Happy Birthdays!

Today is the birthday of one of my favorite chirps*… Joni Mitchell. The lovely Ms. Mitchell is (gasp!) 65 years old today. In celebration here are a couple of my very favorite Joni Mitchell tunes, beginning with “A Case of You” (which also features a very nice slide-show, with lotsa great vintage photos):

And… “Both Sides Now:”

No less an august institution than the Wall Street Journal was compelled to commemorate the occasion of Joni’s birthday. (Lengthy parenthetical aside: The credit goes to great good friend Lori, who tipped me to this article. Lori and I share a love of and for Joni... Ms. Mitchell was a bond between she and I in the way-back, and that bond remains. Joni got Lori and I through some pretty long and cold North Dakota nights all those many years ago and those nights are among my fondest memories.) So. Here are a few excerpts from that WSJ article (“A 65^th Birthday Tribute to Joni Mitchell”):

Joni Mitchell turns 65 years old on Friday. As a milestone, reaching that age doesn't mean what it once did, but any opportunity to celebrate Ms. Mitchell and her work is worth seizing. Gifted and fearless, she remains among the finest singer-songwriters of the rock era, a title that doesn't quite accommodate the breadth of music and the audacity of her career. As David Crosby told me when I called him last week, "In a hundred years, when they ask who was the greatest songwriter of the era, it's got to be her or Dylan. I think it's her. And she's a better musician than Bob."

Mr. Crosby produced Ms. Mitchell's first album, "Song to a Seagull" (Reprise), which was released in 1968. Though she had a democratic approach to music, enjoying Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Edith Piaf and the scat-singing trio Lambert Hendricks and Ross, among others, she developed her skills playing folk in coffeehouses in western Canada, Toronto, Detroit and New York's Greenwich Village. On "Song to a Seagull," she's presented as fully formed -- a thrilling folk singer and gifted songwriter.

"It was the quality of her songs," Mr. Crosby said when I asked him what he found appealing about young Ms. Mitchell. "And the singing, and the instrumental ability. She was beautiful and intriguing, but the songs were so good." Her early catalog was so strong that she chose to omit from her debut album three of her compositions that had already been recorded by a variety of other singers -- "Both Sides Now," "The Circle Game" and "Urge for Going."

I’ve been a fan since 1970, at least, and perhaps slightly longer than that. Ms. Mitchell provided the sound track for a good portion of my life and most certainly the soundtrack for some memorable love affairs. Some Joni songs still bring a tear to my eye when I hear them… the memories are that strong, that vivid, that lasting. Part of that effect is the person (or persons) with whom I associate the memories, but it’s Joni that invokes the feeling. I owe the woman a lot… a whole helluva lot.

Happy Birthday, Joni… and many happy returns.

* Joni’s self-description, as immortalized in the stage patter on “Miles of Aisles” (“… and me… the chirp”)

―:☺:―

Apropos of something… The First Mrs. Pennington also turns 65 today. It would be churlish of me to not mention this… even though TFMP has never read EIP, to my knowledge. Her boys do read, though, and I don’t want either to think poorly of me.

Happy Birthday, Ramona. And many happy returns to you, too.

The First Mrs. Pennington (circa 1969) in our very tiny apartment in Wakkanai, Japan. That’s SN2 in the high chair.

Fall

In honor of the first day of Fall…

 It won’t be long before people in the four-season part of the world will be seeing this sort of tableau.  Alas, such is NOT the case here on The High Plains of New Mexico.  In the northern part of the state, yes.  Here?  Absolutely not.

―:☺:―

SN3 got his first USAF ID card this past week and The Second Mrs. Pennington was good enough to send along a scan:

She also included the following information…

He wears a men's size 10-1/2 in tennis shoes and a men's 10 in hiking boots.  I kid you not.  He weighs about 130 and I think must be about 5'2" now.

To which I replied, in part:  “Holy Shit!  …  Still: amazing.  It's not beyond the pale to think he could kick my ass if he had a mind to do so.”

I don’t think this would be feasible any longer.  Maybe not even possible!

Taken in April of 1997.  I'm just in from work, which explains the get-up.

―:☺:―

My friend Lori out in the Bay Area Soviet Socialist Republic sends along the following link:  Match-O-Matic.  It’s a short (13 question) quiz that asks you to match your beliefs with a pair of blind statements made by either McCain or Obama.  I took it and… no surprises.  I agreed with the McCain statements 9 out of 13 times.  I’d publish a graphic of my results but the results show the questions in the order they’re given, ergo: one could cheat, if one had a mind to do so.  Not saying you would, Gentle Reader… only that the possibility exists.

Nostalgia

Today is the Woodward Dream Cruise… and Boy! am I ever nostalgic about this event. The Second Mrs. Pennington, my buddy Greg, and I participated in the first-ever Dream Cruise back in 1995… in this car:

And dang but we had us some fun! And one not-so-fun moment, too, when the car inexplicably died… just quit running… and wouldn’t re-start. Greg, TSMP and I pushed that two-ton monster about six blocks to Greg’s house where he diagnosed the problem, fixed it, and we jumped back into the fray. It’s GOOD to have a GM power train engineer as a friend, and even better to have him hanging around in the back seat when your vintage auto-machine decides to go belly up on ya. But I digress.

I can think of a lot of places in the world I’d like to be at any given point in time. But today? There’s NOwhere I’d rather be than on Woodward… laughing, joking, having a beer or two, and ogling all the fantastic cars that turn out for Da Cruise. There are a lot of good links, with lotsa pics of stunning machinery, and here are but a few you might wanna look at… assuming you’re a gear-head.

