Category Archives: humor

Music From Hell!

etc., funny things, humor, music, , , , ,

Whenever you see a cartoon about someone arriving in hell, they’re issued a musical instrument—almost invariably an accordion or bagpipes. Sometimes a banjo.

Why is that? Are they played badly every single time? Are there no tunes that they’re really the best instrument for? Why all the hate?

Let’s start with the accordion. Unquestionably, the virtuoso of the accordion is “Weird Al” Yankovic. He has made fun of the instrument by using it to mimic the sound of an iron lung in one of his early songs. (Not politically correct, I suppose, but very funny, which, now that I think about it, sums up a lot of Al’s repertoire. But I digress.)

The Weird One is particularly well known for his epic medleys of famous tunes played on the accordion. Among the tunes he’s given the polka treatment are “99 Red Balloons,” “Hey Jude,” “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” “Hot Blooded,” “Jumping Jack Flash,” and “My Generation.” Just wrap your head around that.

Another much-maligned instrument is the bagpipes. About the only song that people will tolerate from a bagpipe is “Amazing Grace,” which is what was played every night when Dan and I were on a “barefoot cruise.”

But in general, the Scottish instrument is usually held in the same esteem as Scottish cuisine. (Never having been to Scotland, I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the slight on their cooking. I have been to England and Ireland, also often derided for their food, but I enjoyed eating both places. In England, I actually ordered a dessert called “spotted dick” and ate it, mostly so I could say, “I ate a spotted dick.” But I digress again.)

Yet another instrument that has a bad rep is the banjo. I think this is primarily due to that scene in Deliverance, where it became shorthand for mentally challenged Appalachian children and perverts. “Dueling Banjos” is the only banjo tune most people can name, and that’s half guitar.

But as Weird Al is to the accordion, Bela Fleck is to the banjo—a virtuoso, I mean, not a comic genius (though Fleck does have a tune called “Cheese Balls in Cowtown”). Fleck plays mostly jazz banjo, of which he is the only practitioner, to my knowledge. However, he has been known to dabble in classical banjo, recording an entire album that included the Keyboard Sonata in C Major, which can be heard here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ych7SiJ1pjg.

(I actually tried to learn to play the banjo once, but I was caught up in my perpetual music loop—when I had time, I had no money for lessons; when I had money, no time. Eventually, when I was broke, I sold the banjo, which solved the problem. But I digress some more.)

Some of my favorite music stories involve an old friend of blessed memory, Bill Maraschiello, better known as Bill-of-Many-Instruments Maraschiello. If it had strings, keys, pipes, or anything else, Bill could play it. Guitar, mandolin, hammered dulcimer, lap dulcimer, and more. I swear if you put an old shoe in front of him, he could play it and make it sound wonderful. Once I once saw him play two pennywhistles at the same time—a different melody on each. It was nothing short of amazing.

Bill was short, just 5’2″, and sometimes he played miniature versions of accordion and bagpipes—concertina and uilleann pipes. (I suppose, since the haters often say that bagpipes sound like someone torturing a cat, the uilleann pipes would be blamed for abuse of kittens. Also, I couldn’t find a picture of them to go with this post. But I digress yet again.)

It’s said that music soothes the savage beast. I guess accordions, bagpipes, and banjos simply make them more savage. Perhaps it’s safest to avoid them, but I don’t think I can. Some of my musical heroes have played them. And I don’t think they’re going to hell for it.

Chatty Catty

cats, etc., family, humor, language, pets, ,

Yes, I’m one of those crazy ladies who talks to my cats. The thing is, some of them talk back. They’re not often communications that I can understand, but I don’t care. It’s like having the TV on in the background while I write. It’s part of the ambient sound of the house.

(Once one of my cats did communicate something recognizable to me via brain waves. Dushenka was sitting on the arm of the sofa looking at me, and I swear I could hear her thought: “I need a drink of water.” When I checked it out, her water dish, which she couldn’t see from the sofa, was indeed empty. It was a psychic communication, adorable and yet a little creepy. But I digress.)

We had a cat named Shaker who taught a parakeet to speak cat. Shaker went around all day saying r-row (rhymes with now). We’d have little conversations with her. (“Shaker, what’s a kitty say?” “R-row.” “Yes, that’s right.”) Well, Ralphie the parakeet (named after Ralph Waldo Emerson), after hearing all this r-rowing many times a day, began saying it too. (We tried to teach him to say “Pretty bird,” but he only ever picked up the “bird” part. He started saying “Shaker-bird.” He was one confused little guy. But I digress again.)

