2019- THE YEAR IN REVIEW, PART II

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (01-09-20)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

2019- THE YEAR IN REVIEW, PART II
These are the essential true stories that you'll need to carry on in the new year. So stick them in your carry on bag, store them in the overhead bin and prepare for takeoff, but remember, contents may have shifted.

GRANDMA GIVES BIRTH SO HER GAY SON CAN HAVE BABY
In Nebraska a 61 year-old woman gave birth to a baby girl using her son's sperm and an egg provided by his husband's sister. Guess what, I have two Dads and my Mom is my Grandma. My sister is my Aunt. Just kidding about the Aunt, she might also be my Mom. If this kid doesn't grow up to be incredibly maladjusted it won't be for lack of trying. I'm sorry if you can't get on Ancestry.com, but the site is broken right now.

LIONESS STEALS PHOTOGRAPHER’S CAMERA AND GIVES IT TO HER CUBS
A wildlife photographer taking pictures of a pride of lions in Botswana dropped her camera and a lioness picked it up, ran off with it and gave it to her cubs, who immediately used it to open an Instagram account. "Here I am with NO MAKEUP! You can't hide those lion eyes hahahaha! Hey, does this wildebeest make me look fat???" By the way, it's probably unethical to re-gift something to your kids that you stole in the first place. What kind of message does that send to the cub reporters of tomorrow?

AMAZON PREVAILS IN DOMAIN NAME FIGHT WITH THE ACTUAL AMAZON
Amazon.com has won the right to use the .amazon domain name, after a lengthy dispute with the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization, which represents the countries that the Amazon River actually flows through. They argued that the name should belong to them, since as I mentioned they have the actual Amazon. Amazon.com said cry me a river and sued. Negotiations had broken down when a lawyer from Brazil showed up with an anaconda and slipped three piranha into the Amazon representative's coffee. Whereupon the Amazon representative boxed up the Latin American official with some bubble wrap and shipped him to Patterson, New Jersey, where he arrived in two days for FREE!

DOCTORS IN INDIA STUNNED BY BABY BORN WITH 4 LEGS AND 3 HANDS
A 24 year-old Indian woman gave birth to twins, one of whom was perfectly normal, and the other who had possibly absorbed the limbs of a potential third fetus. This is a story that I don't actually believe. I believe that the baby was born with four legs and three hands, but what I don't believe is that doctors in India were stunned by it. So many weird things happen in India that this probably doesn't even push the needle into the "unusual" category. In India, policemen are paid extra if they have a mustache and store owners hang chili peppers from the doors of their shops to avoid being seen by the "evil eye." Incidentally, what are the chances that even as a baby, this person can beat me at doubles tennis. I'll get the last laugh at dancing though, since the baby has two left feet. Doctors noted that they are confident that the extra limbs can be safely removed.

GUY ACCIDENTALLY BLOWS UP YARD TRYING TO KILL BUGS
A man in Brazil poured gasoline into a hole he made in his lawn, after his wife complained that she was scared of the roaches that had been invading her garden. He threw a couple lit matches in, and BOOM- not only were the roaches still alive, but now they were flying, raining down like a plague from the book of Exodus. Since roaches have been around since the Carboniferous period, It's doubtful that blowing up one's lawn is going to get rid of them. How do you think the Carboniferous period got its name? Further, If I had known that I could blow up my yard by accident I would have had the accident on purpose.

NORTH KOREA’S KIM SENDS CONDOLENCES TO MOON OVER MOTHER’S DEATH
I just like the headline, because if you don't know that the South Korean leader's name is Moon, it makes Kim Jong Un seem like he might have literally gone too far this time.

BALD EAGLE TRIES TO SNAG OCTOPUS
Salmon farmers in British Columbia saw a bald eagle swoop down and try to grab a pink octopus out of the Quatsino Sound. Instead, the octopus grabbed the stunned raptor and tried to pull it under the surf, until the salmon farmers were able to free it. Even after seeing the whole incident on video with my own eyes, I still couldn't believe that an eagle would be that interested in a pink octopus, or that an octopus could capture an eagle, or that an octopus might be pink in the first place, or that salmon knew how to farm, or that they could talk. After witnessing the entire event I felt like sending condolences to the Moon.

