Lettuce Away!

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My wife Andrea is afraid of salad.

The outbreak in several states of cyclosporiasis due to contaminated lettuce has left her more paranoid than usual of anything with any kind of lettuce.

I tried to assuage her concerns with math.  

There have been 955 confirmed cases of cyclosporiasis in North Carolina since May 2026.

955? Whoa, that sounds like a lot. 

But the population of North Carolina is 11.3 million so 955 case of cyclosporiasis represents  .00845% of the population. 

The odds of actually contracting cyclosporiasis are very, very, very small, almost infinitesimal.    

But fear of explosive diarrhea is more motivating than math.

Not just diarrhea but explosive diarrhea! 

.00845% chance of explosive diarrhea is still too damn high.

Which presents a problem for Andrea as her favorite meal is steak with a bake potato and a nice side salad. 

She's paralyzed with fear on what to have instead of her salad. 

And she's even questioning the beef.

But first another word from our sponsor.

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In order to curb the high cost of beef, Donald Trump set up a deal to import beef from some place in some other country at a discounted price.

Which pisses off the cattle ranchers who voted for him and are now surprised der Führer has fucked them over.  (Trump fucking over people who supported him is such a common thing, that's on your dumbass to be surprised by it.)  

Which worries a lot of Americans is the source of this beef is sketchy as fuck and we have no idea where it came from or what it is.  

FUN FACT: weeks ago, Li'l Donnie signed off on a plan to allow wild horses to be killed. 

And now there is a mysterious supply of cheap mystery meat?

Now a word from our sponsor.

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Back to Andrea and her fear of salad.  

She wishes there was a respectable and unbiased source of information she could trust.

The C.D.C. says cyclosporiasis is under control.

But can we trust the C.D.C. to be on the level?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr looks and sounds like a man for whom explosive diarrhea is just another damn day.

Get a load of this (pardon the turn of phrase) shit?

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro announced that the deaths of 2 infants in the state were attributed to measles. 

RFK Jr. went on Twitter (or  fuck it, X) to describe the governor as "giddy" when he made the announcment and claimed the data attributing those 2 infant deaths to measles was fabricated.  

It should be noted that Gov. Shapiro is a Democrat and frequent critic of Donald Trump.  

RFK Jr is in charge of the Dept. of Health and Human Services (and by extension, the C.D.C.) not because of any kind of skill or experience but for his loyalty to Donald Trump.  

After that, the C.D.C. site that tracks diseases across the country updated their information on Pennsylvannia.  They recorded the 2 deaths from measles but added an asterisk to that number, advising that the C.D.C. doesn't know this for sure.

Here is how this is supposed to work: the C.D.C. defers to the states' assessments of what they report without commentary or analysis. The states are obligated to do their due diligence to assess the diseases within their boundaries and the C.D.C. acts in an advisory capacity as needed.  

Instead the C.D.C. data is influenced by RFK Jr.'s loyalty to Trump and his own ignorant obessession against vaccines. Both he and Trump buy into the myth that vaccines cause autism.  Children dying from measles makes him and der Führer look bad. 

So much for being non partisan and factual.  The C.D.C. is subject to political influence.

So if the C.D.C. says that cyclosporiasis is under control, can we believe that?

Or any government institution under the sway of Trump? 

SIDE NOTE: Back when this cyclosporiasis outbreak first came to light, the source of this infection was tracked back to heads of lettuce imported by Taylor Farms according to the FDA.

The CEO of Taylor Farms is a Trump supporter and some calls were made and...

Whoops! The FDA says it's not totally sure the cyclosporiasis  was tracked back to heads of lettuce imported by Taylor Farms.

So Andrea remains afraid to eat salad.

Hey, it's our sponsor back again! 

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You have a head of lettuce.

Your cousin three blocks away does not.

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Cyclosporiasis in our lettuce is not our only problem

It seems there is always some new food recall.

Jalapeños, blueberries, radishes and mangoes are among various foods that have been recalled due to potential contamination for Salmonella and E.Coli.  

An outcome we all saw coming last year.

When Elon Musk and his DOGE goons were hacking and slashing away at the federal government, a lot of jobs were eliminated from the very agencies tasked to make sure our food would not fucking kill us.  

