Dear Wally 119 Tree Snakes

Dear Wally 119 (Tree Snakes)

Dear Wally:

I just read that they have a huge problem with invasive Brown Tree snakes in Guam and as an antidote,  the authorities  are proposing parachuting in poisoned mice from helicopters to kill the snakes.  Does this not seem like an ill-conceived, man-made experiment with the natural balance?  Even from here in Accord, NY,  I am blown away by how myopic we humans are in all corners of the world.  Seems like we have tried this sort of fool-hardy thing many times with disastrous consequences…

-Concerned

Dear Concerned:  I’ll speak to this but it means you must now address me as INTERNATIONAL advice columnist.    (And Blue Stone Press Payroll Dept?  Take note:  International advice carries with it a $5/ column surcharge as I have to use a different keyboard and use parts of my brain that are in the WAY back and extremely dusty). 
I’ll confess, you sort of blindsided me with this one.  I was expecting an email about a soured relationship, or whether or not it’s cool to get your stuck cat out of a tree with a 12 foot poker if no one is looking, or perhaps an invitation to engage in an extended debate on my dislike of mayo. 
I had to look into this Pacific Island crisis a bit.  For those of you completely clueless (don’t feel like you are living under a rock if you haven’t heard about this), here’s a little back story:
 "The brown tree snake has had a devastating impact," says Cheryl Calustro of Guam's Department of Agriculture. "Ten out of 12 native forest bird species disappeared in 30 years. The birds here evolved without predators. They were quite naive. And when the snake arrived on Guam it ate eggs, juveniles, adults. Whole generations disappeared."
And birds aren't the snakes' only victims. According to a USGS report, the snakes have caused "the extirpation of most of the native forest vertebrate species; thousands of power outages affecting private, commercial, and military activities" along with "considerable emotional trauma to residents and visitors alike."
Ah yes, ‘considerable emotional trauma to residents and visitors alike.’ 
And friggin’ advice columnists half a world away. 
So, as they say, “Houston, we have a problem…”  Being on an island overrun by mildly venomous tree snakes is pretty much my nightmare.  Won’t be going to inspect for myself.  But it does sound like mice are.  So I’m left with images of tiny little parachutes on the tiny backs of these doomed mice. 
Any self-respecting government will need to spend an obscene amount of tax payer money training the mice to grab the mini rip cords and deploy their mini chutes at the proper altitude.  Plus officials will have to deal with what will probably be a fairly high mouse suicide rate.   Standing at the edge of that helicopter,  imagine the mouse even bothering to use the parachute at all when the alternative is to be used as a poison bait station for an equally poisonous snake.
Of course, those astute policy wonks out there may well ask, “Well, Guam, what happens if , uhhhhh, something OTHER than a Brown Tree snake eats the toxic mouse?”  Then don’t you have a lot of collateral damage to innocent species??   And what if those little mice actually survive this hellish commando assignment, and in a fit of desperate celebration, start fornicating madly?   (I would).  Then you have an island-wide vermin problem, no?  As you would if you introduced weasels or the like.
Turns out the mice will be ‘dispatched’ (military speak for ‘killed’)  prior to being shoved (tossed? dumped?) out of the helicopter.  Their bodies will be loaded up with asprin (simple enough, right?) which is highly toxic to a few species, snakes cats pigs and birds included.  The idea being that snakes will find dead, poisoned mice with mini parachutes on their backs irresistibly appetizing… (I personally find that olive oil and sea salt can turn around any dish).
 Everything other than a mouse-nibbling snake can deal with a little asprin and not have it have lethal consequences.   Part of mitigating the damage will require a dose good old fashioned Soviet era, leaflet-dropping propaganda to warn cats , pigs and birds in whatever language it is they speak (Cat calls? Pig Latin? Tweets? ) to stay away from the dead mice (with parachutes on their back).  (My advice to Guam financial commodities speculators would be to buy pork belly futures right now and perhaps also stash a little extra bacon in the freezer).
Nature’s balance is delicate and almost always leaves those meddling with it with grand tales of regret.  That said, I’d be freaking out too if I lived there.  One member of the online discussion forum suggested firebombing the entire island nation with Napalm and then after some period of time, letting the people return.  Egads- we are doomed to repeat history…  So dropping poisoned mice?  Relatively harmless experiment (if you aren’t a mouse, I suppose).
It’s a mess over there in the South Pacific with their snakes and tsunamis.  At least all we have to worry about here in the Hudson Valley is hydro-fracking.  (hmmm, I wonder if the radioactive rock tailings and spent, benzene-based drilling fluid would kill Brown Tree snakes?  Wait wait wait!!!  I might have just solved two big problems at once (and saved a lot of mice).  (And earned my $5 international advice surcharge).  Ah ha!
If Guam’s ‘Operation Mouse’ doesn’t work, and turns into a global headache, one at least hopes they will have plenty of extra, unused asprin (or edible, aspirin –soaked mice)  handy for the folks in the government’s Public Relations department.
Oh, the reason this imbalance occurred in the first place?   The non-native Brown Tree snakes (at least one male and one female) stowed away in a (manmade) ship from Papua New Guinea , circa WWII.  Nice going gents.  Got to call the travel agent and cancel my trip there , too.

