Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Muwahahahaha!
The fact my hit counter is twitching in epileptic ecstasies means my plans for global domination are proceeding apace. Excellent. And all this new traffic has nothing to do with John Scalzi mentioning yesterday’s Shatter column on his blog – nothing, nothing, nothing. This isn’t just fifteen minutes of blog fame. It isn’t, I tell you.
Karen says that if stoking controversy is what it takes to drive blog traffic, she has a few ideas for future Point-Counterpoint columns from the two of us:
What’s wrong with America today: Not enough shame.
This is part of Karen’s plan for the Japanification of America. When someone does something wrong, he should be encouraged to go home and commit suicide – or, at the very least, never show his face in public again.
Karen’s plans for expansion of the death penalty.
Fry white collar criminals, sex offenders, corrupt politicians . . . oh, hell. Fry anyone Karen doesn’t like.
A fourth branch of government: Internal Affairs.
IA will be empowered to investigate all three conventional branches of government – and their own. Corruption will be treated with compassionate understanding (see above).
Why I hate Christianity.
Hey, she’s an atheist. What can I say.
***
Ephemera
Jake had a good day today – that makes two in a row. For newbies here, my nine-year-old has been plagued with chronic daily headaches for the last three months. After an MRI, CT, numerous blood tests and a lumbar puncture, we’re no closer to understanding this. So we’re doing what any good physician would do: we’re treating him with every drug we can think of that we haven’t tried yet.
The winning combo thus far seems to be melatonin and propranolol. Melatonin to get him back on a normal sleep schedule, propranolol on the off chance he’s having migraines.
Clear skies today, gentle wind, temperature in the high fifties. We went out and did the Del Norte County doubleheader: Smith River, then the beach. Jake wanted to see if we could find quicksand. There’s a branch of the South Fork off Walker Road where, on a particularly rainy winter day, we once found several patches of quicksand by the riverside. We’ve been back several times since then, but the conditions have never been right. I’m beginning to wonder about how rare that day must have been.
He did his usual: throwing flat rocks and watching them sink with nary a skip, building dams and tearing them down, terrorizing frogs. It seemed like only a week or two had passed since we’d been down this way, yet we haven’t done any of this since he became ill. Three months must seem like an eternity to a nine-year-old, but to me, it was yesterday.
Then, off to the beach, where we got thoroughly waterlogged. But that’s why we’re here in this land of No Borders (or Barnes & Noble): 180 degrees of ocean in front of us, wildflower-strewn mountainside behind us, crystal blue sky above. Still too early for blackberries, but Jake showed me a reddish-pink flower with nectar that tasted like honey. He picked his mother a bouquet on the way back up the hill. He’ll be a florist someday, or maybe a mechanical engineer. With any luck, he won’t have the damned headache.
More ephemera: Karen’s younger P. metallica morphed out male, so now she has a breeding pair. With any luck, I may have some pornographic tarantula stories to share with you in the days ahead. (Why ‘ephemera’? She’s mating tarantulas. Think about it.)
D.
Maureen’s no-fail headache cure
I get them from everything – barometric changes, stress, bruxism, paint fumes. You need the following:
1 – $7.00 moldable sports mouthguard for night-time,
1 – flannel bag filled with grain (cracked wheat, cracked corn, whatever you can get cheap at the local Co-Op (do you have those down there?)
1 – cup of strong coffee (Tim Hortons if you can get it, not that American Starbucks crap :-))
2 – advil (adjust for age)
Have him take the advil with the coffee, heat the grain bag as hot as he can stand it in the microwave, wrap it around his head, turn out the lights and in an hour he’ll be dandy and ready to paint a few more cupboards. The mouthguard is for at night.
I was kidding when I posted about critiquing TKAM, but after watching your counter explode today, I think I’ll call H.Lee morally bankrupt and see what happens.
I didn’t know Harper Lee was still alive. Have to confess, I haven’t read TKAM.
Thanks for the post. Until recently, the caffeine/motrin combo has been about the only thing that has helped. He seems to be doing better with the current combo, but today’s another day. If we can pull three good days in a row, that will be significant.
You know, I’d leave Harper Lee alone if I were you. Fry a bigger fish: Stephen King.