Adult Day Camp. Learn Something New, Interesting!

Sam and I came across a pretty good article in Parade magazine one time about summer camps for adults. Cool! AARP should be picking up on this pretty soon I imagine.

The question of the day is why should kids get to go to all the fun summer camps? The camps talked about in the Parade article all struck Sam and I as too far away, however or too expensive or too foo-foo. So, we set about thinking of adult camps that would be more interesting - at least to us.

First off, Sam came up with Adult Human Obedience Camp. In this intensive three-day camp you would learn to sit quietly and leave your dog alone when he doesn’t want to fetch things. You would learn the futility of making up excuses not to go for a walk when your pooch wants to go for a walk. You would learn to get over your disgust at picking up poop, feeding your dog the treats he really wants and not feeding him something just because it’s good for him. Adults who enroll in this camp will be expected to take a test at the end and if they pass will be given a diploma and an appropriate human treat to share with Fido. Sorry, no chocolate.

Another camp that could be useful would be Using Your IPhone Without Frustration. In this four-day camp you would learn the fundamentals of becoming smarter than your smart phone. You would learn how not to let its many features bamboozle and discourage you. The camp would feature an overview of apps currently on the market and you would learn how to successfully download the apps you want. Caution! Some apps may contain adult material and this camp will not teach you how to hide them from your significant other.

I think I’d like to see a week-long (at least a week) camp on Successful RV-ing. This camp would feature traveling to various RV shows, comparing RVs, negotiating prices and terms and learning to say NO! Also featured would be free trial campouts of a night or two in RVs you liked. There probably would be a $25 charge in this camp to help defray the cost of gas for the bus taking you around to the different RV dealers. Pets would be allowed to accompany you on campouts for an additional deposit. Ask your doctor if your heart is healthy enough for clambering in and out of RVs.

How about a Shopping for Clothes with You Wife camp? This one would last only two days because you probably couldn’t take anymore. You would accompany other guys like yourself to various department stores and a female teacher would try on so many outfits you would need the minimum of a bottle of aspirin at the end of the day (BYOA). This camp is an intense hands-off experience. You should check with your doctor to make sure your heart is strong enough before enrolling. You would learn in this camp not to be helpful by pulling clothes you like off the rack and saying to your wife, “I think you’d look good in this.” You would also learn while she was trying on various garments to avert your eyes if another woman accidentally left her changing room door or curtain open. You would learn not to ask the cost of an item your wife was trying on and you would learn to lie like the devil and tell her those jeans did not make her butt look fat. An additional day of camp would be available for an additional fee and in this day-long camp you would learn to sit quietly outside the dressing rooms and watch Pixar or Walt Disney animated films with various children while your wife was trying on clothes. This camp requires a pledge not to cuss in front of the children.

So, wanna’ go to camp this summer? These are just a few of the camping opportunities available.

Do You feel Lucky or Do You Make Your Own Good Luck?

Do you feel lucky? Well do you?

Sam and I read in this week’s Parade magazine – it comes in our Sunday newspaper – that Tom Brokaw, the NBC news guy, considers himself lucky. He lists his good fortune as surviving (so far) cancer, having a glam job where he’s been able to interview many famous world figures and be in the right place at the right time (like when the Berlin Wall came down), growing up in a small South Dakota town, and being married for 52 years to the same woman.

If Brokaw’s that lucky, do you suppose he goes to the local Native American casino or buys mega lottery tickets on a regular basis? Sam and I are betting not. But good for Brokaw. Sam and I believe a big part of feeling lucky is believing you’re lucky – as opposed to believing you’re unlucky.

I don’t believe I’m unlucky. I’ve never experienced a bout of bad luck on Friday the 13th for instance. And I’ve been rather spectacularly lucky too. I grew up in small towns, which I still prefer over big ones, I’ve been married to Kathleen for 23 years (and believe me, that involves a lot of luck), I have a decent retirement and my health, except for some minor glitches, remains relatively good. Oh! And I have Sam as my little buddy. Life doesn’t get much better than that!