Got a snake problem?  Do NOT email our advice columnist at cwn4@aol.com

Dear Wally 118 Fat free

Dear Wally #118 Fat Free

Dear Wally:

I’m writing to you having just finished a horrible salad made with Fat Free Caesar dressing.  No brand names necessary – they all suck.  I continually regret the decision to buy fat-free dressing yet I keep doing it and finding myself snookered each and every time.  When will I learn?  Tell me, why does fat-free have to be so disgusting?  And if it’s fat-free, where does all the removed fat go?

Thanks.  

-JO

Dear JO:

I fall for the fat-free lie all the time at the supermarket, and like you, have spent many meals with a curdled grimace of dissatisfaction upon my lips, hangdog and trying hard to gum down something that has been starved of its delicious fat and , consequently,  its delicious taste.   I will the experience to be good, or at least  acceptable, but it never is.  You have to remember  that sometimes gold is really just a turd that’s been polished until it shines.   Look, here’s the deal:  Fat free usually = taste free.  ‘When will you learn’  is right  Sigh.  And when will I learn?

It begs the question though, why are we so scared of fat?  Fat is good for us.  It helps build the myelin sheath that coats the neural dendrites and axons in our nervous systems.  Without enough fat in your diet, your nervous system might not fire electrical impulses rapidly enough.  And that would make it extremely hard for you to get cut off in traffic and immediately give that other A-hole driver the finger they so richly deserve.  You really don’t want to miss the moment with this sort of thing.  So eat your fat.  There are plenty of people who need that middle finger of yours to be working and most of them drive on rt 209.  If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for them.

Now of course, some Americans have taken their love affair with fat to its harmful extreme and have wound up needing to be buried in piano cases.  We tend to be glutinous (I am as guilty as the next so please strip this observation of its self righteous sanctimony).   Rich food is yummy.  Some of the best tasting fatty food is also some of the worst for you.  (Deep fried Twinkies come to mind).  But by that logic,  the more Twinkies you eat, the faster your neural networks will allow you to eat them!  How’s that for self-destructive hard wiring??

Do I sound like a tired , repeating and broken record by saying that moderation is key?  The 2 tablespoons of fat free salad dressing one uses won’t make one be flat enough to keep one out of a piano case if that’s where one is heading.    (Come on,  B flat?  Piano?) .  But congrats to you for eating a salad in the first place…

You do ask an interesting question though about the original fat that has gone missing from all the ‘fat free’ products lining the shelves.  What did they do with it?  If you buy Lavoisier’s principle(s) of conservation of mass then what the hell happens to the mass of discarded dietary fat?    I think it gets sent on a flatbed truck to a farm in the South to live out its days grazing on sweet green pasture grass in relative peace, just  like my parents said at dinner one night had happened to my pet goat that ‘disappeared’ the day before .  At least that’s what I want to believe.

Dear Wally:

How do I get the urine smell out of my carpet?  I have 2 territorial cats who have marked their space and continue to do so relentlessly.

-Not quite a cat lady.

Dear Not Quite:

Exactly how far is it between “Not Quite a Cat Lady” and “Whoops, I guess Maybe  I AM a Cat Lady?”   I fear the line might be razor thin based on your question.  Sounds like they not only walk all over you, but they whiz on you,  too.  You even refer to it as ‘their’ space.   Guess what?  It’s YOUR space.

The best way to get the urine smell out is to not let it get in in the first place. 

