Tag Archives: karma

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’25 A To Z Challenge – K

Welcome back to KARCH-TV’s riotously funny comedy program,

KERMIT AND FAWZI

This week’s episode is titled KERMIT AND KISMET.

The name Fawzi seems to be middle-eastern.  When The Muppet Show first appeared on TV, I wondered if Jim Henson had intentionally named the unthreatening, goofball character Fawzi as a way to normalize and reassure people about the presence of peaceful Arab/Muslim immigrants.

Of the very few people that I was aware of, named Kermit, it seemed that most of them were Jewish, so I thought that this name was also middle-eastern.  Imagine my surprise when I actually did some research, and found that it is a pronunciation/spelling evolution slide from the Scottish/Irish Gaelic name Diarmid, or Diarmaid – meaning either “free man,” or “without envy,” apparently depending on how much whiskey you’ve imbibed.

My kismet from not doing my research earlier, is having to do it now, for this post.  Kismet is a kind of soft, easy-going word that carries the connotation of, “What goes around, comes around,” unlike its harder, nastier cousin Karma, which implies that, “You deserve what you get.”

I am disappointed (yet again) by the number of “Good Christians” who believe in karma.  It means that they must also believe that young children deserve to get cancer, or that nice people deserve to have their homes flooded, or blown down by tornadoes or hurricanes.  I don’t care, though.  My Karma ran over their Dogma.

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Where Angels Fear To Tread

More like Angels With Dirty Faces.  What the TSA don’t know about what happens on the highways, can’t hurt me.  We haven’t been anywhere since our visit to BrainRants, five years ago, long before COVID.  We paid off our mortgage.  We paid off our car.  We beat our credit card balance down to a reasonable amount.  I felt that we deserved a treat, so I ensured that the air pressure in our passports was up, and started to plan and plot

Even earlier than our BrainRants trip, we had managed to visit John Erickson and his wife for a mere two hours.  As a penance for using my blog-site to prove that his wit was faster than mine, (Mine is tied to a calendar, while his springs off a stopwatch.) he grudgingly agreed to allow us to visit for a whole two days.

I immediately booked a three-night stay at a nearby Red Roof Inn that doesn’t have a red roof.  Like the one that the son and I stayed at, in Batavia, NY, this one was purchased from another chain.  The roof has not been redone, and may never be.  It has internal corridors and room doors.

After the $500/night financial fiasco at the big Toronto hotel, I didn’t pay the online-listed $79/night charge.  I didn’t pay the members’ 15% reduced fee of $68.  When I phoned in my reservation, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that I was only being charged $55/night USd = $73.35 Cdn – and they will provide a free continental breakfast, and free long-distance telephone calling.  Finally, the Universe is trying to even out my karma.

On our last visit, we were in and out of beautiful, metropolitan, Dogsbody, Ohio, quick and sweet – no fuss, no muss, no bother.  Aside from John and his wife, the only people who even knew we were there, were the Mensa Organization meeting folks, over to thuh gen’ral store.  This time, it will be longer and more obvious.  If you hear that the Ohio National Guard has been called out, don’t worry.  It won’t be another ‘Kent State massacre,’ they’ll just be politely but firmly, putting down a local Amish insurrection of disaffected Elders, who are armed only with beards and buggy exhaust.

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Roadside Salvation

If Karma actually exists, I’m pretty sure that I’ve used up my lifetime supply of good fortune.

Once upon a time….

When I grew old enough to get my drivers’ licence, my father allowed me the use of the car on Saturday evenings.  I would drop my parents off at his gig as an emcee at a dance party just before 9 PM, and come back and pick them up, just after midnight.

Across the summer, some friends and I covered a wide range of the county.  On into September, the new car models had been released, and we wanted to have a look at them at a car show over in the Big City.  Perhaps Dad had heard of our exploits.  Maybe we weren’t leaving enough gas in the tank.  As I dropped them off, Dad said, “Don’t leave town.”  Right, Dad.