Jalopnik
FERNDALE: Woodward Dream Cruise coverage -- 8/16/08
VIDEO: Morning at the Dream Cruise -- 8/16/08
Big Boy dishes out old-fashioned favorites -- 8/16/08
All you need to know to navigate the Cruise -- 8/16/08
MARK PHELAN: Classic cars delight fans -- 8/16/08
Photo gallery: GM Parade of Cars in Ferndale -- 8/16/08
Photo gallery: Dream Cruise 2008 - Pontiac -- 8/16/08
GM parade celebrates a 100-year history -- 8/16/08
PONTIAC: Woodward Dream Cruise coverage -- 8/16/08
Other cruise happenings -- 8/16/08

That ought to hold ya for a while.

(Photo: My old Cadillac, in my old driveway, in old Ferndale, Michigan. The photo says 1992, but I think it was more like 1995...as we did The Cruise shortly after I acquired the Caddy.)

Update: I just had to add this lil blurb from the Mark Phelan column, linked above (coz not everyone chases every link, ya know):

'Run what you brung” is the street-racer’s motto, but run what you love will be the rule as Woodward Avenue turns into the world’s largest car show today.
The Woodward Dream Cruise may also be the world’s most egalitarian, democratic event, uniting car lovers of all ages, incomes and races in a parade of more than 30,000 vehicles.
From teenager with their first cars to retirees driving the cars they longed for when they were young, the Woodward Dream Cruise has become a spectacle that unites people from throughout metro Detroit and draws visitors from across the country and around the world to see the Motor City at its best.
[...]
There's no telling what you may see, though, from Ford engineers taking the new 2010 Mustang out for a spin to the 1932 Buick sedan that 67-year-old Ken Materia of Flint souped up with a high-output Chevrolet small block V8.

Dang. I SO wanna be there...

More of the Same

David Brooks has an interesting theory about why Obama isn’t kicking McCain’s ass from here until next Sunday in the polls.

When we’re judging candidates (or friends), we don’t just judge the individuals but the milieus that produced them. We judge them by the connections that exist beyond choice and the ground where they will go home to be laid to rest. Andrew Jackson was a backwoodsman. John Kennedy had his clan. Ronald Reagan was forever associated with the small-town virtues of Dixon and Jimmy Carter with Plains.

It is hard to plant Obama. Both he and his opponent have written coming-of-age tales about their fathers, but they are different in important ways. McCain’s “Faith of My Fathers” is a story of a prodigal son. It is about an immature boy who suffers and discovers his place in the long line of warriors that produced him. Obama’s “Dreams From My Father” is a journey forward, about a man who took the disparate parts of his past and constructed an identity of his own.

While it may be “hard to plant” Obama, it ain’t hard to look at his colleagues, his campaign advisors, his past associations/influences, and draw suitable conclusions about who the man is and how he’d govern, if elected. Ah, but there’s the rub… most people, if one believes our illustrious media… simply don’t do their homework. Mention Alinsky and/or Ayers to your “average” Obama supporter (which eliminates the Firedog Lake and dKos crowds) and you might get a blank look, followed by a “hunh?” If you’re lucky. OTOH, there are twits like this:

What Brooks fails to understand in his oversimplified Freudian assessment of Obama's psyche is something truly monumental, heretofore not seen in American politics: the very likelihood that Sen. Barack Obama will make history as the first black president of The United States of America. Given that black men were still being lynched and beaten just 45 or so years ago simply for being black, this accomplishment not only is historic and electric, but it carries with it an unfathomable amount of pressure and stress. Yes, Barack Obama is an agent of change. He is a light, a force, a movement.

Yep. Screw credentials, never mind the thin resume, and let’s just not talk about silly, wrong-headed re-distributive economic policies. What we really need is an agent of change, a light, a force…a movement. Haven’t we heard this sort of krep before? Why, yes… yes, I believe we have. And it was just as dumb and ignorant-sounding then as it is now.

Interesting times.

―:☺:―

And then there’s yet another reason I’ll vote for McCain:

“As you may know,” he told the tens of thousands gathered at the 68th annual Sturgis Rally at Buffalo Chip campground, “not long ago, a couple of hundred thousand Berliners made a lot of noise for my opponent. I’ll take the roar of fifty thousand Harleys any day.”

Bikers in the crowd, who had arrived from around the country to partake in the massive outdoor party, revved their engines numerous times in support of the presumptive GOP nominee. McCain said it was music to his ears.

“This is my first time here,” he said, “but I recognize that sound. It’s the sound of freedom.”

[…]

If there were any Obama supporters to be found in the vast Buffalo Chip campground, they kept quiet.

Indeed, McCain felt so comfortable at the event that he even volunteered his wife for the rally’s traditional beauty pageant, an infamously debauched event that’s been known to feature topless women.

“I encouraged Cindy to compete,” McCain said to cheers. “I told her with a little luck she could be the only woman ever to serve as first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip.”

John McCain: The Biker’s Candidate! I can be just as superficial… or more so… as the next guy, ya know.

(Photo credit: Peter Hamby/CNN)

―:☺:―

Today’s Pics: When times are slow (read as: no new photos at hand) I always resort to baby pictures… which are just as good as cat or puppy pics. Better, even. Here are three such (they're not re-runs, either), and doubtless you have several shots exactly like these… assuming you’re a parent. And if you’re not a parent? Well, suck it up. I’ll have more scenery, sunsets, mo-sickle pics, and/or what-not as soon as it cools down a bit and my motivation returns.