Hey, RFK Jr, this is what fucking "giddy" looks like, you jackass! 

So the government that is supposed to serve the people and our interests has been decimated by a reckless, stupid billionairetrillionaire.

And the government that is left is subverted to a political agenda to promote the interests of certain corrupt individuals over the needs of American citizens. 

So we're left with Andrea afraid of salads.

And I can't talk her out of it.

And I'm not sure I should.

One last word from our sponsor! 

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Après La Coloscopie 2: Electric Boogaloo

Back in January, I wrote a blog post called  Après La Coloscopie which is "after the colonoscopy" in French.

I experienced my first colonoscopy earlier this year and you got to read about it,you lucky blog reader you.  

This post of Après La Coloscopie 2: Electric Boogaloo is about my wife's colonoscopy from last week, you lucky for a second time blog reader you.

This is not the first time my wife's anal probing has been the subject of a post on this blog. I wrote about her previous one in June 2021 here.   

I wish Andrea and I had more active social lives so I didn't have to resort to our respective colonoscopies for blog material.

"Andrea and I spent an enchaning evening with our fabulous friends Charlton and Pippa at a quaint little French bistro where we dined on devine escargot and a percocious vintage of Champagne. Afterwards we attended an exquisite performance of La Boheme where Pippa playfully stuck her tongue in my ear, the cheeky little tart!"

No, we're gonna talk about anal probing.  

I had expected that having experienced my own colonoscopy that I might be helpful and empathetic to Andrea in the run to her own.  But our experiences diverged.  

In the days leading up to my own exam, I was told to avoid foods that came in little fiddly bits:  corn, peas, beans, peanuts, popcorn, that sort of thing.   

Andrea had a far more restrictive diet.

I was told to not eat anything 24 hours before my procedure. Since my procedure was at 10 AM on a Friday, my 24 hours of NOT eating began at 10 AM on Thursday so I allowed myself one last breakfast at 9 AM on Thursday.

Andrea's time frame for NOT eating was the day before.  Her procedure was on Thursday at 11:45 AM .  She started NOT eating the whole day of Wednesday.  So she went longer without food.

I am not going to compare notes on the "prep", drinking the vile liquid that promotes excessive pooping to completely clean out the colon. It's disgusting process that I do not want to relive for myself and I sure as hell have no desire to know what was going on with Andrea during this part of the process.

That didn't stop her from reporting to me on her progress.

Andrea was exhausted going through this.

I was exhausted hearing about it. 

The day of the procedure was uneventful.  

I spent the time waiting in the lobby re-reading my own blog.  God, so many typos.

Afterwards we had a brief meeting with the doctor who said a couple of small polyps were found and would need to be sent off for testing to be sure it was nothing serious. But the doctor seemed to think given their small size, there would be nothing to worry about.  (Andrea will worry anyway.) 

SIDE NOTE: Andrea got the call a couple of days ago that the polyps were benign.  So now she will need something else to worry about.   

A nice discharge nurse named Jack helped me guide Andrea back to our car and it was back home to the Fortress of Ineptitude to crash for the afternoon.

Oh look! It's a message from Pippa! So sorry, luv, it is après la coloscopie and we need to rest, you naughty little minx! 

Our Time In Exile Part Deux

This post is a follow up to a post from February of this year.

My wife Andrea received an anxious phone call from her brother.  He was very concerned their dad was not being quite himself.  

Sometimes he was very unfocused and even incoherent.

Calls made to him by Andrea and our son Dean had prompted similar concerns.  

Andrea's brother was going to be out of town for a week and wondered if we could stay with their dad at his home for awhile.

We did this following his health issues back in February.  Once more we would need to as we did then to take the measure of his ability to manage himself, to remember on his own to take his medicine in the prescribed amounts and times, stuff like that.

A couple of months ago, Andrea and I took her dad to the hospital after he fell outside, injuring his leg and taking a blow to the head.  

Except for some scrapes and bruises, the hospital cleared him to go back home.  

But that and whatever was going on now only serve to remind us that the status quo for Andrea's dad is not sustainable forever. 

So Andre and I moved in to her dad's home, to make it our home away from home.  

We did have to leave him to return to the Fortress of Ineptitude each day to do our respective jobs.  Her dad seemed to do fine for those hours without us.

