Well my trophy wife is at it again.  She got another award, and she is retired!  I never received an award of any kind when I was working, let alone since retirement. I have caught a trophy fish or two, as you can see from this photo, but I never received any kind of award for it or anything.   But my wife just keeps piling up the awards. While she was working she received an Outstanding Teacher Award from the YWCA, an A+ Award from Omaha Public Schools, and was a recipient of an Alice Buffet Outstanding Teacher award.  That one was especially sweet, because it’s funded by Alice Buffet’s nephew Warren, and as you might have guessed, a sizable amount of cash went along with it.  Plus 500 one dollar McDonalds coupons.  No shit.  Granted a person can only stand to eat at McDonalds for so long.  But you start handing the coupons out to neighborhood kids and they think you’re a nice guy.  Then they won’t egg your house at Halloween.  So the coupons worked out well that way.  These are just the majors.  There are all sorts of school and personal citations and conferments she’s wracked up.  If you think I can name them all you have your head up your ass.

But just in the past two months, she picked up not one, but two more awards.  Remember, she’s retired!  First she got a call from her alma mater, College of St. Mary, informing her she  won a special alumna achievement award.  Then  last week she got a letter from the Nebraska Art Teacher’s Association to let her know she is the recipient of the very prestigious Roscoe Shields Service Award.  Geezuz it never ends.

    LEFT:  My Wife with One of Her Trophy’s

For the record I did come real close to scoring an Employee of the Month Award when I was working for Target.  But then along came Fred, the logistics exec and an unequivocal prick.  He started lobbying for Bambi, a member of his logistical team and who also had a part time job as a pole dancer at a strip club about two blocks down the street.  The word is Fred applied what some would say was undue pressure on his subordinates, and thus I came up a few votes short.  I never thought Bambi was the corporate type, and in my mind she was totally undeserving of the award.  Sure, I have to admit there were some things on the company ship I could never get on board with, but at least I never told any of my supervisors to go fuck themselves, which I heard through the grapevine is something Bambi suggested Fred should consider attempting on a number of occasions.  Fred always chose to overlook Bambi’s outbursts though, probably because he chose to underlook the big boner he got anytime Bambi would happen to toss attention of any kind his way.

I believe my opinion of Bambi was ultimately validated, because less than a week after receiving her award she disappeared.   I can’t say for sure if that award went to her head or anything, but I heard from a pretty credible source it’s what motivated her to leave town for Vegas where she felt she could apply her talent to more poles, emotionally crushing Fred’s balls in the process.  The  end result was substantiation of a fundamental yet casually dismissed principle of life:   Big boners often interfere with logical thinking and have a way of impeding real progress.

    Except for some recognition from an infatuated supervisor, Bambi worked here in relative obscurity

   This is the facility where Bambi labored tirelessly to become a real crowd pleaser

My personal trophy case might be empty, but there is no doubt in my mind that the moral revealed in Fred’s story is something you can take to the bank.

Oh my gosh you know what I just remembered? I should have got some kind of award for saving that woman’s life. They hand out awards to people who saved someone’s life all the time. I never got one. How come?

Geezuz shit it’s hot!  It’s going to be 100 degrees the next four days.  Take into account humidity and the heat index is 115.  To make things worse for me, I just got back from a ten day vacation in my home state of Wyoming.  It was 72 degrees and 20 percent humidity where I was.  I do this to myself practically every year.  Maybe I should start going to a nice place in the Arabian Peninsula or African Rain Forest for my summer trip.  Then I might look forward to returning home.

Cooling off in Jackson Hole WY                                            Cooling off in Omaha NE

A big part of my annual post vacation depression is the state of my lawn when I get back.  All spring long and into the early summer I am attending to my fescue and bluegrass, applying fertilizer and aerating, getting a head start on weeds with pre-emergence, applying fungus preventives, hand pulling the few invaders that happen to slip through my protective chemical barrier, edging, mowing at precisely a three inch height, and watering at appropriate intervals.  I have a rain gauge to help me determine when I should unwind my garden hoses, and I water only in the early morning, something I found by experience to be rather important if your lawn tends to develop fungus.

I am very proud of my lawn, and I think you would have to agree I should be considering all the fucking time I spend on it.  But then I come back from vacation and it looks like shit- a cheerless  brown spot here, some unsettling dead grass there. And it’s not that I totally neglect my lawn when I am out of town.  I have a very dependable neighborhood teen take care of it when I am gone.   I am sure some of the problem is related to all the strains of dreaded fungus I have battled over the years.  What I learned about battling various strains of fungus over the years is that it can become very expensive to battle various strains of fungus.  It gradually became apparent to me that it is more important to be able to buy groceries than it is to feature a pristine lawn.  So it is that time of summer again where I just say fuck it and let whatever happens happen.  You can battle mother nature for just so long.  I’ll re-seed in the fall.