Perinton, NY. April, 1998.

Thin

I want some of this:

Scientists have discovered what could be the ultimate workout for couch potatoes: exercise in a pill.

In experiments on mice that did no exercise, the chemical compound, known as AICAR, allowed them to run 44% farther on a treadmill than those that did not receive the drug.

The drug appeared to change the physical composition of muscle, essentially transforming the tissue from sugar-burning fast-twitch fibers to fat-burning slow-twitch ones, the same change that occurs in distance runners and cyclists through training, according to research released Thursday.

"You're getting the benefits of exercise without having to do any work," said David Mangelsdorf, a pharmacologist at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, who was not connected with the research.

On second thought… maybe not:

With more research, scientists said, the drug's fat-burning properties could also help reduce weight, ward off diabetes, prevent heart disease and restore the fitness of bedridden patients.

The last thing I need to do is lose weight… the very last thing. That one lil drawback aside, the development does look remarkable. I saw an interview with the lead scientist on this project on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer this past Friday evening and was impressed (I also looked for a transcript to quote, but there isn’t one). There were a couple of items in the News Hour interview that didn’t make the LA Times article, most specifically the scientist’s opinion the drug should be made available to lazy people. The man’s rationale is that “exercise in a pill” would be good preventive medicine, even for lazy folks. Or…words to the effect of “anything that can reduce the nation’s general health crisis (ed: think obesity)” shouldn’t be ignored or withheld from anyone…couch potatoes included.

I’m down with that.

―:☺:―

Speaking of obesity, exercise, being skinny, and such… I guess I’ll put any political aspirations I may have had on ice:

"Listen, I'm skinny but I'm tough," Sen. Obama said.

But in a nation in which 66% of the voting-age population is overweight and 32% is obese, could Sen. Obama's skinniness be a liability? Despite his visits to waffle houses, ice-cream parlors and greasy-spoon diners around the country, his slim physique just might have some Americans wondering whether he is truly like them.

[…]

"He's too new ... and he needs to put some meat on his bones," says Diana Koenig, 42, a housewife in Corpus Christi, Texas, who says she voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.

"I won't vote for any beanpole guy," another Clinton supporter wrote last week on a Yahoo politics message board.

The last overweight president to be elected was 335-pound William Howard Taft in 1908. As for tall and lanky presidents, "you might have to go back to Abraham Lincoln" in 1860, says presidential historian Stephen Hess. "Most presidents were sort of in the middle."

Well, OK. It looks like fat people won’t vote for skinny guys, so there goes my dream of being P-Ville’s Animal Control Czar. But… but… that’s discrimination! We can’t have that! I’m a victim! I PROTEST! I’m gonna start a MOVEMENT! “Thin is IN!” “Don’t Be A Ninny! C’mon…Get SKINNY!”

Or maybe I’ll just keep trying to gain weight. There are too many skeletons (heh) in my closet to run for anything, anyway.

―:☺:―

Today’s Pic: Speaking of couch potatoes… Here’s SN3 and I on the couch. Perinton, NY. June, 1998.

Apropos of Nothing…

Here's George Thorogood, who I happened to hear on Pandora Radio just now… performing the studio version of this song.

The first time I saw George was in a dance hall in London some time between 1980 and 1983… no seats, just a big ol’ empty floor that held maybe 1,000 people. The venue was packed that night, and The Second Mrs. Pennington and I boogied our asses off, almost literally. Both TSMP and I were pretty much in our prime, she being in her mid-20s and me just slightly older (heh). But Thorogood wore us out and that’s no exaggeration. He played for at least two hours and it’s simply pure amazement how that guy sustained the manic energy-level in his show. TSMP and I had to go the bar mid-way through the first set, buy a couple of pints, and find a wall to sit down against just to get our breath back. And then it was back to the boogie…

Not many people do it better than George. Well, back in the day, anyway. We all get older.

Update 5/14/2008 1155 hrs: See the comments, which explains this vid...

The Clever and The Cute... In Exactly That Order

Dunno if you’ve seen this Heineken ad…but here’s your chance:

Good, innit? The ad, I mean. I’ll drink Heineken in a pinch, but I’ve never sampled their light beer. I’m philosophically opposed to the concept of “lite,” be it food, soft drinks, or what-have-you… but MOST especially when it comes to beer. The only decent acceptable light beer I’ve ever drank was Labatt Blue Light. And I didn’t make it a habit. But The Second Mrs. Pennington did…note the empties stacked in the corner of our garage, back in the day.

Now I’m NOT saying TSMP had an issue with alcohol or anything — far from it. She’s just a good ol’ gal who enjoys her beer. My kinda woman, in other words. But you knew that, Gentle Reader.

―:☺:―

Today’s Pic: Great grand-baby Taurean held at arm’s length by Mom Amanda, whom I’m sure was trying unsuccessfully to get out of the picture. The end result is you get all of Taurean and half of Amanda. More’s the pity, eh? I may be biased as all get-out, but I DO believe Amanda is as beautiful as any young woman I’ve ever seen. The girl has a killer smile!

And here you thought TSMP and SN3 was Today’s Pic… dint ya? Fooled ya.

Da Blooze & Stuff

Yesterday was a pretty good day, unlike other days this past week… or perhaps longer. I’ve alluded to the fact I’ve been…um… “out of sorts” of late. It’s actually been worse than that, but that’s beside the point. Let’s get back to yesterday.