Like Tom, I’ve been lucky so far to escape death. I didn’t die at the age of five when a giant hayfork fell out of a barn and wonked me on the head. I didn’t die when I came down with rheumatic fever and had to spend several months in a hospital. I didn’t die when I fell off a ladder right onto my head on a concrete sidewalk (I know other people who have died). I didn’t die when a guy almost ran over me out on the freeway or when a guy who apparently meant to shoot me let his gun fall out if his pants. H-m-m, maybe I should drive over to the casino or buy some mega lottery tickets – but I don’t feel that lucky.

According to a sidebar in the Parade magazine, you can enhance the possibility of experiencing good luck in your life by doing the following things: paying attention to what’s going on around you; by opening your calendar and having a little down time to give yourself flexibility to engage in enjoyable activities; increasing your odds by trying more different things; taking chances, though not foolish ones; and letting some things go – what’s done is done, right?

I feel really lucky these days because I’m writing books, something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I’m just about to finish number 5. That will make 5 books in five years. Not bad huh? I don’t know if I’ll ever get lucky enough to have some big time publisher pick my books up and distribute them to Barnes & Noble and Costco and places like that. What a thrill it will be to see my book(s) in Costco! I still remember the time I saw a magazine in the bookstores with an article I had written. Better yet, how about a movie of one of my books? I think dreaming can bring me good luck.

Anyway, enough about good luck, except to say that I am especially lucky to have a savior who loves me and friends like you all out there. You are the wind beneath my wings!

Don't Goose Bruce! He'll Be A She Soon, He'll Bitch Slap Ya'

Bruce Jenner wants to be a woman now, eh? For crying out loud. Sam and I would suspect ol’ Bruce got his brains whomped out playing football, except he didn’t play football. Do you realize ho!w difficult it is to win the Olympic decathlon? Now one of the best athletes in American history wants to have a vagina and all that? He’s destroying our image of American male athletes. Besides, he’s too ugly to be a woman! Sam and I just knew hanging out with those Kardashian broads would lead Bruce to no good. What are we supposed to call him now, Bruce Jenny?

He'll be a woman soon. See those pointy things?

Why do men want to be women and women want to be men? We don’t get it. We’re so confused! And why are we so accepting of this transgender business and same-sex marriage and all that gay and lesbian stuff? Pretty soon we’ll all have unisex bodies and our parts will be totally interchangeable. If you dare to say, “Well God made us the way we are,” I’m going to jump up and yell, “What hath God wrought?” (I heard that somewhere). Personally, I’m glad I have one foot on the banana peel.

I knew a guy once who changed his gender. When I met him, I thought he was a pretty nice guy and struck up a bit of a friendship – uh, acquaintance - with him; you know – man conversation when we ran into each other, that kind of thing. We never actually hung out or chilled together. He even had a girlfriend and they appeared to be all smarmy in love and everything. At least I thought so. I thought they were a cute couple.

Then one day it appeared to me this guy was wearing his hair longer and was sporting a little lip rouge under his moustache. H-m-m, maybe that was just something his girlfriend goaded him to do? We guys do stupid things for our girlfriends sometimes, you know?

Eventually though, the girlfriend disappeared. One day I addressed my acquaintance by his given male name and he informed me he was now going by a woman’s name and told me he was having a sex-change operation. OMG! To say I was flabbergasted would be a gross understatement of the facts. To quote a General of the Army when he was told on an episode of M.A.S.H. that Radar O’Riley had been promoted to corporal captain, “I don’t like it. No sir. I don’t like it one bit!” So fry me in oil already. I have my prejudices and I’m comfortable with them.

