CAUTION: Handle With Care, Part 1

I recently indulged in the evil pleasure of a McDonald's cherry pie, and there are two things I want to say about that.

ONE 

McDonald's cherry pies remind me of McDonald's apple pies which remind me that a few years back I bought a pair of them at a New York City McDonald's so ActorBoy and I could properly be called "customers," for whom the use of McDonald's not-so-public restrooms were reserved.

It happened six years ago, when the two of us were exploring The Big Apple as part of his beginning his theatre studies. He was 18, moving to a refurbished hotel/dormitory in Brooklyn, and excited about this huge new world that was opening up before his very eyes. I was 48, dropping off my only son in New York There's-a-Victim-Born-Every-Minute City, and decidedly anxious about this huge new world that was opening up before his very eyes.

It's true that my anxiety had a lot to do with taking this fish of mine and putting him in an exponentially larger pond, but I confess that my biggest worry during the four days we spent together there was if my bladder would hold out until we found a Relief Station.

City That Never Sleeps? HA! It should be called The City That Never Pees. I'm convinced this is the reason NYC residents have earned their reputation of being cranky and impatient...they are all fighting incontinence with a fervor that rivals Teddy Roosevelt's charge up San Juan Hill.

TWO

Have you ever actually looked at the box that McDonald's pies come in? Well, let me tell you...next time... (stay tuned!)

Abundance and Lack

Beloved and I had just consumed mass quantities at our favorite local Mexican dining establishment (favorite because it's 1] close; and 2] cheap) and were being wheelbarrowed out to our car when I struck up a short conversation with a short person...may have actually been a child now that I think about it.

I complimented him on his hair, of which he had plenty, and how it was swooped up from both sides and formed a ridge along the top of his head. (You know what I'm talking about, right?)

I then bent over so he could see the opposite effect naturally transpiring on the top of my head (seen here in a shot from a wedding I recently officiated):

The closing line to the conversation was, of course, "You've got a faux hawk and I've got a no hawk."

What the thief is trying to say is...

This isn't a straightforward story.

It all started...well...it ALL started several years ago when God said, "Let there be..." and there was. But more specifically, this little tale started on August 1, 2007, when the I-35W bridge near the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota collapsed:

• The bridge collapsed, killing several and critically wounding several more.


• Four years later, a memorial to the fallen and a message to the standing was dedicated.


• One or two days later, 22 letters of that message were pried off the granite of the memorial and stolen away.

This morning, the local paper printed a list of those stolen 22 letters, wondering if the thief had hidden a message of his or her own that could be made from those letters.

So of course, I put my friend, http://wordsmith.org/anagram/, to work and came up with the following possibilities. Feel free to pick your favorite:

- A Urgently Mismanaged Wow
- A Reanimated Lung Wows Gym
- Emanated A Wry, Glowing Sum
- Swung A Grimy Emanated Owl
- Lemmings Wow A Runty Adage
- Urgently Swim A Mown Adage
- Adage Slew A Ingrown Tummy
- Own A Slummy Garaged Twine
- Winnow A Musty, Garaged Elm
- Summon A Wily, Garaged Newt
- A Mismanaged Rug Went Yowl
- A Mum Gently Wows Drainage
- Town Slew A Gummy Gardenia
- A Granulated, Newsy Mom Wig
- Damage A Mewling, Runty Sow
- Nuns Damage A Wormy Wiglet

Oh, Earworm, you came and you gave without taking

This quarter's collection of morning mind music is a little light for two reasons: 1) I spent most of the month of June waking up with songs from the latest Giant Step Theatre (find us on FaceBook) production (Beauty and the Beast); and 2) when it wasn't that, the most-common thing going through my head upon leaving the Land of Nod was something along the lines of, "Oh come on...I know it's light out, but I don't have to get up for another half hour!"

MAY
4 – Living Letters of HOPE (Debbie Roth) I kind of feel sorry for the world when this finally gets released to the public (http://www.restinhimministry.com), because once this puppy gets in your head….
5 – Couldn’t Get It Right (Climax Blues Band)
10 – There is a Way (Debbie Roth. Yeah, yeah, yeah…somebody else sang this in the version that made it onto Christian radio stations, but it was Beloved’s voice I was hearing…over and over…this morning.)
12 – Forever in Blue Jeans (Neil Diamond) “Nothing aROUND but the SOUND of my HEART and your SIGHS…”
17 – I Say a Little Prayer for You (Dionne Warwick) How appropriate: “The moment I wake up, before I put on my makeup…”
20 – Hungry Heart (Bruce Springsteen)
23 – Babe (Styx) I always thought that “Styx” should have been the name for a heavy metal band instead of one that did all these national anthems from Mamby-Pambyland.