Some of our cats stuck to the stereotypical “meow,” but they put their own spin on it. Julia, for example, had a little meow that was decidedly bitchy. Her personality wasn’t a bit bitchy, but her meow sure was. Her littermate Laurel had a silent meow, perhaps in self-defense. She would simply open her mouth with her lips forming the word “meow,” but no sound came out. (Do cats have lips, anyway? I’m not sure. Siri claims they do.) Louise would make a darling little sigh when I held her in my arms. I melted every time she did that.

I loved silent Laurel, of course, but I longed for another talkative cat. I went to the shelter and told the helper, “I want a talker.” All the aides looked at each other and then simultaneously pointed at one particular cage. (The kitty in the cage was named Precious Bob. That would never do. We renamed him Jasper. But I digress some more.) Jasper would wait until we were in bed at night, then come bounding up on the bed and meow both incessantly and insistently. We didn’t know what he was saying—just that it seemed terribly important to him. We would ask him what it was all about. “What’s that you say, Jasper? Timmy fell down the well? And Grandpa fell in after him? And all the rescuers sent to get them out fell in too? And then a plane crashed into the well? And caught fire?”

Our present cat, Toby, doesn’t bug us for food (mostly, that is), but when we say the magic words, “Toby, do you want to EAT?” he says mm-weep. He makes other cute noises like mm-wow and mm-woo, but mm-weep is saved for breakfast and dinner. He occasionally snores. (We briefly considered whether he needed a little kitty CPAP, but then we considered trying to put one on him and rapidly changed our minds. But I digress some more.)

But that’s just how our cats communicate with us. There’s also the ways we communicate with them. These vary from babytalk that makes us sound like babbling idiots: “Toto-boo-boo, does you want your noms? Num, num, num—om-nom” to pleading: “Toby, get off my lap. I need to pee” or “Move! You’re standing on my boob. You weigh like a brick!” It doesn’t matter. He ignores both babble and pleading. Just like a cat.

What’s So Funny?

books, etc., funny things, humor, , , , , , ,

If you ask me (which no one did), the funniest joke there is, is this one:

What did the Zen master say to the hotdog vendor?

“Make me one with everything.”

The second funniest is:

First Old Lady: My, it’s windy today.

Second Old Lady: No, it’s Thursday.

Third Old Lady: So am I. Let’s go have a cup of tea.

(I have a friend whose favorite joke is a filthy one about a guy in a clock shop. But I digress, and refuse to tell it here.)

What makes something funny? There are theories which sound scientific. One is that “a violation of expectations or incongruity between what is expected and what actually occurs” is the source of humor. I’m not sure if that applies to my favorite jokes, but I think it does to the filthy one. Another theory is that “humor can arise from a sense of superiority or relief that comes from perceiving oneself as better than others or from being relieved of a perceived threat.” That sounds like a load of dingo’s kidneys to me and doesn’t explain either of my favorite jokes. (I don’t think that I feel superior to the three old ladies. The older I get, the more sympathy I have for them. But I digress again.)

Anyway, I think that proposing theories of humor detracts from what is funny. What science can tell us is the effects of humor on human beings. Laughter releases endorphins, the body’s “feel good” chemicals, and decreases cortisol, a stress hormone. Rapid breathing while laughing increases oxygen intake and improves cardiovascular function. It “serves as a form of communication, signaling safety, playfulness, and bonding among individuals” and “can help regulate emotions by reducing stress and tension.” Also, laughter is associated with “improved cognitive function, including enhanced creativity and problem-solving skills,” which means that Weird Al must be a genius. (I mean, Weird Al is a genius, but this proves it.)

So, what’s funny?

For some reason, there’s a category of stock photos known as “Women laughing alone with salad.” I have no idea why single women find salad funny or why there are so many of these photos, but it’s a real thing. (I think the fact that it’s a real thing is funny. But I digress yet again.)

One of my favorite types of humor is puns. Many people consider them the lowest form of wit, but they crack me up. I’ve been known to indulge in them, sometimes in pun contests and sometimes in real life.