Except for the one day we returned and his TV VOLUME WAS TURNED UP REALLY REALLY LOUD!!! 

For reasons I did not comprehend, he chose not to wear his hearing aids that day. 

For the most part, he seemed to do just fine.  His best hours were in the morning. He and I would talk about stuff before Andrea and I left to go to work and he was very clear and coherent.

As the evening wore on each night, he was less easy to understand.  I chalked that up to him being too tired to make sense and me being too tired to understand him. 

I did find it hard to make time for the blog which is why last week's posting was non existent for several days.

He is a very old man who is in remarkably good health for a man of his advanced age and his overall cognitive skills seem mostly unimpaired.  

He hasn't gotten involved in a war for no good reason or sought to upend decades of medical science to mess with vaccines or insist reflecting pools were damaged by vandalism instead of shoddy contractors so he's got that going for him.

Still as I said in February, his self sufficiency is not sustainable forever. 

And that is something we all worry about.  

Canine Expansion Pack

Last week, Andrea and I received a visit here at the Fortress of Ineptitude from our granddaughter, Rosie the Dog.

If Rosie looks a bit pensive here, well, she's under a little bit of stress.

She brought her emotional support humans, son Dean and friend Jan.

She also brought her new sister.  

Meet our newest granddaughter, London the Dog.

On one hand, London will sit on her hind legs and quietly look up at you with wide open eyes and a quizzicle expression as if to say:

I DARE YOU NOT TO LOVE ME!!!!

She is so friggin' adorable when she does that! What a CUTE li'l puppy she is!  

On the other hand...

She is overloaded with energy, whizzing and whirling about, testing everything and everyone as potential sources of food.

London can be a lot.

London is a puppy with puppy energy and a whole range of puppy behaviors she still needs to learn to control.  

And Rosie is not quite ready to deal with that.

When we first welcomed Rosie to our family, we got a slightly older, more docile creature.  

Like a true member of the House of El family, Rosie is a quiet creature of habit who has gotten used to years of being the only child.

Rosie: "I am NOT dealing with this!"
London: "Will you be my friend?"
Rosie: "I'm not listening!"
London: "Will you be my friend?"
Rosie: "I did NOT agree to any of this!"
London: "Will you be my friend?"
Rosie: "Can I go back to the shelter?"
London: "Will you be my friend?"

Dean and Janna were not planning on being emotional support humans to another dog. But when they found London abandoned by the side of the road, what else could they do? 

Welcome to the family, London! 

And Rosie, you're still top dog in the familial hierarchy.  

This (Non) Sporting Life: Twilight Baseball

This post is a sequel to last week's entry Midday Baseball.

This post involves a follow up visit to watch the Greensboro Grasshoppers for an evening game against the Greenville (SC) Drive.  And since this was on a Saturday evening, a post game fireworks display. 

Like the previous excursion, this was done on my employer's dime but this time I had to pay for food. My free baseball game cost me over $30.  

Below is a shot of the downtown stadium with some beautiful cloud displays in the evening sky. Excellent artwork by the late great Bob Ross.  

Unlike the day game, this time I was accompanied by my wife, Andrea.  

You might wonder why I didn't post a photo of me looking happy.

Yeah, that is me looking happy.  The other selfies I took looked like angry arrest photos.  

The Greensboro Grasshoppers have two mascots. There's this strange bug like creature dressed like a pirate for some reason.

It seems the "some reason" is the 'Hoppers are now the farm team for the Pittsburgh Pirates. I really do not know much about sports.   

Here's the classic mascot for the team, Guilford the Grasshopper.

The 'Hoppers used to have a bat dog, a black lab named Babe who would retrieve bats. Sadly, Babe is no longer with us but is immortalized in a pair of statues outside the stadium.

And by whatever this nonsense is. 

Our seats were up on the 2nd level in my employer's sky box. It provides a clear view of the field from just above the first base line.  

Behind us on that elevated perch was some guy who had to comment on everything.  He would admit he didn't know something and then elaborate for 10 minutes trying to fill the gap in his knowledge.  

Despite the sun going down and the temperature descending into the mid 70's, the weather remained oppressively hot.  The air was still and according to Andrea's weather app on her phone, humidity was at 86%.  From being baked on Wednesday to being steamed on Saturday.

