Archive for the ‘Humor / Quote’ Category
Told My Tablemate . . .
. . .’tother day that
no matter how hard he pushes the envelope,
it’ll remain stationery.
Soften Toenails For Easier Trimming
Trimming toenails gets tougher as they thicken.
Medical experts offer some tips to make your job easier.
– Soak your feet. Soften your toenails by soaking them in warm water.
– File. Towel dry and gently stroke the surface of the thickened toenail with an emery board to
thin the nail.
– Use the right clippers. Long-handled toenail clippers that resemble small pliers or wire cutters
provide a better grip and more control.
– Take small clips. Cut off a small piece at a time.
– Make a straight cut. Cut straight across your toenail, without rounding the corners, to reduce
the chance that the corners will become ingrown.
– Wear roomy shoes. Leaving enough room for your toes can alleviate friction and wear that can
cause a nail to thicken.
Goldwyn Gobbledygook
By Tom Morrow
Samuel Goldwyn was a Polish-American film producer who also entertained millions with his hilarious off-beat one-liners that no one could make up.
Like:
“Our comedies are not to be laughed at.”
“For this part I want a lady … someone with couth.”
“I’ve been laid up with the intentional flu.”
“I want to make a picture about the Russian secret police … the GOP.”
“Any man who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined.”
He declined an invitation to a New Orleans Mardi Gras party saying, “I wouldn’t go even if they had it in the streets.”
Making vacation plans, he sad wanted to go “somewhere where the hand of man has never set foot.”
During that trip to England, hew told how an ancient sun dial works, “With the shadow moving with the progress of the sun.” He marveled, “What will they think of next?”
When discussing the dangers of the atom bomb, Goldwyn warned “not to underestimate the power of nuclear energy. It’s dynamite.”
Getting tired of debating with a British agent, Goldwyn declared he was going out “for some tea and trumpets.”
A secretary in Goldwyn’s office asked if she could toss out some old files. He agreed, but cautioned, “Be sure you make copies before you throw them out.’
Give A Man A Fish . . .
. . . and you’ll feed him for day,
the old saying goes,
but if you teach him how to fish,
you’ll probably have to get yourself
a new rod, reel, tackle box and boat.
Missouri River Town Echoes Mark Twain
HANNIBAL, MO. —- History and heritage are linked in this northeastern Missouri community nestled on the banks of the Mississippi River. It is here, in “America’s Hometown” that adventure and charm are
alive and well.
Its most famous son is Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, author of some of the
most- loved American literature. Visitors get a chance to relive “The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer” by passing through Mark Twain’s boyhood home, museums, the Mark Twain Cave, Becky
Thatcher’s house, and the Tom Sawyer Dioramas.
Live representations of Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher, dressed in authentic attire of the era,
greeted you on the town’s streets. Visitors encounter them on summer weekends or on arrival by river boat.
Hannibal visitors also find crafts, antiques, working artisans, museums, river-boat cruises, and
dinner theater. It’s fun to take a sightseeing tour on a horse-drawn wagon and pay a visit to the
“Unsinkable” Molly Brown’s birthplace.
The Reason . . .
. . .cannibals don’t eat pessimists
is because they taste bitter.
Through the Looking Glass
via Laser Surgery
It all began several years ago when the traces of cataracts were noticed during my annual
eye test and the doctor said, “Just think, when we take those out, you’ll be able to see without
glasses.”
As we moved into the 21st century, the optometrist made a remark about the rapid advances
made in eye procedures, multi-focal lenses, and precision laser surgery, among other things, and
that I might consider ridding myself of the cloudy mass accumulating in both eyes before they
greatly affected my ability to see.
Three choices were open to me. Option One involved removing the deteriorating lenses I
was born with and replacing them with clear plastic man-made lenses called intra-ocular lenses
(IOL) and continuing to wear glasses, which were part of my life for more than six decades.
Most of this cost was covered by medical insurance but still involved acquiring new
prescription glasses every year.
Option Number Two called for implanting a “far-sighted” lens in one eye and a “short-sighted”
lens in the other. I was told my eyes and brain would work work to make the adjustment that allowed me to see comfortably with these lenses.
The third option involved replacing the clouded natural lenses with “multi-focal,” or prescription,
lenses.
Prices ranged for Options Two and Three and the doctors in the office I’d been visiting for years were the most reasonable. I chose Number Three when they told me, “You’re a good candidate for multi-focals.”
The full process included implanting the plastic prescription lenses, laser surgery to correct the
astigmatisms (irregularly shaped corneas) in both eyes, and all follow-up treatment and
monitoring after the surgery.