Once, over breakfast, a friend remarked that her eggs Benedict were slow in coming. I said, “Maybe the kitchen staff had to go out and steal a hubcap to serve them on.”

“I know I’m going to regret asking, but why?” she asked.

“Because there’s no plate like chrome for the hollandaise.” She almost defenestrated me.

I also love improv comedy. I’m sorry that Whose Line Is It Anyway? isn’t around anymore. But at least some friends of mine have kept up the tradition with an improv group they call “Deep Fried Lemurs.” I’ve participated in it too, at least to the extent of providing setups for the “Scenes From a Hat” bit.

I also love literary humor. There are some great humor writers out there and some hysterical stories and books. For short stories and essays, I go for James Thurber and Erma Bombeck (both Ohio writers). And, if I may make recommendations for books (and I don’t see why I shouldn’t), Christopher Moore’s Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal, Jenny Lawson’s Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, and Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy are among my favorites.

Two kinds of humor I don’t care much for are slapstick and revenge comedy. I just never got the appeal of the Three Stooges and hated The War of the Roses. I do like some forms of physical comedy, though, such as the Ministry of Silly Walks sketch from Monty Python And pretty much anything else Monty Python except the Mr. Creosote bit.

So, what are your favorite jokes and puns (filthy or not)? Do you have any theories of what makes something funny? Recommendations for sources of humor? I’d love to hear them. (I could use the laughs right now.) Perhaps I’ll include them in a future blog post.

Writing Sex and Fantasy

books, etc., funny things, humor, , , , ,

A while back, I spent several years working on a mystery novel that went nowhere. Actually, it went to an appalling number of agents and publishers. It just didn’t stay there. And I wrote a short story that was a mashup of The Wizard of Oz and Star Trek.

But when it comes to fiction that I actually got paid for, my experience begins and ends with smut. Erotica. A dirty book. Whatever you want to call it. Now, I’m a big fan of freedom of speech and free expression and erotic literature, but there’s no getting around it—it was filthy. No redeeming social importance whatsoever, which used to be something people who wrote erotica aimed for. But I’m a ghostwriter and I write what the customer wants. So, I performed my writerly duty on the smut patrol and was compensated—not handsomely, but compensated. Then I went back to my steady diet of self-help books. But I lusted for something more…entertaining.

(We will not now discuss the research needed for the smut assignment or how I conducted it. If you want to, you can assume I drew on interviews with some of my less-inhibited friends. Let’s just say that I needed to include corroborative detail to add verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative. And think of ways to describe body parts other than “throbbing purple-headed warrior” and “quivering love pudding.” But I digress. (Bonus points for recognizing the sources I used in this paragraph.))

Then recently, I almost wrote another non-smut novel, or at least the outline for one with the likelihood of writing the book if the outline was approved. The project was a piece of fiction, 100,000 words of what I guess you’d call “paranormal romantasy,” which apparently is a Thing now. I’ve been looking for a fiction assignment. There’s nothing wrong with self-help—it’s my proverbial bread and butter. But there’s also nothing wrong with adding a little jelly roll to the mix.

I was on the shortlist for the assignment. I didn’t get the gig. But I learned a lot from it, mostly about myself.

Realistically, I shouldn’t have considered taking the assignment, even if they had selected me for it. I’m already working on a long project that will keep me busy for months. I really couldn’t guarantee that I could do the world-building and plotting that the outline required. (There are other kinds of plotting I have more experience with, involving sinister, gleeful laughter. But I digress again.)

So, if I had moved from the shortlist to the one-list, I could easily have gotten in over my head and done a piss-poor job of it. I might have let my current project slide. I might have been sabotaging myself. It could have ended very badly.

But, oh, I wanted it. The opportunity came up over the long Thanksgiving weekend, so I had plenty of time to wait for the offer to come. I found myself prewriting (aka sitting around staring into space). I named the main character. I toyed with what her paranormal power might be. I speculated about what worlds of the multiverse she would travel to. I contemplated who her love interest might be.

It was mental effort wasted. Or not wasted, exactly. I proved to myself that I have the writerly chops to engage with a major fiction project and come up with ideas. I learned how much I want to branch out into fiction. I discovered that I can still get excited over a potential piece of writing. (Not that I don’t like helping selves, but I could use a little variety. It’s slightly disturbing how much I enjoyed ghostwriting a book on flesh-eating diseases. Yet another digression.)