As for what’s already done, there are a lot of homemade remedies to counter the pervasive and stubborn smell , and all the remedies  bandy about on the internet.  My favorite:  take two ounces of Puerto Rican dark rum, mix in a cup of pure cane sugar, grind up a cup of mint leaves, pour over crushed ice, mix with a stalk of sugar cane and pour over the affected area (your lips?).  (Though I might have gotten this from a Mojito website).   Anyway, whatever is left, work it in with the heel of your foot (preferably a stiletto heel for concentrated grinding action) until the smell is gone or you are too exhausted to continue (or care).

I believe you might also use two tablespoons of fat free salad dressing.   Put it in your cats’ food. That should do it.

-Wally

Dear Wally: 

Whenever I hear two songs of an artist played on the radio back to back, I always assume they have just died and we’re hearing a tribute. 

-Radiohead

Dear Radiohead:

I know!   Me too.!  It’s a horribly macabre habit, right?  Though the chances are pretty good if you listen to either classic rock or Oldies.   My fears were confirmed last week with extra Bee Gees airplay on the radio.  R.I.P. Robyn Gibb (Neither the hairy one nor the bald one for those of you keeping score at home).

-Wally

Got a question for our advice columnist?  Email him at cwn4@aol.com

Dear Wally 117 Dirty Dishes redux

117 Dirt Dishes redux

Dear Wally:

Last week you wrote a column about dishes that made me laugh hard (thank you!), but that also brought up some deep feelings of resentment within my own marriage.  I will withhold my name because my spouse reads this paper (and especially this column) but I wonder if you will share some more serious thoughts on this matter.  I hate that this job of dishes has fallen to me and that he never helps with them.  Instead, he spends his time on the internet when I’m doing them.

-Anonymous

Dear Anonymous:

The ‘dishes in the sink’ issue is a touchy one in plenty of relationships.  They are just so …there.  Front and center.  Dishes have an annoyingly infinite tendency- No sooner are they ‘done’ then they are used and need to be ‘done’ again.   (This unattainable sense of task-completion keeps me from ever getting a job in the Post Office which, like doing the dishes, is a job that can never be finished and the best you can hope for is that some angry dog doesn’t bite you in the ass).

But back to your sink.  The issue seems to be a reasonable metaphor for the waxing dysfunction and waning satisfaction in intra-couple communications and perceived respect, as a function of time.  I say perceived, because one may interpret spousally ignored dishes as a big F –U , (actually, ‘F –ME’)  but such a crime of incompletion or timing (“I will get to the dishes later honey, just not now…”)  may not actually come with the all-important and incriminating sense of intent that we think is there.    But that’s where the communication piece is failing.  Claw away that sill-rot, soon, ok?   That means talking AND  listening.  Which God knows I know, is easier said than done.

I also say ‘as a function of time’ because the willingness of mutual co-operation decays at some asymptotic  rate as we chug this marriage train away from the ol’ Gare de la Honeymoon .   We get set in our ways.  We take communication and division of labor for granted as the grit of life darkens the once shiny grout.  Just look at Grandpa and Grandma for Chrissake.  They barely say hello to each other anymore!  (Ok that’s not fair-- Grandma can’t see and Grandpa can’t hear.  And neither have any teeth).

Is it the case that domestic ‘willingness’ is inversely proportional to TSM (time spent married)?  I never thought I’d say it,  but sometimes math helps.  (Do you hear me Ms. Williams, my erstwhile, super hot 7^th grade math teacher on whom I had a crush and might still if you weren’t in a nursing home or dead by now all these years later??) 

Here’s the formula I’ve hammered out:   TSM(d)/4 x (1/2 y)2= -W 

Wherein:

TSM = hours married times  ‘d’ (the ½ life of Carbon 14, or the universal constant for ‘decay’),

y= average blood pressure in cc’s of both spouses at any given instant.

W= the universal constant for ‘willingness’ measured in parts per million.  (Anything above 322ppm means you’ll get help in the kitchen.  Anything below 54 and you better hire a cleaning service or divorce lawyer right now).   

Don’t ya think sometimes it just helps to sit in a dark corner with a warm ‘n’ fuzzy math formula and cup of herbal tea??   (though that tends to lead to even more dishes).