The day after New Years Day, my wife drove me to the hospital at 9 a.m. and we were home in time for lunch. My right eye was protected by a see-through patch. There was more trepidation than trauma. I was sedated but never unconscious and the preparation took much more time than the actual surgery. By the time the anesthetist got me to tell him what
I did for a living, I was being settled into a comfortable chair and given coffee and a cookie.
We repeated the process two weeks later on my left eye. I was told to wear the patch every night for at least a week and no heavy lifting for a couple of months.
My next step was delayed about six weeks when I was sedated but never unconscious while the doctor and technicians talked me through the entire process of correcting my astigmatisms with a laser beam.
Everything’s improved since. My eyes are much more sensitive to light than before. I’ve toned down the glare from my computer monitor and television set. I wear sunglasses, even around the house. That makes life easier because I feel naked without
glasses perched on my nose.
An interesting side light is that family and friends tell me I don’t look any different without my
glasses.
I’m still learning to read the small print in my morning newspaper. When I have to get some
work done, I don a pair of drugstore reading glasses I bought for a pittance.
A Lot Can Be Said . . .
. . . about living in Switzerland.
Even its flag is a big plus.
Hapless Headlines
More than six decades in the newspaper business has given me the opportunity to collect, correct and clip out headlines that have caused red faces – from embarrassment by those who wrote them and from laughing by those who read them. Many sneaked through the editorial staff at papers I worked for, others hit the streets in competing pages, a lot were sent to me by colleagues, and the rest I just read in papers picked up here and there.
Some of you must have seen some of them. Like:
Police Launch Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers
Panda Mating Fails, Veterinarian Takes Over
Miners Refuse to Work After Death
Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant
War Dims Hope for Peace
New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group
Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft
Kids Make Nutritious Snacks
Homicide Victims Rarely Talk to Police
Marijuana Issue Sent to a Joint Committee
China May be Using Sea to Hide its Submarines
Federal Agents Raid Gun Shop, Find Weapons
Man Kills Himself and Runs Away
Bugs Flying Around With Wings are Flying Bugs
Bridges Help People Cross Rivers
Girls’ Schools Still Offering “Something Special” — Head
Man Arrested For Everything
Tiger Woods Plays With His Own Balls, Nike Says
Rooms With Broken Air Conditioners are Hot
State Population to Double by 2040, Babies to Blame
Greenland Meteorite May be From Space
Students Cook & Serve Grandparents
Woman Missing Since She Got Lost
Man Found Dead in Graveyard
City Unsure Why the Sewer Smells
Planes Forced to Land at Airports
Hospitals Resort to Hiring Doctors
Statistics Show that Teen Pregnancy Drops Significantly After 25
Diana Was Still Alive Hours Before She Died
One-Armed Man Applauds the Kindness of Strangers
Most Earthquake Damage is Caused by Shaking
And my all-time favorite:
Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures.
If you have more of your own, send them to cecilscag@gmail.com
If Your Only Tool . . .
. . . is a chain-saw,
all your problems
begin to look like trees.
Aging is More than a Numbers Game
Claiming age is just a number doesn’t add up. What number is it? Do you pick a favorite number and use it forever? Or is it the number of days you’ve been alive and alert? A sizeable number of folks wonder what age they’re going to be in heaven. A wrong number could be hell.
No matter how we regard our age, we have come to understand that aging increases the risk factor for many diseases, including cancers and degenerative disorders such as dementia, and the likelihood of suffering several chronic illnesses.
Genes have long played a role in how we age. If your parents lived relatively healthy lives and edged close to the century mark before dying, your chances of living a lengthy and relatively healthy life are pretty good. If you take care of yourself.
While the global search for the Fountain of Youth is still in full force, diet and lifestyle are a couple of traditional tools you can use to stretch out your time here on Earth.
We’re Told . . .
. . .that our brain
has a left side and a right side.
On the left, there is nothing right,
and on the right, there’s nothing left.
Sedona’s Health In the Pink
Red rocks tethered to meditative vortexes are everywhere in Sedona, rising as cliffs, buttes and wind-sculpted animal-shapes cutting sharply into the deep blue sky. It was these sandstone sentinels that sparked the transformation of what was once a small artists’ colony into an upscale resort an hour or so north of Phoenix.
On our first visit here in the late 1950s, the business community comprised a cafe, drug store, market, gas station and a few other establishments. Its 2,000 or so residents would drive into town for groceries from homes scattered among the junipers, pinion pine and Arizona cypress atop red-rock slopes, or from cabins in nearby Oak Creek Canyon. There were no traffic lights and few places to stay other than cabins and camping areas up in the canyon.