We’d had summer jobs, but now that we were back in school, money was a bit short.  We all kicked in 50¢ for gas, because, back then, $2 would fuel our little Vauxhall for most of a week.  Then it was a half-hour, high-speed run to the arena.  The rest of our pocket change got us into a show at 9:30, which was over at 10.  We had a quick chance to drool over the new models.

When they kicked us out, I still had two hours before I needed to be back, but there might be other things to do, so the trip back was as fast as the one over.  Suddenly, out in the country, a red warning light popped up on the dash, so I immediately pulled over and shut it down.

Ten miles from the city, fifteen miles from home, we were two and a half miles in either direction from two tiny crossroad villages – which were already shut down when we passed through earlier.
What’s the matter with it?  I dunno.
Are we stuck out here?  Probably.
What are we gonna do?  I dunno.

Just before panic began to set in, a pair of headlights appeared from behind.  We weren’t even smart enough to flag the driver down, but he pulled over anyway.  It was a 21-year-old gear-head, driving around to impress his 18-year-old girlfriend with the old car that he was restoring.  It didn’t look like much, but it purred when it pulled over.
What’s the matter? –  A red light came on the dash.
It’s probably the fan belt.  Do you have a flashlight?
No. –  I’ll get mine.

He popped the hood and shone the light in.  Sure enough, there was a decided lack of fan belt.  From driving a little English car 10 miles, at 85 MPH??!  Who knew?  He said that it was a good thing that I’d pulled over right away.  With the water pump and cooling system not working, I could have overheated the engine and damaged it.  It probably wouldn’t have mattered.  With the generator also not working, it was running off the battery.  A couple more miles with the headlights on, and that would have died too.  We were well and truly FUBARed.

He said, “I think I know a guy who can help.  Hop in.”  I snuggled in next to his girl, and we headed back to the city.  On the way, he told me that he worked as a junior mechanic for a guy who ran a small garage and Esso gas station.  In tourist country, and during tourist season, he pumped gas until 11 PM on Saturday nights.

It was ten after eleven when we arrived, and the lights were all off, but we could see the owner still finishing paperwork at his desk.  My hero thumped on the door, and got us let in.
Whaddya want??
Buddy here blew a fan belt, out on the highway, and needs another one.

He went to the reference sheet, selected the correct one and lifted it down.  Boss-man said that it cost about $6 – the equivalent of two hours labor.  He looked at me and said, “You guys got any money?”  We’re busted flatter than piss on a plate.  He must have had a running tab for the parts and pieces that he needed for his chariot.  “Put it on the list of stuff I owe you for, Mel.”

Soon we were heading back to the three friends I’d abandoned in the stygian darkness, and the car which had cooled to work on.  “You got any tools?  Duh!!  “We’ll use mine.”  He opened the trunk, and opened his toolbox.  Changing a fan belt on that car was so dead simple, even I could do it.  All we needed was an adjustable wrench.  Still, I held the flashlight while he did the work.  “Start it up.”  It started and ran well, with no warning light.  “Okay, you’re good to go.”

He was exactly the right person, at exactly the right time, in exactly the right place, with the right friends, the right tool set, and the right mindset.  We were too naïve to even think of offering to mail him some money – which we didn’t have.  Other than offering our sincere thanks, is there anything we can do for you?  “Just pay it forward.  If you see someone in trouble, and you can help, stop and offer it.”  I like to think that’s a philosophy that I’d have engaged in, even without his urging.  I didn’t ask him if he was a Good Christian.  I don’t even remember exchanging names, but I remember his kindness.

Of course, after all of this, I didn’t make it to the appointed pickup spot, at the appointed time.  When I finally arrived home, Mom was a little miffed that she’d had to walk half a mile, with her short little legs, in a tight skirt and heels, up a fairly steep hill.

After Dad demanded and got a complete explanation of what had happened, he was a bit more pragmatic.  “This is why I told you not to leave town.  Still, everything worked out nicely.  I guess it’s better that it happened to you tonight, than to me on my way to work on Monday morning.”

And they all lived happily ever after.