Our repast for the evening included hot dogs, chips and sodas followed by ice cream.  

The ice cream was Dipping Dots which Andrea still enjoys but I quite frankly do not.  I really do not understand what the fuss is about.  

The Grasshoppers were in the lead going into the 9th and that guy behind us told his son to pay attention, the game was 3 outs from being over. 

Yeah, about that.  

The Greenville Drive had other plans and pulled the game into a tie. Bottom of the 9th, Greensboro could not pull ahead and we're into extra innings, folks. 

It's gonna be awhile before we can get to those fireworks.

In the first half of the 11th inning, the Drive drive home 5 runs.

If the Grasshoppers truly love their fans, they will graciously accept defeat.

"Root! Root! Root for the visitors! 

I can't take anymore!

'Cause it's ONE - TWO - THREE strikes you're out!

The home team 

Can do

NO MORE!"

Bottom of the 11th and 'Hoppers strike out which was awfully nice of them and we finally got to the fireworks.  

Here are a few photos from that.   

Andrea enjoyed the experience which was what was important to me.

As for myself, I am a curmudgeonly ornery bastard and between

• the high price of food
• fighting the crowds and noise to get the food
• the chatterbox behind me 
• the excessive humidity

The most positive thing I can say is I survived the experience.

And I am so glad my suffering amuses you.

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This (Non) Sporting Life: Midday Baseball

Yesterday, I got paid to watch baseball in the middle of the day.

It's another edition of This (Non) Sporting Life, a blog post about sports by a guy who does not know much and cares even less about sports.

(Wait! Two of these "This (Non) Sporting Life" posts in a row? For "a guy who does not know much and cares even less about sports", that's a lot of sports!)  

The occasion was a company event for employees to have some "fun" watching the Greensboro Grasshoppers.

If you call sitting in the baking hot sun with an overpriced hot dog watching a game I was not invested in "fun".

To be fair, I did not pay for the overpriced hot dog, my employer did that. And I have to admit it was a very good hot dog.

But $6 for a plain hot dog is a lot. 

And damn, the weather was hot.

As I exclusively work from home these days, this was a rare chance to perhaps get in touch with some people from when I worked in the office.

Which is ironic because when I did work in the office, I would actively try to avoid interacting with people. Now I'm choosing to do that when I don't have to?  

I saw exactly 3 people I knew. Dude, where is everybody I used to know? It's enough to make me feel old if I didn't already feel old just getting up in the morning.

The potential onset of heat stroke wasn't helping my disposition.

Before I left the cool safety of my work from home, my boss told me relax and stay as long as I wanted.

I made it to the 3rd inning before I called my participation in this "fun" due to thermal nuclear meltdown.

Hey, here's Guilford the Grasshopper who has a really GREAT job being a total goofball for a living AND the absolutely WORST job having to work in a fur suit in 90+ degree weather.

Here's a selfie of me and I have questions.

• Who am I?
• Why am I here?
• Do I remember where I parked?
• Should I get another hot dog?

The heat is getting to me.

Well, the ball game got me out of the house which is a rare thing. I hardly go anywhere outside the Fortress of Ineptitude. 

Such as when I make a semi-regular pilgrimmage to Acme Comics.

Which brings us to the 2nd post of the day.

Up in a few hours: Batman! 

Who I am sure does not go to midday baseball games.  

Quietly Invaded By Rabbit

I've noticed a lot of headlines online using the word "quietly".

• CBS quietly cancels 4 shows.
• Trump administration quietly outlaws widows and orphans.
• Gen Z quietly moves 1.5 inches to the left on the sofa.

Ostensibly, the use of the word "quietly" is intended to be shorthand that a person or entity did something without any public statement or announcement.  

But it does seem to me that the word "quietly" seems a bit overused.  

I've seen articles with the word "quietly" in the title and the post tells me nothing I didn't already know.  

This can be attributed to AI generated bullshit.

Because "quietly" has sometimes been paired with verbs like "launched", "changed", or "updated" in thousands of corporate press releases, Large Language Models (LLMs) assume the word needs to be included.  

The frequent use of the word "quietly" is often considered a hallmark of AI-generated content or generic internet "slop". 