PIGEONS IN COWBOY HATS SEEN ROAMING LAS VEGAS
Why the pigeons are wearing cowboy hats is so far anybody's guess. The rodeo is in town, but went out of its way to issue a press release saying that the pigeons are in no way connected to their operation. Which means that they just rode in by horseback on their own. I work in New York City, there are a lot of people there elbowing each other out of the way, and the only thing I like less than pigeons are those horse carts that are now trying to clutter up my bicycle lane. So pigeons, if you're out there, anything I have to say to you goes double for the horse you rode in on.

Happy Holidays to all, and here's wishing your new year AND your vision are 2020!

2019- THE YEAR IN REVIEW, PART I

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (01-02-20)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic


These stories are the highlights of the year in review, but I'm actually pretty surprised we viewed them in the first place. Look them up if you still believe that fiction is stranger than truth.

MAN SCREAMING ‘WHY DON’T YOU DIE?’ AT SPIDER TRIGGERS POLICE RESPONSE
This is the kind of thing that can happen only in Australia. Apparently the passer-by who heard the commotion didn't notice the spider, and I'm guessing that the police responded with riot gear, stun guns and a rolled up newspaper. If you are a human and you get "SWATted," it's dangerous. But if you are a spider and you get swatted, it's game over. Later it was determined that the spider had escalated the situation, so no charges were filed.

NEARBY GALAXY IS HURTLING TOWARDS MILKY WAY AND COULD WIPE OUT LIFE ON EARTH
The talk on the streets is that there is a Large Magellanic Cloud running around out there and it's making a bee-line for our galaxy, and specifically, my car. Currently the Large Magellanic Cloud is about 163,000 light years away, but could get close enough to put an end to life as we know it a couple billion years sooner than expected. They said the same thing two billion years ago and look what happened. I consulted several cosmetologists about this and none of them seemed too concerned about it.

FLORIDA MAN SHOVES PIZZA IN DAD’S FACE AFTER LEARNING HE HELPED DELIVER HIM AT BIRTH
Why this information should inflame the son so much is one mystery, and why this didn't already happen in Australia is another. But I will say that if the dad took more than 30 minutes to help deliver him, the birth should be FREE! The bigger question is how come I never get attacked with pizza? After the pizza attack maybe some other guy could come along and thrash me with an orange soda, and then somebody with dessert could finish me off. It's a case of assault and pepperoni.

CHINA GROWS FIRST PLANT ON THE MOON
Chongqing University's experiment to grow a cotton seedling on board a Chinese lunar lander suffered a sad blow when the plant withered and died its first night as the temperature plunged to minus 170 degrees Celsius on the dark side of the Moon. I'm not sure what the Chinese are up to, but if they're going to put a factory up there, delivery costs for my new sneakers are going to literally skyrocket. And if they intend to grow those weird vegetables that they use in Chinese food, like water chestnuts and bamboo shoots and "tree ears," my farm-to-table restaurant is going to have to move their table. And I don't want to say any of this too loudly because there is a tree right outside my office and I don't want it to hear.

POLICE SEARCH FOR MOTHER HARASSING COLLEGE WOMEN TO DATE SON
The Baltimore Sun reported that a woman in her mid-50s was allegedly stalking the campus of Towson University showing her son's photo to coeds and asking them if they'd like to date him. She'll probably be out there looking until she comes across another mom with a picture of a daughter she's trying to unload. As annoying as this woman may be, imagine what the son is like if his mom would go to these lengths to keep him from moving back in after he graduates.

LIGHTSABER-DUELING NOW RECOGNIZED AS COMPETITIVE SPORT IN FRANCE
The French Fencing Federation has sanctioned the Star Wars phenomenon in order to get younger people interested in the sport of fencing. If the French ever recognize robot battling, South Park trivia, Pokemon Go and drone racing, they can host their own Geek Olympics. May the farce be with you, but any fencing I do is going to be with a guy who runs a pawn shop in the Bronx.

