The Royal Wedding...
 ...the world can now rest, it's over, it's over, it's over...

It's happened; Prince William whats-his-name has married Princess Kate (who now has the same surname as the Prince's). Come to think of it, I don't know what the Royalty's surname is. Anyone got a clue? Anyway, I've kept my observations of the wedding to a minimum; I'm watching The Learning Channel's re-broadcast of the occasion which took place, what, 12 hours ago now? All the vows that were repeated today are the same vows that Prince Charles & Lady Di took so very long ago, and look how everything turned out. It was just awful, the spectre of Camilla lurking forever in the background until the day of that fateful life-claiming car crash in Paris. 

I tuned in the TLC network about 15 minutes before the tape-delayed wedding vows took place. Held in Westminster Abbey, all of the proceedings so solemn in that vast, cavernous structure that was built back in the stone age, and the energy level was about the same as the last Papal Death in terms of regimentation and solemnity. I hope the poor girl knows what she's getting into. For they are both now under the microscopic eye of the British Press, as they dissect the lives of the Royal Couple for years to come. And the tabloids are already speculating on Poor Kate. "Is she too skinny?" was one such article I saw online just moments ago. The ink isn't even dry on The Wedding Register yet, for crying out loud!

The Royal Cupple.

So who are these grandiose ceremonies, such as today's Royal Marriage, for? I think it comes from an innate desire for human beings to Commemorate Everything. This wedding ceremony could've been held in some anonymous Registrar's office, but oh no, we have to over-inflate all of the juicy details of this overblown event; we have to have something to celebrate, we have to try and lift ourselves out of our dull lives by making this something Much Bigger Than It Deserves To Be, it's a way for us insignificant human beings to try and attain some form of external validation. This ceremony wasn't really About The Royal Couple; it's for everyone else, it's the way the Royal Family continues itself, it's for England's national pride, and now that it's over, British Royalty can resume its existence of being irrelevant to anything else going on in the world. Now we've all gotta find something else to commemorate.

That said, I have best wishes for the Royal Couple. She's pretty, and he's...ah...ummm...almost bald; too bald for such a young guy. Maybe the strain of being born into the Royal Family has taken its toll on his scalp? And I'll stop now, before the Royal Air Force finds out where I'm at and bombs my house. I probably deserve it for what I've posted here...

AN ELEGY FOR SWEET PEA...

...we went thru a lot together, and I'll never forget her...

"Oh, Sweet Pea, come on and dance with me

Come on, come on, come on and dance with me

Oh, Sweet Pea, won't you be my girl

Won'tcha, won'tcha, wont'cha be my girl...

I've kept quite a few species of birds over the last few years. And just when I thot I'd never have another, I met Sweet Pea. She was a 35-year old Umbrella Cockatoo. On impulse one day, I went into a pet shop, and there she was in the corner, her cage hidden from view by a bedsheet stretched over it. She had been previously kept, for 30 years, by a woman who yelled at her all the time. She was sitting on the bottom of the cage, her head down in the corner. She'd just been in another situation that didn't work out for her. Sweet Pea didn't like women, because she was treated so badly, for so long, by her first owner. The second owner kept her for a while, but the bird attacked his girlfriend. So back to the pet shop went Sweet Pea.

I went to a dance just the other night

I saw a girl there who was out of sight

I asked a friend of mine who she could be

He said that her friends just call her Sweet Pea...

I came in to the Pet Shop several times in February, and each time, I'd talk softly to her, trying to establish a rapport, and after a while, she'd climb up the cage wall and sit on my fingers poking between the cage bars. My heart went out to her, because I know what it's like to feel depressed. I brought her home, and she and I became fast friends. I vowed to her that things would be better now. She was out of her cage quite a lot, she was easy to handle, and she'd sit in my lap for hours at a time. I fell hard for this bird. No bird owner can be with his bird all the time, and that's where the problems began. She chewed and broke several of the bars on her cage, and made a great escape, climbing to the top of the cage where she began ripping paneling off the walls. I was literally in Shock when I got home that day. I couldn't understand; she seemed like such a gentle girl when I bought her.

