COSTCO AND I HAVE JUST PARTED WAYS!!!

I am angry as hell right now.  And that is something you just don't even want to be in the same time zone with.  Ask any of my friends.  They all, unfortunately, have first hand knowledge of that tsunami.  I can become a pack of rabid hyenas in half a heart beat.  When that happens you better hope that I'm at your back and not in front of you making eye contact because I am more than likely trying to tear your rib cage open.  I have been known to take down (and hospitalize) people 4 times my size.  Yeah, I'm an ornery old fart that takes no prisoners. Never underestimate the power of little skinny people.  We can spin on a dime and we certainly don't fight fair.  OK, enough said on that...

An article has just appeared on the web that has pissed me off to the very marrow of my old brittle bones.  If you have not heard about this yet let me get you up to speed.  In 2012 a large peanut processing company got tangled up in a salmonella outbreak.  They shut down and started hemorrhaging money and went into bankruptcy.  They eventually opened back up but 5 months later folded completely.  In addition to their own private label brand they also produced for some of the largest food retailers in the country.  One of them was Costco.  Costco refused to accept an order of 1 million jars of peanut butter.  It sat in a warehouse with nowhere to go.

What did Costco do?  Dug their heals into the sand and became shitheads.  They were approached by food banks, shelters and prisons to take this off of their hands.  Did they say yes?  NO!!!  What did they do?  They said it had to be destroyed.  Yes, they decided to spend $60,000 to have it all put in a landfill in New Mexico.  WHAT???  It took more than 200 semi trucks to haul 27,000 tons of peanut butter to a freaking landfill.  This is wrong on so many levels that it hurts.

1.  It was edible.  Apparently, no one at Costco HQ has ever been hungry.

2.  You just put 1 fucking million recyclable plastic jars in a landfill.  Don't even get me started...

3.  Had this been donated to charity it would have given them a $2.6 million tax write off and not a $60,000
     expenditure.  What were you thinking?

4.  And this is the important one.  What they did was a mind bogglingly horrid, unforgivable waste of food!!!

In my 6 decades I have unfortunately found myself cold, wet, homeless, in the dark and hungry in a doorway on more than one occasion.  I gotta tell you, hungry is the worst part of that scenario.  I learned a long time ago that you never EVER waste food.  Whether it is for you or someone else, you just don't waste food.  I have worked for several food banks and shelters in my time and the most rewarding thing I can possibly imagine is to give an individual that is hungry a meal or to hand a family several bags of groceries to help them get by.  If you come to my house you will indeed be invited to sit down at the dining room table and I will lay out a spread.  Food is sustenance.  But it is also compassion and caring.  Especially when you share it.

Costco did not share.  Fuck 'em!!!

THERE'S TIMES THAT YOU JUST GOTTA DO WHAT YOU GOTTA DO...

Oh, lord...  I'm in pain.  Old people pain.  I'm not sure if I like that or not...

Yesterday we welcomed a dear friend into her 48th year of life.  She's still not sure if she likes that or not either...  At anywho, she decided that she wanted a small bash to ring in the milestone.  We willingly agreed and the four of us laid siege to her house with the pot-luck from hell.  Prime rib, Korean bulgogi (or as we call it bull doggie), coconut rice, a couple of racks of slow roasted baby back ribs, some buffalo chicken thighs, a bedpan full of homemade oatmeal cookies, a fresh pineapple (yeah, guess who gave her that), spring rolls, WAY too many dipping sauces, some really good guacamole that she got to make on the molcajeta that I returned to her freshly seasoned and a couple of bottles tequila resposado. I assume that the ramaki and the spanikopita are still sitting in the freezer.   I have no idea how I made it home safely the 13 miles I had to drive.

The Birthday Girl decided that we should play some party games.  Well, that's your first red flag.  We started out with "Shots and Ladders" (as opposed to "Chutes and Ladders") and then we degenerated into "Pictionary".  Who the bloody hell dreams these drinking games up???  Of course my team won.  But only because we were not as lit as the Birthday Girl.  Damn close though.  At least we could stand without assistance.  I have to tell you, "Shots and Ladders" can be terribly deadly!!!

