Scribbles And Bits

Observations and comments . . .

---A sign of our health-conscious world today: My wife Wendy reported a young father grocery shopping with his daughter told her to "pick out something green" when they hit the vegetable aisle. Gee, when I went shopping with mother my treat was picking out cereal and cookies.

---My home computer is infected with adware that produces occasional pop-up ads. Usually, I ignore the on-line, off-shore casino and quick-and-easy loan offers, but one ad captured my attention. It was for a clinic that performed bariatric surgery.

This surgery involves stomach stapling or removing much of the stomach altogether in order to effect weight loss. It is only performed on the morbidly obese and is a procedure fraught with risk. So . . . would you be tempted to pick a surgeon for this based on their pop-up ad?

---The ice cream vendor in our neighborhood drives a truck that blares children's songs over a loudspeaker. Children wave him down from their perch on the curb when they want a frozen treat. Wendy wondered what the price of his ice cream treats must be with the jump in gasoline prices. I reminisced about the days in my old neighborhood, when the ice cream vendors were teenaged boys who pushed three-wheeled carts, bells jangling as they plodded down the middle of the street.

Wendy says she doesn't remember any such thing and, along with my remembering "freak shows" at the county fair, is starting to believe I'm older than I claim to be.

---My internet access is slowly shrinking. My free internet hook-up at home is going away, as my work is deeming it an unnecessary expense. That leaves the local library as the only local free hook-up.

I wonder if I might be losing my welcome there as I'm a heavy handed typist who has heard more than one sigh coming from the internet surfer in the next carrel after I've typed a lengthy comment.

My son Greg and his girlfriend Lindsay were completing some on-line forms at the library computer when they heard the machine gun staccato of somebody typing wildly on a computer opposite the partition.

Lindsay parodied the keyboardist in the style of a crazed ragtime pianist. Greg said, "My dad types like that." Then he took a peek around the corner. "It IS my dad."

What can I say. I'm at the age where it's difficult if not impossible to moderate my behavior. What you see is what you get. Er, hear rather.