Warning: Phallic shrooms, pickle juice, and other shocking subjects
By Chuck Wiser, I write the words to share what my eyes see and my heart feels
I’m starting today’s Wrambling still a little wobbly from an early morning leg cramp. Despite the pain and discomfort, my sense or lack thereof is replaced with a sense of humor, which lives eternal, healthier than ever. For some unknown reason I started repeating a many decades old TV commercial featuring wobbly “Weebles. “Weebles wobble but they won’t fall over” was the theme. As I am wont to do, I am sharing what I found whilst confirming my memories of the toy advertisement and came up with this “link” to the cartoon: https://youtu.be/qq0OQBdIhsc. If you copy and paste this “live link” it will run the video clip. If you can’t do that then if you are able, “highlight” the link noted herein, click Ctrl C on your keyboard, and then go to a web browser of some sort. Then place the mouse pointer in the address blank and press Ctrl V then press return and it should activate the Weebles cartoon advertisement.
I’m still somewhat of a fledging computer (or phone), savvy wise, so the above instruction may or may not work, but I enjoyed finding the link, then converting it to a “live link” and trying to share it with you.
The reference to “wobbling” gives a little hint to my recent bout with muscle cramping. I think pretty much all of us have endured, and certainly not enjoyed, “nocturnal” leg or other muscles cramping. I’ve had a couple of medical diagnos-ees recently and in one case the cure was worse than the cause. I tried taking the prescribed OTC (Over the Counter) medicine Folic Acid and it triggered immediate severe cramping. After the 2nd time, my wife hid the Folate and won’t tell me where it is. Other commonly described remedies like Pickle Juice and Coconut Water have helped a little but rather only as an “after the episode” dosing which is pretty much ineffective in preventing the occasional hand/fingers cramping by daylight and leg cramping by darklight. How’s that for a new word? Seems only logical that darklight should be equivalent to daylight but at the opposite time of the day. I hope that shines some daylight on the issue.
As long as I’m on the corny roll I will offer my profound thanks to Bob’s Market for his sweet corn this year. It has been exquisite. If you are very lucky you may try to give him a visit right away to check it out, but as of this past weekend he was predicting that he would run out by the end of the week. I have had my fill for now, but my wife has processed and frozen a bushel of corn, for over the winter, consumption.
As far as cucumbers go my best source for those this year has been a little roadside produce stand that sets up every early to midsummer season on Cty. Rte 31 about 2/3rds of the way toward the Friendship end. They grew what we have grown before but had better luck, except for our one-time bumper crop in an “On-Deck” large pot. The cucumbers are semi-seedless and advertised as “straight and long.” We added a small trellis in the pot, and they did indeed grow long and straight about a foot or-so long and mostly straight. The trellis “guided” them right up onto the roof of our house about 8 feet above the deck surface. With on-ground plantings the “cukes” do get that long but have a tendency to curl. They have a phenomenal cucumber taste though not completely “seedless.’ The seeds are relatively small. Ah, the enjoyment of homegrown veggies.
Seems like I am making myself hungry so I might as well stay on the food theme and tempt those reading, as much as I am presently. Several years ago, we discovered Hillshire Farms “Lil-Wieners” cocktail wieners. These, as it turns out for some reason, are “seasonal.” They are only available in this flavoring choice later in the year and/or over the winter. During the other months of the year they have other flavors, second most favorite of which, being “Cheddar Wurst.” As the name implies cheese is embedded. The Lil-Wieners are best though and are great mixed in Sauerkraut or simmered in a tomato sauce (with a touch of jam and other Wiser ingredients) to make what we call “Our cocktail wieners.”
Summer pool season is winding down, even as we speak, and it won’t be many more days before I am going through the arduous winterizing process. I did get in the pool yesterday for a brief swim and “leaf collection”. The pool temperature was 72⁰ and while a tad chilly it wasn’t all that bad. I posted a quick notation via Facebook yesterday but will share it with the Sun readers that are still with me. From early childhood, and on, I have been making my water entry method of diving. Very seldom do I ever get into the pool these days, or the creeks feeding into Nile, NY in my youthful days, by wading or walking in. I guess my head is numb enough that it can tolerate the sudden chilling better than by slowly exposing my nether region parts to a sudden, or slow long lasting excruciating chilling.