I gave her 27 pesos for some street tacos, a couple of bus passes for Transportes Del Pacifico and 10 centavos to "grow on".  She giggled.  I loved it. Keep in mind, this is the woman that I consistently refer to as "Senor Nancy".

To me, she is a puppy.  Twelve years my junior.  A firebrand by any stretch but to me so young that I just want to slap her.  But only out of joy for her being that damned young.  I would kill to be back in my 40's again.  Even my late 40's.

I came home bandaged and bloody thanks to a dog that doesn't have the good sense the goddess gave a toothpick.  This stupid thing damned near killed me last summer.  He caught me around the ankles with his leash, sent me tits over tea kettle and I went spinning in the dark.  I missed a pile of cinder blocks by less than an inch. The fact that my skull was not fractured bloody fucking amazes me!!!   At least my latest injuries happened inside the house while I was sitting on the sofa. I swear to whatever that my right arm just went through the Blitz.  Thank goodness I am a dog person.. Just not that dog.  Dumb.  Dumb. Dumb.  OK, I'll say it, IDIOT!!!!

Feliz Cumpleanos dear woman.  Enjoy the bus ride to Oaxaca....

OK, THIS PINEAPPLE THING HAS JUST TAKEN A BIZARRELY NEW EXIT...

The pineapple thing...  It has now gone from fun, to a fixation to a fetish.  As the goddess is my witness I WILL make one of these little sob's work!!!

It's March.  That is the start of pineapple season.  They are on sale.  Two dollars.  In an odd way I am in shopper heaven.  I actually had several people giving me strange looks in the produce section the other day.  I was going through a pallet of pineapples like a crack whore.  I was feeling them.  I was smelling them.  I was looking at the leaves.  I got questioned.  I shared my expertise on pineapples.  I know more about pineapples than any one human should ever know.  Google, pineapples and I are very good friends now.  At this point I should be working for Dole and living in Costa Rica.

As you are all aware of by now I am trying to grow a pineapple plant.  So far, no success.  And it's pissing me off so damned bad that I want to chew through re-bar.  At the moment I have one in a small pot of dirt and another hanging by toothpicks in a small jar of water.  Whether either one of them takes off is a crap shoot.  But I will indeed persevere in this endeavour.

So, pineapples are on sale.  A very good friends birthday is this coming Wednesday so, of course, I bought a pineapple to give to her.  Did you know that the pineapple is the universal sign of "welcome"?  Neither did I but like I said I know WAY too much about pineapples now.  At anywho, hers is setting in my refrigerator at the moment and I just finished carving up the other one that I bought for Sea Squirt and me.  BTW, he loves fresh pineapple.  Good thing, because I am dragging those damned things home by the bag full in an attempt to become a pineapple farmer.

Guess what?  I find three seeds.  Yes, three pineapple seeds!  At the ripe old age of 60 I finally got to lay my eyes on pineapple seeds.  What can I say, sometimes it's the little things that make you do a happy dance.  And I did indeed do a happy dance.  Sea Squirt walked into the kitchen and sees me with my bathrobe around my ankles doing something very similar to a quarterback that has just made a touchdown.  I was almost in tears.  YES!!!  I HAD PINEAPPLE SEEDS!!!  I felt just like little Ralphie when he got the Red Rider pellet rifle for Christmas.

Those three little beauties have been thoroughly rinsed off and are now drying on a paper napkin.  I'm going to plant them tomorrow in a pot full of Antigo silt loam.  Which, BTW, is the most fertile soil on the face of the planet and is only found here in 'sconsin.  It's actually our official state soil.  It's the most amazing top soil that you can possibly imagine.  And it smells wonderful!!!  This soil and I have a history that goes WAY back.  This stuff is so rich that you could throw a shoestring at it and it would grow a shoe store the size of Houston.

I'm not hedging my bets here but if this soil does not give me pineapples then nothing will.

