June 18, 2019

Yesteryear
One year ago today: June 18, 2018, liberals despise him.
Five years ago today: June 18, 2014, Einstein’s hobby.
Nine years ago today: June 18, 2010, forgotten hotdog coincidence.
Random years ago today: June 18, 2013, quite Trump-like, actually.

           Look at this little guy. The Reb remembers Memphis, nickname “Memphie-poo”. He’s the budgie from the 1980s that was part of our original acquaintance. The little guy passed on, and in his memory, this trip, she got me this figurine. Quickly dubbed “Memphie-two” he’s my blog companion.

           Not that every day around here isn’t memorable, let me tell you a tale from the trailer court. Okay, these cats have no sense of doors. They run into a room and get locked in there, could be hours at a time if I’m out walking the doggies. Don’t rate me an expert on this topic, I know zilch about cat pee, but it drove me out of the porch. Whew, and I spent as much time as I could trying to find where they did the deed. Are you with me so far? I sent messages thousands of miles trying to determine what I could do to locate and eradicate. The chlorine thmell would not abate. I’m informed pee can actually saturate into marble tile. After visting the Taj Mahal, I’m inclined to believe this.
           Finally, I turned this over to the owner, who quickly discovers they had crawled up onto a book ledge that was lined with pillows. And saturated the pillows. Duh, okay, I missed that. Regardless of normal practice at the DMV these days, I do not as a rule go into people’s back porches and start sniffing the cushions. But yes, I did miss that by not knowing any better. You don’t know where this is leading, so stay with me.

           The Reb returns weeks later and finds the uh-uh in no time. So she proceeds to sneak up behind me while I’m dutifully typing this blog, and give me a hug. Except, it isn’t a hug, it’s one of the cat cushions, firmly pressed against my shoulders. So there I am typing away and I keep getting this whiff of fermented you-know. I can make out this snickering noise from the kitchen, must be something amusing on that smart phone. This, of course, means war, you know. On Thursday, she has to go with me to the Tennessee Museum, where the prime exhibit is Dolly Parton’s banjo. The Reb says, “Doesn't it just get in the way?”
           This should give you a more than a good idea how this morning went. And why, unlike most guys, I oft-times look forward to taking the doggies for an extended stroll. I need time to clear the baffles. One day, all you guys will meet your match. May it be more or less what’s happening in Tennessee these days, my I say later in the day. By the way, the Reb never said that about Dolly, I made that part up. You know, in case some day soon Dolly walks up to the stage to say hello to me. Or something.

Picture of the day.
I’ll take a dozen.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           “Green Onions”. I download the tune and learn it. A five-minute task, it has a single 3-note motif. This gave me time to print up and hand-address all my personal mail. It got put on hold [this last while] what, with all this pet-sitting, I got time to write? To answer that, it’s the newsletter, and it saves immense time. It’s that I hate calling it a newsletter because that smacks of the cat and kitten blogs, but calling it a progress report is too impersonal. Some of these people I’ve known for, um, quite some time.

           Forgive any repeat info, there’s no review time when I’m this busy. I’ve received another abbreviated song list, which disrupts most things. “Green Onions”, well let’s say the Reb knows the tune better than I do—but is that because the bass line is so simple I never bothered? I’m prepared to leave that one for future historians to read so much into. In case you have trouble taking an afternoon nap, it helps to study this picture of the old bass guy picking up the old bass at the old marina in Tennessee.

           Blog rules say mention food. Okay, I baked two dozen oatmeal chocolate cookies. What, you want more on that? Let me think. I wrapped them in tinfoil and put them where the no pets, canine ro feline, would sniff around. That’s on top of the toaster (in a tray). I got some interesting flak on that for five or so minutes until it was determined that was the best spot for them. Yep, some folks got to do it all over again for themselves before it makes sense. But, she supplies the right-brain side of marketing, so tell me what you think of this name for the beer caddy: “Hops-along”. Now you know why I like that gal.

ADDENDUM
           How about the cryptogram that stumped me? It is early in the week, so it isn’t a tough one, yet I could not get it. The Reb and I can sometimes get these working together. This provides an excellent chance for us to go to a coffee shop, or if we can’t find a real one, we go to Starbucks. We wound up at the one on Old Hickory, up near Old Lebanon. I had referred to it as a “power spot”, finding out only later that isn’t called that any more. I figure, so what? We know who isn’t, don’t we?
           The Reb & I have a complimentary affinity to solving these puzzles. I’m dismayed by how many couples waste [quality] time in idle chit-chat. Don’t get me wrong, we do that, but we also do puzzles that take real brainwork. Yet, even that was not the focus of this coffee date. Against both our better judgments, we are again thinking of putting a short show set of music together. This intrigues me because for the sessions we’ve played, we have not deliberately collaborated on a thing since we were kids.

           My prediction is that we would quickly gravitate to our best material and apply the thirty years experience we now have. Since the object is to play out, it would not make sense [to me] to bother with less. Ah, but now the wild card. She has had success with something I don’t—original music. We put together a quick list, a lot of it material we’ve done years ago, I mean really years ago. The electricity is still there, we can still deliver the wow. You may get two extras soon, our chosen music list, and a new, custom-made beer caddy. Here’s the cryptogram, a quote, that stumped us.

NUEJTVOFV BK ZEJVQ . BUMEQWYSBEU BK TBAVQYSBUF – NEMB YUUYU.

           I’ll help a bit. We pretty much know the BK means “is”, meaning the penultimate word ends with this vowel, meaning it is probably a name. The only other useful pattern we found was the position of the two V’s in the first word. Frequency analysis is little help on this one, as we eliminated E as being the most common letter. If you decide to have a whirl, keep checking your hunches against that last word. YUUYU, if it’s a name, is vanishingly rare. We even stepped through the alphabet without results. If you fare better, leave a comment. No smart phoning, that’s cheating.

Last Laugh