Yesterday was a fun day planned with my family, basically for my birthday which is tomorrow. We went to Oxy to pick up Tori and then to Lacy Park to have a picnic. Then it was on to Huntington Gardens in Pasadena. We visited a number of gardens but I really enjoyed the Desert Gardens. The cacti were wonderful. My favorites were well displayed. The Stapelia were everywhere. One was in bloom and the flower had captured a fly. The sun was peaking between clouds and caught the Golden Barrels just right to really show off their size and color. Later we went to see the art displays in the mansion. The big attractions were Blue Boy and Pinky. They were worth seeing as one never knows if we'll ever get back here. We had thought we had been here almost thirty years ago, but the docent explained to us that we were really thinking of the Arboretum in Arcadia. [That was where Fantasy Island was filmed.]
The day continued without incident until we went to an early dinner at Buca DeBeppo's. We has a heated discussion at the table about smart phones, privacy and "down time". It was decided that technology has become part of the younger generation's lives, while we, the Boomers, were the enablers. No amount of questions regarding the ginormous values places on Google, Facebook and Twitter and why, could convince the youngster's that it was based on what they could steal from the users and sell to the advertisers. All I can say is that the Social Bubble will burst; I believe it and you all should as well.
So does anyone have a definitive explanation about the over-valuing of the social and search sites ? When I bring this up to my kids, it is though I know nothing. They tell me that they have not ever known anything except the technologies that they have available today. Unfortunately, what they don't realize is that those technologies come with a price. NOBODY would put that much effort and money into a project to access and steal copies of your private data and catalog your habits UNLESS there was WAY MORE money to be made!!! It is OUR FAULT that the people of today (younger than Boomers) depend so heavily on technologies. After all, we ram a new one down their throat as often as we can- and then shift the paradigms to cover it.
A father walks into a restaurant with his young son. He gives the young boy 3 nickels to play with to keep him occupied.
Suddenly, the boy starts choking, going blue in the face.
The father realizes the boy has swallowed the nickels and starts slapping him on the back. The boy coughs up 2 of the nickels, but keeps choking.
Looking at his son, the father is panicking, shouting for help.
A well-dressed, attractive, and serious looking woman in a blue business suit is sitting at the coffee bar reading a newspaper and sipping a cup of coffee.
At the sound of the commotion, she looks up, puts her coffee cup down, neatly folds the newspaper and places it on the counter, gets up from her seat and makes her way, unhurried, across the restaurant. Reaching the boy, the woman carefully drops his pants; takes hold of the boy's' “privates” and starts to squeeze and twist, gently at first and then ever so firmly.
After a few seconds the boy convulses violently and coughs up the last nickel, which the woman deftly catches in her free hand. Releasing the boy's testicles, the woman hands the nickel to the father and walks back to her seat at the coffee bar without saying a word.
As soon as he is sure that his son has suffered no ill effects, the father rushes over to the woman and starts thanking her saying, "I've never seen anybody do anything like that before, it was fantastic. Are you a doctor?”
"No," the woman replied, "I'm with Internal Revenue Service".
Excerpts From "A Cat's Guide To Human Beings"
1. Introduction: Why Do We Need Humans?
So you've decided to get yourself a human being. In doing so,
you've joined the millions of other cats who have acquired these
strange and often frustrating creatures. There will be any number
of times, during the course of your association with humans, when
you will wonder why you have bothered to grace them with your
presence.
What's so great about humans, anyway? Why not just hang around
with other cats? Our greatest philosophers have struggled with
this question for centuries, but the answer is actually rather
simple:
THEY HAVE OPPOSABLE THUMBS.
Which makes them the perfect tools for such tasks as opening
doors, getting the lids off of cat food cans, changing television
stations and other activities that we, despite our other obvious
advantages, find difficult to do ourselves. True, chimps,
orangutans and lemurs also have opposable thumbs, but they are
nowhere as easy to train.
2. How And When to Get Your Human's Attention
Humans often erroneously assume that there are other, more
important activities than taking care of your immediate needs,
such as conducting business, spending time with their families or
even sleeping.
Though this is dreadfully inconvenient, you can make this work to
your advantage by pestering your human at the moment it is the
busiest. It is usually so flustered that it will do whatever you
want it to do, just to get you out of its hair. Not
coincidentally, human teenagers follow this same practice.
Here are some tried and true methods of getting your human to do
what you want:
Sitting on paper: An oldie but a goodie. If a human has paper in
front of it, chances are good it's something they assume is more
important than you. They will often offer you a snack to lure you
away. Establish your supremacy over this wood pulp product at
every opportunity. This practice also works well with computer
keyboards, remote controls, car keys and small children.
Waking your human at odd hours: A cat's "golden time" is between
3:30 and 4:30 in the morning. If you paw at your human's sleeping
face during this time, you have a better than even chance that it
will get up and, in an incoherent haze, do exactly what you want.
You may actually have to scratch deep sleepers to get their
attention; remember to vary the scratch site to keep the human
from getting suspicious.
3. Punishing Your Human Being
Sometimes, despite your best training efforts, your human will
stubbornly resist bending to your whim. In these extreme
circumstances, you may have to punish your human. Obvious
punishments, such as scratching furniture or eating household
plants, are likely to backfire; the unsophisticated humans are
likely to misinterpret the activities and then try to discipline
YOU. Instead, we offer these subtle but nonetheless effective
alternatives:
· Use the cat box during an important formal dinner.
· Stare impassively at your human while it is attempting a
romantic interlude.
· Stand over an important piece of electronic equipment and feign
a hairball attack.
· After your human has watched a particularly disturbing horror
film, stand by the hall closet and then slowly back away, hissing
and yowling.
· While your human is sleeping, lie on its face.
4. Rewarding Your Human: Should Your Gift Still Be Alive?
The cat world is divided over the etiquette of presenting humans
with the thoughtful gift of a recently disemboweled animal. Some
believe that humans prefer these gifts already dead, while others
maintain that humans enjoy a slowly expiring cricket or rodent
just as much as we do, given their jumpy and playful movements in
picking the creatures up after they've been presented.
After much consideration of the human psyche, we recommend the
following: cold blooded animals (large insects, frogs, lizards,
garden snakes and the occasional earthworm) should be presented
dead, while warm blooded animals (birds, rodents, your neighbor's
Pomeranian) are better still living. When you see the expression
on your human's face, you'll know it's worth it.
5. How Long Should You Keep Your Human?
You are only obligated to your human for one of your lives. The
other eight are up to you. We recommend mixing and matching,
though in the end, most humans (at least the ones that are worth
living with) are pretty much the same. But what do you expect?
They're humans, after all. Opposable thumbs will only take you so
far.