I awoke around 1000 hrs, put the coffee on, lit off the teevee and switched it to NBC… to catch the final game of the Red Wings’ season, which was televised nationally (lucky me!). I was anticipating a bit of a pre-game show but this being Texas (well, not really but my NBC feed is out of Amarillo), what I got was Today’s Evangelical Sermon For Shut-Ins. Instant and immediate zzz’s ensued, until I was awakened by the beep-beep-beep of the coffee pot signifying all was right with the world. So we roused ourselves yet again, made our way into the kitchen, poured that first cup and puttered about a bit before the game began.

About a minute after the puck dropped, my phone rang… SN1 on the line… and we proceeded to watch the game together but separately as is our custom. SN1 demonstrated what it means to be a true hockey fan, as he was out until 0400 hrs Sunday morning yet still roused himself after only six hours sleep just to watch the game. You may remember, Gentle Reader, I’ve mentioned SN1 is TDY to Nellis AFB in Beautiful Lost Wages, NV attending yet another boondoggle “career broadening” activity, this most recent one being an advanced service school. He and his class had some sort of function last evening and Buck served as the gaggle’s Designated Driver. So…no hangover involved, just a lack of sleep. But true hockey fans rise above this sort of thing… and so he did. We traded off phone calls as the game progressed, mostly when the Wings scored or Hasek made a spectacular save…things like that.

The game wasn’t a disappointment. The Wings dispatched Chicago easily… winning by a score of 4-1. Hasek came close to his sixth shutout of the year but it wasn’t to be, as Chicago scored on the power play with a little less than three minutes left in the game. Overall, the Wings looked really good and I’m taking this as an omen of future success. The playoffs begin next Saturday, and it looks like Buck and I might get to watch the first game together… in meat space, rather than on the phone. He graduates from his school at the end of next week and will swing through P-Ville on his way back to South Carolina.

That’s a great good thing, ya know. Beer will flow with wild abandon and there will be LOTS of yelling, cheering, and the odd moan or two. Kewl. It don’t get much better than that (for a geezer).

Deetroit Free Press Photo: Nick Lidstrom and the President’s Trophy, at a presentation before yesterday’s game. Nick never touched the trophy. The only hardware you actually TOUCH at play-off time is The Cup itself, once you’ve won it. It’s one of the quainter superstitions in the NHL.

―:☺:―

So. The wind diminished enough yesterday to allow me to put my awning down, open up the windows, and take in the gentle Spring air minus the gale force winds. We only got up to 70 degrees, which is dead-solid-perfect in my Big Book of Weather. Just the kind of day that made sitting out side with a couple of hefeweizens and a good cigar most enjoyable. (A critical beer review here. Beer snobs might wanna bookmark that link; good stuff be there.) A few more days like yesterday would do a whole lot towards restoring my mental health. Speaking of which…

My step-mother (“Mom,” hereafter) called on my birthday lo these two weeks or so ago. Mom is only about ten years older than I, so we relate to each other more as peers than in a traditional mother-son sort of way. Talk flows easily between us, punches certainly aren’t pulled, there are no agendas or games. The conversation turned almost immediately in this sort of direction (and it’s most certainly not verbatim, either):

Mom: So. How ARE you, anyway?

Me: I’m about a six on a scale of ten.

Mom: Really. Why is that? Birthday thing? Introspection about aging?

Me: That’s part of it. Growing old ain’t for sissies. One makes adjustments, one realizes there are “certain things” you can’t do as well as you used to, if at all. Your reflexes slow, your appearance changes, yadda, yadda. You adjust. But that’s only part of the issue.

Mom: Well…what else?

Me: I find myself missing (The Second Mrs. Pennington) a lot these days. I know that’s neither rational nor normal, given the fact it’s been nearly ten years now.

Mom: I understand. It’s been 17 years since your Dad died and I’m still not over it. I doubt I ever will get over it. Some wounds just don’t heal.

Me: Wow. Thanks for that. I’ve found friends and even family have a very limited tolerance for wounds that don’t heal; the expectation is you should just “get over it” and get on with life. After a bit you just stop talking about it. But (The Second Mrs. Pennington) was in my life for so long, and so deep…

Mom: What you and (The Second Mrs. Pennington) had was very special, Buck. And you have to realize some people never have what you two had, even for a moment. I understand completely.

Me: Thanks.

Ah… that’s what Moms are all about, innit? Even we geezers need a shoulder once in a while. Or a therapist, if you believe in that sort of thing…which I both do and don’t. As in I “do” believe where other folks are concerned and “don’t” when it comes to me, based upon past experience. “Therapy” in my situation would be both a waste of time and money... two commodities in relatively short supply in these parts.

Lest this pity-party get completely out of hand, let me reassure you I’ve just got Da Blooze. It ain’t nuthin’ serious. Sitting outside yesterday with a cigar and a few beers got ‘em on the run, for the moment. It also helps (me, anyway) to “count your blessings” when you hit the lower points in life. I went through that exercise yesterday, too. I have a lot to be thankful for… relatively good health, two wonderful and successful adult children, beautiful grandchildren, financial security, and a life-well-led, with tons of great memories.

That should be enough, no? But sometimes it’s not. Who knew this damned torch would burn so brightly, for so long?

Not me.

―:☺:―

Today’s Pic: Mom and Dad, sometime in 1990…about a year before Dad died. Taken in Newport Beach, CA.

Attitude

The New York Times had an interesting article yesterday: “A Guide to the French. Handle With Care.” It doesn’t look like a lot has changed since the last time I was in La Belle France. But here’s the bit that caught my fancy, Gentle Reader:

7: Feeling Sexy Is a State of Mind, or: Buy Good Lingerie

In her close-fitting sweaters and pants and tailored leather jackets, Eliane Victor is both stylish and alluring. The retired author and journalist is in her late 80s.