Would I write smut again? Sure. I don’t have a philosophical objection to it. I might someday even look into a job as a phone sex operator. It’s a work-at-home position (sorry not sorry) with no actual (physical) customer contact. But, no. I don’t think I could keep myself from snorting and giggling.

Romance has a similar effect on me, but combine it with paranormal fantasy and I think I can handle it—as I hope someday to prove.

When You Have the Flu: Some Unsolicited Advice

etc., funny things, health, humor, , , ,

I keep revisiting this post — this time because I just tested positive for COVID, which is, after all, uber-flu. Anyway, I feel too crappy to write something new.

Say you’ve got a touch of the flu. Keep far away from me – you feel awful and I don’t want to feel awful too. I know you don’t want visitors, but here I am, and at least I’ve brought a gift: a few suggestions for entertaining things you can do while you suffer in peace and quiet, except for, you know, the coughing and sneezing and assorted other noises you’re making. Relative peace and quiet, if you know what I mean.

Drink tea. It really doesn’t matter what kind, since you can’t smell it anyway. Earl Grey will smell just like jasmine. Peppermint and English Breakfast, the same. And if you want to, you can use any variety as the base for my father’s restorative tonic, which consists of tea, bourbon, and horehound candy (tea optional), or boring old lemon and honey, if you insist, though my father would not approve.

Cuddle large, fuzzy cats. Do this even if you’re allergic to them. You’re already sneezing as much as humanly possible, so you have nothing to fear from dander. Bonus: A large, fluffy cat makes an excellent substitute for a heating pad or hot water bottle.

Read. Or pretend to. Actual reading may distract you from how miserable you are (unless you’re reading Les Miserables). Pretend-reading will encourage people to keep their voices low, plus it doesn’t matter if you fall asleep with the book elegantly displayed on your chest. (Make sure it has a classy dustjacket, even if the book inside is Fifty Shades of Gray, which I don’t recommend, unless it’s for pretend-reading. It can lead to barfing, which may be in your future anyway.)

Eat chicken soup. Tell everyone that you need it for the fluids and the electrolytes, which is true. Egg drop soup is an especially good variety – if you can’t convince someone in your household to make it and bring it to you, you can always convince the Chinese take-out down the street to do it. Nibble saltines daintily, or the little fried things that look like Chinese tortilla strips.

Hit the Nyquil. I don’t mean the non-drowsy kind – sleep through as much of the illness as possible. Warning: Do not mix Nyquil with Southern Comfort or the bourbon-horehound mixture (see above). You’ll barf and you may be doing that already. Also, don’t mix Nyquil with cough syrup, which can cause unintended psychedelic effects and more barfing.

Squash tissues. Let them blossom all around you in a protective ring that no one will want to cross. If you try the tissues with built-in lotion, don’t use them to wipe your glasses before trying to read (see above).

Call the doctor. Don’t go see the doctor. You’ve got a virus and there’s nothing she can give you for it. Just ask how long it is until you can get an appointment and rest assured that your ailment will be over before then. You may want to actually go if you start making a sucky (in both senses), moist kind of wheezing sound when you breathe. The advantage is it will keep people even farther away from you, but the downside is that you may have pneumonia, which is even less fun than flu.

Use Vick’s Vapo-Rub. You won’t be able to detect the scent because your nose is busy with something else (snot), but other people sure will, encouraging them to keep a respectful distance. If you don’t have Vapo-Rub, try Ben-Gay. Bonus: nice warm feeling on your chest. Note: If you use either Vapo-Rub or Ben-Gay, do not cuddle the large, fuzzy cats (see above), unless you want to look like Bigfoot. Just sing “Soft Kitty” instead, or insist that someone else sing it to you.

Whine. Punctuate with coughs and sneezes. Again, the goal is to get people to leave you alone. If this tactic isn’t working, move on to even more disgusting symptoms. Keep a bucket by your bed, just so people get the idea that you could use it at any moment.

P.S. I’ll give you one guess why I wrote this. If you don’t get the answer right, I’ll start whining. And coughing. And sneezing. And barfing. Just bring me some egg drop soup and leave quietly.

You wouldn’t want to catch what I’ve got.

