My New Hobby

My New Hobby 

It's not every day I admit to payin' attention to the Missus' suggestions, but I gotta admit that sometimes she just inspires me. You'll remember her tellin' me to get myself a new hobby. Well maybe you don't but take my word for it, she did. An' it wasn't only just once neither. I took that to be an urgent matter. So I started lookin' around an' thinkin' about what I'd like to learn until suddenly I hit on it!

I decided that I'M GONNA BE A ACTOR! Not only am I gonna be a actor, I'm gonna look like one too, an' I'm also gonna sound like one. I been studyin' them folks on the TV. It seems, every time they're showin' emotion, they gotta yell - loud. Well I can do that, especially in the mornin' when my voice is strongest. An' cussin? Listen, I can cuss with the best o' them. I learned that from my kids - an' their kids too, so I got that pretty well aced. In a pinch I can always ask them for ideas of how to pronounce some o' them cuss words they use these days. An' the only thing I'll have to consult with the Missus on is throwin' stuff around when I'm actin' upset an' yellin. They do that a lot in the movies but I'm not sure how it would go over here at home. Maybe I could incorporate it into the act of movin' things the way she likes to do, but it could mean a lot o' repairs. Them actors are sure sloppy when in comes to throwin' stuff around. There's got to be a lot o' breakage - which worries me some. Of course if we put out things she wants to get rid of anyways, that would help us with the downsizin'.

As far as appearance is concerned, I think I can hold my own with any of 'em. If I go without shavin' my face for a week or so, I can look as ugly as George Clooney any time. Well an' as far as my wardrobe is concerned, that could use a little upgradin'. I mean I got the nice suit jackets an' shirts, but I need to invest in a bunch o' dirty blue jeans an' maybe some o' them sneakers to complete the outfits.

That havin' been said, I can maybe get it all together an' do a You Tube presentation to show a new movie star to the world. There's no tellin' where this might take me, but I smell an Oscar in the works. At least that's how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin'.

 

 

Getting Another Hobby

Getting Another Hobby

 

Well - who wants to hear my opinion on the state of the union on terrorism, global warming, the election and so on? Judging by previous reaction - NOBODY! Okay, I get it. My uncanny wisdom is not the only source of your inspiration after all. Besides, there's bigger fish to fry anyways. Like how the Missus says I need another hobby. I think SHE'S tired of the ones I got. It's understandable. The dining room table is always covered with whatever puzzle I'm workin' on, my desk is always covered in clay or a piece of somethin' I'm makin', an' my flute is never where it's supposed to be. An' now I'm tryin' to learn magic card tricks. Well, that's goin' to be messy too, given my shaky eighty-year old hands.

Oh NOW I get it! It's got nothin' to do with hobbies at all. An' it's got everythin' to do with bein' a little tidier. Well what in the H E Double hockey sticks am I supposed to do with my works in progress? I can't take the puzzle apart every time I quit workin' on it, an' molded clay don't go back in the box all that easy neither. Well okay, I'll try and remember to put the flute away in future.

But get another hobby? Forget about it. I got no more room to put stuff. Besides which, the Missus would just find another place to hide it away anyways. See, there's what I think to be a Dutch gene built into all people from the Netherlands. It's called the clean gene an' once it gets into yer system, it's impossible to remove. I was up at six this mornin' an' tonight's chili was already on the stove.  Her mother was like that too. When she vacationed with us from Holland, by the time we rolled outta bed in the mornin' she'd already been to the garden, gathering lettuce, radishes an' green onions - an' had the supper salad made. By now she was washing the windows, havin' already swept the deck.

Now I ain't complainin' about cleanliness an' bein' tidy. Much better that than the other way around. But somewheres there's gotta be a middle ground. I know darn well that if I take up another hobby, the other ones would vanish into thin air. No, I have to compromise. Suppose I take up interior decoratin'. Then I go around an' rearrange all her pictures on the wall an move the furniture all around. By the time she gets finished straightenin' it all out, my puzzles will be done an' so will my clay pottery. That is, unless she likes everythin' I done, in which case I'll need another hobby. At least that's how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin'.

 

 

"Get Outta My Bank Account"

"Get Outta My Bank Account!" 

That's what the Missus said. Well, she actually said a whole lot more that's better left to the imagination. And no, it wasn't me what had his fingers in the till neither. She was yammerin' about the government blowin' millions o' dollars o' HER tax money on promotin' the Keystone XL pipeline they knew was doomed from the start. Well I didn't believe the numbers she was talkin' about, so I looked it up. Sure enough, that old Munroe calculator stored in her brain had it added up more or less right: thirty million here, thirty million there, another twenty-six million somewheres else, all WITHOUT HER APPROVAL! It's a good job she ain't the Revenue Minister or Stephen Harper would'a been walkin' around in the King's new clothes by now.