Personally, I hate looking at dishes in the sink, but I do the enjoy process of getting  them there.  When I start doing them, though, it’s actually not such a bad chore.  The water is warm and soothing .  The soap is slippery and sensual.  There’s a sense of task-completion and also a strange juxtaposition of kinetics (swaying, anyway) without the physical exertion of actual movement.  Kinda like trying your boat to the dock and putting her in forward gear.  

It’s also a bit of a sanctuary in the sense that 1) you will likely be quickly left to your own inner self for the 10 minutes it takes to do them.   (You can be damn sure housemates or spouses will be scarce when the dish soap comes out.)  And 2) you won’t hear the snoring in the other room and the drone of TV will fold into the white noise spectrum spectrum handsomely.

Some people go to spas and pay a lot of money for the solitude of sensory deprivation  that you get for free every night.  

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that IF you can sneak around the perception that doing dishes is a task, a burden, and a source of resentment,  THEN you might be able to celebrate the opportunity in it, and do the dishes only (as super cool thinker most of the time Byron Katie says) because YOU WANT to do them, not because you feel they need to be done.

Now, before you crumple this column up and throw it at my stupid head, can you at least consider that your husband is giving you the gilded GIFT of sanctuary and alone-time as humanely as he can?  Selfless (snoring) bastard!  Your Smookems!   Go over and give that big galoo a hug.  And another grilled cheese.

I’m only spinning it this way,  this week,  because we both know there’s no changing him at this point so we might as well use what you have got.

On the other hand, maybe it’s time for paper plates?  But then you’d have to deal with someone taking out the trash…Hmmmm.  Nevermind.

Well, good luck with that…

-Wally

-Got a question for our advice columnist or just want to give him the gift of serenity by letting him do your dishes while you and your husband lounge on the sofa and plow in the bon-bons?  Email him at cwn4@aol.com

Dear Wally 116 Dirty Dishes

116 Dirty Dishes

Dear Wally:

Please help me convince my lazy (but good hearted?) husband that leaving dishes in the sink is a bad idea.  I’m really sick of it and he doesn’t listen.  Is it really so hard to just do them before bed so we don’t have to come down to a disgusting mess in the morning?  I cook and he cleans.  That’s our deal.

-Frustrated

Dear Frustrated:

Tell your husband that leaving dishes in the sink is a dangerous and expensive game.    Here’s what could happen:  After dinner, your husband ‘helps’ clear the table by putting the dishes in the sink --not doing them, mind you, but more, staging them for someone (like you?) or something (like gremlins? ) to take care of.   Despite his Herculean, yet unsuccessful, efforts to eat enough Mac and Cheese to feed a small island nation for a few days, the remaining scraps fall off his plate and into the drain where they begin to congeal into a gelatinous, impervious bolus (which is exactly what is happening in his arteries, by the way).  In his thin defense, he thinks food scraps will just go down the drain because, after all,  isn’t the sink just like a mini toilet?   (The answer is no).  The weight of the impossibly stacked, gravity-defying dishes –a formidable, if not precariously fashioned monument,-compacts the Mac and Cheese wad and effectively seals off the drain.  But your hubby can’t see that now, can he (?)  because he’s on his way to…

…the sofa!!

…to get horizontal and comfy.   (“I’ll do the dishes later,” is a redolent promise that comes wafting in  predictably on the nose of a foxy, nocturnal wind).  This post prandial ritual of well-intended interia involves some degree of surrender, some degree of ball scratching and some degree of grunting.  A wicked combo of being sated to American excess, being supine, being left alone, and perhaps being anaesthetized by an episode of American Idol and, BAM!—he’s off to lala land.  Now it’s all over but the shouting (and the snoring and the farting).

You stare at him spread eagle and passed out.  Contempt?  Pity? Resolve? This is your prince charming.  Not only NOT a help in the kitchen, but actually a liability.  His outstretched hand drifts lazily to the floor as if weighted down by an imaginary, King Size Milky Way bar and you know you’ll need a crowbar if you have any chance of budging his lard and claiming some sofa real estate.  You stare back at a mass of intimidating dishes which will realistically neither do themselves, nor be done by gremlins (who are busy stealing socks, ripping underwear and hiding Chapstick).

This is sexy stuff.