Hollywood loved Sedona and built false-front towns where the heroes of countless westerns rode off toward the wind-scoured sandstone outcroppings.
Perched midway between the Valley of the Sun’s desert and the massive Colorado Plateau’s pine forests, Sedona’s dry climate and generally mild temperatures attracted snowbirds from the Midwest’s grim, gray wintery grip.
As word got out, people arrived from all over. Land values shot up. By the 1960s and ’70s, New Age spiritual gurus were proclaiming the area contained a concentration of psychic energy sites. In the late 1970s, Sedona was designated the epicenter of a “harmonic convergence” of people drawn to the spiritual overtones.
Filmdom’s false-front frontier was replaced by European spas, upscale resorts and chic boutiques. Stop lights controlled traffic on the main street, which also was the highway north through Oak Creek Canyon to Flagstaff. Two championship golf courses and a pair of nine-hole layouts were laid out few miles out of town.
It would have become just another hideaway for the beautiful people, had in not been for the photogenic red rocks – and the pink jeeps.
Realtor Don Pratt purchased former movie-studio land in the late 1950s in the Broken Arrow area and took prospective buyers on off-road treks to ooh and aaah the red rocks up close. Noticing folks not interested in housing came back for more, he bought an old Jeep and began charging $3 for a tour. He made them all pink after a stay at Waikiki’s legendary – and pink – Royal Hawaiian Hotel.
I Used To Think . . .
. . .now I just react.
More Than Desert in Valley of the Sun
One of the early breakthroughs was the 1929 opening of the Arizona Biltmore, which is worth a visit if, for no other reason, than to gawk at the walls lined with photos of celebrities at played there and its ceilings lined with gold. More than 30,000 square feet of the glitter glistens overhead in the lobby, a special meeting room, and main dining room that look and feel old enough to be comfortable without being frayed at the edges.
The valley also has its share of notable resorts, prominent among them being the Phoenician tucked into the fold of local icon Saddleback Mountain with its eye-candy nighttime vistas of the twinkling town lights to the south.
My Son Said . . .
. . . his neighbor took her dog
to a veterinarian for some tests
and now
she’s waiting for a lab report.
No Vaccine for Scam Season
There’s no serum developed yet to shield you from crooks and con artists. The best protection is a healthy dose of anti-greed. The following premise is a pretty powerful antidote: if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Some slick scams never go away. Ponzi schemes are by far the most notorious. They’ve been around so long that most people think they’d recognize one if it came their way. That’s rubbish. Gullible — and greedy — investors are pouring their money into these confidence schemes somewhere right now. All on the promise, by someone they trust, admire, respect or like, of above-average returns on their investments.
Think of the current headline-grabbing FTX crypto currency Ponzi scheme that funneled billions of dollars through the hands of 30-year-old Sam Bankman-Fried.
Offerings of viatical settlements persists. If you don’t know what that or any other investment proposal means, run away from it. Viatical oversimplified means that you buy a life insurance policy from a terminally ill patient for less than the policy payout. These transactions, whether you’re the buyer or seller, are fraught with perils.
The same applies to promissory notes often sold by independent insurance agents, according to the AARP Bulletin. These are often offered by little-known or non-existent companies with the promise of returns as high as 15 percent with supposedly little risk. Better to turn your back on such a can’t-miss sure-fire opportunity than fall flat on your fiscal face when you’ve been fooled out of your money.
Switching to Orange Juice . . .
. . . has made my mornings
much more enjoyable.
It mixes with my vodka
much better than coffee.
Listen to Help Alzheimer’s Victims
A friend has a running gag that he received a solicitation for a contribution to the Alzheimer’s Association but he forgot where he put it. It’s his bit of gallows humor to forget the fact that more than 6 million Americans are victims of this disorder.
The association urges victims to be candid about their disease and, at the appearance of its signs, to discuss their symptoms with family and friends. Maintaining open lines of communication with people doomed by dementia is critical to keeping victims, caregivers, relatives and friends on as even a keel as possible as the disability progresses.
The first step recommended by the AA to everyone around an Alzheimer’s sufferer is to listen. Communicating with an Alzheimer’s victim requires patience and understanding, so those around such a person must be good listeners. And they must let the sufferer know they are listening, are being patient, and are trying to understand what he or she is saying.
If the person is having difficulty finding the right word or phrase, encourage him or her to take their time and continue to explain. Don’t cut in and correct the speaker. You can repeat what was said if you feel some clarification is needed.
Mature Life Features 