The End

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“21 A To Z Challenge – W

 

 

 

You know what’s weird??!  The word weird’s great-great-great……. Grandmother.  She was a Norse goddess named

WYRD

She came across (No, no, not that way.  She was a chaste goddess – not a chased goddess.) with a bunch of hot and bothered Viking guys in a longboat, when they rowed over to England.

She wasn’t a powerful goddess, like Freya, in charge of fertility, beauty, love, magic, war and death.  She was a lesser goddess, responsible for karma.  She supposedly guaranteed that you would eventually get what you deserved.  Even the Vikings, though, realized that anyone actually getting what they deserved was strange.  When she eventually retired to the Old Norse Gods Home on Yggdrasil, she left behind her name, which became spelled weird (And that’s a weird spelling – getting poor, little I before E, except after C, in a real tizzy.) and carried the meaning of odd or unusual.

I’ll moor my longboat, and wait for you at the dock in a couple of days, and we I can talk about what I read last year.

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What If, It’s Another Challenge

I am awed and amazed at the number of people who read these personal-reveal posts.  Thanx, and here is yet another one.

21: Something you just can’t seem to get over
23: Something you always think “What if….” About

I’m not much one for navel-gazing.  I feel that I am not entitled, but rather, pragmatic, fatalistic, realistic.  What is – IS!  The past is in the past.  It’s over, and cannot be changed.  Deal with it!  Time and psychic energy expended in worrying about ‘What Might Have Been ‘, is lost and wasted.

There are many people, often with an overcharged ego and an excess of entitlement, who feel that if they work hard and apply themselves, get a good education, and make what they feel are the right decisions, then God, or Karma, will ensure them success in life.

IT DON”T WORK LIKE THAT!  The universe is supremely disinterested in any one person.  It is almost impossible to fare well in life without taking these steps, but doing so is no guarantee of success.  No-one is assured a smooth ride.  Nothing is God-ordained and meant to be.

When most people think about “What If” and something they just can’t get over, they imagine that some small change in the past would improve their life in the present.  It’s just wishful thinking.  I’ve had hardly any free times in my busy life to brood about lost potential opportunities.

A very few times, I’ve wondered, What if I didn’t have learning disabilities?  What if I didn’t have my essential tremor?  What if I didn’t have a sieve where my memory should be?  Would I have achieved a post-secondary diploma?  Would I have got a six- or seven-figure job?  Would I have had a great career-arc, and have lots of money?  Would I have ‘married better’?

Then I hear the little flutter that warns of the butterfly effect, and the heavy tromp of Karma’s boots in the hall.  If things had been different, would I have done any better?  Would I have had to spend so much time and mental energy getting my diploma and continuing study to master a trade – that I didn’t have time to study and appreciate the English language?

Would I have to rely on aides and secretaries to make my reports and directives literate and intelligible?  Would I have failed to learn to read for enjoyment – would I be incapable of composing blog posts, both of which now occupy me in my retirement?

Money can’t buy happiness, although it makes looking for it a lot easier.  Would I have married better, and would I have great amounts of money in savings and retirement funds, or would I have a string of three, successively-younger trophy wives, whose alimonies empty my bank accounts, and I live in a bachelor apartment till I die on the job, because I can’t afford to retire?

They say that you can’t cheat an honest man.  You can, it just takes so much extra time and effort that it’s not usually worth it.  Similarly, no-one wants to bother stealing from a poor man.  If the stock market nosedives, I don’t care.  If I’d been smart enough to make a lot of money, I might have been dumb enough to meet a Bernie Madoff, or a Nigerian prince.

Strive and struggle to make the most of what you can.  Accept the present, and face the future.  Don’t get a sore neck from looking back at what if!  Let sleeping dogs lie, and don’t trip over them.  My readers are my riches.  You can compound your interest by showing up again in a couple of days.  😀

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One Jackass – Or Two?

Jackass

An Old Man and His Mule

An old man walked up and tied his old mule to the hitching post. As he stood there, brushing some of the dust from his face and clothes, a young gunslinger stepped out the saloon with a gun in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other.

The young gunslinger looked at the old man and laughed, “Hey old man, have you ever danced?”