It’s time to step outside and have that walk in the fresh air (the house has lost its erstwhile ‘fresh’ scent thank you very much Mr. Mac and Cheese).  You make a mental note that it is to be added to a growing list of isotopically unstable foods that produce in your husband’s complicated GI track this rank and undesirable off-gassing.  This list includes, but is not limited to:  Indian, Greek, Chinese, Japanese (“dirty knees, look at these”)  and Brussles Sprouts.  (Thanks a lot Belgium- What else ya got?).  All now officially off the list of viable dinner foods, so long as you are around. 

Out you go for some perspective and fresh air.

But!!!

The indoor cat has jumped up on the counter to inspect this jungle gym of stacked and teetering dishes.  One misplaced paw and the hastily constructed structure buckles.  You can’t hear- you are outside.  Your comatose husband is on the 13^th hole gripping a 3-wood in his reverie and about to make the Masters’ shot, can’t be bothered.  The cat springs backwards momentarily as the cheese-encrusted serving plate knocks the faucet handle into the on position.   Uh oh.

Quickly the sink fills on account of the compacted , organic drain plug.  Nasty sink water soon spills over onto the floor and makes its way to the floor vent.  Water, as it is wont to do, finds the path of least resistance, and that path is unfortunately to the cellar by way of the main circuit breaker of the house.  Good grief.

Contact with 220 volts of electricity energizes the water back to the source by unfortunate way of the curious kitty’s central nervous system   (caught figuring out if soaked Mac and Cheese stuck in the drain in a flooding sink is worth the effort).  220 volts uses up 1 or 2 of her remaining lives.   At least.  The well pump shorts out and burns out the motor (there’s a couple grand!  Hoo Haa!).  Meanwhile, hubby slumbers on, unaware.  Even the reek of singed cat fur can’t wake up your Sleeping Beauty.

When he finally does wake it’s because the cat is sitting on his face -it’s the highest spot on a now soaked living room floor.  This is no fun for either of them and asphyxiation is a hell of a way to wake up (or not wake up).

But that’s not your problem.  You are outside admiring the night sky and considering if there is an alternate universe (or many) where there is a couple exactly like you , eating the same dinner, watching the same show (M-35  star Idol?) --only the dishes have been done, the sink hasn’t overflowed, the expensive circuit breaker hasn’t shorted out, that cat hasn’t been BBQ’d and you are not out thousands of dollars in repairs.

So, tell your husband to get off his duff right about now and save the family some headaches and Benjamins.

When I was in college, we had a dorm rule.  If you didn’t do the dishes on your dish night, you could expect to have them in your bed at 3am.  Just saying.

Got a question for our advice columnist or just want him over to eat dinner and then fall asleep on your sofa?  Email at cwn4@aol.com

Dear Wally 115 Back Achers

115 Bach Achers

115  Bach achers

Dear Wally:

I’m writing this from my bed spread eagle and groaning.  And no, it’s not that  kind of fan letter so simmer down.    I’m laid out with back problems and damn grumpy about it.  Either entertain me, or fix me, or both, would you?

-back acher

Dear back acher:

 I am laboring under similar circumstances these days, and it’s frustrating as hell because my back has been otherwise healthy all these 45 years.    What’s more, I have subjected it to a life of manual labor (except for the pansy writing stuff) and it has not ever failed me.  So now it appears the honeymoon is OVER and I have trust/ betrayal  issues in addition to mechanical failure. 

My first whiff of the vulnerable  human back’s capriciousness came when my high school pal Andy, who just missed the US Olympic team in swimming,  didn’t show up for high school for 3 days.   I called to find out if he was dead (and if so could I have his locker which was nearer to Amy’s than mine?)  only to find out that this elite athlete had tweaked his back by REACHING OVER AND HITTING THE SNOOZE BUTTON ?!? on the alarm clock.

Ok, well what the hell are we humans supposed to do with that kind of orthopedic fragility except wait for the other friggin’  shoe (or vertebra)  to drop?

Fast forward all these years , and all those bales of hay I’ve chucked from the field to the hay wagon and then on to the hay pile in the barn, and as of 2 weeks ago I find myself wincing, holding my hip and gimping like an old timer unable to stand up straight.  I’m not sure what happened other than perhaps the extended  torture of carrying my young daughter on my front a little too late into her toddlerhood.  Any parent knows the emotional benefits of such connection and absent the insane pain in my lower back, it’s a beautiful thing to have a little monkey holding on for a ride.  Worth it up until that exact moment that it is no longer worth it (which is more or less 45 pounds).

