Ain’t Christmastime Grand?

Could you watch the kids so we can go Christmas Shopping?
Sure! We could do some Christmas baking!
We’ll bring them by about 9:30, and you can bring them home when you’re done.
No problem!

OK, kids! Here are the projects. Bread? Cookies? or Fudge? Each of you pick one.
Bread and cookies!
Fudge!

Um. 1 each.
I was choosing for me and her.
No, you can only choose for yourself.
Well, then, Bread and Cookies.
Face/Palm

OK. Choose 1…for yourself only.
Cookies.
So I show them the cookie book.

This is the cover

This is what you see when you open the book. The inside of the book is upside down to the cover. It is a silly book. I don’t think it was supposed to be.

I figured about 1 hr to make cookies, without frosting or decorating, 1.5 hours to do a Christmas bread, and 1 hour to do 4 batches of fudge. Each grandchild would pick a project so we wouldn’t be doing all 3. So while one grandchild would be decorating the tree, the other would be baking. Then they would switch. 2 hours, lunch, and then home. Best laid plans… O’Toole’s Commentary: Murphy was an optimist.

Among the recipes, there is one for a gingerbread VILLAGE. Yup, 3 houses, 8 trees, a pond, and a wall. The recipe makes a lot of gingerbread, and it calls for 6 cups of powdered sugar for the frosting. I wasn’t anticipating this. Each pan of cookies has to bake for 10 min, and each piece has to be cut by hand to the specs in the design. 6 roof pieces, 4 steeple pieces, 6 side walls, 6 front and back walls, 8 full trees and 16 half trees, and 3 round bases for the houses. This is what O wanted to make. He insisted. Y decided to make fudge.

The cookie recipe wasn’t clear on how things were to be done, so we put the dry ingredients into the mixing bowl. I had the mixer plugged into a power strip, and had the power strip off. Oldest was putting things in and measuring and doing a pretty good job. Youngest then chose to abandon the tree and Grandpa and get in the way. I’m trying to get her back into the living room and told O to wait until I could help before he turned on the mixer. He said, “No problem” and then turned it on anyway. The power strip was off, so the mixer didn’t turn on. MEANWHILE, Y is still in the kitchen and whining that she wants to help. Suddenly the mixer goes on, FULL BLAST HIGH SPEED. O had found the power strip on-switch, and Poof! Flour explodes all over the kitchen. Now we’re sliding all over the kitchen on the flour. Y finally goes to the living room.

Now we cream the butter, sugar, vanilla, and ginger using the hand mixer in a much smaller bowl. We’ve already doubled the number of utensils it usually takes to make cookies. Then the book says to slowly add the flour mixture to the sugar/butter mixture. Yes. Of course. Put the 5 cups of flour and spices (well what’s left of the 5 cups after the explosion) to the small bowl where we mixed 1 cup of butter and a cup of sugar and a cup of molasses. The hand mixer cannot withstand that kind of resistance, so now we have to put the stuff in the small bowl into the large bowl. The mixture ends up crumbly. It doesn’t want to hold together. Now we have to roll it? O goes outside to play. Y follows him out. Grandma goes in to have a nervous breakdown in the living room with Grandpa.

O had insisted that we make the whole village and I have found myself alone in the kitchen. Oh no. So O and Y come back in and wonder why I’m not working on the cookies. “Me? It’s your project! Now we COULD roll them out and cut them into teddy bears…”

“NO! Why make gingerbread if you’re not going to make houses?” “So how would you like to proceed?” Y volunteers to roll out the crumbs and see if she can make them stick together. She does pretty well!!! We cut out the trees and the round bases. Then we cut out 3 teddy bears. Baked those and by now it’s 12:15.

Let’s go to Wendy’s! Wendy’s is locked. Um. Let’s go to Runza! We have a nice, civilized lunch and discuss volcanoes and compare Crater Lake to Mt. St. Helen’s. Then we discuss the volcano under Yellowstone Park. Grandpa starts driving toward Omaha. Wait! We haven’t made the fudge yet and we have to put together the gingerbread! Oh. oops. We head back home to finish the ordeal…um, the baking.

