Dumpster diving and personal grooming....

Today whatever creative gene I might have has taken a holiday.  I can find nothing remotely interesting to write about.  About the best the news could prompt me with was this:

"Houston Homeless Man Given Ticket For Dumpster Diving For Food."

Really?  It probably cost the City of Houston $20 to write and process that ticket, and of course they'll never see a dime of the fine anyway.  They should have just bought the poor guy a ham sammich and a tea and saved the taxpayers $15.

But it gets worse.  This is what I've chosen for today's blog topic:  Hair removal.  Specifically MY hair removal.

My daily dress might resemble the attire worn by the guy in the story above, but I do like to be well groomed.  I'll sometime purposely not shave on a Saturday, just because I can, but never two days in a row.....no, no, no! 

Here's where you might want to tune in to Celebrity Ironing on cable channel 796 instead of reading further.  Today was "ears and eyebrow day". 

Because of my f__ked up left eye (retina problem years ago) and now my watery right eye (tear duct damage after skin cancer surgery on the side of my nose), my "detail" eyesight needs some help.  It's hard to shave in the morning while standing 3 feet away from the bathroom mirror, so I went out and bought myself one of those lighted magnifying mirrors women use to put on their makeup.

It works GREAT!  Maybe a little TOO great.  I put it on top of our chest of drawers in the bedroom so it's at about my eye level. Turn it on, stand about a foot away, and I can see every little hair that's even thinking about popping out.   A few swipes with my Norelco and I look semi-Homo Sapien again.

Trouble is, I can also see every little hair that's beginning to grow in places hair shouldn't grow, like ears, too.  What's with that?  To me, hair growing out of a man's ears is the opening salvo of Little Old Manhood.  

But you know what they say, "Behind every man with hairy ears stands a woman with a pair of tweezers."  What?  Nobody says that?  Well, they should!

Today I called in K and her set of essential grooming tools and she plucked me clean.  Eyebrows, too.  I had a couple of stray eyebrow hairs that clearly had a man-crush on the late, great Andy Rooney.  Gone!

A little snip time on my moustache and goatee (technically I think that's called a Van Dyke) and I'm ready to face the world.  Now I just need to spruce up the wardrobe a little.  That'll have to wait until Tuesday, though.  I'm pacing myself.  ;)

S

Catfight in Arkansas

Did you hear about the big stink in Arkansas *cue the banjo music* over who is the rightful owner of a million dollar lottery ticket? It seems a lady bought a ticket, then later scanned it at the store to see if she was a winner.  The scanner said "no" (or she misread it?...I mean this is Arkansas), so she threw the ticket in the trash.  Later another lady was sifting through the garbage and found a bunch of discarded tickets and took them.  She apparently checked them again and found one was worth a million dollars, so she claimed it. 


Enter the first lady again:  She said she paid for the ticket, it was hers, and she wanted her money.  Lawsuit, court, blah, blah....the judge agreed.  The dumpster diver was told to give up her winnings.  Really?


It seems to me when you throw something away you forfeit any rights you had to it.  If this is the new standard of ownership what about all those people who find a painting in their dusty 100-year-old attic or left curbside for anyone to pick up is worth a fortune?  Who owns it?  The same with a dropped winning ticket found at the racetrack?  Who do YOU think should get the winnings?

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Things continue to look bleak at work.  I still can't get over how the politicians and the greedy bankers have ruined our economy.  We have several small jobs dangling in front of us, but they just get us by month-to-month.  I'm extremely grateful to have them, don't misunderstand, but I need another real project to work on.  We have our eye on a lucrative commercial job that is in the talking stages, but that will be many months (a year?) before any $$$ changes hands.  A prospective client from last year said he should be ready to build a new home for his family starting in June, but with him things tend to get put off.  We're sending letters to many of our customers from years past asking if it's time for some updating.  We'll see.  

S