At least, that's what Google's AI Overview has to say about it.

AI is confessing to it's own sins.

Anyway, the title for today' post is "Quietly Invaded By Rabbit".

This is NOT an AI generated post.

There is indeed a rabbit.

The rabbit has indeed invaded our front lawn.  

And the rabbit makes NO noise so it is indeed invading us quietly..    

The remarkable thing about this rabbit is how close I can get without it running away.  

These photos are not me zooming in from the front porch several feet away.

These photos are with me standing right by the rabbit. Close enough where most rabbits will normally skitter away. 

This rabbit just sits there.

It stares at me.

It does not fear me.

It's sitting there.... MENACINGLY! 

I see it in the rabbit's eyes.

It is I who should fear the rabbit.

I quietly go back inside.  

The Andrea Birthday Aftermath

 Yesterday was Andrea's birthday. 

Here is my wonderful wife with a birthday gift, a plushie of Rise, the anti-gravity indicator from the Artemis II moon mission.

When the news of the world gets too dark, too grim or just to damn stupid, just take a look at Rise to remember when humanity at it's best sent 4 people to the moon and back. 

I took Andrea out for lunch to her favorite restaurant.

Yes, it's Olive Garden.

I do love my wife but there is no accounting for taste. 

She did choose to marry me after all.

Actually, I find that Olive Garden is not so bad if you go for lunch on a weekday.  All other times is like dining in a cattle car in a third world train.

Our waitperson Jasmine made sure Andrea got a free birthday dessert, her favorite, cheesecake with strawberries.

After lunch, we visited Andrea's father who had her birthday present which is always in the right color and the right size.

 It was a pleasant enough visit but Andrea's dad watches CNN all day long.   Which was OK.

Until.....

That's our next post.  

Happy Birthday!

 

Today is June 3rd and I want to extend Happy Birthday greetings to....

....NBA star Jalen Rashon Suggs of the Orlando Magic.  Born on this date in 2001 in St. Paul, Minnesota, Jalen played for the Gonzaga Bulldogs before advancing to his pro-basketball career.

....English actor Imogen Gay Poots who was born on this date in 1989 in London.  Since she is an English actor, I of course did check to see if she has done time on Doctor Who. Alas no but she was in the 2011 remake of Fright Night which starred David Tennant.  She was also in the film Christopher and His Kind (also in 2011) which starred Matt Smith. 

...another English actor type person James Purefoy who was born on this date in 1964 in Taunton, Somerset.  Yes, I checked for Doctor Who references but came up empty.  But he was in Sex Education which starred Ncuti Gatwa so there's that.  And James will be in the Masters of the Universe movie coming out this summer.  

...former First Lady Dr. Jill Biden who was born on this day in 1951. She has a memoir coming out this week which is stirring up some PTSD back to 2024 for a lot of Democrats. 

And that is just some of the many great people who were born on June 3rd. But I think that will do it for this blog post today.

'Bye, everbody! Thanks for dropping by.

...

...

...

Wait....what? 

Who now?

Oh, crap!

...

...

...

ANDREA! 

My lovely and supportive wife Andrea!!

The very... patient wife with the wonderful sense of humor...

It's HER birthday today!!! 

No, I did NOT forget her birthday! What would make you say such a thing!! 

If I forgot her birthday, I could not be writing about now, could I?

So happy birthday, Dr. Biden...ANDREA! I meant Andrea!!

Mother's Day 2026

Today is Mother's Day so to my son Dean, remember to say "Hi!" to your mom.

Dean and I communicate via blog.

Yesterday I ventured forth to Target to get my wife Andrea a Mother's Day card.  

There are Mother's Day cards from husbands to their wives but these are mostly filled with treacly Hallmark sentimentality that is very much out of character for me.  

One time I gave Andrea a card that was kind of sweet and heartfelt.  She was worried. "Are you going to die?"  

Finally I spied a card with a dog on it. Nailed it!

Andrea likes cards with cute dogs on them. 

I was standing next to a young woman who was having some difficulty finding a card for her mother. She was goingthrough the cards with this repeated refrain: 

• "No, not that one!" 
• "No, not that one!" 
• "No, not that one!" 

