The lovely and talented Debbie Gravett chose today’s word, "dazzle."
Apparently, there was a fashion trend called "the dazzling" that involved lots of glitter on clothing, accessories, and whatever. The only reason I know about this is because of an AT&T commercial from a few years ago, which is our ad for today…
AT&T ended this ad campaign, which featured the very lovely Milana Vayntrub. Just in case you were wondering.
Anyway, this is another Just Jot It January post. Linda Hill has all the rules at her site. Now, here’s Richard Gere singing "Razzle Dazzle" from the musical Chicago.
The lovely and talented Sauyma gives us today’s prompt, "busy." I’ve been doing these the day before and scheduling to be released at 3:30 AM Eastern time (UTC-5), but I didn’t get around to it yesterday. I wasn’t busy, just not terribly motivated to get it done yesterday.
One of my favorite ways of expressing how busy I am is to say that I’m busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. This reminded me of something totally off the subject, but it made me laugh…
Years ago, a friend of mine told me about a high-school classmate who had a wooden leg. He had all kinds of stories about how he’d walk down the hall with a compass, thumbtacks, a knife or something else sharp stuck in the leg. If you didn’t know him, it was really disconcerting. One day, evidently, he went to the nurse’s office, sat down and turned the "foot" on that leg all the way around. When the nurse came out and asked him what was wrong, he said he had twisted his ankle…
I thought the stories were funny, and I also thought they were tall tales until I met a guy in college who had gone to school with the guy and told me the same stories. For some reason, it made the whole thing even funnier.
Like I said, has nothing to do with "busy," but I thought it was funny.
This is another entry into Linda Hill’s Just Jot It January. It’s a little late, but if you want to play anyway, she has the rules at her place. Now a word from AT&T and your local phone company. They hear you!
I’ve set up the AT&T app that sends any call not from someone in my contacts list to my voice mail, and as a result I get virtually no phone calls. I kind of miss Robotween, who I talked about here and here, but not that much.
My last call was from a company that works with the insurance company that does my Medicare Advantage plan. They call every year and offer to come to my house and do a "healthy home" evaluation, and every year I turn them down. The way I see it, they don’t offer anything I can’t figure out for myself and deal with the insurance company directly to obtain. Ostensibly the information on all of the insurance company’s programs and benefits is available either on the web or in the documents they send every year, and I can read that and make my decisions accordingly. And if it isn’t there, it should be.
Stream of Consciousness Saturday is brought to you each week by Linda Hill and this station. During January, it’s also part of Just Jot It January, another Linda Hill blog hop.
I spent a lot of time in Los Angeles at one time, and the hotel we usually used was on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica. My first time there, I was on my way to the 7-Eleven when a homeless guy asked me for a cigarette. I had by then quit smoking, so I had to say no, but I thought, you know what, I can do at least something for the guy. While I was at the store, I bought a pack of cigarettes, and on my way past the guy, I gave them to him.
Another time, I was out walking on Wilshire when I passed a bunch of homeless guys sitting in front of an abandoned storefront. One of them approached me and told me they were homeless and hungry and could I give them some money? I knew they were probably going to buy booze with it, but I felt bad for them and gave the guy a $10 bill. They treated me like I was a god. Kind of embarrassing, really, but hey, the money was nothing to me and they needed it worse than I did.
When Mary and I were getting ready to move, I had a bunch of coats that I was going to take to the DAV store. As I was walking there, a homeless guy asked where I was going, and when I told him, he asked if he could have one. He was there with a couple of his friends, and I had just enough old coats for each of them. Hey, they saved me an extra block of walking…
I’m not telling you this to brag or anything. What I did might have been the worst possible thing for them. But, you know what? I’ve never been homeless, but it really must suck. If I could give them even a moment’s happiness or comfort, I couldn’t refuse.
The lovely and talented Wendy from Wendy’s Waffle provided today’s prompt, change, for Linda Hill’s Just Jot It January. She has all the rules and prompts over at her place. Now a word about the Double Feature Projector by Bell & Howell.
I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 28. Sure, I took Driver’s Ed when I was in high school: it was a required course, and I couldn’t get out unless I passed it, which I did. As for the driving part, I was assigned to possibly the worst Driver’s Ed teacher God ever put on the face of the earth. He was one of the many football coaches, and Illinois High School Association regulations said that all of the coaches must be employed as teachers at the school. I had several of the coaches in my time, and they were all really great, just not this one.
He managed to convince me that I had a depth perception problem, and that I shouldn’t drive until I had it looked into. In truth, I had a "rageaholic football coach screaming, banging on the dashboard, and slamming on the brake on his side" problem. In retrospect, I should have asked for another instructor, but we didn’t do that back in the day. I knew guys on the football team, and all I could imagine was him carrying on like that with one of them and being bodyslammed in reply. I should have talked to some of them about it…
A few years later, I had to drive a forklift for work, and when I told them about my depth perception problem, they asked me to go to an optometrist and have it checked. He gave me the test, and when I finished he asked, "who the hell told you you have a depth perception problem?"
Still, I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 28 and my job, which included travel, required it. I have to say I was pretty good at it. I’ve driven to and from Chicago at least ten times in addition to driving under some pretty rough conditions in some places.
The stroke put an end to my driving. It affected the right side of my body, where most of the action is when you drive (at least in the US), and while I was evaluated and cleared to resume driving, I was given a number of modifications to a car I would need. I asked Mary if she minded doing all the driving, and she was more than happy to oblige. We don’t go more than 5 miles from home (Mary’s comfort zone), and that suits me just fine.
I’ve changed hard disk drives in several desktop computers in the past, and it was really no big deal. The hardest part was getting the jumpers right. Remember those? The drives had several pins at one end, and you would have to place what looked like a tiny paper clip around the correct ones to indicate that the drive was the boot drive. Even before the stroke, I had the manual dexterity of a gorilla peeling a grape, but somehow I was always able to get the jumpers right.
The lovely and talented Janet from Janet’s Smiles provided today’s Just Jot It January prompt, "drive." Just Jot It January is an annual blogfest run by the lovely and talented Linda Hill who has all the rules over at her site. And now this word about the Volkswagen Beetle.
When I was 11, my uncle Jack let me drive his Beetle around a construction zone, much to my mother’s chagrin. I think he should have taught me to drive…
