nonamedufus

Are you ready for this? I ripped through 12 books in August. Everything from detective novels, to fantasy fiction to a couple of autobiographies, including - believe it or not - Willie Nelson. I've yet to come across a detective yarn I haven't liked and that includes the three-book bundle by Janet Ivanovich featuring a woman FBI agent and a high-prize con man who team up to catch the bad guys using elaborate deceptions. The Two Minute Rule is the first Robert Crais novel I've read not featuring Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. It was enjoyable too. The rest was quite an eclectic collection of hard-cover and e-book tales but I'd be remiss if I didn't point out two highlights in particular. The first was the Neil Gaiman collection of essays, addresses and book introductions called The View From the Cheap Seats. This man clearly loves literature; reading it and writing it and it comes through clearly between the covers of this book. The other great read this mon

Mary and Bob were doubly blessed. They were the parents of twin boys. But maybe blessed was a bit of an overstatement. Oh they loved their two children, to be sure. But they were a bit of a challenge. Right from the moment they were born they demanded a lot of attention. Waking during the night. Demanding to be fed. Not napping during the day. Poor Bob and Mary barely got a moment to themselves. First came nursery school and then grade school and you'd think they'd have a moment's rest while they went to class, but shopping, errands and chauffeuring took considerable time out of each day. And the two boys loved sports. Soccer, baseball, football, hockey, basketball. You name it, they wanted to play it. They often were on different teams playing at different venues. But Mary and Bob were devoted to the two and gave them every opportunity. Now many little boys are full of energy. it was the same with the twins. They'd run around the house, yelling, teasing one ano

Did you ever experience something, well, inexplicable? I have. And this is one such tale. I was on my way to work. I'd left my car in the public parking lot and was walking the remaining several blocks to the office. It was a cool October morning. So much so I could see my breath. The sidewalk was crisp and a little slippery with frost. And the leaves on the trees, where else, were a cavalcade of fall colours. My fellow commuting pedestrians rushed by, their noses deep in their smart phones. I wondered to myself how they avoided bumping into each other. I laughingly thought maybe those things had guidance systems that warned them of oncoming people. Then I saw something out of the corner of my eye that didn't fit with this picture. It was a ragamuffin of a little girl sitting on the sidewalk, her back pressed up the wall of an office building for support. I stopped and stared at the girl who couldn't be any more than ten years old and wondered what she was doing o

I remember in high school some buddies and I took our lunches across the street from the school grounds so that we could all smoke while we ate our lunch. One thing led to another and we started telling jokes and acting silly until one of us, Pete Nolan as I recall, laughed so hard he blew his chocolate milk out of his nose. Well, that was it. The rest of us, mouths empty of such liquid, laughed our heads off as we rolled around on the ground. Back then we didn't have the pretend ROTFL, let alone computers, hand-held phones and the like. Nope. We had the real thing. And we put it to good use that day. Later on in life I experienced the real thing blowing such things as milk, juice and Coke out one or both nostrils. Messy stuff that. Now that I'm older I don't blow stuff out my nose anymore.  I'm too old for that. And I guess I don't find things as funny as I once did. I think the last thing I blew out my nose was beer. Everything seems funnier with beer.

Meet my friend Doug. Well, my former friend. See, Doug's a dialysis machine and he was my good buddy for the last six weeks. Six weeks, three times a week, 4 hours each session. The good thing about Doug was he never once complained throughout those four hours when I'd read and not talk to him. Or when I drank my morning coffee without buying hime one. Nope. And he still supported me. But all that changed today and it's a day I'm gonna remember for a long time. See, today Doug and I parted ways. Yep. That's right. I stopped needing Doug or any of his many friends because today I stopped needing dialysis. Many of the nurses dropped by today to express their best wishes and some told me it was rare for people to come off dialysis. So Doug, you done good. And I'm sorry if I rushed out after my blood work without saying goodbye. But once the doctor pulled that line out of my chest I wasn't gonna stick around and press my luck. So, fewer trips to the h

Betty and Barb were quite pleased with themselves. After three years of Agriculture College they were ready to put their studies to the test. Who said blondes weren't smart. They first applied to a pineapple farm but thought the work was too prickly. Then they tried working on a vineyard but quit expressing sour grapes. Two openings were found on a vegetable farm but after a while they felt they'd bean there done that. They then went to work on a banana plantation but soon felt it didn't have enough appeal. They got really excited when they learned of jobs on a fig farm but then got disappointed they couldn't get any dates. They placed ads for a job harvesting corn but their pleas fell on deaf ears. Then Barb told Betty of jobs she'd come across that she was sure they'd succeed at. Betty wasn't so sure. "These jobs are tailor made for us" she said. There's a couple of sweet openings on a sugar beet farm." "What