The old man looked up at the gunslinger and said, “No,… I never did dance… never really wanted to.”

A crowd had gathered as the gunslinger grinned and said, “Well, you old fart, you’re gonna dance now,” and started shooting at the old man’s feet.

The old prospector — not wanting to get his toe blown off — started hopping around. Everybody was laughing. When his last bullet had been fired, the young gunslinger, still laughing, holstered his gun and turned around to go back into the saloon.

The old man turned to his pack mule, pulled out a double-barreled shotgun, and cocked both hammers. The loud clicks carried clearly through the desert air, and the crowd stopped laughing immediately.

The young gunslinger heard the sounds, too, and he turned around very slowly. The silence was almost deafening. The crowd watched as the young gunman stared at the old man and the large gaping holes of the twin barrels.

The barrels of the shotgun never wavered in the old man’s hands, as he quietly said, “Son, have you ever kissed a mule’s ass?”

The gunslinger swallowed hard and said, “No Sir… But I’ve always wanted to.”

There are five lessons here for all of us:

  1. Never be arrogant.
  2. Don’t waste ammunition.
  3. Whiskey makes you think you’re smarter than you are.
  4. Always make sure you know who has the power.
  5. Don’t mess with old people, they didn’t get old by being stupid.

 

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LOST IN THE U.S.A.

Map

No vacation is truly an adventure, until something goes wrong.

Based on that statement, our recent excursion into the Excited States was actually a roaring success.  It all started just after we crossed the Niagara River, and pulled up to the American Customs booth.

I had packed our Koolatron, a mini, portable refrigerator, the night before we left, with all kinds of drinks, Pepsi, iced tea, bottled water, orange juice….  As I was packing the car, the wife added some snacks to keep a diabetic’s blood sugar up – snap peas, baby carrots and cherries.

The border guard asked if we had any fruits or vegetables.  I said ‘no,’ and the wife startled.  He wasn’t worried about the peas or carrots, but Canada has cherry mites.  Wifey says, ‘That’s okay.  They’re Washington State cherries.’  ‘Let’s see them.’  The bag she had just finished was Washington, but the replacements she brought along were from British Columbia.  ‘They have to be quarantined.’ he says, and into the garbage they went.

Still distracted and smarting from the loss of the cherries, I was one lane too far right, and ended up heading south towards Buffalo, instead of swinging east towards the New York Turnpike.  A situation usually easily rectified, at the next exit I pulled up, over, and back down.  I practiced a bit of Zen driving, by following a Greyhound bus that looked like it knew where I was going.  I was right.  He led me well into Pennsylvania.

Our Canadian cell phone plan won’t talk to American cell towers.  Several miles down the Turnpike, the wife’s phone rang.  Is the car haunted??   It was our Canadian Virgin Mobile plan.  “For a mere $7/day, we’ll contract AT&T to provide you full phone service.  We realized that you were outside Canada by GPS tracking your cell phone.”  Great idea! and I didn’t hardly feel stalked at all.  We got Google GPS on the wife’s phone.  I wanted to call the new voice Navigator Nancy, but that name was already taken.  She became just Google Girl, and I now have three female voices in the car, telling me where to go.

The second episode of Lost, was filmed in Wilkes-Barre, PA, where we stopped for the night.  Frenchmen and ballerinas call it wilks – bar, but the locals insist that it’s wilks-berry. The address of our motel was right on a main access road, but we couldn’t find it.  By finally asking a convenience-store clerk, we discovered that it was actually up a hill, behind a U-Haul storage facility, and accessed from a small side-road, by going through a TGI Friday’s parking lot.

We didn’t learn that until we’d been past it 4 times.  I pulled into a small side-road to turn around, only to discover that it was the entry ramp for the Interstate.  We went nine miles back North.  I tried my patented up-over-and down maneuver©, only to find that the down ramp took me to a narrow, twisty State highway which only eventually got me back to what passes for civilization.