BIRTH CONTROL PILLS LINKED TO FEWER SEVERE KNEE INJURIES IN TEEN GIRLS
A new study suggests that teenage girls who are taking birth control pills are less likely to injure their knees than those who are not on oral contraception. If you really think I need a joke here you need your knees examined.
See you next week for part two of The Year In Review!

WHAT DO YOU WANT?

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (12-26-19)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     That's what my Mom would ask me every year around Christmas time. "I just want peace on Earth, and good will towards men," I said. "Aw, really?" Mom cooed. "Of course not, Mom, I'm just having a little fun. I want a huge Lego set, but I promise I'll use it to make a giant fortress so I can destroy all the countries that don't want peace on Earth." Knowing what people want for Christmas is a gift. It's a gift that I never received. It's hard enough knowing what I want myself.

     It was easier when I was a kid, I just wanted what somebody else had. I wanted a "Sting Ray" bicycle, because another kid on my block had one. It had a "banana" seat and "butterfly" handlebars so you could pretend it was a chopper motorcycle. I pictured all the kids on the street getting one and starting our own cycle gang so we could terrorize the neighborhood, in between spreading good will towards men, and more importantly, women. It seemed at the time like parents were getting away with way too much, and I thought that with strength in numbers we could put an end to that. I never got around to terrorizing anybody, but I could pop a wheelie for fifty feet.

     One year I wanted a "Caption Action" doll, which was similar to a "G.I. Joe," but didn't have to answer to a non-commissioned doll. They weren't called "dolls" back then because the manufacturer didn't want everybody getting all freaked out about the fact that boys were playing with dolls. So they called them "action figures" instead. I started out thinking that I might teach my Captain Action to mow the lawn, because I felt that grass was beneath me. Instead I helped him fight injustices in the world, and we also spent some time hectoring Ken right in front of Barbie.

    These days I might ask for something that I don't really need, and that I'm too cheap to get. Most things now fit into that category, and manufacturers keep inventing more stuff to put into it. You KNOW that if you get your wife a Miracle-Gro portable herb garden, that the cat is going to Scarborough Fair your whole house with parsley, sage, rosemary, and time to put a new vacuum on the Christmas list for next year, and maybe a new cat. But you'll probably do it anyway.

     What do YOU want? It took me years to learn to ask my wife that simple question, but I used to simply forge ahead with my awful gift-giving instincts. Merry Christmas! Here's a dress that you would look GREAT in if you were a completely different person with totally different tastes. It's the thought that counts, and if I thought about it, projecting my own tastes upon somebody else is probably borderline insulting. This year I wanted to get my wife some socks to put in her stocking, because I like the symmetry of that idea. What could be easier than buying a pair of socks? Turns out that quantum physics is easier than buying a pair of socks, because quantum physics only comes in one style. There is an entire women's sock department at Kohl's, so you need to figure out whether she wears compression socks, crew socks, quarter socks, turn cuff socks, boot crew socks, knee-high socks, trouser socks or ankle socks. I'll probably just get her a necktie.

     I had a godfather whom I never met. Every Christmas he sent me a book through the mail. A picture encyclopedia one year, a book about birds another, a book of dinosaurs. What kind of gift is that for a little kid? I had to read it to find out. The Lego set disappeared the next year, piece by piece every time my parents stepped on one with bare feet. But the birds are still flying around in my head, the dinosaurs still roaming the Earth.

     What do I want? Maybe it's something I don't even know I want. Maybe that's what Christmas really means. My wife got me a smart phone last year, even though she knows that I would only use a cell phone if my car was stuck in a ditch somewhere. Why would someone dig a ditch right next to the road like that? It's a good thing I have a cell phone with me so that I can call the Highway Department and ask them that. If I had remembered to charge the phone I could have a civil conversation with a civil engineer. As the year went by I found myself using it for more and more things, and something I never knew I wanted became something I could lovingly take for granted. Last week I was able to use it to take a picture of my thumb. Progress is my New Year's resolution.