Now that little monkey is bringing me Advil and laughing at me as I seek the elusive position of comfort which exists for me like an atomic quark in that its presence is so fleeting and undetectable that it almost exists in theory only.  There’s a few seconds here and there as I torque my body into shapes I never thought I would unless I was crawling from the wreckage of a small plane.

The most promising position so far is what I’ve called the ‘bug collector.’   I get down on my knees , curl up in a tight, little ball, swat the curious dogs away with my left hand, extend my right hand out (as if holding a magnifying glass) and crawl around a little.   That seems to offer some brief palliation (I try not to do this in public).  It resembles some kinetic, asymmetric bastardization of yoga’s popular ‘child’s pose’   but without the mindfulness.   My daughter likes to imitate me in this contortion (minus the groaning).  Also a favorite pose is the ‘NHL Goalie’ wherein I drop to a split, rest on one knee on the floor and shoot the other leg far out.  I then hold myself on the ‘goal’ which is the kitchen table and groan like I’ve been hit in the nuts with a slap-shot hockey puck.  This pose also sometimes looks like a good old fashion crucifixion gone wrong.

Obviously at this point it’s time to seek help--especially as my housemate  eats dry cereal from a bowl and declares non chalantly that he had a friend who had lower back pain, ignored it, and 2 months later was dead with kidney cancer.    (Actually I suppose you want to hear that as much I wanted to hear that.  Sorry, I take it …errr, back).

So I come up with what I hope will be a triple whammy approach to force my back into compliance.  I do acupuncture with awesome Hillary Thing in Accord, which gets me started on the right path.  Then I drive until I see the first roadside sign for a chiropractor, which is luckily one mile away.  DR. Marty Lupowitz says to me , “Why do I know your name?  hmmmm.  Ohhhhhhhhhhh, you write THAT column, don’t you?”   A quick, if nervous,  look in his eyes doesn’t make it clear to me that I should own this truth or deny it vehemently.  Next thing I know,  I’m considering what it’s all come to with me on my side and a grown man on top of me and ready (it seems) to break my spine with his bare hands.  The pesky SI  joint seems to be the suspect and the good doctor’s correction is creepy but efficacious, by God.   Hard not to get up from that table and wonder what the hell just happened if it’s your first time.  I suspect the sensation (but not the relief)  is similar to what  a lucky deer feels  when it gets hit by a car for the first time and it walks away.

The final stop is to Rob Norris, an Accord massage therapist who helps untweak the spazzing muscles that are clenching my vertebrae as tightly as my mom used to clutch the “Sweet  Jesus” handle on the car’s passenger door when my dad would drive around a corner too fast.

This trifecta of attention to the lower back fixes me up right (while supporting the local economy) and I even cruise through a 7 hour plane ride! 

But then, a week later, I reached for the snooze button and Whap!  I’m back down.  Lesson not learned.

So, I write this from some new creative position while I grope for three telephone numbers.  I hope you get a break from the pain soon,  back acher.  This stuff stinks, right?

-Wally

Dear Wally 114 Mayo Redux

Dear Wally #114

The Mayo Redux:

Well, the unspeakable has happened: The floodgates of reader response have opened and the resulting deluge of heartfelt support for this strangely beloved condiment has hobbled the entire administrative Dear Wally staff. I had two assistants quit this week-- one with lower back pains from hefting the bulging mail sack (and the other because I don’t pay enough). So thank you.

Those of you who so actively dislike my dislike of mayonnaise have stood up and let yourselves be heard, and at some level I suppose I appreciate that. At some other level I wonder if these passions (and this unending free time you seem to have?) might not be better directed at , say, the anti-fracking movement* or protesting continental drift (North America and Europe ARE on a collision course at the rate of 1” a year and someone needs to start worrying).  Or for those less politically active, sock darning?

* ‘frickin’ fracking’ ??  Hmmmm.  Cute AND fun to say, especially if mumbled!  Could be bumper sticker material…

Mayo.

As feared, some have even mailed me (care of the Blue Stone Press’ office) stolen(?) sample packets of the oleaginous crap to try and sway my stalwart, contrarian stance.

I wont be swayed by peer pressure or falsely framed ‘consensus.’ And no, I won’t be your proselyte! At this point my repudiation is a matter of stubborn principle.   And by the way, I don’t live at the Blue Stone Press, but if this economy tightens up any more, I might just.