For French women, being sexy has nothing to do with age and everything to do with attitude. Arielle Dombasle, the actress and cabaret singer married to the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, dared to expose her breasts on the cover of Paris Match and took off her clothes in a song-and-dance revue at Crazy Horse in Paris. Some people feel she tries too hard. But give the lady some credit. She’s turning 50 and has a Barbie-doll body.

A 600-page sociological study of sexuality in France released this month concluded that 9 out of 10 women over 50 are sexually active. The sexiest French women seem naturally skilled in the art of moving, smiling and flirting.

Chic French women prefer to peel and polish rather than paint their faces. Too much makeup, they say, makes a woman seem older, or worse, “vulgaire.” “The most beautiful makeup for a woman is passion,” Yves Saint Laurent once said. “But cosmetics are easier to buy.”

French women spend close to 20 percent of their clothing budgets on lingerie. But you also have to know how to wear it. When the Galeries Lafayette department store inaugurated its 28,000-square-foot lingerie shop in 2003, it offered free half-hour lessons by professional striptease artists.

The illustration above is the Paris Match cover of Ms. Arielle Dombasle that's referenced in the excerpt. Ms. Dombasle might be trying too hard… or not. Still and even: “Good on Her,” sez I. At least she’s out there (pun intended), flaunting those perky, silicone-free mammary glands. It’s hard, if not impossible, for me to imagine any 50-year old American woman posing topless on the cover of a mass-circulation American weekly… even the National Enquirer. At any rate, there’s not one single thing in the excerpt above I disagree with, and a lot I admire…especially Monsieur Saint Laurent’s take on cosmetics.

French women have always been admired and, yes… lusted after… throughout my lifetime. You may count me among their admirers, but more for attitude and style than anything else. C'est si bon!

As for the rest of the article? Interesting… on the whole… but not as much as the bits I quoted. YMMV, Gentle Reader.

―:☺:―

In The Guardian (UK): “Europe’s Top Ten Motorbiking Roads:” The lede:

What makes a good biking road? Well, there's a saying among motorcyclists that driving a car is like watching a movie, whereas riding a motorbike is like being in one. And I guess it can all distil down to that: open to the elements and without a metal box around you, the feeling of vulnerability and danger merely serving to heighten the senses, you really do feel part of the world around you. A great biking road should have twists and turns so you can get your knee down and your heart rate up, certainly. If it's got a smooth surface and has good visibility, all the better. Add in an epic landscape and a real sense of adventure and you've got biking nirvana.

I’ve not ridden any of the ten roads listed, but Dayum! … I sure want to. Actually, I’m only writing about this article because of the eerie similarity of the above paragraph to something I wrote nearly eight years ago. Great minds, and all that…

―:☺:―

Today’s Pics: My... how quickly our moods change, no? Was it something I said? I have no idea what the lady was pissed about, but one can plainly see she most certainly was upset with me. The two pics were taken no more than five minutes apart, IIRC. As ever, click for larger.

The Second Mrs. Pennington and I at a squadron picnic sometime during the 1980 – 1983 timeframe, 2119^th Communications Squadron, RAF Uxbridge, UK.

Puppies

Apropos of nothing…except for the fact that there’s waaay too many frickin’ cat pictures on these here inter-tubes…here are a few pics of my late, lamented puppies. Late is an understatement: the last of these old ladies left this life back in 1996, well over ten years ago. I’ve been dog-less ever since, mostly because having a dog is semi-incompatible with my lifestyle. Yes, people who live in RVs own dogs. I’m more than aware of the fact. But a dog is a big commitment, and I tend to be commitment-averse these days. Let’s leave it at that… and get on with the biographies.

First…FiFi La Bonne, otherwise known as The World’s Ugliest Dog. She was a mixed-breed terrier and was so damned ugly she was cute. She was also a hunter extraordinaire, and was one of the few dogs I’ve ever seen who could run down a squirrel and kill it. Which she did about two or three times a year when I lived in Michigan, always making sure to bring The Second Mrs. Pennington and I some sort of trophy from the kill. We really appreciated that, ya know. She was also quite adept at assassinating gophers and moles. The gopher-hunting wasn’t nearly as popular with me, as she tended to dig huge holes in my yard in pursuit of her underground quarries. When I say “huge,” I mean bomb-shelter huge. Large enough for me to drive my riding lawn mower into one of the holes and flip the mower over on its side. That huge.

I wish the above photo of FiFi in the snow was better… she had the strangest habit of burrowing in deep snow, and it was a hoot to watch. She’s pictured after coming up from one such snow-burrowing exercise. FiFi came to live with TSMP and I while we were in Oklahoma (around 1984, or so) and lived with us until 1996, when TSMP put her down due to complications associated with old age.

And then there’s Bōgus Dōgus, who was a Lab/Border Collie cross. TSMP and I got Dogus shortly after we arrived in England in 1980, and she was with us for 16 years. She was my favorite, even though she was TSMP’s dog first and foremost. That dog was crazy… in that she had this “thing” for food. The “thing” being she’d eat anything that wouldn’t eat her first. Anything. Everything. Including, on at least two occasions, an entire loaf of bread…snatched off the table once and out of a bag of groceries another time, and consumed within 45 seconds. The first time she wolfed down a loaf of bread I thought she was gonna explode from the resulting bloat and gas. I had to put her outside until the gas went away, for what should be obvious reasons. But not until such time as she laid at my feet… moaning, farting, and generally making life uncomfortable for everyone within ten feet of her.