Before I joined the conversation the Missus was havin' with her friend, I sneaked off to the bathroom, checked my wallet to see how much was in there. There was enough (thank heavens) to last beyond this particular tirade. The main thing was that my name wasn't Harper an' I hadn't overspent. Well I should explain. See, the Missus is a Dutch girl. Well she's more of an old Dutch girl by now, but the speech she'd just delivered to her friend (an' to me in a 'take notice' sort'a way) sure proved she was very much from the Netherlands. I couldn't help but be reminded that the whole Spanish Armada had been swept off the sea by someone like her in the Dutch navy an' Harper should be kind'a glad for his own sake that she'd married me instead o' him. Well, he can only take so much abuse over his transgressions until you gotta feel sorry for him.

Well that sort'a leaves the plight o' them poor buggers whose incomes are directly affected by the oil business. I mean the workers in the oil patch, the suppliers o' services an' equipment an' so on. Most o' them don't have a hedge fund or government subsidies to draw on in hard times like their employers do. It's certainly understandable that they're upset. But they've been brainwashed to be in lock-step with their companies who don't give a rip about the wildlife they poison or the sacred ground they plow up for their pipelines, or the poisonous water they inject into the earth in their frackin' exercises. An' at the first sign of danger to the bottom line, they all get their pink slips, an' feel sorry for their poor employers. Give me a break! Them employers' pockets is deeper than the oil wells they drill. Now they're sayin on the news that the government will end the subsidies by 2020. SUBSIDIES? What subsidies? You mean to say the oil companies get subsidies too? Now I see where the Missus gets her BILLIONS o' dollars from. I thought she only meant millions. She makes that mistake sometimes. An THAT'S what she's is upset about, or at least it seems that way to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin'.

Political Arithmetic

Political Arithmetic 

I was chucklin over Trudeau's promise to have an equal distribution of men an' women in his twenty-five member cabinet. Well, if you divide twenty-five in two, you end up with half a man an' half a woman in the mix. He must'a learned his arithmetic from that new method o' teachin' that they have in schools these days. As far as I know, ya can't split any odd number in two an' come up with two whole even numbers. Maybe he'd have to get two people under three feet tall an' combine them as one to share a portfolio an' make up the equal number that way. That was what struck my funny bone cause I noticed there wasn't any people that size elected to parliament.

Well, what do I know anyways? It turns out that the prime minister is the odd man out or even man in, in this case. That is to say, he is not only the Prime Minister, but he's also part of the cabinet (I guess). So he can have any odd number in the cabinet he wants an' still have half men an' half women. As for himself, he has his father's body an' his mother's hair, so I guess that counts for two o' somethin' too.

An' Trudeau's not the only one who can count politically neither. Angela Merkel is another one has her eye an' her numbers an' on the future. The seemingly unrestricted flow of migrants into Germany has citizens increasingly upset, but she's countin' the agin' number o' Germans who ain't makin' any young Germans nomore an' is wonderin' who's goin' to take over the work load a few years down the road. She's learned from the Chinese government what happens when the birthrate drops off significantly. Them people are busy findin' an' rescuin' older people with all kinds o' dementia every day an' bringin' them back home with nobody there to watch over 'em. So they have to do it all over again the very next day. It's a huge problem. Who's goin' to be left to push the wheelchairs in a few years? An' who's going to go to work to earn the money to buy the wheelchairs in the first place? I read that in certain places in Spain they ain't makin' any little Spaniards nomore neither. So it seems you need that special political arithmetic to balance the population an' the budget. We shouldn't ask too many questions an' sooner or later the budget will balance itself. At least that's how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin'.

The New Resource

The New Resource 

It looks like the only one who had a plan "B" for the saggin' oil prices in Canada durin' the election campaign is Trudeau. As far as I can see, nobody else has any idea of how to mitigate the lost income from the saggin' price of oil. All the fear mongers an' the haters in the oil patch could probably breathe a little easier if they scratched their heads a little to see what's happenin'. Not that they'd ever consider anythin' that doesn't bring their prices back up to a hunnert bucks a barrel, cause they like what they're doin an' don't wanna quit. It's kinda like them dairy farmers don't want the Pacific Rim trade deal cause it'll drop the price o' milk.

What I'm (an' Prime Minister Trudeau's) talkin' about is the legalization of marijuana of course. Ya just have to look at what's happenin' in say, Oregon. They're pilin' in the tax revenue like there's no tomorrow. An' if we do the same, well get the same. Just think, all that tax revenue without puttin' a hole in the ground. Not only that, but you can do that in every province without havin' to kiss anybody's rear end for a share o' the revenue. Talk about yer equalization formula.