I just want a freaking pineapple plant!!!

YES, I USED TO OWN A YUGO...

Please, just stop laughing.  It was not just a Jugo, it was a Yugo GT.  That alone gave it almost  97 horsepower.  OK, now I'm laughing..  This thing was a joke from the word go. Guess what?  I bought it with a MasterCard...  What was I thinking???  It was black and had racing stripes.  On a Yugo.  I must have been incredibly high!!!  Again, what the hell was I thinking???

It got damned near 50 mph highway.  And it had a hard time making it to that speed. Even on a downhill run.  Off of a cliff...

My next car?  Even worse.  I bought a used 1974 Chevy Vega station wagon with fake vinyl wood grain paneling and a chrome roof rack.  It was avocado green.  Totally horrid looking little car.  Yet I drove it for another 100,000 miles.  Hey, sometimes shit just drops in your lap and you deal with it...

I have owned unbelievable huge big block V-8's, I have owned gutless little 4-bangers.  I am driving one of those things at the moment.  It is 12 year old Dodge Neon with a whomping 132 hsp.  Oh, hell, growing up our lawn mower had more power than this thing.  I hide in shame...  I want a car engine so fucking big that it can go to Mars in less then three days.

Yes, my needs are simple

Just make it go!!!

WHAT COMES AROUND, GOES AROUND...

Fred Phelps.  Dear, dear Goddess, I just don't know where to go with this one.  But I'm gonna give it my fucking best...

Fred Phelps is a shit head.  On a good day.  On a bad day he made Hitler look warm and fuzzy.  He is a defrocked minister of his own "church"...  lord, I use that term loosely.  He is a hate filled son of a bitch so full of delusion, lies and anger that I quite honestly can't find the keys here in front of me to actually describe how horrid that he is.

The Westboro Babtist Church.  Crap, everything about that last sentence is so fucking wrong in so many fucking ways.  He and his way too large crowd of followers would travel the country disrupting funerals and making peoples lives hell on earth.  They disrupted military funerals.   They disrupted civilian funerals.  This is the group of terrorists that showed up in Wyoming and disrupted the funeral of Matthew Shepard.  The town stood up against him and his ilk and formed a barrior between the mourners and his low life bunch of slime to allow the family to mourn in peace and dignity.  To those that did this act, I bow in praise.

He and his group of full blown bat shit crazies traveled the country disrupting every funeral that they could get within shouting distance of.  I guess in their opinion it was OK for "their" god to send you off to war but against his will to let you leave this mortal coil, ravaged and dead with some dignity and grace.  And without any form of respect for your family.  It finally took Federal Court action to keep him and his group of followerss to stay more than 500 feet away from a funeral.  But in my opinion even that wasn't far enough away.

News just broke on the web.  He is at deaths door.  Dying as it were.  Good.  I hope he lingers.  I hope that he suffers.  I hope that he begins to rot while he is still alive.  And remains conscious while he does it.  I want him to smell what death is.  For a very long time.  Am I just a bit angry?  Yes.  Am I bitter?  Yes.  Do I want him to suffer pain and anguish?  HELL FUCKING YES!!!  I am counting pennies as I type.  Push come to shove I will buy a ticket on GreyHound and travel to this shit eating sob's funeral, show up in full flaming drag and do my damnedest to cause as much collateral damage as I can possible wrap my liberal hands around!!!  Bottom line, what comes around goes around.

Duck and cover folks, Momma is locked and loaded!!!

HUGS...

Let me start by saying that I am a firm believer in hugs.  I love them.  I like to give them.  I like to get them.  Hell, who wouldn't?

Hugs are not limited to humans.  Where did you think we got the term "bear hug" from???  All sorts of creatures hug, we're just not quite sure why though.  Humans have managed to take them to an extreme.  The outfield as it were.  We, at least, are fully conscious of what we are doing and why we are doing it.  We do it with abandon.  We do it with a palette that spans a full 180 degrees of opposites.  We hug with joy.  We hug with love.  We hug with fear.  We hug with sorrow.  We hug with every emotion we are capable of experiencing.  I am so glad that I am not a Vulcan.  They're missing out on one of the most incredible experiences.

