All about the Pentiums

    A long time ago, Puff Daddy made a record called "All About the Benjamins." Shortly thereafter, Al Yankovic did a parody called "All About the Pentiums." I saw the video for the latter and thought that it was nice that Al was doing something original. I didn't know about the Puff Daddy record; hell, I didn't know that "all about the benjamins" was a catchphrase. (If I had, I'd probably assume that it was about Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss.)
    Alice used to tease me about this. There was once a headline in The Onion along the lines of "Area Man Recognizes No Pop Culture References After 1988." She said that it was about me. I had to say, "Fair enough."

Evaporated cane juice

    For some time, a minor pet peeve of mine has been when health foods list "evaporated cane juice" instead of sugar. Because that's what sugar IS, right? But NOOOOOOOOOOOO. The other day, I saw evaporated cane juice for sale in a store. Apparently, the difference is in level of refinement. Operationally, this mostly means that sugar is bleached and evaporated cane juice isn't.
    Somebody at NPr blogged about this just yesterday http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/10/18/163098211/evaporated-cane-juice-sugar-in-disguise (clearly, I'm slipping), saying that a lady in California is suing a yogurt company for calling sugar evaporated cane juice. So there are worse things for the industry than making me peevish.
    It just makes me think that the people using the term need to give their customers a little credit. Since everybody knows that sugar = evaporated cane juice (or at least everybody likely to be buying ostensibly healthy foods), you'd think that manufacturers using the term would also put some language on the package saying how evaporated cane juice differs from table sugar. For a long time, I wouldn't buy anything with evaporated cane juice in the ingredient list for just this reason, i.e., the "Do they think I'm an idiot?" reason. Eventually I got over it. And I'm not suing. But I won't be sad if the yogurt company loses.

Jingles

    For some reason, as much as I hate dumb locally-produced non-musical radio commercials is exactly how much I love dumb locally-produced musical ones. Apparently, bad rhymes + trite music = laugh riot in my little mind. Current favorite: "For appliances with reliances/ that's Jeffers-McGill!" But there are so many. Somehow, little cities like this seem to have a knack for producing unbelievably cheesy jingles. As a big plus, they manage to sound excited about stuff that nobody could possibly be excited about. Comedy gold!
    Updating yesterday, I have my bathtub no-slide decals and have actually cleaned the bathtub. It is still air-drying at the moment, but I'll be applying the stickers momentarily. I got through my shower this morning without any sliding; hopefully, my slippin' and slidin' days are over.

Slick

    In the shower this morning, I slid the length of the bathtub somehow without losing my balance. (OK, maybe a little. But I didn't fall at least.) It was the nightmare of the person living alone. I'm glad it ended well. As it happened, the other day at Publix I found the no-slip decals I had been looking for for eons. I think it's fair to say that the plastic bath mat (or rather, its suction cups) is(/are) inadequate. I think I'll be picking up those decals the next time I'm in Publix, and then installing them. Or, ya know, go back to tub baths.
    Meanwhile in dreamland, I had another one of those dreams that announced itself as a recurring one. I'm not quite sure how this works. As a rule, if a dream announces itself as a dream at all, you wind up waking up. This is usually the case in nightmares and as I've said before this mainly seems to happen with me when I need to pee. In this dream, I was in what was supposed to be my parents' house except that it was in Los Angeles. The ostensibly recurring part was that my room had a floor that would periodically rise up to the ceiling, making navigation more than a little tricky. The recurring part was a certain sense that I remembered this from before.
    I wonder if this is how we learn to make memories. As a little kid, you just receive information and only gradually learn to sort out what's new from what you've heard or seen before. This is why little kids always think that they have made up old jokes, even ones somebody just told them the day before. (In my heart of hearts, I STILL think I made up, "Take my wife--PLEASE!") I wonder if recurring dreams have some role in teaching you how to learn how to form memories. It would be nice to think that they're useful for something.:)

Pard

    When I was small, neighbors up the street had a dog named Pard. He was black and white and tiny. I think I was told back then that he was a bulldog, but Internet image searches indicate that he was more likely a Boston terrier. I was terrified of all dogs back then, but Pard was so small that he was not very threatening. He would growl at you, but even that was more endearing than scary.
    I mention him mainly because Amelia the cat has assorted growls and harrumphs that remind me of Pard's. Of course, she is also black and white and tiny. Perhaps she's part Boston terrier.

Autumn

    I am not generally a pro-autumn person. One would think that getting up to this ridiculously advanced age, I ought to start getting pro-autumn as a sort of sympathy strike, but one would be mistaken. However, this autumn has been so insanely beautiful so far that I have to give it some thought. Endless blue skies, comfortable but not crisp temperatures-- it's been crazy. A Chamber of Commerce day, every day.
    It makes me think that one day I'm going to have to live in a desert. (Or a dessert. I'm not picky.) Apparently, I cheer up a lot the less clouds that are around. I am assured that after a while, I'll be aching for rain, any rain, to come a-calling. But I think I might be willing to take that chance.
    I'm scared to jinx anything, but since the latest rescheduling of Dad's dialysis time, waits are a thing of the past. Of course, they just scheduled him for the time that they were just getting him in late for before, and it cuts into my lunchtime exactly as much as before. But he doesn't have to get ready unnecessarily early nor does he have to wait so long. So I'm ready to call it a win.

Here comes that rainy day feeling again

    I'm going to get killed for sharing that earworm, aren't I? Long long ago in the early '70s there was a British singing group called The Fortunes. They had a massive hit with the song in the subject line, and a few followup hits as well. As a small fry, I had the 45 for the big hit and one of the followups, but not for another number called "Storm in a Teacup," which my memory says that I liked better. So yesterday I looked up "Storm in a Teacup" on YouTube.
    I literally couldn't believe it. The chord progressions were childish and the refrain was apparently forgettable, since I had completely forgotten it. I remembered a couple of verses and that was about it. Seemingly, my brain had just ripped out the verses that I liked and plopped them down in "Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again." (Weather-obsessed much, fellas?) Kind of a freaky memory trick, I thought. Granted, my brain had 40 years to work with, but I'm pretty sure this happened within a year or so, because I was absolutely set-in-stone sure that I knew how the song goes. But of course I can always blame the transistor radios of the era.:)
    Coincidentally, it's supposed to be raining today, but so far isn't. The only rainy day feeling I've had so far is sinus problems, but that was yesterday when it changed from sunny to cloudy. It does, however, always seem to be a Monday.