It takes about 5 min to make 1 batch of fudge so we make 1 batch and then start the frosting. While I’m making the frosting, the fudge sits in the fridge.

I can’t find my cookie press or my decorating kit. I find a ziplock bag and cut a hole in the corner, fill it with frosting, and split the seam. Argh. Grandpa finds the cookie press and decorating kit. YAY! We put together the trees and stick a teddy bear in the forest. It would not win any prizes.

Now it is after 2. It’s been about 4.5 hours with the grandchildren. I am out of shape. I cut the fudge and put it into a cookie tin. It is still mostly liquid. The kids really want to go home, so we get them all loaded up. We are informed by Y that we need to not hit any bumps because the teddy bears keep falling down.

Ya, This is Omaha. If we swerve to avoid the potholes, we’ll get pulled over for drunk driving.

We get them home about 3:00 and return to our home a little before 4. Grandma takes a 2-hour nap. It looks like a giant troll sneezed in a bakery. I love making candy, cookies, and quick breads… but my keto diet does not allow for any of those. Soooo, Sigh. I guess I’m done baking for the Christmas season. 😦 Ain’t Christmastime Grand. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

The secret Ingredient!

I love chili season! The warm red sauce, the beans and meat, the spice…

Little known fact: Mexican chocolate adds a bit of cinnamon. The cinnamon oil, not just the stick. It’s quite spicy. If you add some to your chili, it gives it some heat but not the same as pepper heat. Then to bring out the flavor of the meat and the tomato sauce, you can add a bit of cloves and ginger. If you want it exotic, add just a touch of allspice and maybe nutmeg.

OH NO! WHAT HAVE I DONE?!!!

I put pumpkin spice in my chili! And I liked it! Abomination I tell you!

How to get away with murder on any Police Procedural Show

You know how this works. You’ve gotten to the end of the line with this jerk. He stole your company. He stole your wife. He brutally raped you or a friend of yours. He’s ruined your reputation. He cheated on you…whatever it was–he deserved to die. And you killed him. You’re guilty as sin.

You cleaned up the scene as best as you could, wiped down all the surfaces, cleaned up all your blood, and repaired the damage to the furniture and the walls. It won’t make any difference. Somewhere, maybe by the litter box, under the sink with the cleaning supplies, or in the bathroom, the Crime Scene Investigators will find the single hair, the drop of snot, a single teardrop that will give them your DNA. They will come to your house and send in the lab geeks to ask you questions. They will slam down a folder as thick as a doctoral dissertation and tell you all the evidence they have.

You left a single pine needle from the Pinus sylvestris which, though prolific in the area, is only found in one place within the 7-mile radius of the crime scene and it’s in your backyard.

“Confess you Dastardly Murderer!” they will say with Shakespearian glee.

This is when you do it. Here are your lines (with direction).

*Stand up and slam your hand down on the table. “YES! I did it!”

This might seem counterintuitive. You just confessed to murder, after all. This, however, is where it gets fun. At this point, you make up reasons why you killed him.

“He made fun of my favorite LOL cat meme!”
“He spray-painted his name on the bridge my father built.” Your father was a musician.
“His dog pooped on my lawn every morning!” He didn’t own a dog.
“He called my wife incessantly!”
“He heckled me at the Stand-Up Comedy Club.”

It doesn’t matter as long as you don’t tell them your real motive. They’ll figure that out later.

Then you describe your brutal murder of the victim in gruesome detail. But you have to give all the wrong details. Make sure you’re crying or yelling while you do this. Emotion sells. You pushed him off a building, so instead, you tell them you slit his throat, shot him straight in the heart, tied him to the garbage truck, or snipped his brake lines. After you confess, you ask, as innocently as possible, if your picture will be in the paper. Then you just wait. Do not giggle…look as guilty as possible. Evil masterminds will have discovered this trick and their whole modus operandi is to make the cops (especially the CSI) aware of how feeble their powers of deduction are. They tend to gloat and rub their hands together evilly when they think no one is watching. They may even smile or laugh. You are not an evil mastermind. Your modus operandi is to not get caught.

