunkard.

Playing Doctor - Nursie for Real - Update

For the gory details, see my previous post.  Meantime, here's the straight skinny on what really happened during the six hour delay.

Playing Doctor - Nursie For Real

It seems that Flopsy (Main Lady's eldest Little Darling) came down with the crud, the major symptom being the digestive tract threatening to issue the last meal a return to sender combined with quality control issues in what is delicately labeled as the lower tract.  This started about two weeks before turkey day, and it got so bad that on Monday before T-Day Flopsy went off to the sawbones.  Keep reading for medical outrage.

Albert is Suspended

You may recall that my brother, Shotgun Bob and his wife now have a son, an 11 year old boy named Albert.  The kid is bright, but doesn't have the patience for problem solving.  He gives up too easily.  When Shotgun Bob got him as a foster child, the public school system advised all concerned that Albert was ADD, ADHD and a classic PITA.  The State, in its infinite wisdom, put Albert on some kind of drug cocktail designed to calm him down while increasing his love of all things feminine.

Once adopted, the medication officially ceased.  When Albert becomes too rambunctious he and the dog pack get turned outside to amuse themselves on Shotgun Bob's six or eight acres that includes a dense forest.  Albert wears himself out and turns up about supper time unless he's cadging a meal at the neighbor's house.  Daily chores can be problematical, but if Shotgun Bob is working on some kind of project, like building fence or putting a roof on the shed, Albert is right there with him.  He thinks it's fun to work with Shotgun Bob, you see.  And I guess it is if you're an energetic eleven year old boy.  For one thing you get to belt stuff with a hammer, and if you get dirty no one cares.

I guess Albert was in school a week or so ago, standing around the classroom talking to some other little boy, when Suzy Smartypants walked up to the duo and, pointing at each boy in turn, proclaimed in a loud voice that, "You're a dweeb and you're a geek."  To which Albert replied, "What's that you're wearing?  A unibrow?"

Completely devastated by this unwarranted verbal attack, Suzy burst into tears.  She was immediately surrounded by a protective circle of her symbolic litter mates who murmured words of comfort interspersed with howls for vengeance justice to be visited upon Albert and his cadre of future oppressors.  The local authority figure sallied forth and after quieting Susie's hysterics, escorted Albert to the principal's office where he was suspended for three days.  Susie is undergoing therapy - not electroshock therapy, which is too bad, but regular old therapy.

Back in the old days when something like this happened the participants were told to sit down and be quiet, and that was the end of the matter.

Shotgun Bob managed not to laugh out loud when he heard about the whole business.  His only thoughts on the matter revolve around the fact that all authority figures concerned are female, and all are black.  He wonders how much discrimination is involved here.  Which, frankly, I wonder about as well.

Meantime the family came up for Thanksgiving and we took Albert out to the gun range.  I have a Smith and Wesson .22 revolver that he's able to shoot, and he turned in a respectable score.  More importantly he didn't violate any of the four rules of gun safety, nor did he cause any adults nearby to flinch.

The holiday went pretty smoothly.  I refused to allow Shotgun Bob's wife to get under my skin, even when I caught her going through Mom's china and picking out the pieces she wanted to have after Mom dies.  I think that's a bit much, but maybe that's just me.

Oh well.  I hope everyone reading this had a happy Thanksgiving holiday.