This is also the dog who tried to commit suicide by leaping off a bridge in Wales. If we hadn’t had her on a leash she would have died in the fall to the river and it was a near-run thing, anyway. Have you ever tried to pull a strangling dog over a bridge railing? It’s not easy, Gentle Reader. As to why she jumped… I have NO earthly idea. I said she was crazy.

Lastly we have Fritzi Ritz, a German Shepard cross. Crossed with what breed is unknown, but a cross she was…and she was small for a Shepard. Fritzi had all the good traits of a Shepard… intelligence, loyalty, and beauty. She also suffered from hip dysplasia, which eventually got so bad we had to put her down. Fritzi was the alpha female, as might be imagined, and kept the other two dogs in line. The first pic was taken in Oklahoma, the second in Ferndale, MI.

Each dog was a mutt; I’ve never owned a pure-bred dog. Further, two of the three were “rescued” dogs. TSMP was active in a dog rescue organization when we lived in Oklahoma; FiFi and Fritzi arrived in our household via that organization. All three dogs slept in the bed with TSMP and me, and they each had their places…never varying position from night to night. You might think things would get a bit crowded, but it really wasn’t. They were very discreet Old Ladies, too, always being considerate enough to give us our space when it was time for TSMP and me to play. It's a great good thing dogs don't talk. Coz those dogs could have told some stories, Gentle Reader.

Old and Older Wheels

When all else fails I turn to cars…I’m speaking of a lack of motivation and/or nothing of note elsewhere. And so it is today… Here’s a couple of rides from my past, one of which is on my “All-Time Favorite Cars” list (maybe even THE All-Time fave, but most certainly in the Top Three) and the other was something I thought would be fun but turned out to be a money-sink. First the Money Sink…

This is a 1954 Cadillac Sedan De Ville, your garden variety doctor’s car of the mid-50s. A four-door sedan with a big (for its time) 331 cubic inch V-8 that was surprisingly powerful, even by 1992 standards. Surprising to a lot of Honda and Toyota owners, anyway, who had the temerity to challenge me at various stop lights in the metropolitan Deetroit area. That two-ton blue whale could charge off the line quite impressively for something as big and old as she was…

My buddy Greg Prior, a power train engineer with General Motors, had (and still has) a 1955 Eldorado two-door coupe at the time, a beautiful car by anyone’s standards and one that I quite admired. I was very vocal in my admiration of that car…even though it was a “work-in-progress” restoration… and one Saturday morning Greg calls me up and sez something to the effect of “Hey! I found a great looking Caddy sedan that’s in pretty good shape down in Inkster (or somewhere like Inkster, anyway). You should check it out!” We talked a lil bit more, and Greg and The Second Mrs. Pennington talked a while, and then TSMP and I loaded ourselves up and headed down to Inkster. Long story short… I took my checkbook with me when we went to look at the car and I drove the Caddy home that afternoon. Thus began a year-long adventure in old car restoration.

I became intimate with Hemmings Motor News. Greg introduced me to several Big Dogs in the Detroit Cadillac restoration community, including a guy who ultimately did a lot of the mechanical work on the car. The Brown Truck of Happiness became a regular sight in our neighborhood. Most of my spare change was poured into that car…and it was about three or four months before she was truly road-worthy and safe, with reliable brakes and hoses that wouldn’t open up and spew coolant all over the street, among other things. Greg, TSMP, and I had one truly embarrassing moment before the Caddy was completely road-worthy… when the Caddy stopped dead…right in the middle of Woodward Avenue somewhere in Birmingham during the First Annual Woodward Dream Cruise. The three of us wound up pushing the car several blocks to Greg’s house, which (thankfully) wasn’t all that far away when she quit. And we got her running again…

TSMP christened the car “The Smokin’, Drinkin’, Partyin’ Car” and she most certainly was that. The best story about that car can only be told in “wink-wink, nudge-nudge” terms and involved TSMP and I splitting the upholstery in the Caddy’s back seat. Or, to put it another way…we were exuberant and the upholstery was old. In our garage. On a Saturday afternoon. Wink-wink, nudge-nudge.

But. I lost interest in the project after about a year, sad to say. There were so many things on my “to-do” list for that car…and most of ‘em involved significant sums of money, money TSMP had other uses for… that it became overwhelming. The cost/benefit equation got seriously out of balance, in other words. And then the 1995/96 Impala SS hit the market and I fell in motor-lust. The Caddie’s fate was sealed. I sold her and the family ride (a SAAB 9000) off to buy my ‘96 Impala. I don’t regret that decision at all. The Impala was just as much fun…if not more so… and not near as much work. But I do look back on that ol’ Caddy fondly. She was a lot of fun, even while she was parked in our garage.

Which brings us to Vehicle Number Two… which is a 1992 Vette. 1992 was the first year for the now-venerable LT1 small-block V-8, a 350 cu. in. power plant that put out 300 horsepower, which was simply wonderful, in and of itself. At the time. There are more than a few cars out there at the moment that would clean this car’s clock… no debate, no questions asked… and more than a few of ‘em are sedans, albeit rather pricey sedans, mostly of German origins. But in its day…WOW!

The Vette was TSMP’s daily driver in the Michigan Spring, summer, and Fall and was garaged during the Deetroit winters, at which time TSMP took over the SAAB and I drove the “other Vette,” an 80-something Chevy Chevette, which I will not talk about here, coz it was a nasty little car. The Chevette was entirely functional, in that it got me to my place of business and back everyday without fail, and asked for little more than gas. But I was oh-so-glad to see Spring roll around, which meant I got the SAAB back, and got to drive the other, other Vette occasionally. Let’s just leave it at that.

