CSotD: Monday Merriment

Real Life Adventures (AMS) asks the question on all our minds: “What’s the deal with mattresses?”

Well, there’s also the question of “Whatever happened to President’s Day?” or, another way, “Remember when we had Lincoln’s Birthday and Washington’s Birthday?”

But let’s not bring those old guys up because then we’d get to talking about San Francisco, where they should probably just go back to calling the schools “PS 28” and such.

In the Northern Climes, we take a week off less to honor the Presidents than to either honor the ski hills or escape to Orlando, depending on how you feel about snow.

Which makes it a great time to buy a mattress, but, then, any time is a great time to buy a mattress, except for that one day a year when they are sold at full price so that, for the other 364 days, the mattress shops can claim massive discounts.

I bought a good mattress in 1996 and replaced it 25 years later with another good mattress but I guess if you buy a crappy mattress for one-fifth the price you need a new one every five years which is why there are always mattresses stacked up next to the Dumpsters at apartment buildings.

I can’t decide whether to channel Jerry Seinfeld or Andy Rooney on this, so let’s move on.

Though I’d add that, if you think cheesy mattress sales are what degrade our presidents, you haven’t been watching the news for the past week.

 

As long as I’m in a cranky mood, here’s a Macanudo (KFS) that I liked, because I have my doubts about all this “Cloud” stuff.

Granted  — speaking of mattresses — I feel like one of those old farmers who puts his money in one because he doesn’t trust the banks, but, then again, a lot of people who trusted banks in the ’30s lost their lives’ savings, and I don’t think they’re come up with a Federal Data Insurance Corporation.

Getting notices like this doesn’t exactly boost my confidence in trusting someone else with my stuff.

In this case, they’re offering alternative music storage, but the basic message is that these companies come and go and even the ones that stay change their policies more or less at will.

For instance, a lot of the books and music you think you bought you only leased. Amazon or whoever can magically jerk them back whenever they like.

There’s also this: The other day, I noted that, if I lost my phone, I wouldn’t be able to call anyone because I don’t remember phone numbers anymore.

That’s true, but there seem to be a lot of people who store their photos on their phones and would lose whole years of memories if that phone ever fell into a lake.

Personally, I store my photos on a for-real computer and occasionally back them up onto a portable hard drive.

But I guess you could load them up onto the Cloud instead, if you trust corporations to keep their promises and always be there for you.

 

On another topic entirely, Mother Goose & Grimm (KFS) isn’t so far off.

Dog Parks are a really good idea that mostly doesn’t work. In some cities, they’re ridiculously too small, basically just canine bathrooms, but even in places large enough to really throw a ball, you run into one of two problems.

Not, as seen in this comic, bad dogs. The problem is at the other end of the leash. We’ve got two dog parks here, and I live midway between them.

At one, there are so many rules that the dogs aren’t allowed to have any fun, and, at the other, there are no rules at all, and the dogs who come there are totally untrained, undisciplined and obnoxious.

The trick is to find a bootleg, unofficial spot.

We go to a huge riverside park that’s mostly woods, and where dog owners meet on the sly, like the book readers in Fahrenheit 451 .

Since there’s no fence, the dogs who come there have to be reasonably well-trained and they’re all pretty mellow.

It’s not truly bootleg: There’s an off-leash area at one end, but we drift into the rest of the park and only the occasional Almira Gulch complains about us.

Then the local cops come by to pet the dogs and remind us about the leash law.

They’re also pretty mellow.

 

Which is a natural segue to this Mr. Boffo, because the issue of masks also comes up from time to time.

We stand about 10 feet apart naturally, there’s a lot of fresh, moving air involved and we hardly constitute a crowd. It’s not like the Esplanade in Boston where you have mobs of dog walkers and joggers and bikers passing closely.

But I heard a handy rule, which is to ask yourself if you would notice someone’s perfume or aftershave, or be able to tell they were a smoker or perhaps not a frequent-enough bather?

A more cautious take is to ask if you’d smell the smoke if they were smoking a cigarette?

We mask up for the most part because some of us are worried about it and a few of us work in health care and so are exposed and mostly because we’re all friends and polite.

But, yeah, I think the guy in the cartoon has a serious concern.

And when this is all over, we’re gonna find out who stinks.

 

Speaking of which, this Sherman’s Lagoon (KFS) will not lead me to make the mistake of suggesting that NYC might be a more pleasant place to visit now, while we’re all wearing masks.

Besides, it’s probably more pleasant in the winter anyway, than in the summer when it’s hot and the curbside garbage is in bloom.

I don’t think the people who live there even notice anymore, and, besides, Oliver Douglas found his fresh air only to discover that, in Hootersville, his ditzy wife was the genius and he was the hapless nitwit.

Anyway, Manhattan was a good place to build a city. Nothing grow there except in little square place in middle of island.