Some Bones To Pick With You

In much the same way that we believe "there's still some good meat on those bones" as our leftovers dwindle to a precious few, so too do we feel like we can coax at least one more semi-vacation day out of Thanksgiving even though it's getting pretty distant in the rearview mirror.

So today will be another collection of semi-random topics and thoughts, which we'll blame on the lingering effects of our recent tryptophan overdose.

For starters, we'll report that we had a genuinely lovely Thanksgiving dinner with family. As is tradition, the younger members of the party shared the exciting new things happening in their lives, then tried to suppress their expressions of horror as we older folks regaled the table with our latest rounds of doctor visits, surgeries, and odd medical quirks which may or may not do us in before next Thanksgiving.

We're pretty sure the original pilgrims didn't do this while eating turkey, but only because living to "old age" way back then meant hitting 35 or so. Granted, dropping dead at that age isn't great, but at least their Puritan corpses still had cartilage on their knee and hip joints.

We were, however, delighted to meet a new family member at this occasion- a beautiful month-old girl born to our niece here in Texas. And speaking of babies (clever segue, huh?) this is as good a place as any to also welcome the three-week-old boy recently born to our nephew and his wife in Alaska, and an additional baby girl born to another nephew and wife in Indiana. Seeing all these new lives, in person and via Internet, reminds us yet again of the importance of trying to get the world into some kind of reasonable shape since that's where the kids are going to have to eventually live.

On a different topic, we cleverly side-stepped the brutal crush of Black Friday shopping by buying a new big screen 4K television on the previous Dusky Wednesday, when the deals weren't quite as good but you had a better chance of not ending up on the local news. Later today, we'll be adding numerous electronic umbilicals to the new TV while enjoying Tourette's-style expressions of enthusiasm.

We are, of course, very excited about being able to experience the full unbridled glory of having a television which offers widescreen 4K resolution and "billions of colors" as we watch our fuzzy old black and white films on Turner Classic Movies. We will, however, probably find a 4K online video of a grizzly bear standing in white water and snapping at jumping salmon just so we can "ooh" and "ahh" at the eye-slicing detail of something we normally wouldn't watch at gunpoint.

"At gunpoint" is also how we're feeling after receiving a letter from the Social Security Administration on Black Friday, explaining that they're going to charge us an additional $6000 for our (ahem) "free" Medicare based on their hallucinatory estimation of our non-existent income.

We can't say for sure, but we suspect that this may be a direct result of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tapping keys on a government computer that she was explicitly told not to touch.

Wishful Drinking / Thanksgiving

Actually, even if we DO get the wishbone this year (unlikely, since we zero in on the turkey wings) we wouldn't make the wish above. Rather, we'd make a wish to do away with liberalism, thereby getting everyone on the same page about doing good for others, rather than just whining that someone else should be forced to do good for others.

But hopefully, politics won't even come up at our Thanksgiving gathering or yours. Because even if there's no one at the table wearing a pussy hat, political discussion will do nothing to improve the meal or the day - and will in fact distract from the very important business of giving thanks. If you must argue about something, let it be about something relevant to the day - like whether or not oysters belong in stuffing (spoiler alert: they don't. Oysters belong in a tightly-wrapped Kleenex.)

Here in the Jarlsberg family, we have a lot to be thankful for this year. Daughter J got a great new place to live and an outstanding new job working with kids, which she has an absolute gift for. She's doing great.

The whole family is in reasonably good health (hey, you can't expect perfection from old people), and we have friends (including you!), extended family, and a Good Dog.

Let's see, we're also thankful that at least a little of our retirement account wasn't in high-tech stocks, since they've been the Acupulco cliff divers of our portfolio lately. Landing on the rocks, for that matter, their screams cut short by splatters.

Oops, sorry - we lost our gratitude thread there for a moment. Where were we? Oh yeah...

We remain deeply grateful for this wonderful country, and the military personnel (present and past) who've secured our liberties. We similarly give thanks to the first responders who put their lives on the line for all of us every day, especially in times of huge national disasters.

We can't say that we're thankful for every ill-formed thought that pops out of the President's mouth, but can say that we remain thankful - and delighted - that his words continue to cause absolute agony to those on the Left. And yes, we're saying that with a rakish grin.

Here's hoping that you all enjoy whatever Thanksgiving festivities, traditions, or observances you take part in - however large or small. The act of taking time to think about our many blessings and express gratitude is a great antidote to the transitory annoyances of the daily news.

And just to close things out, here's a little dose of perspective from our dear friend Johnny Optimism...

NOTE: There won't be a new post on Friday, because we're going to be chilling. Or perhaps elbowing our way through the crowds at the doorbuster sales. Either way, we'll be back Monday!

A Poor Excuse for a Post

Wow, that IS a poor excuse for a post!

This is one of those awkward times when our schedule has gotten away from us and we know we're not going to be able to make a "real" blog post, but don't want to just leave everyone with an IOU either. Soooo, we're taking the middle ground: rather than no post, we're giving you a mediocre one. How's that for transparency in journalism?

And we've got no great excuse for our poor time management skills. Oh sure, grocery shopping in the pre-Thanksgiving rush took longer than we thought it would. And offering some tech support for a friend was more time consuming that we expected (note to world: setting up an Amazon "tap" device is a special trip into Hell). And then we had to resolve a brouhaha with Amazon (again!) over their rejection of a tasteful and heartwarming Christmas shirt we designed for sale on their site.

And as long as we're blatantly filling space, here's the shirt...

It's available as a t-shirt (we finally convinced Amazon to see things our way), sweatshirt, or hoodie, though we're not making a sales pitch here because we think this stuff is too darn expensive on Amazon. But we make designs anyway because it's fun and we firmly believe in the principle of Ars Gratia Artis (literally, "Artists are grating").

There's plenty of stuff going on in the news, of course, but none of it much captured our fancy. Although we were really tempted to run with the story of the pinheaded California Democrat (but we repeat ourselves - thrice, in fact) who suggested that the way the government could force gun owners to turn in their weapons is to threaten them with nukes. And that, friends, is truly Defcon-One grade stupidity.

In other areas, various Democrats have finally run out of uncounted ballots to pull out of magician's hats (although we've got a pretty good idea that's not what they were really being pulled out of) and have had to admit electoral defeat. A good thing, to be sure, but a pretty frightening reminder that we need to get election fraud under control before 2020. This election cycle was a hot mess, and if we're going to fix any damn thing in this country, that should probably be first.

We'll wrap this up with what's probably the funniest story currently out there: Stormy "Stuff Me Like a Butterball Turkey" Daniels has declared in a Newsweek interview that her involvement with Donald Trump and politics has "completely destroyed her career."

As boinking for bucks seems like an evergreen career choice, we weren't sure what she was referring to. But apparently all the negative publicity has derailed her burgeoning career behind the cameras in porn, where she was blazing a trail as a scriptwriter. Not that it's the world's hardest job...

MAN AT DOOR: Pizza delivery.
WOMAN IN NEGLIGEE: I asked for extra sausage.
MAN AT DOOR: How about...this?!

Stormy was also making professional inroads "picking out the wardrobe" for porn shoots, which again doesn't strike us as highly skilled labor since the wardrobe usually consists of birthday suits, albeit with occasional fashion accessories like a ball gag, butt plug, and strap on.

Which, as long as we're free-associating, would make a good name for Michael Avenatti's next law firm.