So I blocked off the part of the wall she chewed with books in plastic milk crates, and thot all was well. Think again...she broke out and got on top of her cage again, where the milk crates full of books were. She pulled down the top milk crate, which fell onto her cage, which sent everything crashing to the floor in a resounding thud. When I got home, the cage was on the floor, tipped sideways, with milk cartons and books scattered all over. She was on top of the side of her cage, and was all wide-eyed, thinking I was gonna kill her, but no, I didn't do that. A couple of days later, I got another cage with stronger bars. She climbed all over that cage, trying to find a weak bar she could snap off. That failing, she began ripping her seed dishes out of the mounts, scattering dishes and seeds all over the place. And yet she was so nice when I was home! It's almost as if she had a split personality.

I walked on over and asked her to dance

Thinking maybe later we'll be makin' romance

But every guy there was thinkin' like me

I had to stand in line to get a dance with Sweet Pea...

By this time, I had kept it in for so long. I finally lost it one morning, when I got up to find seed dishes and broken bird toys scattered all over the place. I absolutely lost it. I yelled at her, and shook a stick at her. No, I didn't kill the bird. But as I was yelling, I saw a change come over her. She became afraid of me for the first time. And I turned into the very type of person that I'd tried to get her away from. And I knew I'd lost her in that instant. She was now afraid of me in the day, but at night she would still indicate she wanted a little company. The final night she was here was a good night; I wanted to give her at least one more good night before the people from a local "bird rescue" operation came and got her today.

As I handed her over to the guy who was gonna take her home, she started fawning all over him, squealing with delight and cooing to him, just like she'd done with me when I first got her. And, you know, my heart was absolutely broken. I wanted to hang on to her, yet I knew I had to give her up. The bird and I simply were not good for each other anymore. I had dreams of taking her for car rides, out for walks and showing her off to people. I really thought I'd finally found the right bird. Hopefully her new owners will do a better job of keeping her than I. "It's the right thing to do", said the bird-rescue lady, and I know it was. That doesn't make me feel any better. I'm past my mid-50s now and it's harder to live alone than it used to be. But yet people drive me crazy. They complicate my life. So I've tried to find a bird companion.

I finally got to whisper sweet words in her ear

I whispered we oughta get away from here

We took a little walk, I held her close to me

And underneath the stars I said to Sweet Pea...

My time with Sweet Pea took so much energy out of me that I don't have any left. I gave her a lot of my soul. It might sound silly to some of you who read this, something along the lines of "it's just a bird, you know". Bird owners feel differently. And my heart broke today when I had to give her up. After all, it was "the right thing to do". Yeah, rrrrright. Tell that to my heart. Why didn't I post about Sweet Pea before? I didn't want to jinx myself. After all, I had such high hopes for this bird...

Oh, Sweet Pea, come on and dance with me

Won'tcha, won'tcha, won'tcha dance with me

Oh, Sweet Pea, wont'cha be my girl

Won'tcha, won'tcha, won'tcha be my girl...

The chords to Tommy Roe's "Sweet Pea" came to me one day while playing guitar for her.  "Sweet Pea" was indeed the bird's name.

Goodbye, Sweet Pea.



My little Sweet Pea girl.



IT'S JOE ALBERTSON'S SUPERMARKET...
...but the store will no longer be here...

When a grocery store has to close, it's always a sad thing. It becomes sad to shop there, because you know that sooner or later it won't exist anymore. And there is no other Albertson's supermarket within at least a 25-mile radius of the store here in North Bend, Oregon. Twenty-five miles doesn't sound like a long distance, but when you factor in that there are no interstate highways around here, the distance becomes, in effect, a bit further because the narrow two-lanes around here can be quite taxing at times. Don't even think about trying to drive them at night; if you do so, you've got to be aware every single millisecond of twists and turns in the road. There's portions of these little roads that I'm uncomfortable driving in the Day! Thankfully, there are numerous "slow vehicle" lanes, where I let everyone else whizz on by. Speed on, brother, hell ain't half full...