We have all hugged while laughing our asses off or crying, whaling and trembling.  That's what hugs are all about.  Hugs are a human bonding thing that literally blows me out of the water and makes my heart sing.  Even if I happen to be lost and scared at the moment.

I am a hugger.  Babies.  Friends.  Strangers. Animals.  Inanimate objects.  OK, don't ask about that one...  I will hug you in welcome.  I will hug you at goodbye.  I will hug you as you lay on the floor fetal and loosing your sanity.  And I hope that you will do the same for me.  Yeah, it's a bonding thing that I sometimes think is even better than 2 pounds of dark bittersweet chocolate.  That alone speaks volumes!!!

I give you a challenge.  From this moment forward promise to hug at least two people a day whether there is a reason for it or not.  Trust me, the world will be a better place...

PASTA. WHAT MORE CAN BE SAID???

I would sell secrets to China for this stuff.

Yes, I am a pasta whore.  Things just don't get no better than pasta.

Feed me some pasta and rub my tummy and I am YOURS!!!

It doesn't matter the shape or size.  It's pasta.  Tomato based sauce?  YES!!!  Meat?  Yeah, I'm there for you baby.  Alfredo?  Put me in handcuffs and just force-feed me!!!  Put some asiago on that stuff and I will follow you off the cliff.

I never met a meatball that I didn't want to propose to.  My addiction to tomatoes is almost as bad as my addiction to potatoes.  Holy shit!  And Sea Squirt knows just how bad that can get...  He once wrestled me to the floor in the kitchen and screamed "No more fucking hash browns!!!"  I felt sort of honored...

I have been known to put a sauce on pasta that actually out weighed the pasta.  Red, white, clams you name it, I have put it on pasta.  Fuck my heart.  Fuck my cholesterol levels.  I am old and I'll do what I goddess-damned want to.  What's it gonna do, kill me?  Hell, I'm old, what isn't gonna kill me???  Although I do still look both ways as I cross the street.  Death by bus accident is so fucking embarrassing .  Although, in a strange way it would be sort of appropriate for me.

Again, back to pasta...

I've never met a noodle of any sort that I didn't fall immediately in love with.  Hey, it's pasta.  If I were gluten intolerant I would have died cold, wet, naked, homeless and starving in a doorway decades ago.  Thank the goddess for small favors!    Be it rice, wheat or corn, I'm the first in line!

Again, China, pick up the phone.  I need some starch!!!

PINEAPPLE PRINCESS....

Yes, that is a song done by Annette Funicello way back in the 1950's.  Which by the way, has nothing to do with this post.  Just thought I'd give you a heads up on how twisted Disney was.

At anywho....

I am a big fan of tropical fruits.  Oh, just stop laughing, I can hear you.  And you know what I mean by that.  I have never met a mango that I didn't want to marry.  I have never embraced a papaya that I didn't want to put the schtup to.  A kiwi can carry me away in a heartbeat.  A starfruit?  Duck and cover, here comes momma!!!  Now, pineapple is a whole different gig.  It's like coconut.  It has to (HAS TO!!!) be fresh..  The canned stuff just suck rocks.  I'd rather eat the label.  Seriously.  I can set down with a fresh pineapple and a knife and just go to town.  Preferably naked.  It just saves on the laundry bill.  Yep, I'm a messy eater.  Just ask Sea Squirt.  He has pointed at stains on my clothing that I don't even know where they came from.  To me food is a cross between Play Dough, boogers and a mud wallow.  Yeah, I'm actually that bad.  I'm pretty much best draped in a canvas tarp and spoon fed.  It's just easier that way.  Trust me.

OK, back to pineapple.  For some reason, don't ask me why, I have decided that I want to grow a pineapple plant.  Again, I have no idea why but it just sounds cool.  According to  the sites I have visited on the web there is no actually carved in stone way to do this.  I hate that!!!  I have tried rooting them in water.  I have tried just sticking them into some dirt in a pot.  Results?  SQUAT!!!   Lots of mold.  Dead things.  You name it, I have produced it.  Scary shit has come out of that pot, but never a viable pineapple.  I am pissed.

