Ten Things I Will Never Tire Of

Leave it to my sister to complain about the negativity of yesterday’s blogpost. As a corrective measure she suggested a follow-up blog entitled, Ten Things I will Never Tire Of. Never let it be said that I can’t take constructive criticism, especially when it’s actually a good idea! Here goes:

I will never tire of living in a place with four distinct seasons. In Virginia we get all four of them and the contrast is one of the most genius aspects of creation. 

I will never get tired of baseball. My past enthusiasm for other sports has waned. Football, basketball and golf have all slowly fallen off my sports radar over the years, but baseball has been a constant. Don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t been for lack of trying. The players’ strike of 1994 was a body blow and tempted me to walk away. The continued existence of the designated hitter roils me, the steroid crisis angered me beyond description...but baseball still endures in my heart and soul.

I will never get tired of sausage. Mild, medium or spicy. Polish, Italian, patties or links. Doesn’t matter.

I will never get tired of writing. For me its very much like breathing, an involuntary reflex that I have no ability to resist. It calms me down and fires me up. It allows me to express myself honestly without the assistance of expensive and annoying therapists. 

I will never get tired of Maine. I am drawn to the place like a moth is drawn to flame. It has the power to transform and rejuvenate like no other place in the world for me. It restores my soul.

I will never tire of the thrill I get from helping someone in need. It’s even more thrilling when you’re able to pull it off anonymously!

I will never get tired of the wonderful feeling I get when all four of my children are standing at the top of the steps waiting for Pam and I to allow them to come down on Christmas morning.

I will never get tired of intelligent, provocative and fearless preaching, the kind that convicts, provokes and inspires in equal measure. Anything less is a colossal waste of time.

I will never tire of dogs. They hold a unique place in my devotion that simply cannot be replaced by anything else. They make my life better in a thousand ways.

I will never tire of the thrill I get when I pull the trigger of my Daisy Powerline 35 and see that squirrel flipping head over heels out of the tree and onto the ground. 

Ten Things I’m Tired Of

At 6:00 in the morning on Monday the 4th of November, in the year of our Lord 2019, here is a short list of some things that I am tired of:

I’m tired of mean people. I’m just over self-centered narcissistic people who treat their fellow human beings with rudeness. I’m not saying that I am never guilty of this behavior because I am from time to time. But when it happens to me I instantly know it and feel contrite and usually rush to make amends. I’m talking about people for whom rudeness is a way of life, people who’s default personality trait is meanness. Enough already. Bring back manners.

I’m tired of advertising that seeks to convince us that we can’t be happy and fulfilled unless we buy the newest, shiniest, top of the line innovation available. In other words, I’m tired of all advertising. I’ve lived long enough, and enjoyed enough financial success to know that it’s all a lie. Things can’t fulfill you. It’s impossible. Seeking and striving after the latest, greatest thing is a recipe for perpetual discontent.

I’m tired of politics, politicians, and those who enable them by believing that they have the power to transform anything.

I’m tired of seeing social media arguments about hymns v praise choruses. Seriously, Christians? This is what we’re debating in 2019?

I’m tired of trying to figure out the right answer to every single hot button social issue of the day. Honestly, I don’t think it’s humanly possible to know the right way to think on everything. There are just going to be things this side of eternity that I don’t understand and will never understand. And, that’s ok. But, precisely because I don’t know the right answer to everything, I need to choose grace and humility towards people who might have different views. Some things need to be left in God’s hands. Let him sort it out. Meanwhile, be kind to people.

I’m tired of our celebrity culture. The adulation we heap upon famous people is disgusting. Watching my fellow Americans trying to look like, dress like, and act like celebrities is profoundly embarrassing.

I’m tired of greed in all of its forms. The salaries of many corporate executives are an outrage, and often do great harm to the financial integrity of the companies they lead. The vast fortunes that even the lowliest Congressmen build while ostensibly devoting their lives to public service is a joke. The money that gets thrown at athletes is obscene considering the fact that the cumulative effect of their salaries has made it next to impossible for a family of four to attend a game without taking out a home equity line. I understand the complexities involved in setting the proper price for goods and services in a free society, but when a CEO makes 50 million in a year when his company loses money and lays off a thousand workers, when a Congressman who makes $175,000 a year ends up with a net worth of 20 million after three terms in Congress, when you start paying utility infielders 9 million dollars a year...something has gone off the rails.

I’m tired of diva wide receivers. Actually, just tired of pro football.

I’m tired of Christmas junk appearing in stores before Halloween.

I’m tired of squirrels and their insistence on existing.

All I’ve Got Left

Baseball season is over. I just finished writing my third novel in five years. Stupid daylight savings time has screwed with the universe to the point where it’s dark at 5:30 in the afternoon. All I’ve got left at this point is the following horrible Dad Jokes:

Women gets convicted of armed robbery. Judge tells her that she can either spend ten years in Prison or sleep with him.