So what does this store's closing signify? Well, there's one less place for people to gather, one less place to greet a friendly checker, one less place to access a USBank cash machine, no more Cheap-Chicken Mondays, one less place to get money orders, and so forth, and so on. I was told long ago that an average grocery store makes less than one-half of one percent pure profit, so perhaps even the most successful stores are skating by on a wing and a prayer. Maybe the managements of other grocery stores in town will breathe a bit easier ("maybe we'll get their customers" syndrome). And it's the same old story; the company that owns Albertson's just wasn't making money, and if this happens to a big grocery store (everyone needs food, after all), certainly other, more specialized businesses face a bleak existence. Albertson's is/was part of a fairly large shopping mall here, and perhaps other businesses in that mall will see less customers due to the lost drawing power of the Supermarket.

Follow The Money (or the lack thereof).

Many years ago, I worked for a Buttrey's supermarket in North Idaho. In the late 1980's, that supermarket had to close; so many other stores with longer hours were being built in the area that Buttrey's got squeezed out of the market. I knew the management, and over coffee one morning, the "third man" (a management term, I think), told me that in addition to added competition, Buttrey's, being part of a shopping mall, had to pay fairly exorbitant monthly rent to the Mall Management, and that the amount of money each shopper spent was less per capita at Buttrey's because of all the other places to shop in the mall. So, I guess, a store is more profitable if it stands alone? Sounds like it. Buttrey's was not the cheapest place to shop, although the prices were reasonable, but when I worked there as a 'box-boy', I felt that we had the best customer service in town, as far as grocery stores go. In the final two-weeks before Buttreys had to close altogether, the customer-vultures invaded, looking for really good deals, because the store was trying to get rid of as much stock, as fast as they could. How sad that was to see.

In that same North Idaho town, another large grocery store, Rosauer's, ended up having to close for basically the same reasons almost a decade later. Rosauer's had a full-service restaurant, and it was a great place to go to dine and shop, or vice versa. Some of the restaurant employees told me that their side of the business was making money, but couldn't make enough to overcome the losses over on the Grocery side. Every grocery store has its share of customers who show up almost every day, and there are still others who live in the area but don't or cannot drive. Another fact is, every store has a senior citizen base who come to depend on one store to get the food they need. These stores become gathering places that people depend on, and when those places are gone, people have to try and adapt as best as they can. I was in the Rosauer's restaurant on the final day they were open, and I expressed condolences to the waitress, and immediately she began tearing up; it must have been a really rough day for the staff.

Life goes on, though. When I was in Albertson's to get money orders this week, the lady who was working at the customer service center told me that some employers had actually come to the store to recruit staff for their businesses; I've never heard of that before, but I guess it's possible. And I wish them all success in their future endeavors.

IT'S A HEINZ-57 BIRTHDAY...

   ...WHICH MEANS I AIN'T GETTIN' ANY YOUNGER...

I've listed the true facts before. It's the day that President Lincoln died; it's the day the Titanic Sank, so that means I was the third disaster. It's hard to believe that in three years I'll turn SIXTY. So that it applies to me more accurately, I'll have to change the old hippie phrase accordingly: "don't trust anyone over 70" .There. That should work for a few more years. Aging is a fairly subtle thing; I still see old men and women walking around doing whatever, but I'm now having to realize that, "whoa, I'm one of these people, aren't I?" Any woman who'd be interested in me now would probably have a "fatherly image" that kicks in. And I've often thought, "I don't want to go out with that old bag", but wait a minute here: My Bag is Now Old TOO. (Try not to interpret that last observation too literally...)

A TAXING SITUATION: Earlier this year, I decided to attempt to procrastinate getting my taxes done. Later, I finally decided that I actually was going to procrastinate. (wow! some progress!) After a time, I decided I'd attempt to procrastinate further, so I did put it off for a while. I thot, "well, let's try to set some sort of record for procrastinating". Before I knew it, April first came and went, so I decided to do some Really Serious procrastinating until Today, April 15th. So I took all my financial stuff to a church that serves as a facility for AARP members who are really great at doing their taxes. (They don't procrastinate...) These seniors who had careers in finance, taxes and things of that ilk are sharp cookies indeed. The U.S. gov't supplies them with computers, software, what have you. After all, the more e-files (which they do right on the spot), the less clutter there is in the U.S. mail, making everything more convenient.

