cranelegs pond the blog

I suppose I should say something ...

2012-01-22T09:30:00.001-05:00

"Met some fantastic people," is the first thing that comes to mind. "Made some good friends along the way," is another. "Even came close to getting published," is something I'll always keep in mind. Good stuff really.

Ya know, there is something about this writing humor thing that will never go away, and although I haven't felt the funny for some time or haven't had that itch to put words to my crazy thoughts in half a year, I suspect it is still right there. In my soul. Just biding its time for the right moment.

This isn't it. The time that is.

I'm thinking maybe the summer. Yeah, the summer. I'd like that. I'd like to start something new too. Don't know what. Mysterious possibly. Under a pseudonym. Yeah, I'd like that too. In the meantime, I'll continue to tweet from time to time so that I don't rust completely. I don't want to become the Tin Man of blogging.

So don't get all nuts if this site comes down, as I turn a blog page, so to speak.

To quote Arnold, "I'll be back."

A Tribute to JD Salinger

2011-08-20T11:09:00.000-04:00

Since I'm going to be hiating for a bit, I want to leave what is my personal favorite piece. It's an impersonation of Holden Caulfield telling a true story of my first introduction to "The Catcher in the Rye". All I can say is that as it turned out, Mrs. Shangle was right.

Click on this link to read: A Tribute to JD Salinger

stuff

2011-08-17T20:46:00.002-04:00

i've been remiss lately.
i'm not sure i can do this much more.
life's like that.
twists.
turns.
and stuff.

bye bye dunny bradmore

2011-08-03T10:01:00.003-04:00

so i met with my life coach, dunny bradmore, yesterday.
i've decided i'm going to stop seeing him.
not because my life is now stellar or anything like that.
it's because the car ride is just too long.
i have to go all the way down to trenton state prison, and there is the whole security thing, and the waiting around.
ya see, dunny is doing time for littering of all things.
well, littering an alley full of dismembered bodies and what not.
oh, he's something, that dunny is.

i mean, don't get me wrong, he's worth every carton of cigarettes i pay him.
now, that's not to say i could do without the plexiglas barrier and tinny phones we have to use, because those depress me to no end.
they really do.
but even so, he's a good listener and always has some thought-provoking doozey to say at the end of our session.
well, just like yesterday for instance, when he told me it's not enough to get my life on track, that i need to start to think about being the best dead person i can be.
he recommended i consider getting a death coach and that he knew one from riker's that might be perfect for me.

when ya really think about it, there is a lot to be said about being the best dead person one can be.
a lot.
there really is.
i sure do know a lot of people who are going to be just terrible dead people.
charlie sheen and zsa zsa gabor immediately comes to mind.
yeah, i want go out, and stay out, real dignified like.
i want to have a fully realized afterlife.
it just strikes a chord with me.

not that i'm in a hurry for chrissakes because i'm not at all.
and that's the truth for sure.
in fact, i'd like to get this living stuff down first before i tackle being a good corpse for crying out loud.
to be honest, it only makes sense to think about it that way, which is why life coaching comes in handy.
without it, i'd have this all out of kilter.

even so, dunny says i need to set time aside for death coaching.
he admits that being a life coach and given his propensity to dismember folks and all, he isn't up to speed on what death coaching entails.
he jokingly likes to say the devil is in the body parts.
he sure can be a pip when he wants to be.
regardless of being a pip, he is serious about this coaching advice of his.

well, old dunny there sure has me thinking about it anyway.
gonna miss our sessions.
don't have the heart or compassion to tell him i'm not coming back.
i figure it might just make him stark raving mad when he sits there waiting for me and i don't show up.
but i'm betting on the fact he never gets out to pay me a little visit, so, i'm feeling okay about not telling him.
the truth is, i don't much care for conflict, and telling dunny our seesions are over would create plenty.
i know it's not very nice on my part to think that way, even quite shallow, and i don't feel particularly good about myself right this moment, which is why i probably need more life coaching for sure.

yeah, i need more.
maybe a few years worth minimum.
most likely the better part of the decade.
then i'll find myself a death coach.
i wonder if it's covered in the new healthcare bill.
that would be terrific.

oh well.
boy, i'm gonna miss dunny.
that's the goddam truth, that is.