As I age, my memory, or lack thereof, is becoming more challenging. But, I hope it continues for many years to come. I still have a goal of collecting all of my Social Security income, and, some of which my mother never got to collect, as she passed away the year, she became eligible. I have sympathy and understanding of what my wife is going through tolerating me. She must learn to endure, and I have to try and better my short-term issues by writing things down and saving them in my journal. The notes, when I remember them, are getting more copious. As I drive along my varied routes to Olean for shopping excursions at Walmart and recently Spectrum, I try to recall the names of people I used to know in a former lifetime, as I passed through, and, who lived in the dwellings, especially in Friendship and Nile. A few have not changed, but for the most part strangers now dwell among us. It does break my heart to see some residences that once were beautiful and well kept, now deteriorating even if currently being lived in, or abandoned. When a memory does not immediately refresh in my mind, I use some suggestive hints to help. Oft-times I can remember a first or last name but not the other, so I go through a mental exercise trying to refresh my memory.
One such memory refreshing instance is that of someone who may very well be reading this. If she is I apologize for using her name, but she, as a fellow journalist, learned to put up with me when I worked with (for) her on the Friendship Volunteer. Yes Marilyn, you are the subject. As I drive past her house in Friendship her name doesn’t (or at least at one time didn’t) come to mind. But, her husband, who I didn’t really know much at all, has a “sing song” type combination of first and last names that makes it more memorable. Once I’ve put the name combination together the last name triggers my memory of the first name. Driving up Pennsylvania Avenue in Friendship, which I walked hundreds of times in my high school years, offers many challenges of name recognition. I recall several classmates, some of whom are still with us; a vegetable stand formerly run by the father or grandfather of a gentlemen who reached out to me after seeing his surname mentioned in a recent article; and even the former Friendship Town police officer Larry Ward.
A quick note on an oddity I noticed with mail received the other day. I have received a paltry bill of $4.22 from the State of New York Department of Civil Service, Employee Benefits Division. The kicker and head scratcher, at least to me, is that the address of the above noted entity is in Cincinnati, Ohio. I find that curious. Perhaps I will investigate that in more depth but first I plan to try (once again) to consolidate the payment somehow. They pay postage and materials costs; I spend postage and the cost of a check (cash not allowed or I would do that) to pay such a paltry fee on a continual basis. As silly as this cost seems, at one point in time I was receiving periodic (monthly?) bills for 82 cents.
Having written the designation “cents” out, as I couldn’t quickly find that symbol and/or that of using the degrees symbol (⁰) previously, reminds me of my plan to give names to, and saving those symbols easily recognized “shortcut names.” This has been intentioned for quite a while. Yes, I can eventually find them, but it would be much easier to type something like “Ctrl D” or “Shift-Alt-C” for the dollars and/or cents symbols.
I had the honor of being the 2nd or 3rd vehicle to use the newly constructed bridge “east bound” lane on County Rte. 31 leaving Friendship. The bridge spans Van Campen Creek. We were halted for several minutes while some equipment and markers were switched over to the west bound lane. I took pictures but cannot share them here as I have phone issues regarding pictures taken.
As my last topic, for some reason pictures taken on my phone recently have been designated with an HEIC suffix as in “Photo1.heic” as opposed to the traditional “Photo1.jpg” file extension. I finally figured out how to change my phone back to the traditional suffix “extension,” but I am at a loss as to how the change was activated. I will finish by sharing a picture of a fungus that has inhabited one of our flowerpots. When we first discovered the “finger looking” appendages growing out of the watering Cup built into the base of the flower pot they were larger and “mushroom white.”
After their removal and a thorough cleaning of the pot the same “family” of fungus appendages started growing coming from the top of the flower pot. Upon research and suggestions offered on Facebook, this fungus is known as “Dead Man’s Fingers.” Apologizing for the crassness of the comment to follow, in this photo they look more like a “live man’s penis” than a “dead man’s finger.”
If you have any comments, questions, suggestions or concerns please feel free to email me at IM.Wiserdad@gmail.com