Even if the detectives DO come up with a motive, and they discover you had the opportunity, they will dismiss you because they believe you’ve made a false confession. They will look for someone you might be protecting. But since the only one you’re protecting is you, this is not your concern.

Most importantly, NEVER RETURN TO THE SCENE OF THE CRIME! Remember that the total time from the discovery of the murder to your release will be between 24 and 48 hours. Then their department will get backed up and they’ll forget about you. Now you can go on your merry way.

Who knows? You might even see your crime reenacted on “Unsolved Mysteries.” Do not invite your friends over…

Strange Market

If you come and visit me in the MidWest, you’ll be in Cow Country. Yup. Cows everywhere. What will you find on the menus? Steaks, chops, ribs, roasts, burgers… Do you need leather? There are stores here that just sell cowboy boots, and you’d have no problem getting leather items anywhere.

I went to the UK for a 2-week tour. Sheep everywhere! What do you find on the menus? Steaks, chops, ribs, roasts, and burgers…but no lamb. No crown roasts, no chops, no legs, no shanks. Do you want some authentic British wool? You can get Red Heart and Bernat in the local convenience stores. Those are NOT British labels. I went into google to search for shops in Edinburgh and London and in those huge cities, I found 4 shops, only 2 that sell locally-sourced undyed wool. And those 2 locations are warehouse stores that sell exclusively online.

I have a former student who cards and spins wool here in Omaha. It’s Wonderful stuff! Like I said, this is cow country and I have a more available source of undyed, pure wool here in town than I had on my travels in the UK.

So, as a tourist, I thought they’d offer authentic Aran sweaters and knit goods to sell at exorbitant prices. They had mass-produced sweaters with cable patterns. Most were wool/polyester or wool/cotton blends. None were produced in the UK. I am confused. They have more sheep than people, and you cannot find wool or locally crafted sweaters? In fact, there used to be an “Irish Shop” in the local mall that sold Aran sweaters and woolen goods here in Omaha, and I didn’t find any with variety on the whole tour in the UK.

I think I am going to contact my student and get some of her wool to make a sweater, an authentic Irish pattern sweater.

12,000 Steps

The trip started out like most…The bus will drop you off here and you can wander about until 2:30 when the bus will pick you up at this exact spot. Shop, eat, and enjoy the Ambiance that is Edinburgh. I was on a mission. I needed to get some English Currency. I was told the best exchange rate was at the Post Office, and due to the Queen’s Jubilee, everyone else in the country had the same thought. 2 of the places we’d stopped on the tour were several miles’ walk from our hotel or any of the city tours we went on so when we got to a post office that was close enough, Pitlochry, there was a 45-minute wait to get INTO the building. We ran out of time. Now was my chance. The Exchange was a mere 3 blocks from where the bus dropped me off!

I headed from the St. Andrews and St. George Church on George Street down to Sir Walter Scott’s memorial on Princes Street.

Then I went to the Mall and changed my money. From there, I went back up the hill to the bus collection point. It was 1:30. The bus was going to pick us up at 2:30. I wanted to sit down, but the beggar was not pleased that I was encroaching on her territory. I had no interest in wandering around the shops and I wasn’t hungry, so I sat. I got a wifi connection and thought, “Hmmm, I could locate the hotel and see if I could walk from here rather than waiting an hour.” Sure enough, the hotel was just a 20-minute walk from my location! I checked out my location and looked on my map, and noticed my battery was nearly in the red. I decided to go to my next turn before I turned on my phone again.

I walked back to Scott’s Memorial and headed in the direction my map told me to go. I could see the castle from the street, so I kept that on my left and headed out. There was a wonderful park, and it wasn’t long before I heard band music. The Royal Marines were putting on a concert in the bandstand. They were playing a medley of John Williams tunes. I got to an intersection and found a bench. It had been 15 min, so I had to be close. I looked at my map and discovered I was on the right trail, but I was firmly in the red now. I headed up across the bridge.

