SOME of the sayings I’ve been wearing out with the granddaughters are starting to feel like old hat, indeed. Hell, some I started using 40 years ago when their mom and her sisters were little girls.
“It was a happy day when you were born,” “You’re my hope for the future,” and when they were tucked in for the night, “Have a happy dream.” Vintage lines like that.
With D1D1 and D1D2, ages 9 and 5, respectively, I think I’m getting near the end of the line with, “It makes my heart feel good when I see you.” That usually draws a nonchalant “Thanks,” or a “You always say that.” Before we get to the eye-roll phase I think I need to get on to some new material.
My other increasingly shopworn aphorisms: “You have a bright future,” “I like the person you’re growing up to be,” and the Swiss army knife of aphorisms, adjustable for all occasions: “Guess who my favorite (artist, gymnast, swimmer, softball player) is?”
Told Chris Whitney, a friend in Maryland, about this gem yesterday:
A few days ago the 5-year-old girl says to me, “Tone… you have hair on your ears.” I said, well, yes, as men get older sometimes we grow hair on our ears. She’s looking, looking, inspects one then the other; then she pronounces her final word on the matter: “Monkey ears.”
Kids are straight with you, have you noticed that?
Our friend Bob made it across the deep south in these dog days after his stop here in Rhode Island. He held up for a few days at Pagosa Springs, Colorado, the home of Gale Tuggle, an old friend of his from Valemount, British Columbia. Tug was a high school teacher there, I believe. And if I’m not mistaken, he was in his 80s when he rode his motorcycle to Alaska the last time—with his wife on the passenger seat!
Guys like that make me think I have to have more Alaska in me yet. It would be ridiculous not to.
Here are the GPS pins Bob dropped on his journey east, south and west. Janey tells me he was in Utah very near the Wyoming line at day’s end yesterday. At this writing, he must be about 1,200 miles out from his home in BC.
A good stretch of dry, hot country ahead. Our friend Robyn was haying yesterday in Wheatland County, Montana, where it’s drier than dry. All summer, it seems, we’ve had everybody else’s rain here in soggy, muggy New England.
Will close here with two funny things Pam said recently, funny along exactly the same lines. She’s innocently generous with the laughs she doesn’t see coming until the words are hanging out there in the air.
In this first one I’ll tell you, she was trying to transfer a file off her computer to someone else, via email I guess. “It says I can zip it but I haven’t figured out how to zip it yet.”
Color me hip, babe.
And this line popped out when she got a perfect score on Strands, a New York Times word game she plays on her phone every morning. She really is a brilliant puzzle solver; the more a puzzle defies solving the better she likes it. Giving up is never an option.
Well, she won the game—as always—without having to resort to a cheat they offer: if you’re stumped, you can press the “hint” button and the game will prompt you in the right direction.
She’s not having any of that. She sticks with it, finally wins the game on her own wits yet again, then declares, loudly, proudly—“I have NEVER TAKEN A HINT!”
As if after 52 years I don’t know this.
Tony DePaul, July 19, 2024, Cranston, Rhode Island, USA
It’s hard to hold a civilized conversation with someone with monkey ears, nose jungles, old bald guys with a ribbon in their ponytail, and that one long wild hair that you just want to reach out and pluck so bad… your incontinence kicks in.
We all morph into our own Muppets.
This morning, July 21, Bob’s breaking camp in Creston, British Columbia. It’s an easy run north to his home in Tete Jaune Cache, near Valemount. It’s about eight hours up through Banff and Jasper, more like ten if he wants to circle around to the west through Kamloops. Beautiful country either way.
Thanks for the giggles!
One of the benefits of the gig.
I like this one, can be adopted / tweaked as needed. “You know, a man’s gotta take a chance now and then, else he might be walking around lucky and not know it.” I think I heard it was attributed to Mark Twain but I have not bothered to research it. And that ear hair thing? Trimmed mine this morning…
Good one! I’ll have to look into its provenance.
I would use aphorisms like, “You’re not my least favorite person” and “There are plenty of (artists, swimmers, etc) that are worse than you” and maybe even a “I like you so much that I let you in my house.”
Of course that might just be my Irish nature talking, we tend to show our affection by taking the piss out of someone.
Slainte, Bullet
lol…
Don’t know if this counts as an aphorism, but I’ll say it anyway: I root for you to have more Alaska in you.
I’ll take it! Thank you, Stephen.
Please convey my congrats to Pam for her perfect score on Strands and for solving puzzles on her own. That’s amazing, I’ve thrown many in the trash out of frustration.
When it comes to puzzles she’s relentless. She would have been a great police detective. Except she’s such a girly girl she’d have to have a badass partner as her wingwoman/wingman.
Thx Tony! Just got back from a trip, Oregon, BC, across Canada, then home to New England. Thinking of your last Alaska trip! Go for it!
Great! I’d love to hear about the trek, Duncan. We should arrange a call.
I hear from Janey that BC is hot as it’s never been before. It used to be you could escape the dog days by going north. I went up over the Great Lakes on a run to Seattle one summer, hoping for cooler air. Canada turned out just as hot as the States. All I did was add another 600 punishing miles.
As a fellow Strands player, please let Pam know that I too will avoid hints when they are offered.
Will do. We collaborate on Connections every morning. That’s always fun. I’ve never tried Strands.
Thanks for the laughs Tony (monkey ears, zip it, take a hint!). A friend of mine has a daughter, now in her mid thirties. On my 42nd birthday she repeatedly said “forty-two, forty-two” until I was just about exasperated! Did I mention she was seven at the time? If I live long enough, I hope to attend her 42nd birthday…
When I was a kid I remember thinking that when the century turned over I would be an astonishingly old fart of 46. I remember saying out loud FORTY-SIX!
Now I probably have socks that are older than that.
At a zoo conference I once sat with a fellow from the Bronx Zoo who said he had told his wife, “If I ever get bedridden and can’t take care of myself, you can let everything else go, but shave my ears.” I understand that thought. I once had a nodding acquaintance with a very wealthy man whose ears looked like woolly bear caterpillars. (I think I stole that line from Dave Berry, but it sure fit.) The point of all this is, I suppose, that while I don’t shave my face, I do shave my ears. It’s the civilized thing to do.
lol…
So many gemstones here. Great read. Pam is THE BEST.
My old man gave me two good pieces of advice among 10,000 pieces of bad advice. They were: Whatever you do, don’t go in the Army; and, Whatever you do, don’t let that one get away.
Thanks for the homey letter that popped up on my screen just after finishing morning devotional that said Moses and Aaron started out opposing Pharoh when they were 80 and 83. Maybe it’s time for the Silver Panthers to rise again! Or the monkey-eared Panthers. Aging contains joys unknown.
FYI, many of us are super enjoying this billionaires’ moon-shot-goes-astray arc in Phantom. Looks like it’ll continue to be humorous, topical, and short. Thanks for the respite. 🙂
Thanks. Mike has some terrific action weeks in the art queue.
🤣🤣🤣🤣 Pam hasn’t changed and I hope she never does! Thanks for the entertainment, Tony.
She’s funny because she doesn’t know she’s funny. Daughter #3 has that same quality.
This is what I was going to say! Unintentionally funny – mom and Laur.
Lauradorable is her clone. Twins separated by 32 years.
These are great lines from Pam, and from the granddaughter. Good for a chuckle.
I’ve shaved my monkey ears, by the way. Hard to do without drawing blood.
I shaved many a man’s ears (neck, chin) from behind the chair, but drew the line at noses. 😜
Yeah, eww…