Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Dog’s Balls Friday Round-Up
There’s nothing better than a bag of balls. Our beloved dogs, Swirl and Punchy, eat many things, chief among them tennis balls. They’re fast. It’s not like we just sit and watch them eat balls. Anyway, now we have a bag of dog’s balls and we’re watching them carefully like they’re the last pork chops in the freezer.
Educational deficiencies, as in the folks that skimmed by with a C- in biology or logic or feeding oneself with a spoon, are becoming quite pronounced. I’m no snob, having been a C student for a good share of my academic career, but it seems to me that the pandemic-deniers, the folks who can’t figure out why we can’t just throw the doors open for business, slept through a lot of pivotal lectures.
You are the company you keep. If my mother said this to me once, she said it 10,000 times. So, hey, people I know who actually went to a state capitol to show disapproval of a state’s stay at home order, you’re hanging out with the likes of Proud Boys and the Klan, and so you’re going to be painted with that brush. If you don’t like it, you need to get yourself out of the picture.
My advanced training as a good sport is serving me well. I know how to sit in the back seat and count telephone poles on an endless road to nowhere. I know how to sit in the rain in a ripped plastic poncho with the wind whipping until the last second of the last quarter of a Packers game. I know how to wait to be last to be picked for the baseball team and to look like it doesn’t matter a single whit. Who knew all this was training for this moment?
I’ve put a stop to my own complaining. This has meant putting a stop to my yearning.
We wear masks when we go outside. But today our masks were damp because I’d washed them earlier and so when we breathed, we’d suck in the masks and it was suffocating, so wearing the masks could have become a weird metaphor for this entire experience but we decided against that. It was, instead, a technical difficulty.
Oddly, I think that Zoom meetings are better than in-person meetings. I guess it’s because I can study each person’s face. And my own. Is that how I really look?
Everything is going to be okay. We just don’t know when. I worry that I will be too old when things are finally okay but I can’t do anything about that. Other people will be in their prime, that’s how it works. They may end up doing the things I thought I’d do. And, I guess, in the deep part of my soul and my being, I am glad for that. I’ll be here rocking and reading your postcards.
Yes, I ordered an embroidery kit. And I also started a jigsaw puzzle. Both are sitting on my desk, waiting. I enjoy intention more than execution.
Tomorrow is my birthday. I am an exceptional number of years old. I used to say that, no matter my age, I always felt like I was 19. No more. I feel like I’m 71, about to be 72. And I am astonished at the number but at home with it in a way I never would have predicted. Luck brought me here and I am glad.
14 Comments on “Dog’s Balls Friday Round-Up”
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
I am glad that I continued reading for clarification after the first sentence, containing the phrase “bag of balls”. I am frequently unsure of what to do with that particular phrase, and it often does not end well.
I found your comment connecting complaining to yearning very interesting. I’m not sure I’ve ever connected those before, and it’s pretty pithy to do that.
Thank you for giving honor to the “C” college student. I was in that range when I graduated, and was always ashamed of it. I might have studied a bit more, paid a bit more attention in those days, but that would have gotten in the way of my drinking. Bleh.
Happy birthday, albeit belated. I hope it is your best ever.
Ha! You sound like a kindred soul.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Jan!
Thought of sending you a book but didn’t want to feed Swril’s habit.
Ted & Lynne
Birthday wishes from faraway Cape Town! I love your blog – one of my daily pleasures! Keep on writin’, and stay safe & well.
Many happy returns of the day, from Spain. I hope you have a truly great day, filled with something interesting you can look back on next year, when I will enjoy reading your coronovirus birthday memories post.
And thank you for renaming me as someone with good intentions: sounds so much better than procrastinator! In true lockdown, (allowed to go exactly nowhere without an ausweis:. no exercise, no nuttin’) I have done exactly zero tidying, sorting, learning, ad infinitum, despite castigating myself on a daily basis for lack of same. WHY??!!
Happy birthday Jan – enjoying intention more than execution is a place where a lot of us sit, I think! 🙂
Have a wonderful birthday, Jan. It will certainly be memorable:) I love reading your little snippets of thought on various things. Be well; be happy!
Happy Birthday Jan!
Happy Birthday! P.S.: I love the line “I enjoy intention more than execution.” Me too.
Morrie does the same but only the green ones! He ignores or hides the pink ones. Macho dog.
I’m also glad you made it this far, Jan. I hope you and your husband find a crazy fun way to celebrate your birthday. Maybe something like getting take-out from a favorite restaurant and eating it in the car from somewhere that overlooks the lake. Lake Michigan has a totally different personality than Superior – but, hey, it isn’t chopped liver. I’ve never thought about it, but I have always been a good sport (being picked last for softball, but with dignity) and I think I am handling this physical lock-down quite well. I finished a puzzle!
The Zoom confession made me smile. We should do more! I love your blog.
Happy birthday!
I freaking love you. Happy birthday.