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It’s a Bargain!

Christmas, etc., family, funny things, holidays, humor, , , ,

It was the gorilla mask that did it. Sure, it was after Halloween and, sure, I’m sure he got it for a very good price. But I ask myself, as my husband obviously didn’t, Why do we need a gorilla mask?

The easy answer is, we don’t. We don’t go to Halloween parties and don’t even dress up to hand out Halloween candy. Dan has breathing problems and can’t wear a full face mask for more than a minute. I have no desire to wear a gorilla mask at all (or to hand out candy either, a chore I leave to Dan every year).

The thing is, Dan works at a big box store and is in proximity to lots of things that are on sale. And he can almost never resist. (He also has a problem resisting free things, like stuff that neighbors set out at the end of their driveways. I’ve trained him to pass them by. But he expects praise for doing so. But I digress.)

There are pet supplies (in addition to the absolutely necessary gushy food for Toby). We have three cat trees, one of which sees use as a side table facing the TV. Toby only uses one level of the big one and ignores the third. He also ignores the catnip mice (though not the catnip treats). And who wouldn’t ignore the dog toy shaped like a giant t-bone steak that Dan thought Toby might use as a pillow? (Toby. Toby did. Dan did buy a nice cat bed that Toby uses a lot, so he gets points for that.)

Some of his finds are more like presents. When a sweater or tunic in my size goes on sale, he’ll snap it up and bring it home like it’s some kind of hunting trophy. (I don’t think he ties it to the hood of his car, though.) They don’t always fit, of course, and he says he’ll take them back if they don’t, but he never does. I need a separate section in my closet for them.

He’s also fond of clearance china. He brings home large soup mugs with appropriate sayings on them, like “Official Cat Mom” or “Looney Tunes” or less appropriate ones like “Merry Christmoose.” He also likes platters and sandwich plates that don’t always go well with our china pattern. Sometimes they’re at least in the ballpark, or completely neutral white. (Yes, surprisingly, we do actually have a pattern—Pfaltzgraff Yorktowne. I chose the paint for our newly rebuilt kitchen—blue—to harmonize with it. This is something I never thought I’d ever do (have a pattern), though I never thought I’d ever get married either. Life is surprising. But I digress again.)

The bargain food tables are also irresistible. Not that he always knows what he’s getting. We’ve ended up with spices like togarashi and galangal (which I always thought were martial arts), plus pickled banana leaves. Our cooking repertoire runs to things like grilled chicken breasts and ground beef, seasoned with Mrs. Dash, garlic, and oregano. He also buys bargains that really aren’t. Olive tapenade in EVOO isn’t cheap, even at half price. We still have lots of odd culinary experiments just a-waiting for us to be brave or tipsy enough to try.

I can’t really complain, though. Last night he brought me Graeter’s black raspberry and chocolate chip ice cream, which was on sale for some unknown reason. It’s good to have someone watching out for me. I don’t even have to share (much) with him, since it’s not sugar-free. (My theory is he’s trying to keep me fat so other men don’t hit on me. My last digression for this week. I swear.)

Lest you think this all goes one way, I buy weird stuff for Dan, too, though I’m pretty much limited to shopping on the internet. One of my recent finds was a Mr. Natural Keep on Truckin’ t-shirt. I’ve also gotten him a Funko Pop Jerry Garcia. (Can you tell what era he grew up in?) We hardly ever save these surprises for Christmas. Instead, we give ourselves a treat. This year, we’re getting matching tattoos—one gift that I hope isn’t a slight irregular!

Cat Songs

cats, etc., fun and games, funny things, humor, music, pets, , , ,

My husband and I have some silly traditions, some of which I’ve mentioned in the blog. There was naked cooking with Julia Child impressions, for instance. And we make up little nonsense songs. Well, Dan makes up most of them, mostly about me. (My nickname, which no one else may use, is Bunny, so they often have titles like “When Bunny Comes Driving Home Again.” They’re silly, as mentioned, but infinitely better than the NSFW song an ex-boyfriend once wrote describing my physical charms. But I digress.)

But this post is about cat songs. Not songs the cats sing, of course — their repertoire is pretty limited. Not songs about cats either (“Year of the Cat,” “Cat Scratch Fever,” “Stray Cat Strut,” “Honky Cat,” “Nashville Cats”). No, these are songs that we’ve made up about cats we’ve owned over the years.