I passed the Hanging Bat and the Raging Bull, but somehow that didn’t spark any inspiration to eat. You may not know this, but Edinburgh was one of the first planned cities…set out on a grid. News flash. Weird looking grid. So I come to an intersection of 4 streets…(grid?) Lauriston Pl, West Toll Cross, Home Street, Lothian Road (A7?). Normally, there would be 2: Lothian Road, and one other, but no…Lauriston Pl turns INTO West Toll Cross, Home Street goes approximately 60 degrees south of Lothian Road. Uh Oh.

I stayed on Lothian Road. My phone is officially dead. It is now after 2:00. I should be in sight of the hotel. I am not. I walk further on Lothian road and now nothing looks familiar. I stop at a food truck and ask for directions. Lady gets out her phone. She lives in this neighborhood, but has never heard of my hotel? Then I hear the fateful words that will get repeated to me throughout the rest of my tale: “OK, just go this way for about a mile and a half…” and they point to the way I just came.

I smiled and asked if I could take her phone with me. I had to explain that I was kidding. Oh…Kay… I began thinking if she was pointing me back to where I had just come, wouldn’t I have seen this place on my way here? I headed back down the hill then I recalled that on her phone map, there was the Novotel. We had passed it twice since we got to Edinburgh, so I knew it was a crucial landmark and headed for that.

I FOUND Novotel and walked into the pub attached to the building. I asked the bartender where the Leonardo Royal was and guess what he said… That’s right. He pointed back to where I’d just come and said it was a 13-minute walk according to his phone. Or, I could take the #2 bus. Oh? Where was the bus stop? He said it was down at the bottom of the hill to the left. It was now 2:30. He said they come about every 15 minutes. What he didn’t tell me was that the bus goes 2 directions and they only take exact change. I had a 20-pound note and I wasn’t going to pay 20 pounds for a 1.06-pound fare.

I headed down to the bus stop Where there was a couple from Arkansas also waiting. She had a phone with GPS. “OH! No Problem! Y’all jist go down the hill there and catch Bread Street? Then ya jist turn onto Morrison Street and then to Morrison link.” Now she’s saying that as if she’d lived in, um, Southern Edinburgh…because of her accent. Then she pointed me in the wrong direction. If I could have looked at her phone, I would have been able to tell she had it oriented wrong. I’m good at reading maps. So I headed down the street in the wrong direction. Nothing looked familiar. I stopped at a clothing shop and asked the lady at the desk who had a phone.

This is what I don’t understand. I have lived in my current house for 22 years. I have no idea what my neighbors’ names are, but I know where 2 hospitals, 3 emergency rooms, 4 grocery stores, and at least 15 restaurants are near my neighborhood. I worked 1 year at the Hardee’s on the interstate and could tell you where all the hotels in the area were, and where to get your car fixed and your prescriptions filled. I worked 6 years at the financial office and could tell you every restaurant in a 6-block radius, the music store, the clothing stores, the bus stops, and where to get the best ice cream. The people that I asked were NATIVES of the city, and had lived most of their lives there, and yet not a single person had any idea where the hotel district was (and there were 8 hotels in a 2-block area. You’d think that would stand out!) and had never heard of the Leonardo.

So the nice lady points me back to where I came…It’s a 20-min walk. Now I’ve been on this 20-minute walk for over 1 1/2 hours. It’s getting close to 3:15. I head back up to the Novotel and on the way, I see my Arkansas friends. I told them that I never found Bread street. Oh well. This time I walk East of the Novotel and enjoy the sights. Because…nothing looks familiar. It is now 3:30. You may ask how I know since my phone/clock/map/internet/paperweight is dead. There are clocks on the schools, clocks on the churches, clocks on the time/temp displays in front of the stores and banks… I have officially missed the bus to the Britannia dinner and tour. My group has no idea where I am, and I can’t call my husband to let him know I’m alright. I’m in some sort of educational area, schools everywhere. They look like ghost towns. So I turn around and head back to the Novotel.

