humor

No firearms in the bouncy house.

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Over the weekend I went to Fairbanks with my friend Linda B., who had a play in the annual 8 x 10 Festival. It’s a very cool concept: The Fairbanks Drama Association puts out a call for 10-minute plays and, after blind judging, selects the best eight to be performed as an evening of staged readings.

As usual, it was a great evening. Linda’s play, “Here There Be Dragons,” was a delightful mashup of satire, swords ’n’ sorcery, and Pokemon Go. The other seven shorts were pretty entertaining as well, especially one called “Smartphone” – imagine asking the GPS on your phone for directions to a date, only to have the device direct you somewhere else instead and try to get you back together with your former partner. (Not to give too much away, but the phone had a personal reason to rebel.)

We saw swans and moose on the way up and back, had pie at Rose’s Café (although, alas, the sauerkraut pie is no more), bumped into a former co-worker who’s now teaching school in Fairbanks, and ate the sourest sourdough pancakes I’d ever tasted. It all would have been a lovely weekend had that stupid virus not still been kicking my keister.

But that’s not what this story is about.

 

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Dying is easy. Cursive is hard.

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Yesterday I hand-wrote two thank-you notes. In doing so I was reminded that while decent penmanship is important, it’s also hard.

Very hard. Since I was 21 years old I’ve been making a living through typing; for about 20 of those years, as a newspaper reporter, I mixed keyboarding with furious note-taking.

The cumulative effect manifests as numbness, tingling and hands that tire/hurt quickly when holding a pen.

Then there’s the fact that I’m in my sixth decade of life. No machine runs for 59 years without some maintenance issues.

So why not just type those notes? Because they were being sent to people whose opinions matter to me, and I wanted to express my thanks the way Miss Manners would. Of course, she has a staff for that sort of thing.

 

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Three things about me.

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thA big bunch of FinCon16 wasn’t much fun, but I did have the chance to connect with some new people this year. One of them was the delightful and well-read Jana, author of the Jana Says blog and a podcast called The Armchair Librarians.

The other day Jana put up a post called “Three things,” a series of prompts and replies that likely wouldn’t surprise loyal readers but will help newbies like me get to know more about her.

She credits Steph of Life According To Steph for the idea. I’m stealing it from the both of them.

 

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A quiet weekend, except for the radio show.

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thHow’d you spend your weekend? I got to be on local radio, where I talked about “Your Playbook For Tough Times” and acted in an on-air skit.

“The Big Alaska Show” is an every-Saturday event on KFQD-AM. It’s a mix of interviews and (alleged) comedy bits, some of which hit and some of which miss. The hosts, Steve Stripling and Mike Ford, cheerfully describe it as “the longest-running error-riddled radio program in Alaska.

And I did my part to help that along. Wouldn’t you?

 

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Taye Diggs is my bestie.

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Well, maybe not a true BFF. We don’t go to the movies or take turns hosting the holidays, and I’ve never once babysat his kid.

But he follows me on Twitter! Here’s the e-mail that proves it:

 

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This was the most exciting thing that’s happened to me since I got the e-mail saying “Marlo Thomas is now following you on Twitter.” Wish I’d saved that screen shot.

 

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Can she bake a berry pie?

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thToday was a true Sabbath: We kicked back and  didn’t do anything we didn’t want to do. In fact, DF and I didn’t leave the property once he’d returned home from early Mass.

It was a day for naps, a bit of gardening in between rain squalls, reading and eating stuff from our own yard: cucumbers, tomatoes, green beans, raspberries and rhubarb.

It was also a day for pie. Although I love the confection dearly I rarely make it. Today I decided pie was the perfect way to get rid of some of last year’s raspberries, some of this year’s rhubarb and all the blueberries that DF got in prison.

All the best stories include the word “prison” in them, don’t they?

 

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7 personal finance tips from ‘Ghostbusters.’

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th-1Saw the “Ghostbusters” reboot on Friday and laughed quite a bit, especially at the antics of Kate McKinnon. While she didn’t actually steal every scene in which she appeared, McKinnon certainly borrowed some of them without permission.

The woman is damned funny. Since we don’t have a television, I’ve never seen her work on “Saturday Night Live” or “The Big Gay Sketch Show.” I might go see the movie again just to watch her. (The others were great, too.)

As for the fanboy bro-haha about the reboot being a heretical sacrilege against all that’s good and holy about dude films, all I can say is “Grow up.” Movies get rebooted all the time. You either go see them or you refuse to go see them. What you don’t do is wail about how this has ruined your childhood.

Seriously. Some guys, and maybe some gals, actually say this. If the first 18 years of your life are rendered meaningless by a movie remake, I suggest you seek help. Or maybe some anti-hyperbole tablets.

In keeping with my theory that personal finance lessons are where you find them, I went to “Ghostbusters” in full money-geek mode and with a notebook. Here’s what I found.

 

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Heat wave, Anchorage-style.

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th-2It’s 77 degrees here and I’m melting, melting…

Which is a little embarrassing to admit. Although I grew up in a hot-and-humid area and also sweltered through the occasional 100-degree heat wave in Seattle* my blood has done got thin.

Like many other Alaskans, I perceive temps in the 60s as warm enough, thanks. When it his 70 I start fanning myself. Now that it’s closer to 80 than 70, I’m panting like a black dog in the noonday sun.

Right now I’m pet-sitting a black dog (Rottweiler/black Lab mix), a furry solar collector whose solution is simple: When he’s not in the house, he spends his time underneath the deck attached to the greenhouse DF built. 

I’m the wrong size – and the wrong flexibility factor – to follow him under there, so I cope by staying out of the direct sun and drinking lots of water and iced tea. It’s supposed to be in the mid- to high 70s all week.

 

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The unfriendly skies.

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th-1Dreading being seated next to or near a baby on your next flight? You should probably be just as concerned about the adult passengers. Recently I’ve read two accounts of teen-aged girls (one of them an unaccompanied minor) being molested by adult men at 35,000 feet.

As we used to write from the city desk, “Police said alcohol was a factor.” Then again, plenty of people drink on planes and don’t grope strangers. Liquor may break the chain and free the beast, but only if the beast was already there.

The family of one girl (just 13 years old!) is suing American Airlines. The other, aged 16, kept pushing the guy away until another passenger intervened.

The moral of the story: Save the stinkeye for creepy drunken dudes and give parents of small children the benefit of the doubt.

 

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Grizzly bears are moving through town.

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th-1Some observations about the town of Valdez, Alaska, where the 24th annual Last Frontier Theatre Conference is winding up:

Coming into town were greeted by one of those temporary electronic signs, the kind that road crews put up. However, it wasn’t advising us of “ROAD WORK NEXT FEW MILES” or “ABRUPT EDGE MOTORCYCLES USE EXTREME CAUTION,” however.

No, this warning included the phrase “GRIZZLY BEARS MOVING THROUGH TOWN.”

Sad to say, I have not seen ursus arctos horribilis myself. Kind of hoped to do so, from within a vehicle moving past said critter. But I did hear about someone whose yard was monopolized by a mama grizz and three cubs for several days.

Finally she called Fish and Game to beanbag ’em out of there. She was tired of not letting her own kids go outside to play, lest they become Scooby snacks for the charismatic megafauna next to the swing set.

 

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