Corvettes used to be notorious for bad build quality and for being just a lil bit unreliable. Such was NOT the case with this car, Gentle Reader. The car was tight from Day One until the day I sold her, with only “normal” squeaks and rattles that develop in all cars, regardless of origin. As for reliability… I owned that Vette for seven years and replaced but a single item during that time…the air conditioner’s condenser. Other than that, nada. Zip. She still had the original spark plugs in her when she left my possession. I might still own that car today, had I not chosen a mobile life style.

There was a lot to like about that car. She was beautiful, fast, and just a little bit difficult to get in and out of. You might ask why I consider the difficulty of egress/ingress to be a good thing, and that’s a fair point. But…try and visualize, if you will, a good looking blonde in a skirt or a dress getting into…or out of… that car. Get the picture? That was a fine sight… Oh, My. Yes, it was.

A question I’m frequently asked is “How fast did it go?” I can’t answer that in absolute terms, but I know the car will do 135 mph…which is all the faster I ever took it. Vettes of that generation were supposedly good for 150 mph, and I have no reason to doubt it. I might have gotten her up near there had TSMP ceased beating on my head and shoulders when we hit 135. Distracting, that, at those sorts of speeds. Ironic, too, since TSMP drove the living HELL out of that car. It got to a point where I’d refuse to ride with her if she was gonna put her foot in it…which she did. A LOT. And she’d giggle like a mad-woman all the while, too. I rather enjoyed the giggling; but her driving? Not so much.

As always, click the pics for the larger versions. The Caddy pics were taken in our driveway in Ferndale, MI, and in Bloomfield Hills. The Vette pictures were taken midway between Deetroit and Harbor Beach, MI... on Lake Huron, in early Spring of 1992.

And thank you, Blogger. Even if I did have to load each picture separately, one at a time.

Late For the Sky

(with apologies to Jackson Browne)

―:☺:―

A most persuasive argument against The Obamanon:

Europe’s media and left-wing intelligentsia see Barack Obama as the most appealing candidate for the U.S. presidency. He exemplifies what the French leftist magazine Le Nouvel Observateur calls “the America we like.” Most Europeans deny that they’re anti-American; they argue instead that there are two Americas—the good and the bad. Michael Moore is a good American, honored with the Cannes film festival’s highest prize in 2006 for his anti-Bush fantasy documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. Other good Americans include Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Noam Chomsky, Barbra Streisand, and Philip Roth. Charlton Heston and Billy Graham are bad—as bad as McDonald’s—and so, of course, are President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Let us understand why, from the European perspective, Obama is good.

Well, now. I’d say the lede graf is more than enough reason… on its own… not to vote for young Barack, wouldn’t you, Gentle Reader? But wait!… as that obnoxious Billy Mays says screams while flogging Oxy-moron or whatever it is… there’s more! And it won’t cost you $19.95, either. “Europe ♥ Obama; For continental elites, the candidate exemplifies ‘the good American.’” Yours, free, just for the reading and but one click away.

―:☺:―

And speaking of Billy Mays… as I just did… that guy sells a lot of stuff. And cleans up doing it, too.

―:☺:―

Why does every useless (or nearly so) thing “as seen on TV” sell for $19.95?

―:☺:―

Interesting, this:

That’s a good political ad, although I did raise my eyebrow just a bit when I saw the implicit comparisons made to Churchill and T. Roosevelt. I think Senator McCain has a ways to go before he can make those sorts of comparisons, in all honesty. And that’s considering his POW story, which is genuinely heroic but not unlike those of Bud Day or Lance Sijan, to name only two. There are many more. Still and even, the comparisons work better with McCain than they would with the other two (Democrat) candidates. In their cases I wouldn’t have raised my eyebrow… I’d have laughed.

―:☺:―

Today’s Pic: Daisies. And someone lurks therein.

North Bend, Oregon. 1979.

What Passes for My Foodie Post

There’s a bit of a food meme going on over at the Southwest Oklahoma Blogging Coalition… Jay started it with a post about his favorite restaurants, and Lou piled on. I dropped comments in both places about how it would be well nigh impossible for me to name my favorite restaurants… due mainly to the fact that I’ve been a transient my entire life. After a while all those wonderful restaurants just seem to run together, memory fades, and few (none, actually) notes were taken. I suppose I could have saved all those expense reports from my business travels after the Air Force, but that would only account for perhaps 25% of my lifetime eating-out experiences. And that’s assuming I would have been anal enough to actually save those things. Ha. My record-retention policy is basically “toss it” if something/anything doesn’t meet IRS record retention requirements. And toss-‘em I did…

That said, I did remember The Second Mrs. Pennington saved a few odds and ends from our 1991 trip to Beijing and Tokyo (more about which, here, conveniently labeled for your reading pleasure. But no photos as yet.), which included some memorable restaurants and great good times with three of The Second Mrs. Pennington’s host families from her Rotary Exchange student days. One such event was Christmas Dinner at a wonderful Japanese restaurant that specialized in European cuisine (French and Italian, predominately). I could have sworn TSMP saved the menu from that night, but I can’t find it. The food was outstanding, as I recall, but the company was the best part. Here are a couple of shots from that night… TSMP’s host father is the one in the light suit with the blue tie, and that’s his wife to his left, and his business partner and wife to his right. The blond-of-many-hair-do’s at the end of the table is another Rotary Exchange student who was staying with TSMP’s host family. She was quite taken with herself, and for moderately good reason, too. She is most definitely a “looker,” but she had yet to learn that looks aren’t everything…

The third picture in this series (TSMP and I) was taken towards the end of the evening and you might be able to tell I was feeling little or no pain, Gentle Reader. This is the result of LOTS of wine with our meal, and lots of beer before and after. A great good time was had by ALL… not the least YrHmblScrb. Note that TSMP doesn’t appear the worse for wear… she had an image to uphold.