YOU CAN'T MAKE IT UP: I just thought of something: The Post Office reports that less and less people are mailing letters, documents, whatever. And the P.O. has had to raise postage rates to cover the deficits they encounter due to less letters in the mail. So the U.S. Government that doles out free tax service, e-filing without postage, is also the Same U.S. Government that, you guessed it, is in part causing the Post Office to generate Less Revenue from not as much user-purchased postage. I guess it really makes sense if you don't think about it. Now, let's examine another issue. People are buying electric cars, which of course, use less gas. The state of Oregon makes a lot of money on fuel taxes. But since those with electric cars use less gas, the state generates less money from gas taxes. So, there's a proposal circling around that everyone's talking about: Those who operate Electric Cars will have to pay a Really High tax rate to make up for the money the state won't be getting from those who operate conventional, gas-burning vehicles. Leon Russell wrote, in one of his songs, "I'm so happy, I'm dying of laughter", and it sure applies here...

FOCUSING ON THE SITUATION: Last month, I went to WAL-MART, where there's an optical franchise inside. I am now seeing the world through dark-colored glasses. Say what you will about Wal-Mart (and most of it is true), this vision franchise examined me, they had a large selection of frames, I wanted glass lenses with photo-gray tinting, it took only a week to get my glasses, and THEY GOT IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME! Last year I tried to get new glasses at a Local Eye Clinic. They grind out lenses themselves instead of sending 'em out, and either the Optician who examined me, or the eyeglass drillers themselves kept getting it wrong. I was re-imbursed $700, the amount I had pre-paid them. And, my Wal-Mart glasses cost $150 LESS than the local eye clinic charged me. That's including eye exams. I really wanna go into that local eye clinic and tell 'em, "Look! Here's what Wal-Mart did, that YOU couldn't do, nyaah, nyaah, nyaah, nee-ner nee-ner, nee-nerrrrr, but I can't see how that would serve any kind of positive situation, so I won't. But the thot crosses my mind every now and then...

IT'S BEEN A HARD DAY'S NIGHT: Every once in a while, Angels Smile down from Heaven, casting beaming rays which permeate my Every Being, or something like that, and today was one of those days. I was rummaging through racks of used albums, and I couldn't believe what I'd found inthe Goodwill Bins....A Copy of  The Beatles'"A Hard Day's Night", the soundtrack thereof. Although the Beatles' U.S. label was Capitol, this album was issued on United Artists records, because the film company wanted the rights to said soundtrack album, as they were afraid they were going to lose money on the Beatles' film of the same name. Well, that didn't happen, not in those early days of Beatlemania. Everyone made money, hand over fist, and I imagine the Boys in the back room of United Artists were really partying hearty.

There are, I believe, only seven Beatles-performed songs total on this album, which is filled out with instrumental versions of other fab tunes. This thing sold like hotcakes. The same album in England featured nothing but Beatles' songs; the songs used in the movie were on side one, while other Beatles songs recorded but not used in the movie, took up side two. The Beatles' U.S. label, Capitol issued some of the same songs on the album "Something New", and regardless of song-duplication, both albums sold heavily. The song, "A Hard Days' Night" was a Capitol Single, but it showed up on the United Artists album, and not on Capitol's album. Sounds like thar was some heavy dealin' going on behind the scenes between the two record companies! Much later on (in the 1980's), Capitol bought the rights to this album and issued it for a few years.



Groovy-Groovy 1968 label!

 In 1964, the original United Artists pressing of the "Hard Day's Night" was issued on a black label, which the company used for the next four years. I guess the times, they were a changing, and of course in 1967 there was the Summer Of Love with along with psychedelia; really groovy (I hardly ever use that word; I find it embarrassing) fashions, whacked-out virtually unreadable posters and wild color combinations in almost everything...and I really believe that United Artists meant for this label design to reflect the changing counterculture. This label was only printed in one year, 1968, and you've gotta admit this label design was a real departure. I like it. It's pretty wild-looking. Anyhow, the copy of this that I found at Goodwill cost me 99 cents; it's in great shape, and could be worth as much as $75 DOLLARS. Oh, heart, be still...