That dose not mean I have given up to the point I would approve of your dog or cat shitting on my lawn.  If I see you walking your dog without a poop bag in your hand and your dog takes a dump on my lawn, you are a marked man.  By that I mean I will mark you with my Super Soaker that I have filled with urine.  Don’t ask how the urine ended up in the Super Soaker.  Just be aware that is is pumped and pressurized and ready to fire.  You might be jumping to the conclusion I hate dogs.  That’s not true.  I just don’t want to unexpectedly step on a dog-shit land mine or run over it with my mower.  I don’t think my interpretation of lawn etiquette is asking too much of anyone.  I have similar rules about dogs inside of my house.  I don’t care if you bring your dog into my house, as long as it doesn’t pee or shit on my carpet and stays off my furniture.  That can not be construed as discriminatingly unfair in any way since I have the same expectations for certain relatives when they pay me a visit.

Aunt Dora’s Well Trained Dog is Never                     When Uncle Bob Wanders into My House             a Problem in My House                                               I Prefer He Stays Off of the Furniture

Since we have touched on the subject, if you are planning on coming to town, let me know.  That way I have time to decide if I should break out the plastic furniture covers or my collection of single malts.

Ok.  A lot of you out there have been wondering where in the hell is that book I told you I wrote.  No shit.  A lot of people have actually been wondering about that.   What do I mean by a “lot'” you ask?  By a “lot” I mean more than two.  Six might be a little high, so it’s somewhere between three and five.  If I’m doing the math right, that’s an average of four, and that seems about right.  One of the people that keeps bugging me about my book is my neighbor Claire.  I always thought that was a girl’s name, but this is a guy.  That was really bothering me for awhile, so I looked it up and I was right.  It is a girl’s name.  Way back when it occasionally was a man’s name, but it was spelled Clair- no “e” on the end.  The Latin derivative is “clarus”  meaning bright, or clear.  Looks like my neighbor’s folks should have studied up on the name a little bit if you ask me.  Nothing too bright or clear about their thinking when they named their son Claire.  Why do parents do that kind of shit anyway?

Jupiter is another one of the overly resolute.  Kind of looks like there is some sort of pattern going on here, doesn’t it.  Jupiter is an old high school classmate who can’t blame his parents for his name because Jupiter thought that up himself.   His real name is Mike Jones, but  he started insisting we call him Jupiter in high school.  The reason for that is he was a pretty good athlete and he thought the name Jupiter Jones would stand out and provide an edge for him when he competed for athletic scholarships and professional roster spots.   As it turned out, Jupiter was only able to stand out in a variety of police line-ups as his dream of becoming a professional athlete quickly faded and the reality of funding his expensive substance abuse habit set in.  During an extremely awkward conversation with Jupiter at our 50th high school reunion last year, I mentioned my book and he seemed inordinately interested in it.  When I told him it was not quite ready for publication, he was sure I was lying about the whole thing and he became abusively incredulous.   As sometimes happens with many who unfortunately travel down the path of drug habituation, I suspect portions of the inside of his head must have short circuited, because I keep getting emails from him explaining how he is going to burn my house down if he doesn’t see my book on Amazon.

Jupiter Jones 1965- Working Out                               Jupiter Jones 2015- Flipping Out                           in High School Weight Room                                      at High School Reunion Dinner

I am pretty sure a couple of other people have expressed interest in my book, I just can’t remember for sure who they are.  Probably a couple of my relatives.  Anyway, you will now finally find my book on Amazon, Google, and Barnes and Noble if you are interested.  Or if you are like me and are apprehensive about exposing your personal information by using internet ordering, I suppose you can go to your favorite book store and order it.  But then you run the risk of exposing yourself to a nervous breakdown dealing with all the anxious anticipation of its delayed arrival.  But trust me it will be worth it.

This book started out as an autobiography, but I got tired of confronting the fact that I have accomplished very little in my life, so I mixed in a dash of proselytizing and a pound of self-help to spice it up.  Also,  I might have spiced it up by mentioning your name.  Maybe you’re not sure what I mean by “spice it up.”  For that reason you might be smart to check it out.

