humor

Six pics of Talkeetna.

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For the first time in three years, Linda B. and I are attending the Talkeetna Bachelors Auction and Wilderness Woman Competition. The drive up was smooth sailing, with hardly anyone else on the road. It was also gorgeous, once the fog burned off – especially the eye-popping vistas of Mt. Hunter, Mt. Foraker and Denali (see below).

It’s 13 degrees below zero right now, but that’s all right because we’re indoors. If anything, it’s a little too warm in our hotel room. Pretty sure I won’t be needing the blanket and comforter tonight, or maybe even the top sheet.

Thus far we’ve viewed the annual parade (made up mostly of emergency vehicles, plus a flatbed truck with some shivering bachelors), eaten not wisely but too well, and chatted up some of the old-school auction folks. One of them pointed out that this is the 40th annual event, out of 41 years (the pandemic nixed large indoor gatherings last year).

The Wilderness Woman Competition is a large outdoor gathering; it takes place tomorrow. The Talkeetna Bachelor Auction will be indoors, but tickets were limited. They sold out in six minutes flat. Fortunately, Linda B. was ready to pounce the moment they went on sale.

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Dr. Demento and the desecrated turkey

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(Happy Throwback Thursday! This article is from WAY back in the day: May 10, 2010. It was the eighth piece I published. Since the article has a Thanksgiving theme, sort of, I thought I’d re-run it in honor of turkey day.)

About five months ago I walked over to the Asian market to buy carrots and came home with a turkey. Yes, I know the difference between root vegetables and edible fowls. But the bird was on sale for 25 cents a pound. The whole thing cost only $2.65. I’ve paid more than that for a soft drink at a ballpark.

(What does this have to do with Dr. Demento? I’ll get to that.)

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How Alaskans fix their cars.

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Alaskans believe that duct tape fixes everything. Some people call it “hundred-mile-an-hour tape” because pilots have had to repair their wings with that sturdy gray* stuff. But apparently duct tape works on cars, too.

Off and on over my years in Alaska I have seen vehicles repaired with duct tape. On those occasions I didn’t have a camera with me. Having joined the 21st century and bought a smartphone, I now have a camera with me pretty much 24/7.

Yes, I have become one of those people who takes pictures whenever something strikes her as beautiful or funny, or both. For example, here’s a picture of my niece’s pup showing off her winsome doggy smile: 

 

I don’t keep all my pictures, but I confess to having a heck of a lot of pictures of our yard and greenhouse. At some point I will turn them into this year’s version of “Looking back at the garden.”

But that’s not what I came here to talk about. The subject today is fixing cars.

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5 ways to ruin the 2021 holidays.

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The pandemic has messed with my sense of time, and maybe with yours. Certainly I was startled today when I did the math and realized that Thanksgiving is just 77 days from now.

Three days after that is the first night of Hannukah. And if you’re a Christmas person, that happens in 107 days.

Some of us prepare throughout the year. If we see gift bags and/or holiday wrapping paper on deep clearance (or waving at us from the mixed-paper bin at the recycling center), we stock up.

Yard sales, thrift stores and Buy Nothing Facebook groups yield us holiday décor, serving pieces and gifts. We stash points from rewards programs/apps, planning to cash them in for gift-buying.

Not everyone is as vigilant (or hypervigilant). To those who prefer a more laid-back approach, I hereby offer some helpful tips on completely screwing up the 2021 holidays.      

1. Wait until the last minute.

So what if supply-chain issues are predicted to get worse in the coming months? Maybe they won’t!

And so what if retailers like Walmart and Amazon are struggling to get space on shipping vessels, or if the continuing microchip shortage has affected manufacturing? Surely they’ll have that all ironed out before Christmas.

You’re a busy person, after all, so it’s fine if you wait until Dec. 23 to start your shopping.

2. Relax about the mailing.

The U.S. Postal Service plans both a temporary rate hike and a first-class mail delivery slowdown starting in early October. If you don’t wrap and mail early, you’ll pay more and the stuff might not get there on time. 

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6 money lessons from “Black Widow.”

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A few weeks back I checked out “Black Widow” with my great-nephew, a superhero nerd. Appropriately enough for a Marvel Comics Universe film, I wore my mask, at least until we sat down. Social distancing is in effect in terms of how many tickets the theater will sell, so I felt safe enough removing my mask to enjoy some kettle corn* and a soft drink.

We’d been waiting a long time for this pandemic-postponed female action movie to open, and I went in planning to love the film so much that I wanted to bear its children.

This was not to be. Although I liked a lot of things about it, it ultimately didn’t hang together as a super-epic. One thing I did love was Florence Pugh’s portrayal of Yelena Belova, a sardonic young badass and sister to Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanov.

While I think Johansson’s a fine actress, and that the two of them played marvelously well against each other, Pugh walked off with the whole film tucked into one of her many pockets.** She lit up the screen and owned every scene in which she appeared.

So in-like, not in-love. Still a good day out – and I paid only $6 because it was cheap(ish) day. Even more luckily, I can call it a business expense if I write about it. So here we go.