special k high jinks

2011-08-02T15:04:00.001-04:00

i was at wegmans recently.
they have everything.
so i asked the stock guy in the cereal section, do you have regular k?
he asked, you mean special k?
i said, no, i'm not feeling so special these days. i'll go with the regular k, if you don't mind.
so he said, gee ... never heard of it.
i said, it's just not as popular because everyone wants to be special these days.
he said, i see. yeah, you're right.
i asked, could you check in the back? you guys have everything in the back.
he said, "everything" is our middle name sir. i'll check.
and off he went.
then i scampered out the store licketty split.
it's the sophisticated version of ringing the doorbell and hiding in a garbage can.
and when i got back to the car benny and andy yelled, did ya do it? did ya?
then i said, yeah! i'm getting tinkle drops! let's get out of here before they nab us!
and we laughed our heads off something silly as we raced through the parking lot at probably 6 miles an hour.!
or faster!

ramblin' man

2011-08-02T12:51:00.001-04:00

warning, this is gonna ramble.
so i've been a little recalcitrant, except i’m not sure what that means but i like the sound of it.
maybe better yet, i’ve been preoccupied, except i don’t like that word—it sounds like i’m a country already in defilement before being subjugated by someone else.
look, i’ve been missing in action, not my normal, sunny-side over self.
there are a bunch of reasons, none of them much good on their own merit, but when put all together, are quite compelling.

the bottom line, it’s been slow around the pond lately.
the truth is, i’m going back into corporate lockdown, apparently i’ve broken my parole.
it’s a good thing though.
nah, that’s me just being all upbeat.
not that it’s a bad thing, cause it isn’t.
it’s so-so.
but right now so-so is good.
i’ll leave it at that.

there’s other stuff going on too.
no, not between keaton, my mermaid in training, and me, her reluctant swashbuckler in shambles.
it’s mostly stuff between the ears, making it difficult to be funny, as exemplified by this post.

well, this is certainly nebulous, except i think that is a type of cloud.

okay, how about this?
i have a new email process:: i give you an email address and you write me something nicey-nice.
don’t be afraid to try it out.
i even send you an automatic, vintage bob, wise guy thank you for all your efforts.

boy, i sure can say a lot of nothing when i put my mind to it.
oh well, i warned you.

explaining things

2011-07-24T13:37:00.000-04:00

there are a few things i can explain to keaton correctly, like how to get to the post office.
there are a few other things i don't explain to her ever, like why i'm in the bathroom so long.
but there are way too many things i can’t explain to her and shouldn't try, but explain them anyway, like how i set her prized tomato plants ablaze with just a jammed stapler.

about my two traffic tickets

2011-07-15T10:52:00.001-04:00

by age 21 i had collected the two traffic tickets in my life.i need to talk about them because they still bother me.
ticket one came from speeding on the ny thruway in my red 1968 opel cadet station wagon.
if you know the car, that statement is an oxymoron.
in fact i'm pretty certain that if you look up oxymoron in the dictionary, there is a picture of a speeding 1968 cadet wagon.

sort of like that one in the picture, except my beloved opel was redder, and without the elephants and desert, nor the shenigans going on inside the cabin.

so then, how did i accomplish this seemingly impossible feat?
they got me coming down a steep hill in the catskill mountain region going 71 in a 60 zone, 70 being the required downhill speed of an opel to climb the next hill before the week was out.
that's how!
and i suppose my wild, shoulder length hair didn't help much in the whole matter.

but that isn't the ticket that has me steamed.

it is ticket number two.
i was going through a green light on the heels of the slow driver in front of me.
she looked to be nine hundred years old based on the amount of blue in her hair and the spotted, knuckled phalanges that clutched the steering wheel in a virtual death grip.
i entered the intersection on green, only to witness an entire amber episode waltz before my eyes, exiting the intersection in deep red.
that kind of slow driver.
i smiled to the cop in the squad car facing me on the opposite side, as i motioned to the slow vehicle in my way.
he was having none of it.
and after he pulled me over in front of an emptying grammar school for all the school children to see, he didn't much like my story or my looks.
probably the bandanna was too much for him.
so, yada yada yada ... a ticket for snailing through a green light.
and to this day, the moment i see amber i slam on the brakes.
doesn't matter where.
even watching tv.
i just did it during the chase scene in the dark knight, nearly kicking over the coffee table.
all because of that dumb ticket from 1972 when i was young, restless and bandanna'd!

running with the geese

2011-07-12T08:24:00.000-04:00

i said, can you feel the excitement? it’s that time of year again.
keaton said, oh no, you're not going to run with the canada geese again are you?
i said, gotta hon! barefoot too! it’s what makes me a man and attracts you to me.
she said, what makes you a man is all that stuff between your legs. what attracts me to you remains one of the great mysteries in my life.
to which i sharply replied, you’ll come to learn some day that what attracts you is my running with the geese! oh yeah, and my vacuuming skills.

