He's Not Responsible for What He's Doing

I assume everyone with a pulse, or an approximation, is waxing poetic today in honor of Mother's Day, as we well should. My mom, who passed away almost six years ago, was a self-described 'tough old broad' who wrangled six of us to adulthood, the last three for a significant distance without her partner of (at that time) nearly thirty years. I miss her every day but a little more today.

When I was a kid, Mom was more than unflappable, she was a force of nature and in the decades after the death of her husband, all of her children, joined by grandchildren and great-grandchildren watched her finally lead her own life after taking care of so many of us for so long.

Decades ago, Mom came to visit Sigrid and me, and our two children when we all still lived in Germany. She and Franz and Anni Schubert, Sigrid's parents, got along wonderfully well even though they shared not a single syllable of a common language. 

Sigrid's mom was a Rubble Woman upon whose back the Federal Republic of Germany became the economic engine of Europe in the decade after World War II. Anni's husband passed some years ago and Anni followed. However, and I note this lest there be any confusion, the two women took ZERO shit from anybody and raised children pretty much who are the same way.

My sisters, Evan, Kara, and Jill are accomplished, masterful, and successful. They take care of their own families with the same devotion and also the same discipline (no feet on tables, no glasses without coasters) as their mother did them. Glenn, Russ, and Joe were/are fortunate to have them in their lives and smart enough to know it.

I and my two brothers, Kelly and Adam, are married to women, Sigrid, Linda, and Margaret whose Moms raised them to give us the confidence every day to go out into the world and try to reinvent it in our own image and, when we come home at the end of each day, defeated but undaunted, to convince us we can begin again on the morrow because of their love and support. They make us want to be better.

I realize you're afraid with my diabetes, being so sweet puts me in danger of becoming terminally mushy. No worries, I'm not, as I choose to invoke the deathless words of Ray Wylie Hubbard to close. Love ya, Mom(s), all of you.

-bill

Crawl Up to Your Door

Shakespeare's Hamlet once offered, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Substance-assisted or otherwise (that part of the speech disappeared in later editions of the play). 

Of course, had Willie lived now with all the means of communication, and miscommunication, we have, I suspect Hammy might've told Horatio, 'nevermind.' I mention that because I came across a news item the other day on CNN, the new home for Mendacious Self-Serving Misogyny, Racism, and Xenophobia, that, until Samuel L. Jackson starred in those Snakes on Planes movies, no one would have ever even seriously considered reporting. Well, almost.  

Snakes gave me the heebie-jeebies. I know all about that whole 'they're more afraid of you than you should be of them,' but when confronted by/with them I don't feel so brave. I mean, (read this in your best Samuel L. Jackson voice) how the hell does anything without legs move so fast? 

I hope Amber Hall's Go Fund Me page (actually set up by her cousin) nets her the dollars she needs to successfully sue everyone who hoodwinked her into buying the house in the first place. If you scroll down and read the comments from donors, the one that rocked me was "PLEASE LEAVE - This will Never be over - It's true, they will have 80 babies at a time. It is also true that, if removed, they will RETURN for 10 YEARS. A little-known fact, they follow their pheromone scent back." 

Wow. Horatio just sent me a message, "I'm out."
-bill kenny 

I've Always Loved the Trefoils

I've always been impressed at the timing that has Girl Scoot Cookie sales (hum a few verses of "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" right here while pouring yourself a tall, cold glass of whole milk. Screw that 2% stuff), happening so soon after the conclusion of Lent. 

Yep, I love me some Trefoils and Do Si Dos, admittedly by the carload. Just as the Good Lord intended them to be eaten. I can rationalize any and all purchases by pointing out how important the proceeds of the sales are to funding Girl Scout activities, especially as it's 100% true. 

And then I come across a story like this, and it makes me wanna buy even more of them.   
-bill kenny

Rbbbtt!

Mission creep is what group dynamics folks describe what the rest of us tend to call L.O.S.T, or Line Of Sight Tasking (I'm still not sure what we call group dynamics without making our moms cry). 

At some point in a project one of the very bright people who came up with the original idea realizes there's yet another function they forgot within the transaction and announces 'Someone needs to do/be .....' The first person who makes eye contact with the speaker inherits this new responsibility with absolutely no authority or means to accomplish the tasking. Don't look up! Oops, thanks for playing.

It's part of our lives as individuals, as well, as fretting in the various roles we each play in the drama. I had a plateful (and more) when it was just me, myself, and I. Falling in love and getting married moved me, or us, to Egoism a Deux and then we added children to the mix.