Mind you, this is not without it's controversies neither. First thing they gotta do is fire all them government growers an' replace 'em with the experts who are now sittin' in prisons. I mean, them people know how to grow the good stuff so you employ them an get a quality product. Then you gotta deal with the Hells Angels. I hear they're ticked off about the legalization issue 'cause that'll cut into their livelihood, so they're gonna protest, maybe even take the government to court. I got news for them. They'd be better off to let go o' the marijuana business an' take over the oil industry. What with the frackin' goin' on an' the poisonin' o' the water systems an' soil, it's a much more aligned to the criminal element anyways.

An' if ya wanna argue it as a moral issue, then you'd best be prepared to compare it to tobacco sales an' liquor an' the lotteries too. The people usin' them things ain't the only addicts. The revenue department swallows taxes on that stuff up like vanilla ice cream. At least that's how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin'.

 

 

The Five Shovel Election

The Five Shovel Election

 

Well it ain't such a stretch to imagine the five party leaders loadin' up their wheelbarrows at the political manure pile an' spreadin' it all over the country. I guess it's all about what section of the heap they're loadin' up from that's what counts. They're all busy pickin' out the places to put their shovels into it, hopin' to pull out some o' the good stuff that'll stick, grow an' blossom.

It appears that only one o' them got to the sweet spot on the manure pile. All the rest just kinda shoveled up the rained out, over bleached straw content. It ain't over yet though, although it's a good start. The rest is just like growin' a garden where you gotta water an' weed the whole business an' tend it carefully.

Of course there's all sorts o' pitfalls that can occur at any time to ruin the whole business includin' harassment from the losers an' haters an' skeptics o' the winner. I like to think that's all been taken into account in the growin' season.

What strikes me as a bit strange though, is that each o' the parties was lookin' for a different part o' the pile, not payin' attention to what Canadians was sayin'. They mostly decided what was good for us an' said; 'This is what's good for you an' it's what you're gonna get.' That 's the old 'top down' system I was describin' last week as what's been shoved down our throats forever an' a day.

Let's face it, people generally are fed up with that one percent trickle down philosophy. They want to become engaged in a government that has meaning for them an' when somebody comes along an' promises that, you can bet they're gonna buy in.

Well so far it's just promises, so there's a lot of gardenin' yet to do, but if you had yer druthers, a positive, hopeful government is a lot more palatable than a negative, secretive one. At least that's how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin'. 

 

 

Whatshesaid

Whatshesaid!

 

No, this ain't no gossip column. It ain't even what she said. It's "Whatshesaid". That's a whole different kettle o' fish. It's sorta a reply to a question about what to do or where to go or what to buy. It's classic Red Green, straight outa his book about Red Green's Guide to Women for Men who Don't Read Instructions. Well it ain't very original but let me tell you, it's the best gol dang reply I've ever come across. An' it's decisive too.

There's no jig-jaggin' around about it neither. A friend says to you: "Are ya goin' for a beer with the guys tonight?" The straight answer is, "Whatshesaid!" Well, that ends the discussion right then an' there. It puts the decision right squarely on the Missus an' you don't have to worry about it. An' if you happen to be talkin' to a married man who's already cleared it with his Missus, an' he'll understand where you're comin' from. Bachelors an' otherwise unattached folks won't get it, but then who cares? It's not about their security anyways.

An' before the women readin' this get their undies in a knot at bein' considered bossy an' overbearin', it ain't about that neither. What it is, is a security blanket for us old married guys (or people in a domestic relationship as it is commonly known these days). See, what "Whatshesaid" does is put the responsibility on the Missus so we don't have to make no decisions, 'cause we already know we can tap into the two-four in the basement fridge an' there's a hockey game on the TV most nights anyways.

See, it all works out to be a good thing; a benefit to all parties concerned (except them single fellas who are findin' it more an' more difficult to get anybody to agree with 'em). For the married men, it's probably a sneaky way to get the wife to restrict their goin' out cause they wanted to stay home an' watch the game anyways instead o' listenin' to all the lies in a noisy bar.

The unsuspecting Missus of course can exercise her responsibility to keep her man on the straight and (dignified) narrow while he (the devious little weasel) can publicly blame her for not bein' able to go out with the boys (which he didn't much want to do anyways). The upshot is that everybody's happy, even the single guys who don't want much to do with henpecked husbands anyhow. Even the Missus secretly likes the fights that go on in the hockey games (though she won't admit it). At least that's how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin'.