I would like to share some of the letters , if for nothing else, to celebrate my impassioned , yet suspiciously anonymous, fellow Ulster Country tribesmen.  My responses below in bold.

So here goes and keep ‘em coming!  (and next time, if you don’t want me to goof on you, use a friend’s name).

           

Att: Wally

            Your derision of Mayonnaise only confirms for us your place on the pedestal of inanity and insanity. Long live tuna salad! Respectfully, Mr. and Mrs Anonymous.

Wally replies: Careful what you wish for. “Long Living’ tuna salad (especially unrefrigerated) will deliver unto you the kind of crippling,  deep waist bends and diarrhea that will land you both in the Emergency Room- where you can be sure they won’t serve you tuna salad. A family that sicks together sticks together…

           

Dear Wally:

            I must say that I was dismayed by your recent column regarding mayonnaise. I am an elderly woman living alone and memories of mayonnaise often keep me going. When I was very little I was left alone in my house by accident. My family returned several days later aghast at what they had done. Because of a large jar of mayo in the larder, I was able to fortify myself in their absence. Many years later while I was grocery shopping I dropped a jar of mayo on the floor (in those days only glass jars were used). The kind man who came to my aid ended up becoming my beloved husband!

            Our five lovely children all grew up eating mayonnaise right from the jar, big greasy smiles that always warmed my heart.

            So now, all I have are these wonderful memories and my jars of mayonnaise. You can’t take them away from me ever.

Sincerely, Mrs Edna Prince.

Wally replies:

That’s a beautiful story, Edna. If you remarry and your next husband also predeceases you, bear in mind that mayo makes a great embalming fluid. Keep him AND those memories alive forever, too!  PS, dating tip: keep that mayo-shrine stuff under your lid for the first few dates, k?

-Wally

Oh, and those glass jars are now collector’s items.  (You might be, too)

To: Wally:

My mom says you shud (sic) not say mean stuff abowt (sic) mayo, I like it. I like it on a blt. Also with pretsuls(sic). Be nice to mayo. From T (age 14)

Wally replies:

Tell you what, T- I’ll be nice to mayo if you stay in school.

-Wally

Dear Blue Stone Press: On behalf of the Mayo Club of Ulster County, I would like to reprimand Wally for his incendiary and disparaging remarks regarding mayo. Where did you find this guy? With only 110 calories of fat per tablespoon, mayo is healthy , nutritious and delicious. Repent now and be saved. Join us as we bring this amazing condiment into the spotlight it deserves. Visit us at www.mayohealsall.com. Look forward to hearing from you, Jonathan.

Wally replies:

Jonathan, my man… Your letter had grease stains on it. You really love mayo so much that you can’t write a 2 sentence proselytizing letter urging me to repent without getting mayo schizzz on it?  What’s your problem?  If this is what salvation looks like, I’ll take Hell. At least the mayo will be in a liquefied state.

-Wally

Recipe for Wally:

Yummy Mayo Dip

Mix:

1C Mayonnaise

1C Parmesan Cheese

1 C chopped artichoke hearts

1-2 cloves garlic

Then,

1)salt and pepper to taste.

2)Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes.

3)Enjoy.

Wally replies:

I was ok with the recipe until the last step. I rewrote it for you.

1)salt and pepper to taste

2)Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes.

3)Flush

-Wally

Well, I’m out of space. I’m glad I could be a lightning rod for the mayo faithful. If I write a piece on how much I hate $20 bills, will you all send those to me as well? Let’s try! Please send your letters of concerns (and your Andrew Jacksons) to me at cwn4@aol.com

Dear Wally 113 letter writing

Dear Wally #113

Dear Wally:

I’ve recently started writing old fashioned letters to friends.   It seems prehistoric, but it feels great mailing a letter and having to wait days (not seconds) for a reply.   Is anyone else out there doing this?

-C arla

Dear Carla:

The actual friction generated from pen on paper is something for which I yen.  If one writes hard enough (and I suppose well enough?),  one can actually start a small fire, in every sense.    Until I started letter writing recently myself,  I’d revisit this antiquated act but once a month in tiny little fits, thanks pretty much only to my recurring, bloated Verizon bill, which I feel better paying by paper check-- I have an easier go of it when I am invariably on the phone with Customer Service and have something soft to smack my forehead with. 