I don’t know, I think the best solution to men wanting to be women and women and wanting to be men and yada, yada, yada, is to just have ‘em all neutered like Sam. He doesn’t seem to have an ounce of angst about his gender identity. I know I’d feel more comfortable around someone who had been neutered. Some guy changes his sex and tries to get frisky with me is gonna’ get his/her self bitch-slapped into the next world.

Either that or I’ll have Sam bark at him real loud.

Fortune Cookie: "Chopsticks Pickup Boxer Shorts On Floor"

This might be TMI but Sam and I have to tell you about a funny thing that happened on the way to buy some take-out Chinese food Saturday night. To make a long story short, I lost my shorts.

You’ve heard that advice about wearing clean underwear when you leave your house so if you’re involved in a serious accident and are taken to a hospital you won’t be embarrassed, right?

Well, after Kathleen and I worked all day Saturday re-mulching the garden, I took a shower, shaved, and volunteered to drive up the road a piece to the nearest Chinese restaurant to buy some take-out food to bring home and eat in front of the television. The plan was to eat Chinese food, watch the Seattle Mariners baseball game and fall blissfully asleep on the couch before dragging our poor tired (and overworked) bodies off to bed.

When I finished my shower I put on a pair of chinos that I had worn the previous day, but had not worked outdoors in (so they were clean). Trouble is, when I retired to bed the previous night I had shucked my chinos and underwear off in one move so that the underwear were still in the chinos when I put them on to go for Chinese. I donned clean underwear before pulling on my chinos, but I failed to notice the “soiled” underwear was still inside.

I drove to the restaurant, and in pouring rain and hail, parked, walked next door to Safeway to see if that store was offering a better deal on Chinese food, but it wasn’t, so I walked back to the restaurant, ducked inside out of the pouring rain and hail and proceeded to place my order for sweet and sour chicken, fried shrimp, pork-fried rice and chow mein. While waiting for my order, I paced around the restaurant (it’s pretty small). When my order was ready I paid for it and prepared to leave.

Before I had taken two steps toward the door, the female cashier who had taken my order came scurrying around from behind the cash register, bent over by a table and picked a pair of red plaid boxers up off the floor and held them up gingerly by the tips of two fingers and said, “Oh My God! Look at this! A pair of boxer shorts. Somebody’s left their underwear on the floor!” At the time there was just me and one couple in the small dining area. A couple of guys, however, had come and picked up their orders and left.

We all shot the cashier our best denial looks, “It couldn’t have been me” and I even stuck a finger under my belt to make sure I had shorts on. The cashier carried on, “ewing and yucking” so I got the heck out of the restaurant as fast as I could. It wasn’t until I was safely back in my truck and about to leave the parking lot that the horrid realization hit me. Those shorts looked like mine! In fact, I was pretty sure they were mine. They must have gotten hung up in my pants and I hadn’t noticed; they picked the most inopportune moment in the restaurant to slide down my led into a heap on the floor.

Trust me when I tell you I did not go back into the restaurant and claim my shorts. NO Way! This was like one of those deals when you do undercover work for the CIA and they tell you if you get caught they will disavow any knowledge of you. As far as I was concerned, I had never seen those sorts before.

I debated whether to tell Kathleen and you all about my little incident, but figured what the heck. We all need a good laugh and unless the FBI knocks on my door the next couple of days with my shorts in hand and asks, “Mr. Perkins, do you recognize this pair of underwear” this memory of my senior-moment faux pas will someday fade away.

You will let it fade away won’t you?

We'll Post A New Blog On Monday, April 27

Dear friends: because of a death in the family, we will not post a new blog until Monday, April 27. Thanks for understanding and until then, please enjoy this one. Sam and Jim

Facebook has been encouraging me lately to make new friends. One of the suggestions is Clint Eastwood. Is Facebook kidding me? I can see me sending a friend request to Eastwood and having him come back to me, “Do you feel lucky punk?” It would be great if he said, “Go ahead, make my day,” you know, in a nice kind of way. But I’m doubtful about that happening.