call me mr. any day

2011-07-05T08:45:00.001-04:00

i said, "hey i was just up in the bathroom reading your more magazine—"
"uh oh!"
"no. seriously. i was and it said that women ... let me be clear ... mature women—"
"be very careful."
"um ... mature women like you that look marvelous—"
"oh brother!"
"well anyway, mature women like you who look terrific would take a man with a great sense of humor over a good-looking, six-pack abs schlub any day of the week!"
keaton thought for a moment, then chuckled, "now that's really funny."
i thought, bingo! just call me mr. any day.
then i said all humbly, oh ... it was nothin'.

sneakers and life

2011-07-02T09:05:00.002-04:00

there was a time not all that long ago that i used to measure my remaining years in the number of sneakers i'd have to buy.
calculating the rate they lasted with an expected slow-down in high impact activity, i was figuring i had three pairs to go, with an outside shot at four.
in human years that came to 45-60 left to go.
not bad really.
except today i don't know.
they just don't make sneakers the way they used to.
and in all fairness, i don't live life the way i used to either.
now i might be looking at seventeen pairs to go, which sounds promising, but sadly amounts to twenty years or less based on my updated formula.

i'm thinking this is all the doing of some highfalutin ceo who figured out it's more profitable to shorten the life span of sneakers and make them real expensive to boot—the complete opposite of a life well lived, which i guess isn't all that profitable by big business standards.

holy vodafone!

2011-06-29T08:43:00.003-04:00

oh baby!
my luck is changing!
apparently, i have been chosen to receive 850,000 smackers to celebrate the 150th anniversary of ... now fasten your seat belts ... to celebrate ... you're not going to believe this ... the 150th anniversary of ... holy cow ... vodafone.
yeah, i think they do telecommuting or something similar sounding.
anyway, tella-schmella, who cares!
how about them apples!

as for those naysayers among you who don't believe me, just feast your eyes on the rather stellar announcement i just received from the board of trustees:

VODAFONE COMPANY INC.
Grant/Donation 2011
Ref Num: (VNP 977)

Congratulations to you as we bring to your notice that Vodafone company has chosen you by the board of trustees as one of the final recipients of this year promotion cash Grant/Donation to celebrate the 150th anniversary celebration and your email address have emerged a Grant of {$850,000.00 USD} Eight hundred and fifty thousand United State Dollars.

wow!
and so professionally worded, i might add!
150 years old!
and they picked my email!
of all people!
i never win a thing!
no more mr. loser here!
i can't wait to make my claim.

but i have to do it really fast, because the crackerjack math guy or gal, who did the calculation, must have entered the wrong year the company started up or something because 2011 minus 150 is like 1861, which isn't anywhere near 1984, when the company was founded.
so i'm figuring the faster i pay for the bank transfer fee (just a measly $238.19), the sooner i can deposit their hot little check in my savings account.
the only thing left after someone over there eventually points out to the board of trustees that their little celebration is off by about 123 years, will be the empty cries and crocodile tears of vodafon's executive team, as they are left with only their multi-million dollar separation packages to wallow in.
talk about your premature miscalculation.

oh well, god what a great bob day!

oh i know.
"but bob what about cranelegs pond going forward?"
at this time i have no plans to end this madness.
i will continue to blog.
maybe not as frequently, but i'll continue just the same.
i'm not about to let $850,000 change me.
i'll be the same old bob, just more loosey-goosey.
might even use more salty language too, since i won't give a flying f%*k!.
don't know really.
we'll see how i do.
but hey, right now i got to get me a certified check out to someone named Sir Alaine Mundipunetty CFOH (sounds very high up in the organization) licketty split.

what is victoria's secret anyway?

2011-06-28T13:59:00.000-04:00

i happened by a victoria's secret the other day and popped in to see what was going on.
i got the feeling my presence wasn't all that well received, but i always get that feeling, even at those welcome centers along state highways.
so i figured it was just me, not them, and snooped around some because that's what i do when i'm not writing or doing something else.

now, i don't know who this victoria is, but by the looks of her underwear, she must have a helluva secret, which was just the sort of thing that got all my curiosity juices all nuts.
but i'm here to tell ya, this is one secret women are keeping to themselves.
no one was talkin'.
especially the salesladies because i asked them about it at least a dozen different ways to no avail.
instead, they had mall security escort me out, as if i were trying to compromise some sort of national super double secret probation operation.