TREE AMIGOS

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (12-19-19)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic


     Last Sunday my wife and I, along with Gidget, The Most Prettiest Dog in the World, joined a bunch of fellow Somers residents at the front lawn of the Elephant Hotel to usher in the holiday season with the lighting of the Somers Christmas tree. The weather was perfect, cool enough to warrant a cup of hot cocoa, which the Girl Scouts were handing out, along with a bowl full of Hershey's Kisses. After my sixth handful the Girl Scouts should have presented me with an honorary merit badge in gluttony, but since my birthday falls on December 25th, I am rightfully entitled to twice as much of everything Christmas-related. They say that stolen kisses are the sweetest, but mine were justly appropriated.

     I was chatting with a couple readers, Mary, and also Elaine, and it's nice to know that people still read. My sister told me she read three books this week- WOW, because we Meléns are notoriously slow readers, but upon cross-examination she admitted they were audio books. That's not reading. When you read you supply the visual scene that the writer sets up in your head. If you want to you can just supply this whole column in your head, and that way I won't say anything that you might regret later. Next time I see my sister I'll ask her if she's heard any good books lately.

     While we were waiting I posed with Gidget in front of the Manger for a little family photo, and made a couple jokes to her that I hope she doesn't have mange because nobody likes a mangy manger, ha, ha, ha. Gidget didn't find that too amusing, and instead decided that she wants to play in the snow. I had on cowboy boots with less traction than a Giuliani conspiracy theory, and Gidget has on-demand four-wheel drive. I had her leash wrapped around my wrist like a kid holding a balloon, so when she took off at a million miles an hour, the difference between me deciding to go along and me not expressly agreeing to it was hardly worth mentioning.

     It probably looked like the first time I went water skiing, once I finally got up on the skis and enjoyed the exhilarating sensation of wondering exactly how I was going to get down off the skis. I was waving my hand in the air, trying to remember whether waving your hand in the air was the sign for "I'm done" or "speed up," when I went down face first into the surf for what seemed like another five or six miles, shedding my sunglasses, contact lenses, some of my hair and most of my self-respect. "I guess we should have told you to let go of the rope," they said back on the boat. "If you want we can go back and take a look around for your bathing suit."

     Children love Gidget, and they all came up to visit with her. "Ask if you can pet her, first," their Moms said. "Can we pet you?" Some asked the dog directly. Gidget looks kind of similar no matter which direction you pet from, so it helps to take a good look first if you're particular. I thought it was nice that the parents teach their kids to ask first, because when I was a kid we would only remember to ask after the dog bit us if it was okay.

     I saw Mrs. Claus handing out candy canes by the hotel entrance, so I knew Santa couldn't be far behind. I wonder why the Clauses never had kids? Even if they decided not to have children they should have at least had grandchildren- seems like they'd be a natural at it. I have to say that even as a little kid I was skeptical of the whole Santa Claus story. Do you mean to tell me that ALL the toys for all the good little girls and boys are going to fit onto that one sleigh? Either each toy would have to be microscopic, or hardly anyone is left in the world who wasn't naughty. And how is this guy with a stomach like a bowlful of jelly, who clearly is on the "Cheeto diet" going to get down the chimney without catching the flue? But my parents seemed to believe it so I went along because I didn't want to burst their bubble.

     I fell in behind Santa who was making good time getting through the crowd because he had his own security detail. My Dad used to do the same thing whenever an ambulance passed us in the car, and he'd follow along right behind it. We'd get where we were going twice as fast, as long as we were going to an accident. Santa walks faster than you'd think, and even though I want to make it clear that I don't believe the whole Santa Claus fable, I might have mentioned to him that I wear size 11 cowboy boots, and I'd prefer ones with a little more tread on the bottom.

THE THANKS THAT KEEPS ON GIVING

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (12-12-19)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     It's two weeks after Thanksgiving and the holiday is still fresh in my mind. I wish it were the same in my refrigerator. An actual fortnight of leftovers has me digging deep into the icebox for something that hasn't been there long enough to have it's own birthday party.

