Fungusamungus

WordPress keeps track of such things, and has informed me that today’s post is the 501st since I joined them. Before that I employed another piece of blogging software for several years. You’d think that by now I’d be better at it, wouldn’t you? Oh, well …

******

(A note on the header photo. When our fearsome foursome flew into some beautiful Canadian lakes, like Loonhaunt, we didn’t waste a minute. Here an exhausted Sid and Ron have collapsed from having so much fun, but you can see that even though they are comatose their lines are still in the water.)

******

Recent conversation with a dermatologist:

Dermatologist: Hi there, how ya doin’?

Patient: Quite well, thank you, doctor.

Dermatologist: What’s your problem?

Patient: My problem is my feet.

Dermatologist: And?

Patient: Well, I used to have remarkable feet. Handsome things, really. In fact, there was a time when I seriously considered becoming a professional foot model.

Dermatologist: I’ll be darned. But now … not so good?

Patient: No, doctor, something is destroying my toenails, as you can see.

Dermatologist: Let’s take a look. Well, they are damned ugly, that’s for sure. What do you think is causing it?

Patient: That was exactly my question for you.

Dermatologist: To be sure, to be sure. And I have answers for you, don’t think for a moment that I don’t.

Patient: Perhaps you could share that information with me.

Dermatologist: It’s a fungus.

Patient: I thought it might be. I’ve been soaking my feet in various concoctions and applying all manner of antifungal creams, to no avail.

Dermatologist: Yah, yah, those never work .

Patient: Your suggestion?

Dermatologist: Well, to begin with, if we were going to treat it the first thing we’d have to do is a culture to find out which fungus it is.

Patient: Okay

Dermatologist: Once we have that data, we can prescribe the correct pills.

Patient: That sounds good.

Dermatologist: Well, yes, but they only work half the time.

Patient: Ohhhh

Dermatologist: And even if they do, there’s a 70% chance it will come right back.

Patient: Ahhhhh

Dermatologist: And there are side effects to the medications … quite a few of them … hair, stomach, testicles …

Patient: Noooooh

Dermatologist: So my suggestion is to fageddaboudit.

Patient: Whuh?

Dermatologist: It’s not painful, it’s not climbing up your leg, it just looks disgusting

Patient: But to keep my feet hidden all the time …

Dermatologist: Your choice

Patient: Thank you, doctor, for your time

Dermatologist: We’re done then, please have the decency to put some socks on immediately, there may be children in the waiting room

******

Here’s a tale that reinforces the ancient adage that no good deed goes unpunished.

A couple of years ago sales began to drop steeply and continued to do so until this year the Instant Company entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

The problem? Analysts say that (among other things):

• Everyone had one that wanted one
• They never wear out
• They never break down

There you go. Make something so well that it doesn’t fail and where needing a replacement is a rarity and you may have the dubious distinction of killing off your own business.

We are still using ours 5-6 times or more each week. It is a blessing not to have to heat up the kitchen stove when the weather is as hot as it has been. The device uses much less energy and cooks faster than our range. Converting recipes I already possess for pressure cooking hasn’t been much of a chore at all, and new ones are available by the thousands on the internet.

If mine ever does burn out, by the time the neon light has faded forever from its display I will be at Target buying a replacement.

******

I’ve finally been able to put it all together into a framework that makes some sense. What’s that, you say? Well, the Republican right’s war on sex. Or rather, everything other than good old two-gender-wearing-proper-clothing-and-all-that sex. It helps to keep in mind that they have nothing else going for them. They are a party without the foggiest notion about how to govern and all this noise they are making is an attempt to cover up that fact.

But sometimes I feel just a bit sorry for this demented fringe, and would like to offer some tried and true suggestions from Ye Olde Puritan Manual for further forays in the culture wars.

• Bring back the dunking stool, it’s such an excellent crowd pleaser for misogynists
• How’s about an old-fashioned witch hunt? Not the faux, limp variety we read about these days, but a real one, with trials and forced confessions and convulsions and everything?
• How about resurrecting the scarlet letter program? We’d need some new letters for today, but that shouldn’t be an issue.

******

We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.

Louis Brandeis

******

Yesterday Robin and I took a real hike for the first time since her first knee surgery. It was up and up along the Spirit Gulch trail, a few miles only, but strenuous ones. When it is steep going up, it is careful work going back down. The stones roll under your feet when you descend and do their level best to set you down hard.

******

As we approached Ouray on our way out, Robin idly mentioned that there was a perfectly good donut shop along its main street, and did I think that there might be any donuts left when we got there? From then on I counted the inches between me and that establishment.

So we stopped, we bought and ate, and we did not stroke out. Not this time, anyway. I don’t want to sound cavalier, but it if is a donut that is destined to carry me off the planet, I can only hope that some kind person will brush the crumbs out of my beard to make my remains look more respectable.

******