Some people look for life lessons in movies. I look for financial ones, whether it’s in Metropolitan Opera HD Broadcast Series productions such as “Parsifal” and “Gotterdammerung,” or slam-bang action films like “Wrath of Man” and “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.”

Did I find them in “Black Widow”?

Do you really have to ask?

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Bobblehead me.

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You know you’ve arrived when The Motley Fool casts a bobblehead in your likeness.

My daughter says it just cements my street cred. My partner considers it very cool, although he thinks I should have been wearing one of my “Money Nerds Unite” T-shirts from the Financial Blogger Conference*.

I just think it’s funny as hell, especially since they even put a teeny-tiny copy of my second book in its li’l plastic hand.

The Motley Fool is a private financial/investing advice company. One of its sites, All-Star Money, is a daily digest of personal finance articles that resonate with the curators. I’m happy to have been noticed three times thus far.

One of those notices – “Extreme frugality: Be a frugalvore” – took me to the pinnacle of All-Star Money: being chosen as the Article of the Week. One of the honors accorded thereto is having a bobblehead made. These guys know how to party. 

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Ode to my COVID shot.

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Finally, finally got an appointment to get the doggoned COVID shot. I thought they’d never ask.

In fact, I was a bit surprised it took so long. The vaccination door has been open to the 65-and-up-crowd for weeks and weeks. Yesterday they opened it up to people over 55, and I pounced on the opportunity like a raven on a French fry.

The website kept telling me that I could get the COVID shot at this pharmacy or that pharmacy – except that those pharmacies didn’t seem to have any vaccine available.

A very kind woman at the state department of public health stayed on the phone with me and walked me through the signup. I can’t quite remember what I was doing wrong, but she somehow figured it out and made it possible for me to get an appointment at 9:40 a.m. today.

My arm is a bit sore but I haven’t developed any major complications. I still intend to go to bed early because heck, why not? I love to sleep.

I was so happy to get the COVID shot that I felt like singing. Which is probably why I found myself humming the song “Maria,” from the musical “West Side Story.”

Moderna

I’m getting a shot called Moderna…

But first, let me acknowledge that Dolly Parton – who also got the Moderna shot – did the song parody better. (She also donated a bunch of bucks to help get the vaccine developed in the first place, bless her heart.) 

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COVID fashion: Puttin’ on your grubs.

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When I got home from a dental appointment recently, I told DF that I couldn’t wait to put my grubs back on. They’re what I also call my freelancer’s three-piece suit: sweatpants, T-shirt and bathrobe. In other words, I was COVID fashion before COVID fashion was cool.

Sure, some people still dress up to work at home. (Although some dress up only from the waist up: Business upstairs, sweatpants party below.) My guess is that a lot fewer have been doing this as the pandemic stretched on and on.

And speaking of stretch: COVID has also given us “the quarantine 15,” as people exercised less and ate their feelings more. Stretchy waistbands are a crucial part of COVID fashion.

I’ve been seeing a lot of “athleisure,” “leisure wear” and “comfortable WFH clothes” ads. Again, I’ve been dressing like this since I went freelance full-time, way back in 2002. My grubs are not just comfortable, they’re frugal: no more spending money on shirts with buttons, pants with zippers or, heaven forfend, pantyhose.

Instead, I wear my grubs. Damn right they’re comfy.

Within half an hour of my arrival that day, DF handed me a few verses of a song parody: “Puttin’ on your grubs,” to the tune of “Puttin’ on the Ritz.”

Can’t help lovin’ that man.

I tinkered the verses a bit, making this our first satirical collaboration.

Before I share the words, I will share a bit of backstory. Like “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” the song “Puttin’ on the Ritz” has an introductory verse that uses a different tune than the following verses. Listen to the following video clip as Fred Astaire sings that first verse: 

 

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Monday miscellany: Debt hangover edition.

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About one-third of U.S. residents took on debt for the 2020 holidays, according to a study from the Magnify Money personal finance site. Breaking it down further, there’s good, bad and worse news about these findings. The good news: Fewer people (31 percent) borrowed this year than last year (44 percent). The bad news: Those … Read more

Bride of s#!t my boyfriend says.

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(Note: Surviving and Thriving is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.)

One of the many reasons I adore my dearest partner is that he not only endures my puns, he collaborates with them. Another reason is that he constantly comes up with his own – some germane to what’s happening in the moment, others that appear out of nowhere.

Can’t help lovin’ that man. Or writing about him: Previous pun compilations (see below) have encouraged groans but also appreciation from readers.

Those recaps were inspired by the fellow who posted some of his father’s pithy pronouncements on Twitter under the name “Shit My Dad Says.” Ultimately it became a best-selling book and even a short-lived television series called “$#*! My Dad Says.”

Sorry, folks: As long as he’s going to come up with these things, I’m going to write them down. Well, I’ll write some of them down. Some are too personal, too smutty or too deeply obscure to translate in this space. 

 

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