Finally, here's where the Ketchupping begins; a full Ketchup (Catsup?) bottle that dispenses from a remote-control mechanism. Obviously, this can't be done with a glass bottle. 'When you shake a ketchup bottle, first none comes out and then a lot'l", after all. Actually, I prefer Mayo on my burgers, but I can absolutely not eat Onion Rings without ketchup. Actually I try to avoid tomato-based products altogether; the sodium contained in everything from Ketchup to Vegetable use has lots of sodium. But I can mitigate that for if Onion Rings are involved!

In closing, I'm still trying to figure out this new blogging editor, so it's quite possible my posts will be shaky-looking for a while, but the compulsive-obsessive side of me now knows this blog is working again, so I can live with that...although it's not perfect...yet...

A RESURRECTED BLOG? COULD BE...
...Okay, Okay!!! I think I'm back in business here...

Well, Ain't this a fine way to go? Grand Funk Railroad once sang, "No matter how hard you push on the door, it won't open without the key". And it turned out I had the key. After installing, re-installing, deleting and re-re-installing my Javascript program, nothing worked. So I went back to the Blogger site, trying to find some sort of "fix" on the site, and it turns out Blogger.com resembles me...it HAS ISSUES! Except that "Blogger" errors are fixable. My own neuroses are probably not.

So I went into Blogger.com, selected the New Editor, got the blog fixed (I hope) and now I get the chance to once again expose all of you to my Blogging Neuroses! So what I'm gonna do here is post some photos that I couldn't post before, and treat 'em as if I've never posted them before. Hah. Now I'm stealing from myself. Okay, how about some photos I've taken (fairly) recently; "old news" since they were taken just after my previous post back in mid-March. I've tried posting these photos probably half a million times, so I'll try it again; hang on!

TURBULENCE ON THE SOUTH COAST: Just because we don't have much snow in the winter don't mean that we don't have winter; she just presents herself in a different way. The Jetties down here on the bay are really important to the area's economy, because every boat that gets into the bay has to cross the "bar", which consists of a jetty on either side of the passageway. I've read that most of these jetty rocks average one to two tons, so you'd think they'd be pretty hard to move. "Hah", says Ma Nature. She gets her temper in a twist, and proceeds to rip boulders off the jetty, scattering 'em all over the place. I once sat atop the South Jetty, when a wave came down on ME. It felt like someone had dropped an Anvil on my head. That's known as "Wile E. Coyote" Syndrome.

In this photo, a crashing wave heads towards Chicken Point, on top of which is the Coast Guard observation building. It's called "Chicken Point" because in days of olde, fishermen planning on going out to sea stood atop the point, and if they decided not to go out because of the waves, they were "Chicken". So there's a little piece o'folklore for ya's. It's days like this that the Coast Guard absolutely forbids boats to go out there. Not exactly a day for a leisurely cruise.



On this particular day, I resembled the title of a Led Zeppelin song, "Fool In The Rain". The wind was blowing so hard that it was coming down sideways. After 15-20 minutes, I had to escape to my car, and if you'd thrown me in the ocean, I couldn't have been any wetter. This second photo was taken between waves, and the ground looks like a moonscape; all of those scattered rocks were once atop the jetty. Mother Nature's fury on display, for sure. 



This last photo shows an improvement in the weather; at least I was able to stay dry, and I wasn't the only person on the beach 'cos the sun was out, and usually it's really difficult to time the camera-snap to coincide with waves crashing, but on this day, the ocean was so turbulent that virtually every time I took a shot, it featured a wave. And for sure, on days like this, a person can feel really small and ineffective. But mostly, you come away realizing that it's not an ideal day for swimming or a picnic on the beach.



I'm sure that I'd get seasick on a day like this; some of the waves can be 10-14 feet high (or more) on any given day, and that's what you encounter...pitch...roll...pitch some more...roll some more. I've seen boats turn around and come back in due to the size of the waves. There's a high cliff near here, with the unglorious name of Chicken Point. The name came from fishermen, who went out to the point, studied the weather, and came away with "nope...ain't goin' out thar!" They were "chicken". I'd be, too. I don't handle rolling waves too well.

Before posting this last portion, I've gone back in and edited some things, and for starters, it turns out I posted a fairly coherent blog, both in linguistics as well as appearance. And I'm finding I don't have to make much sense as long as the blog looks good. How shallow of me...