These next two pics were taken at a small restaurant near Mount Fuji, in some name-unrecalled small town...which is better described as a village. That’s TSMP and her host father at our table, where we cooked our shabu-shabu. The restaurant we ate in was supposedly famous throughout Japan for both it’s ambience and the quality of the food…which the Japanese can be fanatics about. If you chased the link, you’ll note shabu-shabu is a traditional Japanese winter dish, and it was most certainly winter outside…as you can see from the way we’re dressed. While the day might have been cold, the company certainly wasn’t…and the food was delicious!

The next picture is TSMP and I in a Tokyo sushi bar. We were living in Deetroit at the time, and while Detroit has some very good sushi restaurants, there ain’t nothin’ like the real thing. TSMP and I indulged our passion for sushi at numerable sushi bars during our brief stop-over in Tokyo on the way home. This is but one…

The final three pics illustrate that airline food wasn’t all that bad, once upon a time. This is the menu one received in Northwest Airlines business class back in December of 1991. And the food tasted every bit as good as it reads on the menu. I haven’t flown biz-class in quite some time, but I’d hazard a guess that corners have been cut there, as well as in cattle-car class.

But the best thing about traveling in Biz-Class, back in the day? Free drinks. Up to the point they cut you off, that is. While I never had that particular experience, being the mellow sort of drunk I am, suffice to say I could have been poured off the plane when we reached our destination.

As always...click the pics for the larger versions.

An Interesting Night...

So… it was all politics, all the time here at El Casa Móvil De Pennington yesterday. I began watching the coverage yesterday afternoon sometime around 1430 hours and continued watching until well into the night… to the point of falling asleep during Obama’s “concession” speech (The Deity only knows what time that was…), waking up again at some indeterminate point in time to see that Hillary had won Texas (in addition to Ohio), and listening to all the analysis (off and on) until the wee small hours, when I fell asleep yet again… this time for good.

I also watched Huckabee’s concession speech, and McCain’s “we won…we’re the nominee!” speech, as well. I found all of it, combined, to be the most interesting night in this interminable campaign season so far. And my hat is off to Democrat Bob Beckel, who is a Fox News Channel political analyst on the Democrat side. That Ol’ Boy has a wicked sense of humor, in addition to being very astute and well grounded when it comes to politics on his side of the wire. Mr. Beckel really gave it to Fred Barnes… in a very humorous yet scathing way… Barnes can be and often is one of the biggest wind-bags on the political right. And Yes, Virginia, there IS such a thing as “Hillary Derangement Syndrome.” Barnes is living proof of that, if not the Poster Child for same.

Last night’s coverage was very, very good…at least on Fox News. I even found that ridiculous Susan Estritch person to be entertaining, especially when she delivered her “Republicans’ wet-dream” joke about a continuing, ugly-leading-to-uglier Democrat campaign late last night. Her remark occurred well and truly after prime-time, and FNC host Bill Hemmer so noted, adding that “I guess that’s OK…” in reference to Estrich’s off-color remark. It made me laugh right out loud, it did. I occasionally switched over to CNN to see what was happening there, but didn’t stay long…mainly because I detest that frickin’ Blitzer guy. I wasn’t on CNN long enough to comment on the quality of their analysis. It might have been good, for all I know. But I kinda doubt it: Blitzer was in charge. At least I missed Blitzer’s side-kick, the supremely annoying Jack Cafferty. If he was even there…and I don’t know that he was. That’s a good thing, Gentle Reader.

So. It looks like the Democrats will continue to beat each other up for at least another seven weeks or so, until the Pennsylvania primary and perhaps beyond. Neither candidate is conceding anything, at this point. Some Dems are bemoaning this fact, others not so much. But for those hand-wringing Dems…remember this: You brought it on yourselves. It’s YOUR rules that are prolonging this contest, what with your arcane delegate assignment processes, and most specifically the proportional allocation of delegates in your primaries. This thing would be close to OVER if you adopted a “winner take all” approach to the primaries. Which kinda-sorta reinforces my belief that the Democrat Party just ain’t ready to govern. And that would be ready to govern anything… from the smallest hamlet all the way up to the nation.

But I will admit: all y’all create quite the spectacle. I’m enjoying every minute of this.

―:☺:―

Cynthia… writing in the comments to yesterday’s post about my house in North Bend… noted that the older homes in North Bend are disappearing due to Californication. So I went out to Google Earth this morning and checked to see if 3337 Sherman Ave. still exists. I’m happy to report it does indeed exist, and looks pretty much the same as it did when I owned it. You can’t tell that from this screen shot, but I thought I’d give ya the “larger” view, Gentle Reader. You can see that we weren’t but about five or six blocks from (part of ) the port…where the principal activity was loading logs and woodchips on to freighters bound for the Far East. It looks like things haven’t changed at all, in this regard…as there’s a freighter docked next to a huge pile of chips visible in the first screen shot. The second is the state of Oregon, just to give you some perspective on where North Bend is…in relation to other stuff. Like Washington.

As always, click for larger. Or go to Google Earth yourownself, if the spirit moves ya...