So what about those May flowers?

Posted by Ralph at 10:51 Down with

Apr 252014

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The poem is just a fantasy

April showers are supposed to bring May flowers according to the poem. It’s usually a bit different in California but his year it’s all messed up. The May flowers are here but those April showers keep on coming and you can’t get outside to enjoy the flowers.

So what’s up with the seasons this year.? In the California foothills, Winter is relatively cold and rainy when compared to Southern California where I lived for so long. I’ve only been here for ten years so I hardly qualify as an expert but usually if there is a pleasant month around here, May would get the most votes. Most years it stops raining by May and it’s just too early for heat. Not this year.

We’ve had heavy rainfall which translates to heavy snowfall up the mountains and instead of stopping, the precipitation has continued way into Spring. The Spring flowers are trying to work their magic but when it’s cold and the rain keeps turning into hail, it’s hard to appreciate them. Last week there was a day or two of warm weather where sitting outside was pleasant until another string of storms swept past.

Just like California is a fantasy

The roses are starting to bloom just as the iris are finishing. Meanwhile the storms just keep on rolling through. It’s hard to complain about rain after a bunch of dry years and political correctness that pours stored water into the bay to save fish while cutting off water to farmers. Maybe it’s worthwhile to give up Spring if it means that farmers can make money for a change. Still, it would be nice to enjoy the outdoors and the fabled May flowers if only for a few days

Avoiding the hail

Still, maybe I expect too much. These days the dream of California is being replaced by the reality. The perfect weather image of California is a myth no more real than the idea that the economy would continue to boom even as the entitlement mentality sucks it dry. The natural state for weather in non-coastal California is extreme. It’s either cold and wet or hot and dry. If we are lucky there might be a few days of something moderate and pleasant during the transition. It usually happens in May. Not this year. Maybe it’s time to return to the real world where seasons really matter and people expect to work for their rewards.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Down with Labor Day

Posted by Ralph at 11:13 Down with

Apr 142014

You know how you just accept something without really thinking? You just say it or think it without paying any attention to the meaning. Take Labor Day for instance. What’s it for and why, for God’s sake is the last holiday of summer named for work? If you are like me, you never think about it at all. You just enjoy your barbeque and the long weekend and go back to work. Well today for some reason I stopped to think about it. What does Labor Day celebrate anyway?

Celebrating the American worker.

It never made much sense to me as a kid that Labor Day was a holiday. It was crazy but when you are a kid you spend most of your time incorporating all the crazy things that adults into your world view. We call that growing up. There is so much crazy making required in growing up that there isn’t any time to waste thinking about those things. Back then Labor Day seemed to have the purpose of marking the end of Summer Vacation and the beginning of the school year. Today even that meaning is gone now that school starts in August. diminishing Labor Day to merely another break in the endless tedium of school.

Let’s check with Wikipedia.

Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September, that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers. It was first nationally recognized in 1894 to placate unionists following the Pullman Strike. With the decline in union membership, the holiday is generally viewed as a time for barbeques and the end of summer vacations.[1]

Placating unionists and celebrating the economic and social contributions of workers, eh. I always thought it was for everyone. It sure seemed that way to me as a kid. Back then everyone I knew, at least the adult men had a job. These days even in the current Obama recovery its starting to seem like a full time job isn’t the American dream what with Obamacare punishing companies with outrageous healthcare costs for full time employees. Employers can’t afford full time employees in these progressive times. Jobs have disappeared. Food stamps are up. Workers, these days have become a distinct minority. Continue reading »

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Down with Aging!

Posted by Ralph at 13:05 Down with, rants

Mar 182014

It’s a devious process that creeps and crawls, moving in fits and starts when you aren’t looking, stealing life and energy and gradually but unrelentingly replacing vigor and strength with sloth and infirmity. Worst of all it introduces pain into your life as a constant companion. No wonder no one ever talks about it.

Spending those golden years on the bench?

I’s practical to be philosophical about aging. You can’t stop it or slow it down. You can mask it’s effects with creams and chemicals. You can mitigate the damage with exercise. You can confuse it with drugs. In truth, however, it makes you mad because it’s a death sentence. No matter what you do (or don’t do) aging just keeps rolling along and finally carries you off. You die. In the meantime you have to manage its consequences during all those years of decline. It is 40 years of denial.

Society plays along with the fantasy of those ‘Golden Years’ full of happy youthful and active senior citizens living a fantasy life of old age bliss. The reality is better depicted in the TV drug ads targeting a multitude of debilitating conditions and in those ads you never see old people. The ads imply that everything that comes with aging is merely a treatable condition. Any one might need these drugs and if you find yourself needing them, it’s just a normal thing. It has nothing to do with your age. Drugs are the key to a healthy life. What a load of crap! Continue reading »

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Down with April Fool’s Day.

Posted by Ralph at 16:39 Down with

Mar 042014

I labored through the weekend crafting another insightful post intended for today. Then I realized today is April Fool’s Day and that I would indeed be an April Fool posting anything with serious intent. I have to confess that April Fool’s Day is not my holiday of choice. I have never been the sort of person who takes pleasure from seeing people fall on their faces in public. I am a person who expects life today to be pretty much like it was yesterday- no surprises and no ‘gotcha’ moments. In short I am the perfect victim. In fact my prime directive has been to make sure that the kind of people who love to set up April Fool’s Day pranks are somebody else’s friends- not mine. It’s a lonely life but my dignity stays intact.

English: A ticket to the washing of the lion, a traditional April fool’s prank (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It seems that Justin shares my antipathy for April Fools Day and perhaps my desire to seek protection from pranksters. Unfortunately, love is blind and Justin’s wife loves pranks. Ideally this would provide ample experience for a post. Not from Justin. His lips are sealed. What we do have is a rant from the past expressing his frustration with what he calls the stupidest holiday ever. Instead of sharing the cleverness of his wife and kids in setting up their hapless Dad, Justin remains quiet, silently licking his wounds. Even the kettlebells are silent.

Into this April Fool’s Day vacuum, I really don’t have much to add. Bob is AWOL, as usual. The best I can offer is a mindless movie selection or two. One way to stay out of the way of pranksters is to stay home, lock the doors and seek mindless diversion.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Down with Emotion!

Posted by Ralph at 16:39 Down with, Plain 'ol Cantankerous, rants

Mar 042014

I don’t trust emotions.

I keep them on a short leash, ignore their outbursts and refuse to acknowledge their urgings, In spite of my efforts however they continue to disrupt my life. I call their influence evil because I can’t discern their intent or manage their force. They pay no attention at all to reason and logic.

I know that I’m supposed to go all weepy and sentimental about emotions. After all, love makes the world go round but I can’t- I resist with every fiber of my being. I won’t let them get the upper hand. Yet, still they root around deep in my being and mess up my well-ordered life. A pox on emotions!

Emotion is driving the bus.

Looking back, I can’t find any point in my long life where emotion did me any good. Letting emotion lead has always made things worse, not better. It’s the curse of being human. Clear thinking and logic are invariably subverted by muddle-headed, headstrong and erasable emotion. Primal needs trump logic every day and I say enough. Lizard brain, be gone.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I feel a bit better. Somehow, it seems that God messed up creating mankind. Why give us a clear and logical mind that can analyze, parse and plan and then undermine it with an emotion-driven engine that steers it’s own course. Maybe God, in his infinite wisdom, knows what he is doing but it is hard to find any justification. From my perspective, on the front line, it looks like a curse-not a blessing. Continue reading »

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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