     Is this what they had in mind In the 1600s at Plymouth, when the first Thanksgivings were documented? Back then the celebration was part religious holiday, part harvest festival. A particular Thanksgiving in 1621 was described by an Edward Winslow, who talks of the harvest coming in well (except for the peas, which sucked that year), and invited a number of Indians, who had helped them through a particularly difficult winter, to share in the feast. No matter what color you are, religious affiliation you have or political party you belong to, you can certainly find something like that to be thankful for. I'm not religious, and I thank god that I live in a country where I don't have to thank god if I don't want to.

     By the way, have you ever seen Plymouth Rock? My wife and I took a trip to Massachusetts one year so we could see Plymouth Rock, which I think I must have confused with the Rock of Gibraltar. This Plymouth Rock is a 2' by 4' boulder that if you ran over with your SUV you'd say, "Jeez, I think we ran over something," and then keep on going so you can get to the hotel before they stop serving lunch. My neighbor Paul is always telling me how he had to blow up a bunch of rocks with sticks of dynamite behind his house so he could sink footings for his deck. I told him you'd better be careful when you make plans like that because they could blow up in your face. But the moral of the story is that if my neighbor Paul was one of the Pilgrims, and he wanted to build a deck, and Plymouth Rock was in his back yard, it would be washing up on shore all over the Atlantic Seaboard.

     The holiday itself is quite pleasant, as long as you can avoid talking about anything. A couple of my sisters come over, I have plenty of them to go around, and my wife cooks a great dinner. She told me she had to thaw out this turkey for four days before Thanksgiving, meaning that at this point the turkey almost qualifies as a pet. I once had a cat that just sat around all day and did nothing. In fact, I always had a cat who never always didn't not do something. The turkey also sits around all day and does nothing, I don't have to change the litter box, I bet I could train it to do more things than the cat does, and when I get hungry, I eat it. Now you tell me who is the better pet.

     I try not to go into the kitchen while people are cooking because I don't want to ever find out what giblets are, but I wandered in by mistake and I saw a package that said "Birds Eye" on it. "OH MY GOD! What are you feeding these people?" I don't want those things peering up at me while I'm trying to eat dessert. I also think it's weird that you scoop out parts of a turkey and stuff it with something called "stuffing." It is literally a stuffed animal at this point. My wife told me to prepare the cranberry sauce, which is code for "get out." I saw a photo online of somebody bragging about their cranberry sauce, and I was appalled at what I witnessed, a bunch of little cherry-looking things swimming around in a red liquid. You call that cranberry sauce? If you're too lazy to go out and buy a real can of cranberry sauce, you just don't understand Thanksgiving. I like to coax it gently out of the can in a perfect cylinder so that you can read "Ocean Spray" on it.

     After dinner we call all the relatives that aren't here, and we all talk into the speaker phone at the same time, then go, "What did you say?" Then we all go, "You go first," but we don't hear that because we all said it at the same time, and it's easy to see why those relatives are not here. Sometimes the relatives, rightly, don't pick up the phone at all, so we leave a message, all talking at the same time. Then I make a joke about how we should have pressed "one" for more options.

     But time is now no longer on the side of the leftovers. I took some pieces of the turkey that I couldn't readily identify and tried to give them to the dog, who literally sneezed at them. When a Eurasier sneezes at something, it's a statement, and that statement is, "I wouldn't feed that to my dog, and I AM a dog," After making a little joke that this food is nothing to sneeze at, she sneezed at the joke. Why don't they hold Thanksgiving the day after Lent, when after all that fasting you'd be happy to eat leftover carburetor parts for two weeks?

     I found a plastic box with something in it that I couldn't put my finger on, at least not without contracting a food-borne illness. I wanted to take it in for a DNA test to determine exactly what it was, but if it turned out that it murdered somebody in Cincinnati I didn't want to get involved. My wife said, "Hmm.. I think that's from two Thanksgivings ago." If you dig back into your refrigerator it's like a geological excavation, and you can figure out exactly what happened during the Pleistocene Era. "These green things, I assume they're peas?" I asked. "That's corn," she said. "These brown things, I assume they're sweet potatoes?" "Those are the peas." I think I now understand that Thanksgiving may have killed off the dinosaurs.