There, in front of the hotel, is a coach with its driver. It is a tour coach. Surely this driver has taken his charges to other hotels in the area. He would know! So I go and ask him. He hasn’t a clue. By now, I have discovered there are TWO Leonardo Royal hotels. One is old and picturesque, and one is new. Every time I asked for directions, they tried to send me to the old one which I passed several times before I saw that it WAS a Leonardo Hotel. I probably could have walked in and explained my situation to them and they might have been able to get me to the right one.

The picturesque Leonardo was TWO blocks from the Novotel, and the guy who had sent me to the bus stop had no idea it was there. The new one was about 6 blocks from the hotel and he had no idea THAT one was there. The Coach driver had never delivered tourists to either one. He suggested I take a taxi. “Where am I going to get a taxi?!!!” (Frustrated much?) And while I’m speaking, one pulls up and drops off some tourists. The Coach driver talks to the taxi driver and tells him I need to go to the Leonardo in the Haymarket district. Much to my surprise, he enters into HIS GPS. Oh! it’s not far. It’s now 4:15

He easily finds the place, and due to the fact that every one-way street is going the wrong way, we have to go a longer route than I would have had I walked. I get to the hotel about 4:30 and wait 5 min in line to talk to the concierge. I tell him I’ve become separated from my group and could he call the tour guide to let him know I am alive and well and going to soak in my tub? He was aghast. “They left over an hour ago!!” “I know.” He has the wrong tour group on his “current” list and cannot call him. I get to my room and plug in my phone.

For the 1st time on this tour, I have handicapped facilities, and I COULD take a nice soak in the tub…if it had a drain plug. So, at 4:45, I Facebook messaged my friend Jeremy to let my husband and the tour guide know I was safe and sound. Then I changed into my PJs and went to bed. Even though my paperweight was dead, it kept counting steps…12,000 steps. The most I had walked before this was the 10K steps in Heathrow Airport before my flight home the first week in April. My normal is usually less than 1000.

Best I can guess, this was part of my route.

It appears that on every trip I take, I have to have some alone time…so I get lost? No more shortcuts for me!

How not to watch Netflix

Never EVER watch Supernatural or Flash/Arrow/Super Girl at the same time as Criminal Minds or any other police procedural.

Something weird happens and someone dies the 1st 20 seconds of Supernatural and Criminal Minds. Bam! Both Sam and Dean show up pretending to be FBI, and the BAU who are actually FBI show up to the scene.

S & D: Did you smell sulfur? Cold spots? Black eyes? Did the victim have any enemies?

BAU: Were there any witnesses? Fingerprints? Foot prints? Did the victim have any enemies?

Witness…the SO of the victim. I heard her in the bathroom screaming! *sobs* The door wouldn’t open as hard as I tried.

S & D: Note the rosary she always carried is missing. Note there are no locks on the doors.

BAU: Note that the victim suffocated in the tub, but was not drowned. Note there are no locks on the doors.

S & D: Get EMF readings from the room. Vengeful spirit. Begin to take EMF readings from other parts of the farm where the murders occurred. Know the owner personally and eliminate him as a suspect.

BAU: Suspect owner immediately and arrest him and question him thoroughly. (BTW, they don’t torture the suspect or throw holy water on him.)

S & D: Find drawings on the wall indicating one of the children in the home was involved in a terrible accident and the mother died in the burning car. They cannot burn and salt the bones. They burn the child’s toy. Bullies get injured in lawn mower incident.

BAU: Notes accidents continue to happen on the farm even though owner is in custody. They inspect the new incidents and do not discover any causal relationship to the other murders. Dismiss new incidents as unrelated.

S & D: Vengeful spirit believes S & D are threatening the child and attacks the child’s guitar teacher and S & D. Dean tells child to demand Ghost Mom to leave and that he will be ok. Spirit returns to pre-dead self and smiles and then flitters off into the after life. (Question: Does the good mom’s evil spirit that committed 2 murders and an attempted murder without remorse or repentance go to heaven?) Crime Solved.

BAU: Finds no foreign matter or evidence in either of the murder scenes, and since the only fingerprints and physical evidence belong to the owner, the owner goes to trial for double homicide. As an ex-convict he never gets out of prison and his creepy home for boys is sold at auction and bulldozed to make a discount mall. Crime Solved.