Judge got recalled for ending a sentence with a proposition.

The past, the present, and the future walk into a bar...

It was tense.

Have you heard about that new Italian suppository?

They call it innuendo.

What’s brown and rhymes with Snoop?

Dr. Dre

What happens when you put a vest on an alligator?

He becomes ....an investigator

If you had to put a number on how many times a day your dog barks, what would you call it?

A ruff estimate

Living Through The Revolution

November is off to a rousing start here at the Dunnevant house. After the thrilling World Series win by the Nationals, the month of Thanksgiving has arrived with chilly temperatures and bright clear skies. Only one more obstacle stands in the way of the people and our righteous pursuit of happiness...the election...but that will soon be but a bad dream and in our rear view mirrors. As the proctologist said to the man who accidentally swallowed marbles, “this too shall pass”.

The new month has brought with it a couple of good jokes that I have passed on to my friend:

What do you call a duck who gets straight A’s?

A Wise Quacker.

Panda walks into a bar and says, “I’ll have a bourbon...................................and coke.”

Bartender says, “Ok, but what’s with the big paws?”

This next one might seem inappropriate to some of you, and frankly, it probably is. But sometimes inappropriate jokes are kinda awesome...

You hear that Dolly Parton is getting into the grocery business? She bought the Piggly Wiggly and the Harris Teeter down in Gatlinburg.

She’s going to name the new store Dolly Parton’s Wiggly Teeters

In other news, just in time for the chilly weather, I bought one of these babies for the patio:

A friend of mine has one and it’s amazing. So I go online to their website, pick out the one I want, type a few numbers into a purchase order and press send. Literally fifteen minutes later I get a text notifying me that my new bonfire stove has been shipped. 

Pause for a moment and think about that. We live in an amazing time in world history. Commerce and trade has become blindingly fast and efficient. I decide what I want, I go online and buy it with a click. It is then shipped to my door from God knows where. I didn’t need to go to a store. I didn’t even need to be wearing clothes. I just did it. This is a revolutionary way of interacting that is bypassing all conventional controls to access that human beings have always had to endure, including governments. They are all scrambling to keep up. This process serves to empower the consumer but it takes power from practically everyone else. It will be fascinating to watch the transformation this will bring for good and ill. The bottom line is this...Americans are buying practically everything differently than they did a mere twenty years ago. Cash? Hardly ever. Checks? Even more rare. From a store at the mall? Bruhahaha. This is the world we live in, like it or not.

Decisions, Decisions...

Here’s the forecast for Short Pump for the next five days...Sunny. High temperatures in the upper 50’s, lows in the middle 30’s. That, my friends, is perfect fall weather. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

So, this morning, my friend is recovering nicely from yesterday’s chemo. She is under doctor’s orders to work from home for the next few days with no contact with people and lots of rest. Accordingly, I felt that my dad Joke game needed to be top level this morning. So I sent her these three:

What do you say when a knight from Prague puts on his armor?

...the Czech is in the mail

What’s the best way to watch a fishing tournament?

...live stream

I hadn’t planned on visiting the family over Christmas, but Mom promised to make Eggs Benedict, so I decided to go...

...home for the Hollandaise 

In case you people have been living in a cave, I guess you’ve noticed that there’s an election next week. If you have a mail box, you have no excuse for not knowing that there’s an election because 80% of the mail you have gotten for the past month has been election related. I’m starting to think that the only thing keeping the USPS afloat financially is election junk mail. But, it must work or why would they send so stinking much of it? The closer we get to Election Day, the more hysterical the mail becomes. Have you noticed that? I read the fliers and think...what a bunch of losers. Check these out...

So, this Rodman women is depicted as the Hindenburg and Dunnavant as the Space Shuttle. Well, that settles it, right? Why on earth would I want to send a gas-filled blimp to the State Capital? Don’t we have enough of them already?? Especially one with such poor taste in eyewear. This add is for this woman’s opponent but there’s no picture of her opponent not even a mention of her name...just three pictures of these horrible glasses...

But wait. Not so fast. Apparently, this Dunnavant woman is in favor of more and more gun violence...

But, if that decision isn’t difficult enough, now I have to deal with being publicly shamed for my less than stellar voting record...

There it is for all the world to see. My neighbors, Allison, Charles, Andrew, Brittany, and David are all more civically engaged than I am. When I first saw this piece I thought, “great! This is like 8th grade geometry all over again. Damn B- !!” But upon further investigation I discovered that the Republican Party was not impressed with the fact that I had not voted in either of the last two primary elections, thus my lower grade...

Well, you can’t argue with the facts. I mean, my neighbors are doing their part. I feel so ashamed of myself.