I must have earned some positive Karma points.  The next day’s highway mishap actually brought me out ahead – still behind, but not as far.  We wanted to go from an Interstate, to a State Highway, in Harrisburg, PA, to save about 60 miles.  All three female voices told me to take exit 5B.  I thought that 5B would be on the far side of the overpass, but like the one I missed in Buffalo a few years ago, both were on the near side.

Just as I realized this, and tried to reach the off-ramp, a local air-conditioning repair truck swooped out of the outside lane and cut me off.  Oh well, we’ll go down to exit 4.  No ‘up-over-and-down’ in the middle of a city, Ethel’s directions took me ‘down here,’ and then ‘across there.’  The wife complained that, if I must get lost, I should at least do it in an area with stately, historical homes, not the grubby factory and warehouse route we took.

When I reached the highway up-ramp, I manage to insert my vehicle into a ‘volume of traffic’ jam.  When I looked in my mirror, I found the air-conditioning van 3 or 4 spaces behind me.  After inching along for 3 miles, because of two more feeder ramps, we finally got back to ‘highway speed.’

In a previous blogging challenge, I’ve said that Life makes me happy.  Just before we leaked out of Pennsylvania into the Maryland panhandle, we curled around the base of a small mountain, just in time to see 10 colorful hot-air balloons rising up its sides.  The long, smooth, descending curve allowed us to observe them from a variety of angles and elevations.  Perhaps not as large or exciting as the Taos, NM hot air balloon festival, I still took it as a sign of apology and reward for the travails of the previous day.

There’s more to come, so I’d like you to come back.  😀

Taos Balloons

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AutoTopic: List Your Favorite Ways To Procrastinate

procrastinate-no

This entry was posted on October 3, 2011 at 07:09

Medal

The Procrastinators Unanimous meeting was postponed, so I thought that I’d publish this post instead. Above is a picture of the medal that I got for coming in first – actually, last – in procrastination.  I was going to show it to you earlier, but I just never got around to it.  Right now, I’m doing something I like to call ‘synchronized procrastinating.’  Or maybe it’s simultaneous procrastinating.  It’s a real art form.  You have to want to not bother doing two different things at the same time.

The line in red above, just proves what a master of it that I really am. This was below the above title, of the second blog-post that I ever read, six years ago, before I even had my own blog-site.  It wasn’t until I’d published 825 posts, and was looking around, desperately, for inspiration for another theme, that I finally got around to using it.

And that’s not even my longest-time record for putting things off. I have un-performed household chores that go back decades.  I am the Superhero of procrastination.  I think that I’m from the same high-gravity planet that Superman is from, because several people have told me that I’m very dense.

One thing I do, so that I fail to accomplish, is to apply my industrial-grade forgettery – and I don’t even have to fake it. Oh, was I supposed to pick up that steak that was on sale, for supper?? I’ll thaw some wieners and we’ll have hot dogs instead.  😳

Rapier

After only two and a half years, I did finally get around to mounting the lovely rapier that my grandson bought me for Fathers’ Day, on the wall.

I don’t sweat the small stuff, and unless there’s a loan-shark threatening to smash both my kneecaps, it’s all small stuff.  I decline to take any of the wife’s ‘honey-do’ list items seriously.  The karma nicely balances out, because she takes them all seriously – until she finds that they’re not.  That happens often enough to justify faking it ‘till she changes course.

I sit beside the big living room picture window, to read. The wife sits across the room.  There is a large window at the top of the stairs behind her, and during the day, the sun shines down through the open rail – but at night….  Her eyesight, like mine, is becoming less acute.

She has a table lamp to her left, and a floor lamp, 4 feet to her right. Recently, I was told to bring up the swag-lamp from the basement, and hang it directly above her chair.  This was the swag-lamp that neither the son nor I wanted down there, the one whose chain had to be hooked tight to the ceiling, or it would garrote anyone going to the kitty-litter tray, or the utility room.

I ignored considered her request for a week – and she moved the floor-lamp 2 feet closer to her chair.  It still wasn’t bright enough, so she still wanted the swag-lamp moved.  I ignored considered it for another week.  We were at the hardware store for something else, when she thought of replacing the 60 watt CFL bulb in the floor-lamp, with a new-style, 100 watt LED bulb.  I have seen the light….and so has she!