I’d probably have the same sort of luck trying to friend Robert De Niro. He’d say, “You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Well, who the hell else are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me? Well, I'm the only one here. Who the f--k do you think you're talkin' to?"

Never mind Bobbie.

Maybe I could friend Johnny Depp or do you suppose he’d just say, "Fuh-get about it!" No big deal. Even though I like most of Depp’s movies, I think he’s kind of weird. On the other hand if he were my friend I’d probably get a bunch of women friends because they seem to go gaga over Johnny.

A few gaga women would be good.

Kathleen Turner might be a good Facebook friend even if she said, “You’re not too smart, are you? I like that in a man." I could play dumb if she wanted me (uh, I mean to be my friend).

If I tried friending Arnold Schwarzenegger he might just say, “I’ll be back. H’asta la vista baby” and terminate my account somehow.

I’d like to try friending Renee Zellweger. If I got really lucky she might say to me, “You had me at hello." Oh my! I’m suddenly having heart palpitations!

Unfortunately, the women I might want to friend, except Renee Zellweger, all sound pretty negative. I like Bette Davis’ quote, “Fasten your seatbelts—it’s going to be a bumpy night.” She sounds like an exciting new friend. Problem is, I’ve never thought of her as being very pretty, besides I think she’s not with us any longer.

Then there’s Susan Sarandon who said, “You get what you settle for,” and even though I’ve always thought of her as a total knockout, I don’t think I like the idea of being settled for.

Tom Hanks might make a pretty good Facebook friend. He likes all sorts of people “My Mama always said, 'Life was like a box of chocolates; you never know what (or who?) you're gonna get.'

I probably should adopt Clark Gable’s attitude about this friending business and just say, “Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!"

I guess if all else fails I could do a Godfather thing regarding Eastwood. "I'm gonna’ make him an offer he can't refuse."


Now I just have to see if I can find some new Facebook friends for Sam. I couldn’t find any famous dog quotes for Sam though except that one where Lassie’s backing her fool head off trying to say, “Timmy’s fallen in the well!” I’ll keep working on it.

Uh, I’ll be back?

Lingering Lassitude Leaves Dog and Man Totally Listless

Sam and I have been overcome by lassitude.

You know what lassitude is don’t you? It’s a state of physical or mental weariness; lack of energy. It’s a synonym for lethargy, listlessness, weariness, languor, sluggishness, tiredness, fatigue, lifelessness and apathy, to name a few things. It’s like an odorless gas that has seeped into our brains and has rendered us mostly useless. Sam is lying nearly comatose on the couch not moving a muscle and I’m sitting here in front of the computer with my gassy brain intoning, “Write. Write.” I usually post my Thursday blog Wednesday night to appear at 5 a.m. Thursday morning, but not today. I’ve been overcome by lassitude.

Woe is me. This is like watching a TV advertisement about a drug for a certain disease. When the disease symptoms are described I often jokingly tell Kathleen, “I’ve got that!” Well, today I have lassitude.

I wonder if that awful fluoride the dentist put on my teeth yesterday has anything to do with my lassitude. Gack! The fluoride was cherry-flavored, but gack! On the other hand, Sam didn’t receive the treatment so that’s probably not the root cause of our problem (so to speak).

Many of you loyal readers are likely saying at this point, “Go out and get some exercise that will take you out of your stupors.” And you’re probably right loyal readers. I know more exercise probably would help. My bicycle sits in the garage gathering dust. My jump rope hangs on a peg as lifeless and listless as I feel. My dumbbells roll around under my garage workbench gathering dust bunnies. My workout clothes and tennys are languishing on a chair in the bedroom. It’s a good thing I have to take Sam for a walk every day, otherwise we’d both turn into rotting couch fungi.

At least, thank God, the sun is shining again. No rain today. If I weren’t so overcome by lassitude, I’d do some weeding in the garden beds after walking Sam. I probably won’t weed though, this personal fog I’m in is pretty thick.

