The Wine Commonsewer

A Rose by Another Name? Softclix: Marketing Brilliance

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

This box contains needle sharp lancets. When used as intended, a diabetic places a lancet into a plunger-like device that is a bit shorter and a bit more rotund than a mechanical pencil. Once loaded, the flat, round bottom end of the device is placed against your fingertip and then the plunger is activated. The spring loaded lancet quickly pokes a hole in your finger, If all goes well, there is enough blood flow to allow a blood glucose test. It feels something like when the doctor pokes you in the finger for a quickie blood test. 

Every time I look at a box of these needle sharp lancets I marvel at the name: Softclix. Who thought that up?

Sheer marketing genius.

As Always,

TWC

Colder Than A Well Diggers Butt In The Klondike

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

I know y'all scoff at what we Californios consider cold, but TWC had to bring in the brass monkey last night. High twenties with winds approaching Mach II was the overnight forecast and I'm thinkin' it may have got there. Thank the Sweet Lord that fireplaces are still legal in the Golden Fleece State. Well, technically, you can't build a new house with a wood burning fireplace, but you know what I mean. Ours was cranking out the btu's.  

No frost damage last night, mostly because all the frigid air slides down the slope to the valley below, which allows the warmer air to rise. 

Supposed to be down in the mid-thirties tonight and the Santa Ana winds are still blowing the doors down. 

As Ever,

TWC 

Photo Credit: TWC, all rights reserved. Yep, that's out fireplace, for reals. 

I Am The One Percent

Poison Oak & Shotgun Shells

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

Hiked a road with the dogs that I hadn't done in a while this morning. Last time out there was a couple hundred yards of chit under the oaks along an unnamed creek. Looked like Saturday morning at El Sobrante Sanitary Landfill waiting for the bulldozers. The dogs never notice.

There were still hundreds of shotgun shells and assorted brass scattered about, but somebody had seriously cleaned up. Still, I have to wonder why so many shooters and off-roaders are such pigs. Dudes camp there! Like camping at the dump except there's a creek. Boy Howdy, you brought it here, you ought to pack it out.

OTOH, I'm pretty sure them old boys from the shooting club with the five year waiting list to get in are the likely Boy Scouts. Seen them fixing the creek crossing and policing up elsewhere. The range is just up out of the creek bottom about a mile.

Poison Oak In Fall Colors

Some nasty stuff, that poison oak. My dad is deathly allergic. Makes him look like a third degree burn victim.

As Ever,

TWC

The Boy Comments on School

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

Jake climbed into the truck this morning, looked over at moi and with a sardonic grin, and said.....

At least if you have a job you don't like you can say: Another Day, Another Dollar.

As Ever,

TWC

 

Ten Years Ago

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

After he returned from Germany, my mother's husband worked at the Pentagon for a number of years before he opted for an early retirement package. This is where Sonny's office was located.

There are any number of fascinating back stories woven into the fabric of this tragedy, which I prefer to all the hype and hoopla going on at ground zero, where firefighters are not welcome this morning.

One such back story is how many people didn't perish that day simply because they ignored official instructions to stay put and wait for help. Instead, they got the hell out before the buildings fell down. That is the American spirit. To act boldy rather than to meekly comply while waiting for further instructions.

We honor those who lost their lives & we remember because of the sheer magnitude of the carnage. But we've lost more than that. In the decade following September 11, 2001 our liberties have eroded at an alarming pace. We've allowed this to take place in exchange for a little bit of government supplied Security Theater.

After a decade long war on terror, America is no safer and no more at risk than it was ten years ago. But you, Gentle Reader, are significantly less free than you were on September 10, 2001.

As Always,

TWC

So Long, Gray Kitty

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

We said goodbye to that old Mama Cat this morning. Something happened a couple of weeks ago and she faded awfully fast. Up until now, she wasn't in pain, just weak, but that changed.

Commandeering the House Blond's brand new Builder Bear bed

Even though she isn't really gray, she used to be the Gray Kitty (we're not really that good at naming cats). When she got older her name sort of morphed into the Mama Cat. Had more to do with seniority than maternal instincts, she bossed around every cat we owned like Gunny Hartman in Full Metal Jacket. She was tough, too. She once smacked a rattlesnake so many times that the snake was punch drunk. A dozen times, her paw literally a cartoon-like blur.

Kent & The Gray Kitty circa 1995 at Casa de Snell in Lake Elsinore

She came from White Cat's first litter around 1995 or so. A couple of years later, The White Cat would alert us that The Boy wasn't breathing upstairs.

Jacob & Gray Kitty 2003 (that cat liked stuffed animals and dolls)

She liked her food freshly killed or dry out of the bag. You could not tempt this cat with salmon, fresh cream, steak, or Fancy Feast. She'd turn up her nose at all of it. Except tuna juice. Tuna juice is the water that canned tuna is packed in. Not the tuna, the water, and she'd happily lap up all the tuna juice you cared to give her. Her last meal was tuna juice yesterday, but this morning she turned away from it without remark.

Snoozin' With a Cabage Patch Kid, February 2006

I'd like to bury her under the orange tree with the other cats who've left us, but I don't think we're getting her back.

As Always,

TWC

An Hour on the Treadmill

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

TWC understands why people use a treadmill, he spent an hour on the treadmill this morning hisself. I'm thinkin' yours may be more hi-tech.

Though not oppressive, the heat was evident early. Hot and silent. No off-roaders, no shooters, no booming bass, nobody. Except for a few industrious water bugs and five or six straggler bees, none of the local wildlife disturbed the cool quiet of the creek bottom, which lies in the shade cast by sixty foot sycamores and spreading oaks that were already old a century ago

Over there in the light is mostly poison oak. Hot tip: don't go to the light. My dad is so allergic to poison oak that if he even looks at it he ends up doing a very believable impression of a third-degree burn victim

Best thing about my gym is that Blackie can use the treadmill right near the drinking fountain.

As Always,

TWC

Odds Are That Your Monday is Going Better Than TWC's Neighbors

 

 

Back Off, Dom (Hands Off The Obama Mama)

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

We Report. You Decipher.

US President Barack Obama (C) and First Lady Michelle Obama greet International Monetary Fund’s Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn (L) for the G-20 official dinner Septmber 24, 2009 at the Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. International Monetary Fund Photograph/Stephen Jaffe ©IMF

As Always,

TWC

Tip of the glass to Mrs TWC & Virginia P