Boar or Bore?

Labor Day in the United States is a holiday celebrated on the first Monday in September. 

It is a celebration of the American labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of their country.

Labor Day was promoted by the Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor. In 1887 it was established as an official holiday in September to support the Labor Day that the Knights favored.

Now most people celebrate it as the end of summer with picnics and good old fashioned beer drinking.

After forty-two Labor Days in California I can't shake the feeling it's going to snow soon. I mean not like tomorrow, unless the weather patterns get really screwy, but in ten weeks or so. 

I'm thinking about all the possibilities for the blog and I keep coming back to "It's the Day after Labor Day"

It just feels different. 

Summer is over and now we are on to football and the holiday season, just 113 shopping days until Christmas.

Every Labor Day I think about fresh cider and doughnuts from the Franklin Cider Mill in Michigan. Apples will soon be ripe for harvest and I may be able to buy Fuji's for under $2.49 a pound. 

I just opened an anti-bacterial deep cleansing hand soap from Bath & Body Works. Wanda is in charge of ordering the hygiene aids for the household. If I had to do it we would be cleaning our hands with sand. I appreciate her efforts so I hope I don't sound ungrateful but Candy Cane Bliss? I'm sure they snuck this into her order. Like maybe it was BOGO or a special of some sort. My hands and face smell like I just fell in a vat of liquid peppermint. 

Oh, now I suppose someone will tell me I shouldn't be washing my face with this soap, well it comes with instructions.

WARNINGS: For external use only

DIRECTIONS: Wet hands, work into a rich lather, rinse well

USE: Hand washing to decrease bacteria on skin.

The instructions read HAND washing not HAND and FACE washing.

Am I in trouble?

It's considered gauche to wear white after Labor Day.

Other than in a game of Words with Friends when is the last time you used this terrific word.

Gauche

gōSH

Lacking ease or grace; unsophisticated and socially awkward.

Gauche should never be confused with gauge, gouge, gaucho or the eldest Marx Brother Groucho.

Last Wednesday I wrote about a woman that had a dead mouse pour out of a cereal box when she was getting breakfast for her grandson. She was upset and Kellogg's was looking into the situation.

I held back so here is the real story.

"Eat your mouse there are children starving in Europe."

"But Grandmother, we're in Europe and nobody is starving here."

"OK, fine.....Mr. Smart Guy, Africa."

Wanda wrote a Facebook post about the stupidity of the Ice-Bucket Challenge. She acknowledged it was useful in raising awareness and funds for a good cause but questioned the sensibility of wasting a much needed resource like water. She also questioned the need for the challenge aspect behind the motivation to donate. 

A few days later a post showing an African child drinking water from a cap while people dumped buckets of the liquid over their heads made it's way through Facebook. 

I have so many things to be thankful for.

We have the three cats, Dakota, Sparky and Steve and three litter boxes in the garage. I had afternoon duty and unbeknownst to me Steve was hanging out on the Cailis chair watching me.

"I just spent ninety seconds burying that perfectly good poop and now you're digging it up and putting it in a paper bag, what is wrong with you?"

I often spend time wondering what the cats think about. I wish they could talk. But like the Dug the dog in Up who was constantly yelling "Squirrel" I think Steve would be saying "Bird" or "Leaf."

Our She Said, He Heard has recently escalated.

Escalate is another great word.

To become worse or to make (something) worse or more severe.

To become greater or higher or to make (something) greater or higher….think escalator.

Escalate should never be confused with masticate or emasculate.

It's one thing to have few misheard words but entire conversations? It may be time to add hearing to my growing list of greatly diminished capacities.

Wanda: "Do you want some soup?"

I should point out in addition to taking delight in perusing the Safeway coupons for deals we now purchase (and eat) a great deal of soup. I'm not suggesting the mere intake of soup is enough to denote old(er) age but add the canned tuna and sardines and it may be a statement. 

"Do you want some soup?"

"What kind is it?"

"12:13"

"What?"

"It's 12:13"

"What's that got to do with soup?"

"Nothing. Did you ask me the time or the kind of soup?"

"Not the time, the kind."

"Oh.......chicken barley."

"No thanks, no soup."

And no wild boar for me either.

Nearly three decades after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, wild boars containing high levels of radiation have been found roaming the German countryside some 700 miles away. 

The explosion at the Ukrainian plant in 1986 spread a radioactive cloud over Europe. One in three boars tested in Germany’s eastern state of Saxony still exceed legal radioactive limits, officials say. "You should not expect that wild boars in the southern Vogtland region are now glowing in the dark, but regulations in Germany and the European Union are very strict."

Jimi Jamison, the lead singer of Survivor, died Sunday night at age 63.

A dethroned 16-year-old beauty queen from Myanmar said Tuesday she won't return her bejeweled $100,000 crown until pageant organizers apologize for calling her a liar and a thief.

May Myat Noe — the country's first winner of an international beauty contest — lashed back at her accusers at a tightly packed news conference.

She said representatives of the Miss Asia Pacific World pageant lied about her age — saying she was 18 instead of 16 — and tried to pressure her into getting plastic surgery "from head to toe."

She denied having breast implants as claimed by David Kim, director of media for the South Korean-based pageant. He said the surgery was provided free of charge, part of efforts to boost the teen into super-stardom.

"I'm not even proud of this crown," she said after opening a blue box and placing the tiara on the table in front of her.

"I don't want a crown from an organization with such a bad reputation."

The Miss Asia Pacific World pageant, now in its fourth year, is no stranger to controversy.

Some of the contestants also accused officials of asking the women for sex in return for higher placement in the contest, and charged that the police called into investigate the allegations were bribed.

Those allegations were denied by Kim.

"It is not true that the girls were sleeping with the organizers or the director," he said. "The police already announced that these were just rumors. We checked everything, the CCTV in the hotel, everything. I went through hours and hours of video myself and saw no indication of sex with any judges.”

Kim added, “But next year look for my new web site “Girls of the Pacific.”