Back to Basics

 

Life in the Boomer Lane has been spending so much time wallowing in the TWO HUGE SCARY news items that are consuming the entire planet right now, that she has had little time to direct her attention to the normal drivel that readers have come to depend on from her.

She has barely been able to pay attention to Miracle the Cat, who exhibits deranged behavior whenever Now Husband goes out of town. 1. Said Cat starts by emptying the contents of her food bowl onto the mat that is underneath it.  She then wails because there is no food in her bowl. 2. Said Cat wakes LBL up at ungodly hours in order to a. point out that the water level in her bowl has gone down slightly b. the cat door leading to the basement has become a foreign, scary item c. she needs to go out (interesting, since she rarely goes out during the day anymore) 3. Said Cat avoids her sleeping towel at the foot of the bed and insists, instead, on sleeping on LBL’s face.

Another item LBL has had no time to pay attention to has been the imploding of technology all around her. The left headlight of her car is now permanently on.  Her cell phone has stopped beeping when a text or email comes in. Her email service keeps warning her of their inability to process a file she has never heard of.  Emails keeps vaporizing at a rate that inversely correlates with their importance.

She has allowed the latest psychological research to slide by without comment.  An example: Perfectionism can be “devastatingly destructive,” leading to “crippling anxiety or depression, and it may even be an overlooked risk factor for suicide,” argues a new paper in Review of General Psychology, a journal of the American Psychological Association.  Bravo to the folks at the American Psychological Association.  They have identified a malady that LBL will never be in danger of acquiring. Along with being a wine snob and overexercising, LBL remains forever safe from the ravages of perfectionism.

Last night, a dinner guest who LBL has known since 1961, brought some old photos of a party that LBL had no knowledge of having ever hosted. The photos confirmed that LBL believed back in 1992 that the size of ones shoulder pads and the distance one’s hair stuck out from one’s head made up for the lack of one’s height.  Unfortunately, LBL’s friend left before LBL could destroy the photos.

LBL was greatly relieved to see that Beloved North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un, who had not been seen in public for more than a month, visited a newly built housing project and was walking with a cane.  Dennis Rodman will now be able to continue his visits to the Beloved Leader’s Paradise-on-Earth and will not have to resort to airbnb.com to find vacation housing elsewhere. Fabulous concerts will continue to be thrown, in which Disney characters perform for the Beloved Leader’s amusement. Unfortunately, such concerts will not be streamed into dungeons prisons, where approximately 80% of the population resides. The Beloved Leader will continue to be a fashion, hairstyle, and cartoon icon to his millions of adoring subjects.

Chicago, not New York, has been deemed the “rattiest city in the US.”  New York came in a paltry 4th, behind LA and Washington, DC.  Thus far, there has been no comment from Oprah (representing Chicago), the Kardashians (representing LA), and the rats (representing DC).

And, last, a warning to all loyal readers:  Do not, under any circumstances, spend a lot of time cooking a main course containing cilantro, without first polling prospective guests about their cilantro preferences. Otherwise, guests will start eating, put their forks down, turn to you and ask “Does this have cilantro?”  When you say “Yes,” they will push their plates away and declare “I hate cilantro.”  At that moment, if you live in the Washington, DC area, you will regret that you  didn’t simply serve rat.  It would have been easy to acquire and be far more palatable to them.