But otherwise the only time I get to write with a pen these days is when I lay down my already illegible signature on the credit card receipt, and even then I usually let my 4 yr old daughter scratch out a rendering of a cow and a sun in the signature box and it bears a suspicious resemblance to my own crappy signature.  Must be genetics.

All the fluid kinetics of prose are gone these days, with typing and texting, that’s for sure.  Gone, too, are  the fine motor skills of guiding a #2 pencil to your mouth and chomping in frustration when you are mid-test and can’t remember the year of the Yalta Conference.  (Oh #2 pencil!  Why didn’t you get hip and evolve into the #3 pencil?).

I remember spending a lot of time practicing my penmanship in second grade which is where my level of proficiency seems to be permanently retarded .

The most flagrant act of ‘cheating’ in school for me ever was my (creative? I like to think so…) workaround in that very grade.  I will never forget: The day’s  lesson that dark October Tuesday was to make a lowercase cursive ‘k’, which even now is a freaky spasm of a letter to have to sketch out.

In a panicky, opportune moment, and under the hawkish scowl of Mrs. Slotkins,  a minky, whippet of a thing  who paced our ranks like a pissed-off dominatrix who had been stiffed for her services with counterfeit hundred dollar bills,  and whose buck teeth were the subject of much surreptitious daily doodling, I drew a lowercase ‘L’ and tucked a lowercase ‘e’ right up under its skirt. 

That was the crime.

And I damn near wet myself for fear of getting caught, which I got immediately thereafter.   (I was a pretty obedient kid back then, somehow, and was of the strong belief that NY State was still using “Old Smokey” the electric chair in SingSing for small boys for even minor transgressions).  So getting caught was pretty much a self-fulfilling prophecy for this here squirrely lil’ lawbreaker.   

The jumbled letters looked quite a bit like a lowercase k.   But not so much that Mrs. Slotkins let it slide.  I was led to the front of the class by my ear and publically castigated for the forgery.  As an aside, Mrs. Slotkins and I would soon again butt heads (butthead being the operative contraction) as I chose to spell ‘color’ on a quiz with a ‘u’ (colour) only to be told that here in America, we don’t take kindly to British affectations.   My protestations that 1)it was right there in plain, errr, English in my mom’s dictionary, and that 2)my ancestry prior to the last 200 years here in America, was pretty much undiluted English and didn’t that buy me some wiggle room? (the answer is no) went nowhere.

Anyway, Slotkins (if I may) also proverbially smarted my knuckles for starting the occasional written sentence with “And…” –a habit I have yet to shake and one I think responsibly reflects the slippery conversational nature of our daily American English, thus best serving interpersonal communications- the whole point of language in the first place, right?   

She said 2^nd graders were allowed to neither pick their noses in her class nor start sentences with And or But.  And I’ve been doing it ever since.  But not every sentence.

The fine motor skills of actual writing are these days being marginalized by the more oft-employed gross motor skills of making an ‘L’ on one’s forehead with one’s finger and one’s thumb and sealing the whole deal with an ever-loving eye roll  and foot stomp as  pre-teen fingers text something like O.M.G.  W.A.L.  (go ahead- guess!)

Writing, actual writing, is on its way to becoming a lost art.  Condolences may be emailed.

My daughter’s Pre-K teacher suggested that I encourage crayon and pencil use (how dull?!) instead of iridescent, gooey markers that do all the work because kids today are not learning how to actually squeeze an object, push down and develop finger strength. Well, talk to my torqued- out eyeglasses, and tweaked-out chest hair which my daughter yanks with a wicked Kung-Fu grip and hurls across the entire span of the living room with gusto.  I’m not worried about this generation’s finger strength.

But writing in a world of texting? It’s lonely, delayed gratification business, so I applaud you, Carla (even though you typed this letter to me and emailed it).   I’m only passing judgment to the extent that I feel old fashioned in saying that there’s still value in keeping the writing skill set sharp.  If we lose the skill set, then what?  In a massive power grid failure, I could probably notch out an advice column or two into the bark of a large oak with my (#2?) chainsaw.  My handwriting in chainsaw font couldn’t possibly be worse than my cursive in pencil…

So, keep it up and enjoy.  And write your next letter to me by hand, though I confess I haven’t the foggiest idea where you would actually send it…

-Wally

Questions should probably still be emailed to cwn4@aol.com