My fellow Americans –
Happy Independence Day to all of you!
Please take a few minutes on this day to look at a wonderful history lesson — about me! — by Maira Kalman, in which you’ll learn, among other things, that I actually wrote the Declaration of Independence!
Thanks,
Tom
“The doctor said I’m really skinny,” my son says. “I’m in the 75th percentile for weight but I’m in the 94th percentile for height.”
“That’s not a really big difference,” I say.
“She said I could be 6-foot-4 by the time I’m 20.”
“I’d like to be 6-foot-4.”
“I wouldn’t,” he says. “I’m going to stand out everywhere.”
“I’m 6 feet, maybe a little over, and I’m taller than most people, but if I was 6-foot-4, I’d be definitively taller than most people.”
“Exactly,” he says. “I’ll be a freak.”
“6-foot-4 isn’t a freak. Girls love tall guys.”
“I’ll be an outcast giant.”
My son can’t find his cell phone . . .
“You should glue it to your hand,” I say, “since you lose it at least once a day.”
“No, I don’t,” he says.
“Once a week, then.”
“Okay, but I never lose it. I just can’t find it at the time I need it.”
A problem-solving leader’s entire orientation is toward creating an environment in which everyone can be solving problems, making decisions, and implementing those decisions, rather than personally solving problems, making decisions, and implementing those decisions.
When you’re reinventing yourself in a new career, first impressions are even more important because everyone secretly doubts that you have what it takes to be successful. Without waiting for you to explain why you’re qualified, people will make a snap judgment based on your appearance and demeanor. Do you look and sound like someone who does this job?
Leftovers from a catered lunch meeting found their way into the break room refrigerator.
I pull out a tin of pasta . . .
“Look,” I say to the woman watching me, “this one has my name right on it! ‘Pesto Pete,’ that’s what they call me.”
“That says ‘Pesto Penne,’” she says.
“Close enough!”
My wife’s in a great mood. She’s just back from grocery shopping at the local Korean market, where fresh produce is sold cheaply.
“Guess how much for these,” she says excitedly, holding up a package of eggs.
“How many are there?”
“Twenty.”
I haven’t bought eggs in years so I have no idea how much they cost. I’m thinking of guessing $1.99 but I don’t want to undershoot the real price and take all the fun out of it for her.
“Two ninety-nine,” I say.
“Ninety-nine cents!” She’s now holding up a small carton of fruit. “How much for these?” she asks.
“What are those?”
“Boysenberries.”
“Ninety-nine cents,” I say, since that was the right answer on the eggs.
“Thirty-three cents! How can they sell this stuff so cheap?”
“They sneak around local farms by night, stealing eggs and boysenberries. It’s the only possible explanation.”
“Mom, can you drop me off at the park for basketball?”
“Not now, honey, I’m on a business call.”
“People are waiting for me! YOU’RE KILLING MY TEAM!”
I say to my ex: “How can you ask if he’s your kid? You can count backward from his birth to one of the two times in six years we had sex.”
From Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler:
Pasta e fagioli — amazing! Linguine with shaved truffles — exquisite! Service — impeccable!
My wife had the veal liver. I don’t even like liver but I tried it and loved it! They can make you like things you don’t even like.
It’s not inexpensive — that needs to be mentioned — but if you feel like helping to spend the country out of this recession we’re having, I think you’ll really enjoy it.
I put a half-full cup of soda from Extra Mile in the fridge and went out to run some errands. When I got back home, the soda was gone.
“What happened to my soda?” I asked.
“I cleaned out the refrigerator,” my wife said.
The optimist sees the glass as half full. The pessimist sees the glass as half empty and throws it out, even if it belongs to someone else . . .
Iranian envoys hoping to get a piece of American pie, or at least a hot dog, will have to wait. The invitations extended last month to Iranian officials to attend Fourth of July celebrations at American embassies have been rescinded, reports The Times’s Mark Landler.
I hope that’s because they continue to murder their own citizens in the streets and not just because they failed to RSVP in a timely manner.
I stand side by side with President Obama in my support for human rights and opposition to totalitarian autocracy!
NO IRANIAN DIPLOMATS WILL BE ALLOWED AT MY HOUSE FOR JULY 4 FESTIVITIES!
Oh yeah, we’re playing hardball now . . .
Kodachrome
You give us those nice bright colors
You give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah!
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away
Kodak takes your Kodachrome away
I saw these husband and wife profile photos on a Facebook friend list:
The photo on the left is the husband’s profile photo. He looks like a more effeminate, French-looking version of the Dos Equis guy.
The photo on the right is the wife’s profile photo.
You’ll notice it’s the same photo, but she’s taken a page from the Stalin revisionist history playbook and removed hubby from the photo.
And note that she didn’t just crop him out, which would be the easy thing to do. She went to the trouble of firing up some photo editing software, erasing him, and recreating her bustline against the new background.
She’s just not that into you!
Seen on Facebook:
Original Poster: RIP Michael Jacokson!
Commenter: Michael Jacokson died on the same day as Michael Jackson? How bizarre is that?
Original Poster: OMFG really!! I think the death of Michael JACKSON is more important than a freakin typo!
Commenter: So Michael Jacokson is still alive? THANK GOD!