Taylor Tomlinson did some stand up on the problems for adults buying a greeting card for a parent.  Too much water under the bridge.

• "Thank you for always being there for me! Nope!"
• "Thank you for accepting me as I am! Nah, that's not gonna work." 
• "Is there a card that simply says 'You are my mom" and full stop?"

I used to struggle with getting cards for my mom and dad for similar reasons. Thankfully, I don't have to do that anymore because they're both dead.

Wait! "Thankfully"? 

Really, my parents are dead and I'm seeing an upside in not giving the folks at Hallmark any of my money to express empty platitudes?

I admittedly had complicated relationships with my parents.  

And perhaps I have some reasons to be angry with them for decisions they made when I was young that affected the course of my life.

But they hardly seem to matter now.

Here is a photo I recently found on Facebook of me with my mother and my brother.  

This was taken about a year or so before she died.

I am struck by how small and frail she is in this picture.  At this point, she was in assisted living, in the early stages of the Alzheimer's that would claim her life.  

She was such a strong woman, fierce and passionate about things that were important to her.  

She was my strongest advocate even when perhaps I didn't deserve it.  

Sometimes I dream she is still alive and then I wake up to chastise myself for not calling her more often, then remembering I can't.  

Is the primary function of Mother's Day to instill feelings of guilt?

Now I'm missing the stuggle of finding her a card.

Like me, she wasn't big on sentimentality.

So it would have to be funny. Or have a picture of a cat.

Here's to Mother's Day for all our mothers still with us today and to those who loved so long ago. 

Invasion of the Fortress of Ineptitude

 Last Friday was my birthday.

I had the day off from work and had a fairly pleasant day.

I watched a random movie on TCM which is always a nice way to pass some time.

I went to Acme Comics to buy some comic books which I read most of them that afternoon.

Nothing says that a man is 63 years old than going to the comic book store and whiling away the afternoon reading comic books.

Andrea took me out to dinner for steak at Logan's where my waitress and the staff clapped and cheered for my 63 years of not dying. Normally I find such displays to be awkward and uncomfortable but I was determined I was not going to be a stick in the mud about. I clapped along with them and cheered as well.  

Andrea and I shared a free slice of cheesecake with strawberries that was quite delicious. 

Then it was time to go back home to the Fortress of Ineptitude for my favorite activity: watching TV.  

Which is what we were doing when around 10:30 PM, I heard footsteps, a noise at the front door and the door handle rattled.

I found this quite alarming. 

I've had nightmares about home invasions that played out exactly as this sequence of events.

I reached for my phone.

Andrea: What are you doing?

Me: I'm calling 911! 

Andrea: What?

Me: I don't know who that is! I'm not taking any chances! I'm calling 911! 

Andrea: No! Don't do that! 

As I said, I found this quite alarming. 

Oddly enough, my wife did... not?

She's the one who panics and worries at the drop of the proverbial hat with this slightest provocation. 

There's a stranger rattling our door knob seeking entry to our home and she is the one telling me NOT to call 911?

Entry to the Fortress of Ineptitude was achieved by...

Our son Dean, friend Jan and Rosie the dog.

Dean had texted Andrea to tell her they were going to make a trip to Greensboro to surprise me on my birthday.

So Andrea kept a secret from me.

Which she is usually rather bad at.  

Well, there's nothing like the real life occurrence of my recurring nightmare of my home being invaded to get my 63 year old heart pumping.   

Once I recovered from that shock, I was very happy to welcome these visitors.  

And I was extremely happy to see what Dean had made for my present. 

You're looking at already: a new banner for I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You.

I'm going to miss this old guy that Dean drew for me a few years back.

But this new banner is... Wow! 

There's so much going on here.

Days since last typo: zero! 

Yeah, that sounds about right.

And there's references to Doctor Who, Star Trek, the blog's editorial board, bananas and other fiddly bits associated with this fershlugginer blog.

A veritable "this is your life" Easter Egg fest. 

And an excellent work of art, Dean and I'm proud to make it a part of this goofy online enterprise.  

Meanwhile, the blog goes on.

We've got a Spinner Rack post tomorrow with some of those new comics I read on my birthday.  

Last Saturday, we went to see Project Hail Mary and I'll have more about that on this Saturday's Movie Time post.