Screwed one bulb out. Screwed the new one in. I’m very competent at screwing around.  That I can handle.  Problem solved.  I got to sit on my laurels hands computer chair, and compose this post.  I should be back with another post in a couple of days – if I don’t get distracted.  I do have other things to do.

Procrastinator

 

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The Wages Of Sin

ten-commandments

I recently read a post from a young(ish) woman, titled, “I saved myself for marriage, and now I can’t have sex with my husband.” [Tough luck. Looks good on you. Oops – did I type that out loud?]

She had had a string of boyfriends since high school, but had informed each of them that she intended to remain a virgin until she was married. Perhaps that explains the ‘string of boyfriends.’  She was 26, and her husband was 27.  Maybe one or both were beginning to get a bit desperate.

She had been raised in an ultra-conservative, Fundamentalist-Christian home, and had it pounded into her, and pounded into her….and POUNDED into her, that premarital sex was evil, dirty, sinful! She suffered from vaginismus, a painful spasming of the vaginal walls which made it virtually impossible to engage in intercourse.  I find it ‘interesting’ that they did not find this out until they returned from their honeymoon in The Bahamas.

Possibly it was only the diagnosis and name of the affliction that they found out. While not ‘common,’ this problem is well-known in psychiatric circles.  It occurs in many other hyper-Christian families.  The girls are told over and over and over that sex (and by extension, them, if they perform it) is bad, bad, bad.

Nothing is said about the acceptability – inevitability – necessity – of marital relations. When these women try to have sanctioned sex, they are still overwhelmed by the cognitive dissonance.  No-one ever tells them about the good side.  No-one ever tells them about anything except the evil.

She now goes for daily(?) physiotherapy, and weekly psychotherapy. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just hire a hooker to come over a couple of times a week?

When I was young, and learning about sex, my Father obtained a couple of comedy albums by a bawdy Jewish woman who worked in Nevada and Catskills clubs. She said, if you liked her act, her name was Rusty Warren.  If you didn’t, it was Lois Lipchitz.

Come early – get a good seat. She would pick a woman down front wearing a vee-neck sweater, and ask her if the V stood for virgin.  “Hmm, must be an old sweater.”  She told a story that she claimed happened to her.

Every day, as she left for school, her mother sang the same cautionary song.  “Don’t take gum!  Don’t take candy!  Don’t talk to strange men!  Don’t ride in strange cars. Keep your legs crossed, your panties up, and come home from school in a group!  And whatever you do, DON’T DO IT!”

Grade 1, Grade 2, Grade 3….especially when she went to high school, the admonition was always the same. “Don’t take gum!  Don’t take candy!  Don’t talk to strange men!  Don’t ride in strange cars!  Keep your legs crossed, your panties up, and come home from school in a group.  And remember….DON’T DO IT! Don’t do it!

She finally got a boyfriend, who became her fiancé. On the day of her wedding, her mother was with her at the Synagogue.  As the happy couple ran down the steps to their car, her Mother yelled, “It’s OK!  You’re married!  Now you can do it!”

She stuck her head out the window of the car, with a confused look on her face and said, “Do what??!  You never told me!”

These ‘Good Christians’ tell the rest of us that the wages of sin is death, but the wages of this self-righteous hypocrisy is….truly Karmic.   😯

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Flash Fiction #111

daily-grind

PHOTO PROMPT © Shaktiki Sharma

THE DAILY GRIND

Pablo couldn’t even remember the karmic twists that had brought him from an Ecuadoran coffee plantation, to this firm in New Hampshire.

He was lucky to have this job. He wasn’t lucky to have Robinson as a supervisor.  If he hadn’t stopped to tell Pablo exactly how to do this project, Pablo would’ve finished it already.  Wayne sure did like the sound of his own voice.

It reminded him of the corn-mills his mother had made him turn by hand as a kid – round and round, and round, and round, and nothing came out but a fine, dry, monotonous powder.

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Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.