Shaker’s song was really more of a poem or a chant than a song. It went:

Shaker in the park

Shaker in the pool

Shaker for dessert

Shaker after school.

Shake, shake, Shaker puddin’

Puddin’, puddin’, Shaker puddin’.

(Shaker was a very dignified tuxedo cat. She didn’t approve.)

The song will make no sense unless you remember a product from the 60s and its jingle (indeed, it doesn’t really make any sense at all, whether you remember it or not). The product was called Shake-a-Pudding. It was a brown plastic cup with a lighter brown plastic lid. If you put milk in the cup and added powder, then shook vigorously, hoping the top didn’t come off, what you got was something that at least resembled pudding. An interactive dessert. At the time, we thought it was neat-o.

Toby also has a song based somewhat on a commercial. It goes like this:

His name was Toby.

He used a Flowbee.

Obviously, this requires some explanation. First of all, it’s sung to the tune of Bary Manilow’s “Copacabana.” So far, so good. The Flowbee mentioned in the second line was one of those products you used to see on after-midnight infomercials from companies like Popeil or Ronco. Exercise equipment. Beauty products. That sort of thing.

Technically, I suppose you could call the Flowbee a beauty product. It was an attachment that you put on the end of your vacuum cleaner hose. It would make your hair stand on end so you could lop an inch or two off the end. I think it was mostly used on children who were too young to know any better and was responsible for the infamous bowl cut. It’s described by the company (yes, you can still buy them) as a “Vacuum Haircut System.” Need I tell you that we’ve never used one on ourselves, much less on Toby?

Louise had a song of a sort, or at least one line of one:

Every little breeze seems to whisper: LOUISE!

Naturally, the name was shouted.

Julia, the most beautiful cat in the world (she told me so) had a whole verse. Obviously, it was ttto “Julia” by John Lennon, which was written about his mother. Our Julia’s version went:

Julia, pinky nose

Pretty fur, naughty lips.

So I sing my song of love for Julia.

(No, I don’t know how the “naughty lips” part got in there. Cats barely have lips at all, and I don’t know how they could be naughty. That’s just the way the song went. So sue me. But I digress again.)

Dushenka had a tune that should be familiar to TV cartoon aficionados:

Shenka-Shenka-Doo

Where are you?

On your little kitty adventure.

Laurel’s song was melancholy.

Pooska-wooska-pooska

Pooska-wooska-pie

Pooska-wooska-pooska

It’s Laurel’s lullaby.

I even sang it at her funeral.

Of course, all the songs are doggerel (catterel?) and make us seem like idiots. But the cats don’t care. They’re used to us talking like idiots. (Does Toby want his noms? Pet, pet, pet, the incredible pettable pet. Mama loves kitty. Does kitty love mama? Ribbit.)

The Mystic Rules of Life

cats, etc., food, humor, , , , ,

I don’t have a corner on wisdom. Indeed, I barely have a corner on learning, around the corner and down the dusty path from wisdom.

I have, however, lived mumble-murfle years, and in that time, I have learned a thing or two. Maybe three, tops. Nonetheless, I have formulated what I like to call The Mystic Rules of Life. (Actually, I didn’t so much formulate them as accumulate them. I can’t claim that any of them had their origin with me. I sort of found them under the bed, communing with the dust bunnies, and claimed them for my own. But I digress.)

Anyway, for what it’s worth, here they are.

Everything should come with too much cheese. The corollary to this is that there is no such thing as too much cheese. My husband and I are the sort who, when we’re in an Italian restaurant and a server with a Parmesan cheese grater shows up and says, “Tell me when” reply, “Just crank that thing until your arm falls off.”

This rule applies to our own cooking. I’ve known us to use Parmesan, Asiago, and five cheese Italian blend in the same recipe. (Yes, I know cheese is binding. We have prunes for dessert. Or prunes and Metamucil. But I digress again.) Speaking of five cheese blend, that’s my favorite kind of pizza, although I also like pepperoni and mushrooms. I never get it, though, as Dan insists on all the meats and veggies the crust will hold. Five cheeses would probably cause catastrophic structural failure.

(By the way, this mystic rule applies to gravy, too. With mashed potatoes, not pizza. Pizza with gravy would be messy as well as unappealing. Until someone invents a mashed potato pizza, that is. I suppose this is another digression.)