I really think I need to go on a nice long road trip. I envision finding some little town along the road where I could sit on the deck of a mom-and-pop bakery/coffee shop and sip a coffee and munch a nice cinnamon roll or some other equally delicious pastry. I’d share my pastry with Sam as we sat in the warm sun and chatted aimlessly with some local person. The only problem with that scenario is that I might slip out of lassitude right into a reluctance to continue my journey. Boy! You can’t win.

Lickety, Lickety, About Ice Cream, I'm not Persnickety

You like ice cream? Sam and I sure like ice cream. I think I might even have been born with an ice cream spoon in my mouth. It’s just possible too that I was conceived and/or born in the back of an ice cream truck; ‘course I’d have to verify that with my dearly departed mother. I seem to remember my family having ice cream almost every night when I was growing up. I still eat it most nights after dinner.

I love spumoni ice cream

What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream? Mine is either rocky road, because chocolate and mini-marshmallows and nuts 

just seem to go together or spumoni. Spumoni is pretty hard to find in most grocery stores. According to a WEB site called the Brown Eyed Baker, spumoni, known in Italy as spumone, is a molded Italian ice cream made with layers of different colors and flavors, and containing a variety of fruits and nuts. The most traditional flavors are chocolate, pistachio and cherry with various nuts and fruit. 

“Traditionally, spumoni is made in a mold that results in a bomb-like dessert with the cherry layer in the center, followed by pistachio, and then covered by chocolate.”

Works for me.

Speaking of Italian ice cream, otherwise known as gelato, it is so much better than traditional American ice cream. What makes gelato different from ice cream?" How does gelato get that soft, elastic texture and slow-to-melt milkiness compared to ice cream's richer, creamier body?

It comes down to three factors: fat, air, and serving temperature.

According to Max Falkowitz, a senior features editor of Serious Eats Newsletters, “American-style ice creams are churned fast and hard to whip in plenty of air (called overrun), which is aided by the high proportion of cream in the base. The most high-end ice creams have an overrun of 25% or so, which means they've increased in volume by 25%; cheaper commercial versions can run from 50% to over 90%, which gives them a light, thin, fast-melting texture that isn't very flavorful (those bites are a quarter to a half air!). Gelato is churned at a much slower speed, which introduces less air into the base—think whipping cream by hand instead of with a stand mixer. That's why it tastes more dense than ice cream—it is.”

Okay. Enough about spumoni. One of my favorite ice cream flavors when I was a kid was tutti-frutti, a concoction of vanilla soft-serve ice cream with candied fruit in it. When I lived in Talmadge, California, my mom would often drive us to the Fosters Freeze in nearby Ukiah to treat us to soft-serve ice cream.

I’m pretty partial to good old Neapolitan too, especially for banana splits, and of course, strawberry. I’m not really into Moose Tracks or Cookie Dough or Wild Mountain Huckleberry or any of those foo-foo flavors. My daughter used to like bubblegum flavor – Yuck! Coffee-flavored ice cream is tolerable, as is pineapple-coconut. Other than that, give me rocky road or spumoni.

Of course Sam isn’t all that particular. Once I’ve finished my ice cream he’ll gladly lick the remains in my bowl no matter what the flavor I’m afraid he has a pretty bad sweet tooth. I know I shouldn’t indulge him, but those boring – where’s-my-share eyes just devastate me. I don’t let him lick chocolate though.

Ever bought an ice cream cone and had the ice cream fall out of the cone onto the street or sidewalk? I’ll bet you most of us have had that happen. It’s even worse when you buy your kid an ice cream cone and the ice cream falls out. Many of us probably have made hand-cranked ice cream. That used to be fun. My step dad could even make ice cream out of snow. Getting to eat lots of ice cream is the best part – if there is a best part – of having your tonsils yanked out.

So, now you know. Sam and I scream for ice cream. Excuse us now while we go get our bowls and spoons.