JUNE
6 – Dr. Jesus (Michael & Stormie Omartian)
9 – Baby, You’re a Rich Man (Those Lovable Moptops)
28 – Chains (Having endured almost three weeks of “He must die! He must die! This awful beast must die…” from the Giant Step Theatre production of Beauty & the Beast, The Beatles were more than welcome this morning.)
30 – Western Island/The Broken Pledge (Eric Peltoniemi, about whom I wish to wax eloquent, but what follows is the best yer gonna git. I know Eric from our 7 summers of working together with the Dakota Chautauqua. He wrote all the music, played guitar and acted in the later years, and is the High Exalted Grand Poobah at Red House Records. The album from which today’s earworm emerges, Songs o’ Sad Laughter, is a collection of 12 of the best folk tunes ever written, sung by a man who knows what he’s doing.)

JULY
4 – Bluer Than Blue (Michael Johnson)
5 – The Other Side of the World (Rich Mullins)
10 – Afternoon Delight (Starland Vocal Band)
12 – To God Be the Glory (Tony & Donny)
27 – Sailing (Christopher Cross, which has always been a funny name to me: criss-cross)
29 – I’ll Carry On (Rich Mullins)

Good Question

Beloved and I just got back from a long weekend/short vacation with SweaterGal and FlatulenceKing. My brother, Dave McCool, is turning 60 next week and a party was thrown early...just in case he doesn't make it, I guess.

A splendid time was had by all, except the cousin who got blindsided by a stray chunk of piñata. And when I say blindsided, I mean that he is now blind on his left side.

I particularly wanted to attend the wingding to bask in the little-remembered fact that there are people sucking air on Planet Earth who are actually older than I am. It was good to remind myself of that and had the additional benefit of Beloved seeing me looking young and virile in comparison to the walking cadavers that constituted most of the other attendees.

The biggest chuckle, for me at least, came during the drive back to the Land of 10,000 Forbidden Things. We were listening to a James Taylor CD, and Beloved wondered out loud, "Who decided to add an 'S'? Why isn't it Jame?"

And now you know why I love her so.

For the Follicly-Challenged

I was about to tell you the story of the genesis of what follows, but even the explanation of where it came from doesn't explain from whence it came. Suffice it to say that I must thank SamWise for the germ of the idea...and ask him to please wash his hands better from now on. If you're familiar with the music of the MopTops from LiverPool, you'll soon realize what tune should be going through your head with these words.

I'm a real no-hair man

Ain't got more than twenty strands

Barber, you should make no plans for me

Have no need for a comb

That's one thing I do not own

Fuller Brush Man, just go home, tee-hee

No-hair man, hair's missin'

We all know my head glistens

No-hair man, I'll never sing lead in a hard metal band

I'm as bald as I can be

On my head, skin's all I see

No-hair man, I'm dandruff-free, that's all

No-hair man, no graying

Do you hear what I'm saying?

Left it all for somebody else to grow what they can

I don't fret 'cause my hair's slim

No-hair man don't pay for trims

Don't you wish you were like him - like me

No-hair man, telling you all

I look like a cue ball

I can shave the top of my head with my bare hand

I'm a real no-hair man

Ain't got more than twenty strands

Barber, you should make no plans for me

Barber, you should make no plans for me

Barber, you should make no plans for me!

Runt Afghan Swami (Fun with Anagrams)

Beloved left me this morning.

Oh, don't worry...she plans to come back as soon as she's had her fill of her siblings and the mountains of Wyoming. Estimated time of her return home: mid-August...2014.

Until what time (if any) she returns, I leave in charge the Scarecrow, by virtue of his...oops...old audio loop...

Until her return, I'll do my best to accomplish something constructive. Take tonight (please): I thought I'd go through some of the piles of papers that tend to accumulate of their own free will while I'm busy having...you know...A LIFE! I was humming along at a fairly decent clip (making music with my lips closed...next to a reasonably respectable barber shop?) when I came upon a slip of paper with this Web address on it:

http://wordsmith.org/anagram/

From that point on, any hope of meaningful progress toward feng shui was off the table, out the window, down the drive, and thrown under a bus.

Consider the possible permutations of Beloved's full name, Debbie Ann Brewer Roth:

• A webbed reborn hinter - Translation: a Christian who doesn't come right out and SAY things...who happens to be a...frog?


• A thinner robber dweeb - At least I know she'd appreciate the part about being thinner.

What kind of visuals pop into your head with these rearrangements of my full name, Duane Alvin Roth?

• Radial oven hunt - Gotta be one around here someplace.


• Devour inhalant - Don't try this at home, kids.


• Round leviathan - Circular whale?


• Hot urine vandal - We aim to keep our rest room clean, your aim would...yeah, you've heard that one before.

Well, that's done. Now, I wonder what's about to expire in my hulu.com queue?