Pineapples are bromiliads.  Hell, you should be able to just nail them to the wall and they'll grow.   Mine?  Hell no.  In the name of freaking meatloaf, bromiliads don't even have a root system, they don't like being watered and fertilizer is poison to them.  A sledge hammer can't take these things down. yet I can get one to root to save my life.  I have been all over the web trying to figure out how to do this.  Some idiot actually suggested starting them from seed.  What the fuck have you been smoking, your shoes???

As the goddess is my witness, I will indeed pull this off.  I don't care how many motherfucking pineapples I have to go through but I'm gonna make one of these SOB's work  I am an ornery old fart that is just not willing to be denied.  I JUST WANT A GOD DAMNED PINEAPPLE PLANT!!!  Do not ask me why.  You wouldn't what to hear the answer.  Let alone understand it.  Hell, I don't even understand it.  It's kind of like a head injury on the brown acid.  And if you if you understand that last sentence at least you are in my lane.  And driving way over the speed limit.  And way over the center line...

I'd have it no other way.

Pineapples...

HOLY SHIT, THE POPE SAID "FUCK"!!!!

OK, to begin with, I like Francis.  He's my kind of guy.  Hell, I'd pay for his frappuccino at Starbucks if he didn't have enough change.  Well, not really.  I wouldn't be caught dead in a Starbucks.  Found there dead, yes.  Caught there dead, no. I'm not quite sure what the difference is there but who gives a rats ass.   Batista's make my skin curdle...  Oh, come on, it gives you wonderful fodder for my eulogy.

At any rate...

So, the Pope is giving a live announcement to the masses in Italian.  SO not his native language.  Well, he kind of screwed up.  Pardon the pun.  He mispronounced a word.  An easy mistake.  Unfortunately  this was a big one.  Yes, he dropped an F-bomb.  Yep, he said the Italian slang word for "fuck".  I love it.  According to several reports he caught himself immediately, corrected himself and sort of giggled.  I love that too!

There is a smile on my face right now.  In my lifetime a Pope said "fuck".  I can just imagine 50,000 people in Vatican Square sinking to their knees and shitting their pants.  I love that even more!!!

Francis, keep up the good work.  I'm at your back.  And nothing is more entertaining than a Pope with a Jew at his back...

Fuck, ain't that a giggle...

DRONES...

I have one.  Well everyone in my apartment complex has one.  His name is Ty.  Which by the way is short for Tyler.  He is the new complex manager.  He is an idiot on so many levels that he reminds me of a layer cake.

He is approximately 25 years old and has sold his soul to the company.  Yes, he is a corporate drone.  He has secured his "future" while at the same time destroying his "present".  He is apparently happy and lord knows I use that term loosely.  He has eyes like Bambi.  I can't imagine what kind of bait the company used but he hit on it full bore and they reeled him in like a tuna.  How sad...

Now, as a caveat, I used to be corporate.  Very corporate.  Hell, I even had a corner office.  With my own secretary.  The whole nine yards.  I needed to be slapped.  But I never sold my soul to the company.  Did I gladly cash the paychecks?  Hell yes!!!  But I kept my soul safely tucked away at home in a drawer.  It allowed me to sleep at night.  The whole night.

This Ty guy is amazingly frightening.  When I go over to the office to put in a work order for a repair or drop off the rent check he spins on his chair like a top and starts typing away at the keyboard with a look like a deer in headlights on his face.  When he does that I automatically back away a few paces because I don't want to become infected.  Or assimilated.  I swear to god, the company lobotomized him.

He dresses like a hipster, wears odd pointy toe'd shoes and drives a white 2001 Hyundai Accent with a burnt out front headlight.  That alone just speaks volumes.

He is young enough to be my grandson.  I don't know who I want to hit with a brick first, him or me...