what could it be?
what is vicky hiding?
if i had to guess, i'd lean towards something involving unsavory, night-naughty intrigue.
but that's just me letting my imagination run crazy like.

andy has male mentalpause

2011-06-22T11:59:00.000-04:00

andy said, women will continue to be objectified by a patriarchal system as long as their physical appearance is considered their primary asset and women continue to blindly self-exploit this male created myth and subsist the objectification by parading their bodies in a misguided attempt to play to this false source of feminine power.
benny said, i read about this.
andy said, read about what? i don't even know what i just said. it's weird but i've noticed that ever since i've turned fifty i get these flashes of deep women thoughts.
benny said, that's what i'm talking about. it's called male mentalpause. it's like hot flashes of wild feminist ideas.
andy said, exactly!
benny said, yeah, i read it in the latest issue of maxim magazine. you should get a prescription. ya know it's a lot more than just a bunch of hot pictures of hot television babes.
andy said, you mean i should get a subscription.
benny said, no! i mean a prescription because it's just what the doctor ordered my friend!
andy said, yeah, that kinda makes sense. what could be better medicine for woman thoughts than man stuff?
benny said, it's like the old sayin', a babe pic a day keeps the doctor away!
andy said, whew! you're tellin' me!

benny thought for a moment and then said, boy, it's good to know this mentalpause stuff doesn't last very long! personally, i dread the day.
andy said, yeah! it's brutal! just brutal! thanks for the help!
benny said, don't mention it. hey! what do ya say i drive ya down to borders right now and we fill that prescription!
andy said, not a bad idea. let's do it!

andy thought a little more and then said, hey, ya wanna call bob and see if he wants to join us?
benny said, nah, he's been like in permanent male mentalpause lately. he needs to come to grips with a few things first. no need to have him around while you're in this weakened state.
andy said, yeah, you're right. let's shake and do benster!

and off they drove into the sunset, just like thelma and louise, except totally the opposite.

my fathers day wish

2011-06-19T07:31:00.000-04:00

i wish some of the good will i receive on fathers day would carry over at least a day or two before it's back to manstake punishment as usual.

(i wrote one year ago) kardashian karcrashian

2011-06-18T21:17:00.001-04:00

i will forever be dumbfounded by the national fascination with family kardashian, featuring step-dad frankenjenner and those dizzy dames, proof positive that exorbitant child-support and inheritance need to be taxed heavily and in some cases, confiscated altogether, lest we end up with more self-indulged, privileged little brats scurrying about like empty-headed, scantily clad clowns, whose only contribution to culture and cause is just another pop-culture karcrashian contrived by E!, MTV and all the rest.

in all fairness, they probably don't think much about me either ("think" being the inoperative word).

outer body experience

2011-06-17T09:21:00.001-04:00

keaton asked, have you ever had an outer body experience?
i said, yeah, every time i come out of the shower and see myself in the mirror. and to be honest the notion that that is what you see makes your declaration of love for me all the more suspect.
she said, well, that wasn't exactly what i was asking, but yeah, i follow your line of thought. hmm.

i said, well, don't follow me too hard because this is just another one of those times i'm not leading so great.

cranelegs pond & flying saucers

2011-06-11T12:08:00.000-04:00

i added rss feeds to cranelegs pond many years ago.
i have a sneaky suspicion that these so called feeds have been secretly launching my blog posts into outer space.
why?
because i haven't spotted a ufo since this all began.

we don't follow, what's your take bob, you ask.

it stands to reason that some of the posts, probably the ones about nose hairs and farts and such, must have been intercepted by more intelligent life forms, who certainly would have found them proof enough to remove earth from their travelocity cool-places-to-visit list.

and now all we flying saucer buffs have are empty night skies and the sad promise of no encounters of any kind.
alas, i am my own worst enemy sometimes.

knowing dogs

2011-06-07T21:04:00.001-04:00

as some of you know, i have had the pleasure of being the human to several dogs: a beagle (parker), a cairn terrier (comet) and currently a lab (annabel lee).
this past week or so i've been the lucky guardian of an additional lab, savannah.
now look, i'm not exactly the dog whisperer.
not by a long shot.
in fact, i'm more the dog wimperer because they usually have their way with me.
but i have observed enough to know that dogs are not political, religious or frivolous.
they are one thing.
trusting.
and i have to say, that's more than enough for me.