One caveat about my book.  I wrote it three years ago.   One of the things I could not restrain myself from doing while writing was interjecting an opinion or three.   I’m almost 70 years old, and pretty well set in my ways, and I thought these opinions I had at the time would forever be valid.  One lesson I learned from writing my book is that a lot of shit can change in three years.  Another lesson learned is it’s pretty difficult to retract an opinion when that opinion is published in print.  Overall I have to say I would still stand by almost everything I profess to believe in my book, but there is one glaring statement I made that I have to admit is a bit embarrassing.  Buy my book and see if you can figure out what that one mistake might be.

The title of my book is “Fishing with Bobby and Mike.”  So you have no one to blame but yourself for wasting your money should you ultimately decide to buy my book, I think you can take a peak at a sample for free on a couple of the above mentioned web sites.  Knock yourself out.

*I hope this is Exceptionally Exciting News for you Jupiter.  I would appreciate it if you would now stop with the threatening e-mails.  Please don’t be upset if you don’t find your name mentioned in my book.  There are  many others who will likewise be disappointed, and a few who will wish they were.

Roundabout

So, what do you think about roundabouts?  I kind of like them.  Well, I like the one that is in our neighborhood anyway.  My friend that owns my favorite Italian restaurant (Sgt. Peffers) hates it.  That particular intersection was formally a six way stop.  People in a hurry were constantly not stopping or not taking their proper turn, or the overly-cautious were forever paralyzed and fucking everything up by not even taking their turn to move along.  It was always a rush hour mind-dicking and you could count on a fender-bendered every other day.  It could get pretty annoying.  I mean how hard is it to pay attention.  Get off your damn cell phone!  The rule is if you’re first to arrive at a six way stop, you’re first to go.  If you arrive at the intersection at the same time, the driver on the right has right-of-way.  It can’t be more simple, although I have a good high school friend, Al, who honestly had trouble distinguishing right from left.  I suppose that could create some confusion. The person that rectified my friend’s problem was my high school football coach.  He got tired of watching Al run into me on our end sweeps and fixed everything with a permanent marker and scribing a huge “R” and “L” on the backs of  his hands, a technique I believe Al still implements to this very day.

Anyway the roundabout was supposed to correct the traffic confusion.  But my friend Tim that owns my favorite Italian restaurant thinks there have been even more accidents since the roundabout was installed.  I guess he should know.  His restaurant is only a half a block away.  He might be right.  I can’t give you any statistical info about it.  I suppose I could do some research and get back to you, but if you think that’s going to happen you have your head up your ass.

My neighborhood roundabout is a little atypical.  Those of us in the neighborhood call it the “peanut,” because it has a figure 8 shape to it.  It sort of looks like the picture at the left, only it’s a lot bigger, and then instead of eyes and a mouth there are a bunch of plants.  Ann, one of my good friends in the neighborhood, takes care of those.  I don’t know how she keeps all that stuff looking so good.  I mean the flowers there are surrounded by concrete and they bake in the hot sun, but they always stay amazingly perky.  There really is no convenient way to supply water that I know of.   When I was driving through there one night last summer though I remember seeing some guy standing in the middle of the “peanut” urinating on the begonias.  Maybe he makes a watering visit every night.   That could be.  As well as my friends restaurant, there is a bar just down the street.  The clientele of that establishment are the fervently loyal kind is what I’ve heard.

Merry-Go-Round

Another of my neighbors who is kind of a senile old coot got one of his grandchildren all confused because he kept calling the roundabout a merry-go-round and when the little bastard found out the merry-go-round was never going to materialize, he went berserk I guess and threw the Tonka truck he was playing with through a living room window. That’s the story I got from Mr. Nostrum down the street anyway.  We all call him Mr. Nostril because he’s always sticking his nose into other peoples business.

What I really like to do is slip away and drive through the “peanut” in mid-morning or mid-afternoon when traffic is minimal.  With no one to interfere, I often cruise around and around several times.  It reminds me of driving curved roads in the mountains.  I love driving in the mountains.  Not a fancy interstate through the mountains though.  I like a nice curvy mountain road with lots of hairpin turns and switchbacks, the kind that scare the shit out of my wife.  For that provision it’s hard to beat the Bighorn mountains just west of my hometown of Sheridan Wyoming, and the Snowy Range in southeastern Wyoming works out nicely too, but I only get out there once a year or so.  So I just have to make do with the “peanut.”  If you’re ever in town, I’ll hang a  fresh pine-sented air freshener from my rear view mirror, and  while we listen to the long version of John Denver’s “Rocky Mountin High” I will show you how I put my SUV through its paces swerving back and forth through my neighborhood roundabout.  It will be fun.