It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. You may not get permission if you ask first. Of course, there’s no guarantee that you’ll get forgiveness after you do whatever-it-is, and that means the whatever-it-is will be an even bigger deal. But, as Kris Kristofferson noted, “I’d rather be sorry for something I’ve done than for something that I didn’t do.” (It’s amazing how often Kris is right about things. “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” “The going up was worth the coming down.” “Jesus was a Capricorn.” “Everybody’s got to have somebody to look down on.” “If you don’t like Hank Williams, you can kiss my ass.” (A musical digression.))

Pee first. No matter what the next thing is, pee first. Going to bed? Pee first. Running an errand? Pee first. Seeing a movie? Pee first. Taking a shower? Pee first. Walking the dog? Pee first. It’s always best to pee before you commit yourself to any other action. You may end up in a place where peeing is difficult or, worse, impossible. Or one where you simply don’t want to pee. I have those dreams all the time where I’m looking for a bathroom but can’t find one, or at least not one I can use. It’s disgustingly filthy, has no doors, or is just a pipe in the floor without even an outhouse around it. (I usually wake up having to pee, but (so far) I haven’t woken up to find that I’ve wet the bed. I suppose that’s one circumstance when it isn’t better to pee first. Get out of bed? Pee after. But I digress some more.)

Gravity is not our friend. Sure, gravity keeps us firmly attached to the Earth. But when you consider the many ways gravity makes us fall down, it becomes more of a hindrance than a help. And I’ve experienced most of them. This Mystic Rule only applies on Earth, however. If you can make it to the moon, the gravity is only one-sixth that of Earth. That’s a lot more friendly. (Speaking of friendly, author Mary Roach once said, “Gravitation is the lust of the cosmos.” I have nothing against lust, but really, gravitation is the vacuum cleaner of the cosmos. Last digression for this week.)

You’d think that as I get older and (supposedly) wiser, I’d encounter more Mystic Rules of Life, but I haven’t found any lately. Guess I should look under the bed again, but I suspect that the dust bunnies (or, more likely by now, dust gorillas) have rules of their own that don’t apply to people.

The Latest Book Trends

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(I shall begin with a digression. Actually, I can’t guarantee that these are actually the very latest book trends. I buy a lot of my ebooks based on newsletters from FreeBooksy and BookBub because they promote heavily discounted books, not all of which are, technically speaking, new. But most of them cost under $3 and, at the rate I buy books, I need to economize somewhere.)

That said, I have noticed what seem to be trends.

The first one is not a book trend, per se. It’s a trend in book covers. What’s hot right now (apparently) is book covers that don’t show faces. I’ve written about how men on the covers of romance novels are cut off at the neck (so to speak) or lost in the shadow of a cowboy hat, but these books feature mostly women on the covers. And they don’t have faces either.

The most common reason for this is that the woman or women are walking away from the person viewing the cover. (Bonus points awarded if the woman is wearing a red coat.) I don’t know why this trend has come to the fore, but I suspect it’s because the cover designers don’t like to draw faces or don’t want to read enough of the book to learn what the main character looks like. Or maybe the women are supposed to be all mysterious. Or the reader is supposed to imagine the woman having their own face. Like I said, I don’t know.

(A while back I noticed that there was a book cover that featured a man in a top hat walking through the rain, in the night, beside a wrought iron fence. In fact, there were two different books that had exactly the same cover. Both were terribly atmospheric mysteries or dark Victorian tales. I guess someone made the cover for one and an unimaginative art director tried to get away with using it twice. I noticed, however. But I digress again.)

Now, as to the contents of the books, I’ve noticed trends as well. When it comes to cozy mysteries, cats are perennially favorite characters or even sleuths. And Rita Mae Brown credits her cat, Sneaky Pie Brown, as co-author of her mystery series. Cats are as popular as ever, or more so. Every self-respecting woman in a modern romance novel has a cat.

Many of those romances take place in libraries and bookstores. The trope of the young woman who moves to a small town to restart her life, taking up the job of librarian or bookstore owner and meeting the love of her life, after suitable conflicts and misunderstandings, is a common plot. (Librarians are no longer portrayed as lonely spinsters—mostly. There can be an older librarian as a mentor and confidante, at least regarding the book aspects of the story. But I digress more.)