(i've had cats too, and one could extrapolate this simple truth, except by and large cats don't care)

fish oil

2011-05-31T08:50:00.000-04:00

ever since my high blood pressure discovery, i’ve been taking fish oil daily.
probably have polished off a half dozen costco mega bottles by now.
in addition to seeing the old blood pressure ease a bit, i've noticed that i’ve switched to baths over showers, and lately they’ve been getting deeper and longer.

oh yeah, almost forgot.
there is the flopping around on the bathroom floor while drying off development too.

don't know everything

2011-05-27T08:46:00.004-04:00

Being a former IT professional you’d think I’d know how to replace the ink cartridge in my keyboard.

poppy has death cataract surgery

2011-05-26T15:18:00.001-04:00

took the old man for cataract surgery.
it was not officially a hospital, but he considered it one and insisted this was the first visit since he was six years old when he had his tonsils taken out.
he was nervous.
like a six year old getting his tonsils taken out.
so far the best part for the rest of us is that he has a new list of instructions to read.
they replaced his pre-op list with a post-op list and it's longer.

anyway, i kept telling him it's gonna be worth it and when he's done, he'll be glad he did it.
however, he was not very interested in hearing that.
not when he was dancing with death, as he'd have us believe.
and he wasn't even going to get ice cream in the end.

while we waited for his return from surgery, patients twice his age and half his stature were filing out on the wings of great praise from the nurses.
"oh he was a great patient!"
"oh she was fantastic. you should be so proud!"
when pops came out, it was, "who is the owner of this one?"
and no wonder.
he sort of had a dean martin/richard simmons thing going on.
he was dancing and slurring and having a grand old time.
god knows what he said to the doctors.
but we think he was flagged—something about the next time they'll be more conservative about the anesthesia.

oh well, we were happy to claim him just the same.
he is ours after all.

the writing process

2011-05-26T08:27:00.000-04:00

there are a lot of people offering a lot of highfalutin opinions on the writing process.
i don't understand all the hubbub.
it's quite simple.
at least mine is.
and here it is for free no less.

i place one word to the right (my right, it's left) of the last word until i'm not sure what to do, at which point i add a comma (or in some cases, when i've really screwed up, something referred to as a partial colon, which really should be renamed), and continue on until something unrelated strikes me, at which point i use a pair of these things here "―" (or parentheses when i feel like old school) to squeeze the dumb interruption in, then pick up where i left off and continue on my merry way until i'm certain i have completed a thought―albeit a bob thought―at which point i end the mess with a period (or in those rare cases when i'm really certain i have completed a crisp, coherent thought, an exclamation point).

so put that quill in your cap and smoke it!

indecent star gazing

2011-05-22T21:48:00.027-04:00

she suddenly got up out of bed and walked out of the house.
after he removed the sleep from his eyes and stretched his limbs, he followed after her.
when he finally caught up, she was sitting on the front porch looking up at the sky.
so he asked her what she was doing.
she told him she was looking at the stars, because even though she didn't believe in such things, she was worried silly the rapture might have taken the stars since clearly the earth didn't cut muster, and she just needed to double check.
he asked her but why do this in the middle of the night, why not check on the stars at a more decent hour?
she told him because she was indecent.
and then he realized she didn’t have a stitch of clothing on.
he thought what the heck and joined her since technically she was right.
so they both sat quietly nude holding hands as they counted together.
and there was no monkey business because double checking the universe required all their concentration.

916. round them up! round them all up!

2011-05-20T07:39:00.000-04:00

every once in a while we need to filter the gene pool.
oh, i know it sounds all totalitarian, but sometimes it's really not such a bad endeavor.
if done judiciously.

it's time.
i'm talking about those single cell mutants, mostly young males, who ride those sport motorcycles.
you know who they are.
the guys who weave in and out of traffic at a hundred miles an hour as if they are trying to out race a shotgun bullet.
(probably are)
the guys who think the double yellow line is their lane.
the guys who come to a complete 75 mile an hour stop.
those evolutionary wrong path takers.

i can say this with certainty.
if one rides one of those contraptions, one is a bad seed.
to quote my old friend roz novosolikovikov, "simple like that".
i've never seen one behave even remotely like a two cell human (e.g., limbaugh, hannity, beck, et al).

so what do we do?
we get that guy who catches child sex predators to set up a store front and sell those damn yamaha things for $1 a pop.
who ever comes through the door and hands over a dollar, we exterminate.
quick and painlessly.
quick anyway.
well maybe quick like a turtle.

i suggest we start in new jersey, because we have way too many of these human dna don't haves, plus it's my idea.
nothing crazy mind you.
just thin the herd a little.
that's all i'm saying.
get this scourge under control.
take our streets back!