You know, it’s this sort of thing that makes me question the entire democratic experiment with self government. Is this the type of thing that James Madison and Thomas Jefferson had in mind? I’ve got to walk into the voting booth next week trying to remember which woman is the Hindenburg and which one was the Space Shuttle? 

Ahh...democracy in 2019

Say a Prayer For My Friend

Just a note to anyone who reads this blog. If you are the praying type, I would appreciate your prayers for my friend who will be taking her third chemo treatment today. Today marks her halfway point through chemo and so far it’s been quite unpleasant. Every possible horror story you may have heard about chemo she has experienced. Despite it all she walks into that treatment center dressed to the nines, like she owns the place, head up and boldly confident. She slaps on her headphones and listens to upbeat praise music and lets them pump three bags of poison into her blood stream for eight hours. She says they call the third bag the red devil because it’s filled with not only a witch’s brew of toxins but also a cocktail of drugs designed to relax her for the hour and a half drive home.

When she tells me this I try to imagine myself having to submit to such a thing and I just can’t. The only way I could make it thru eight hours of sitting that still would be for them to give me the red devil first, otherwise I would be a raving lunatic and disturb all the other patients. But, my friend possesses other worldly determination not to be victimized by the trauma of it all. There will be not sweatpants for my friend. No, she strides in there dressed for success, large and in charge. I would love to be a fly on the wall, watching her make her swaggering entrance...but I’m not sure there is an IV small enough for my little fly arms, because even as a fly, I would have to be heavily sedated!!

So, again...if you believe in prayer, as you go about your day today, offer one up for my brave friend.\

Thank You.

Game Seven!!!!!!

Since I’m going to be as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, I’ve decided to keep an in game blog of my observations during Game Seven. I am doing this not because I think I might have some profound insight, but rather to keep me relatively calm by giving me something to do during commercial breaks and pitching changes..etc..

- Decent National Anthem. Some country singer I had never heard of with the good sense not to butcher the song and the upbringing that prevented him from wearing that God-awful hat while he was singing.

-Whenever I see Ken Rosenthal on TV I want to bring him home and build him a tiny little house to play in out back.

-I wonder if Juan Soto gets his hair cut for half price, since the barber obviously quit halfway thru.

-Adam Eaton is the type of guy I would hate if he were on any other team. What a pest.

-Max Scherzer looks like a really angry assassin. 97 mph in the first inning. Whoa.

-Pretty much can’t stand Bregman, so consequently love watching him make an out.

-I’m really, really surprised that Charlize Theron drinks Budweiser.

-Gurriel is tough. Hit a good pitch.

- Great catch by Soto. Now, lets get some runs boys!

-Altuve is great. How does he put THAT pitch into left field??

-I don’t want to jinx him but this umpire hasn’t missed a pitch yet. A huge improvement over the last two nights.

-Max is grinding.

-I vow never to enter a Taco Bell franchise for as long as I live just from spite for these stupid commercials.

-Let’s try hitting them to someone besides the pitcher.

-Greinke is dealing. Between him and Rendon they look like they are sleep walking through the game.

- Houston keeps leaving men on base. This could come back to haunt them. Trick knee is telling me that Washington can win this game the longer it goes on this close. But at some point we need to stop hitting ground balls to Greinke.

-Huge moment. Two on. Correa at the plate. Max needs to get out of this!! Just one run. We’re still alive.

-Good Lord. Greinke looks like the reincarnation of Cy Young. Our guys taking fastballs right over the middle of the plate and swinging at everything else. Totally off balance. Looks like we are going out with a whimper. So...I have changed viewing strategies and am now upstairs in the recliner, watching the game on the MLB app. A reverse rally cap of sorts.

-One of the most terrifying phrases any Nationals fan can hear? “Tanner Rainey now warming up in the bullpen.”

-Anthony Rendon, superstar...and now Greinke out of the game. Here we go.

-HOWIE FREAKING KENDRICK 

-And now the Astros bring in their wife beating closer in the seventh inning. 

-Corbin...the guy we could afford to sign after we got rid of Harper pitches two great innings in game seven. Yes.

-We need to get six outs, which would be much easier with a few more runs. Come on boys.

-That’s what I’m talking about!! Juan, Juan Juan!!!!

-Three more outs. Dear God in heaven, saints preserve us!!!!

- I swear, if Davey brings Fernando Rodney into this game, I might spend the rest of my life in prison.

-I will feel so much better about our ability to get these last three outs if we can score a couple more in the top half of the ninth. Bases loaded...I will never get to sleep tonight...YES!!! Adam Eaton!!!! I cannot believe what I’m seeing!!

- Ok...Here we go...three outs to get, four run lead.

ARGHGHHHHH!!!!! HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!