You can easily see what’s coming. The romantic heroine has both a bookstore and a cat. And the covers of the books reflect that. In fact, sometimes the cat and the books are all that appear on the cover. The woman herself is missing in (romantic) action.

One other trend that I’ve noticed in romance novels (I don’t actually read them, you understand—I learn about them through reading blurbs) is that, although traditionally the stories involve reckless, passionate, consequence-free sex (the “zipless bleep” that Erica Jong made so popular in Fear of Flying), is that increasingly, pregnancy results from the sex. (No, I’m not saying that romance novels are getting more realistic. They still involve royalty and billionaires, after all. And men from Scotland apparently are popular now, as in the book titled Too Scot to Handle. But I digress still more.) The pregnancy adds an extra layer of potential complications, such as the impending parenthood needing to be kept a secret.

If you’ve noticed any other book trends, feel free to share ’em. In the meantime, I’ll keep looking for a book that features a man in a red kilt walking through the door of a bookstore with a pregnant cat in the window.

Deep Sighs and Facepalms

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My husband and I have any number of catchphrases that we use frequently. Some of them come from movies (Have fun storming the castle! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!), TV shows (I can’t promise I’ll try, but I’ll try to try. [humming the Jeopardy music]), songs (On the road again. Timing brought me to you.), and even books (Time is an illusion—lunchtime, doubly so.).

But not all our catchphrases are quotations. One of our traditions is that when one of us heaves a deep sigh, the other will say, “The Serenity Prayer.” (Not the whole prayer, just the phrase.) This started many years ago.

You may already know that the Serenity Prayer (“God grant me the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what can be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference.”), which has been attributed to St. Francis of Assisi but was actually written by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, has been a mantra of Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step groups. They recite it at their meetings and remind each other of it in order to ground themselves.

(Totally irrelevant digression. Once when I was a waitress, a customer complained that the coffee tasted like mud. I replied, “That’s because it was ground this morning, and then we added water.” They didn’t get it. Just looked at me funny.)

(Slightly more relevant digression. St. Francis also didn’t write the “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace” prayer, as is commonly believed. It was written in 1912, long after the saint left this earthly plane.)

Anyway, Dan once worked in a facility where he had to engage with many addicts and alcoholics (no, that’s not where we met). One of them noticed that every now and then, Dan would sigh dramatically. “Why do you do that?” they asked. Dan thought quickly and replied, “It’s the Serenity Prayer. The short form.” That just seemed so apt that it has entered our own metaphoric vocabulary. We regularly say things that elicit a deep sigh from each other, so we use it all the time. We use it a lot since both of us are frequently exasperating.

Another common response to exasperation is not a quote, but a gesture: the facepalm. You see it in memes in which someone tells a really bad joke and the other one (usually Captain Picard or Commander Riker) places a hand over his face. One assumes that they also heave a great sigh at the same time, but don’t recite the Serenity Prayer, though they could, I suppose.

It isn’t only a response to a particularly appalling joke, however. There’s an AI image of the Statue of Liberty facepalming that comes around in response to some dire piece of political stupidity. You also see memes that say something to the effect that the poster’s guardian angel looks like this: [insert image of an angel, saint, or God facepalming].

Personally, I sometimes think of Jesus facepalming. The apostles said so many dopey things. Not the “Increase our faith” stuff, but at times such as when Jesus was transfigured and appeared in a vision with Elijah and Moses. “Shouldn’t we go put up three tents for the three of you?” the apostles James, John, and Peter asked, despite the unlikelihood of the long-dead Old Testament figures needing tents to rest in. That was worth a facepalm.

Then there’s the time when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. As the account goes, Jesus delayed going to Lazarus’s house, although everyone knew he was dying. He then told the disciples that Lazarus was asleep. The apostles, puzzled, replied that if Lazarus was asleep, he would awaken. Just the time for a Jesus facepalm. The apostles just didn’t get it.

(If you think this last part of the post is blasphemous, so be it. You can take it as just another of my many digressions gone wrong. I know a sense of humor is a dangerous thing to display when it comes to religion. My sister even objects to jokes regarding someone arriving at the pearly gates and bantering with St. Peter. If you have any complaints to make, I’ll be over here, hiding under this rock.)