Solo, spouse, and parent, while also being a child, sibling, and wearing a half dozen other hats as we all go round and round in The Circle Game. The cliche is true: You can't tell the players without a scorecard, most especially when we cover numerous positions.

Is there a limit to all this multi-tasking, if that's what this actually is (I like to think that term is better applied to linked tasks vice totally different ones-like a product is both a floor polish and a dessert topping) and when do we reach a limit, how do we know? I remember the 'how to cook a frog in boiling water' semi-urban legend from back in the day (don't judge; I run with a colorful crowd, sehr bunte leute) that makes me suspect there's no 'top end.'

The story went: if you place a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will simply hop back out; but, if you place the frog in the pot of water and then slowly and carefully raise the heat of the flame under the pot, the frog will never move until it has been cooked. I've often wondered if this is why so many of us are called chicken?
-bill kenny

Pocket Change

I was going through my trouser pockets the other day as my wife organized the washing. For too many years someone kept leaving all manner of things in their pants' pockets. I won't use any names, of course, but if I did it would rhyme with 'chill', which she rarely did after discovering them, which was after the clothes had been in the washer and had stained other items of apparel.  

So now one of us has pocket-check duty on laundry day. Recently I found a twenty-dollar bill in the front pocket of a pair of jeans that I couldn't even tell you the last time I wore. Twenty dollars! Pre-pandemic and supply-chain difficulties, that was a modest chunk of change. Now, of course, not so much. 

Still, I was very pleased with myself to have found it until, as I folded it to put it in my wallet, I realized I hadn't found it but, rather, had not realized previously I had lost it. You’re probably not surprised when I tell you that I redoubled my efforts in checking all my pants’ pockets. Wouldn’t you?   

I was thinking about those pants and what I originally regarded as my good fortune when I came across a news story from CT News Junkie, a free subscription service I find helpful in rounding out my understanding of events across The Nutmeg State. The story's headline is "Nearly $200 M in New Projected Revenue to Spend". And the first thing I learned is that the M doesn't stand for marbles. 

The next thing I learned is that not enough of our state legislators spend time going through their own pockets since the tone of the article, accurately summed up in the headline, is 'gee, now we have more money to spend.' Except...

As my financial epiphany demonstrates, it's not found money at all. The 'new projected revenue' was in someone else's pocket before the Department of Revenue Services came calling to collect it. 

This is something that happens, not just here in Connecticut, but everywhere. 

We take six inches off the front of the blanket, sew it onto the bottom of the blanket and tell one another it's a foot longer. But it’s not, no matter how many times we claim otherwise. 

Since a well-known substance rolls downhill, it's usually (in order) the municipalities and then the residents of those municipalities who discover as local budgets are developed and finalized that the so-called rising tide didn't manage to lift quite all the boats. Again.

Here in Norwich, our Board of Education is looking at an over $2M deficit to close out the year. Again, the M ain't for marbles but the number is precipitated by unfunded state mandates. I'm sure we're not the only municipality whose school system is looking at a sea of red ink.  

I don't pretend to be a legislator, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night (with Clarence Thomas) and it seems to me, the state might better put however many M's there are, into paying for things we already have and are using rather than financing more and other initiatives. 

We need to remember there will always be more hands reaching into our pockets than the number of pockets and the money, no matter what pocket it came out of, is still ours.
-bill kenny

I Often Say this on the Way to Derby or Westerly

The older I get, the better I was, so with that in mind, come to your own conclusion when I tell you that at one point in my travels and travails on this orb, I had a better-than-average sense of direction (and purpose, come to think of it). 

Not a Boy Scout Merit Badge level of exceptionalism mind you but I could listen to and understand directions and use them to find locations.

Now, I spend a lot of time in the car explaining to my wife 'I thought you meant the next left-hand turn under the overpass' as we sail past whatever exit or entrance we were supposedly heading for. And yes, we have Google Maps and it is every bit as wonderful as advertised but for some odd reason, it doesn't seem to like me and enjoys making me look foolish in the presence of my spouse. Of course that both saddens and maddens me as I need so little help in that department.  

With apologies to J.R.R. Tolkien, perhaps not all who wander are lost, but in my case, very much so.
-bill kenny

Call It a Lesson Learned

 Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you want.

I've always enjoyed learning though I often do not appreciate being taught.
-bill kenny