This is a story that made me laugh and made me cry.
A little church in Italy decided to restore a five hundred something year old fresco.
The fresco depicted the tree of life.
It was a tree where the fruit were penises and the fresco showed a collection of women trying to pick the fruits.
The restoration had lasted about a year when some experts raised the alarm.
All the penises had disappeared.
Oops, said the restorers, who conveniently had not noticed it before, maybe the harsh chemicals made the penises go away. Not the tree, not the collection of women, just the penises.
Some really harsh conservative Republican chemicals.
So let this be lesson to all. Never expose your penis to harsh conservative republican chemicals. That will make it go away.
Penis envy.

My favorite tree, the one that regales me once a year with an astonishing display of cascading yellow flowers, makes a pod , a sort oversize bean, wherein are the seeds/beans.
For weeks if not months I have tried to make the beans sprout. It is possible, I know because that is what Chuck and I did to make the tree that I have now.
It is possible, I keep reminding me.
I even went so far as to collect a pod from a tree growing miles and miles from here, thinking that maybe mine were not pollinated.
And now, as I checked the pots this morning, I saw a tiny little green spear sticking up of the soil. One little guy. Sure there are a few others but I am not too sure about their lineage they all look alike at the early stage; but this little birthday growth, that is the real thing, because I can see the bean it is growing from, and that is the one I planted.
I am thrilled and nervous. I want to protect this little growth, make sure it gets all it needs. Ward off any and all leaf-eating insects and creepy crawlies. But then again maybe I should just let nature take its course. It has before. Still, a little help won't hurt. One tiny little helpless spear.

Ans so I cried. I did not know what else to do. It was (is) my birthday. I am as of today, 68 years old.
I am a 68 years old curmudgeon, a thing most sane people will avoid. A person that should be held up as an example of what not to be. A person like me.
And yet.
Am I so bad compared to so many others ?
I think not.
I might be a smidgen more honest but so what ?
Honesty did not make many friends and therefore I have very few friends
but I am here
and I still write my blog
That's worth something, aint it ?

Rodents!
At this point I am willing to blame them for just about anything from excessive gas expulsion to halitosis.
Truth ?
They bother me. They bother me because when at times I open the doors to the cabinet where I hear them making noises, I am at times confronted with a Disneyesque looking little creature that as often as not will just sit still and look at me. Big scary me. And then slowly go back to whatever rodents do when not pestered by things like me. Big scary me. And I despair.
What does one do to make these rodents go away ?
One hires a cat.
One hires an old, ugly, belligerent cat. A cat that takes pride in its job, to eliminate rodents. Such a cat has to deal with the Unloved Ones ( my mutts ) and, uno contra quatro, one against four are just bad odds.
But any pussy worth its salt ? will not only put up with, it will negate the powers of the Worthless Ones . It will show the world that righteous pussies will prevail over worthless ones any old day.
Poor old mutts.

PSSTTTT YA wanna know a secret ?
Here is one.
Whenever I have a bit too much to drink, my vocabulary expands to multi-syllable words. And lots of them. So when you read a post of mine and I am using all kinds of big words, be advised. I have most probably imbibed, and liberally.
Sad, it is not, that that is what it takes, a thing that should be perfectly natural.
We have such a vibrant and beautiful language and yet
when you listen to rap artists, they might as well be speaking a foreign tongue.
And as you might have guessed, I have been imbibing.
Cheers.

And in my dream I was starting University..I know, I know..it is a dream , all right ? but this is where it took a Kafkaesque turn with endless and look-alike corridors with people busy going back and forth. And I was lost till I found a person who seemed to be some kind of guide. He asked what I was looking for and I blurted out : " psych 1 "....Ah, he said, you are all right then. They are still taking inscriptions. It will cost you 400 dollars. Anything else I can help you with ?
Yes...I said.
I could use a guide dog.
And then I woke up.

This is a joke that was mailed to me :
Two dogs are sitting talking.
In the hazy background one can see a human walking his canine on a lead.
Says #1 dog to #2 dog
What kind of best friend
would cut off your testicals..

Say wha ???
Now I am as prone as the next person, maybe even more, to misspellings
But testicals.
And this "joke" was received by dozens if not hundreds of people, hopefully all of them struck, as was I, by the glaring mistake and yet.....I wonder.
So as not to make too big a fool of myself, I did check the dictionary; there is no word listed as testical(s).
And then I think, was it a subtle double joke that I missed entirely, like the dogs talking being sort of hillbilly kinda dogs not knowing how to spell testicle.?
NAhhh..

Last night was the night of the no-see-ums. They were out in force and they kept me from sleeping well. My regular mosquitoes I can hear and in most cases ward off with a mighty swipe of my hands but these critters sneak up on you, no warning, and then they bite. And I think they operate in swarms, but that is totally my idea. I really don't like them, in fact I like them so little that I went to the store and bought a bunch of nasty smelling ,insect repelling, slow burning spirals. It is about the only thing that can keep the buggers in check. I'll admit that if I were a no-see-um, I would go away too. Those spirals are lethal.
And at the store I got some more cheap wine too. Spirals for the outside, cheap wine for the inside.
Tonight I shall tumble in to the arms of Morpheus
I hope.

So when do your clever and funny emails turn into something unwanted and unread ?
I don't know.
I do know that some people who I have regaled with my 'witty' and 'erudite' mails stopped responding..
Nothing.
and I so wonder if maybe I passed over this threshold and became a nuisance rather than a delightful break in an otherwise so-so day.
One thing is for sure. I have too much time to worry about these things.
But am I a nuisance or a welcome break in a bleak day ?