Spring in Nebraska

Spring in Nebraska

How do I know?

I just found a Robin…

Dead in the snow

Spring in Nebraska

How would you know?

Tomorrow’ll be 90 or

40 below.

Spring in Nebraska

How does it go?

Parka above

Flip Flops below!

Spring in Nebraska?

It isn’t slow

2 minutes in and

1 minute to go!

And…

SUMMER!

Beastmaster 65

“Welcome to the Ultimate Skills competition!”
“Thanks, Keith! We’re here with the finest old fat people with skills to maneuver this bone-cracking, back-pulling, mind-blowing course that sooner or later everyone is going to have to master!”
“Just like regular Beastmaster, there are 3 courses. Christine? I bet you want to know what they are!”
“Of course, Keith! And we have 8 competitors ready for the 1st elimination. Only 6 of those 8 get to the next level.”
“The first course is going to focus on maneuverability. To get to the Mouth of the Beast, the competitor has to walk up a 100-foot ramp. It’s at a 6% grade and only 3 feet wide. But to complicate this, there are knee-knockers placed every 20-25 feet. These 12-inch barriers are the bane of anyone who’s had to walk around a house that has pets or grandchildren.”
“That’s right! My shins hurt already!”
“But when you get to the top of the ramp, you have to come down 50 stairs without a hand railing!”
“What makes this so hard?”
“The stairs are not the standard 10-12 inch tread, these stairs are only 6 inches wide.”
“We may see some spills there!”
“After they descend the stairs, they go into the belly of the beast. The room is completely black and has obstacles throughout. We’re talking head-bangers, shin-scrapers, random poles, squishy toys, and a false door!”
“How could anyone get across that?”
“They have a standard flashlight.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, it blinks on and off at inconvenient times and the beam will only faintly show 2 feet ahead of the contestant.”
“How will we see the action?”
“Infrared cameras.”
“If they’re not suicidal when they come out of this challenge, they go to the fork pick-up.”
“What’s that, Keith?”
“The Infamous Fork Pick Up! 9 forks are placed in and under and behind various objects in the room. The contestants are being told there are 10, but they get 2 points per fork, and it’s a timed exercise. If you stay in the room for too long, you get 0 points. The person with the most points wins.”
“So, OCD people looking for the non-existent 10th fork might time-out and lose all their points?!
“Yes! But that’s not all! Now they enter the colon of death!”
“It sounds awful!”
“The contestants have to sit in a wheelchair and wheel it up a snakeline 200 feet with a 10% rise and 15 turns.”

“Breaking news, Keith. One of the contestants took a look at the first obstacle, complained of pain in his arm and then grabbed his chest. 2 feet out of camera range, he ran to his van and took off. 2 more of the candidates took their canes to the set designer. George will be in the hospital for another 2-3 days. 2 more of them just wandered off the set. The last 3 were mumbling something about their prostates and have been in the bathroom for the past 26 minutes. There’s been no word if they’re coming out.”

“Well, Christine…Age and treachery…”

 

 

There’s always a Bloody Ghost

The new Christopher Moore book came out…Shakespeare for Squirrels. There is a character, Fool, that he uses in the Shakespearian stories he writes and the plots are basically perversions of the plays. One was King Lear, and the other was Merchant of Venice although he incorporated some of the other plays and characters. When you’re doing a play, especially without a public address system, you can’t really do voice-overs to tell the audience what the character is thinking or feeling. In that case, Shakespeare employed a ghost to express the thought process, to further the plot, to show the emotional and mental state of the character. In Moore’s books, the protagonist often has arguments with the ghost, and the ghost has an agenda as well. It leads to some very silly dialog.

So Shakespeare would write–

Ghost: Murder most foul, as in the best it is. But this most foul, strange and unnatural.

You could expect this from Moore:

Ghost: Murder most fowl, as in the best it is, especially on Sundays when the cook visits the hen house. But this most fowl, strange and unnatural that the victim’s neck was throttled and all his clothes ripped off and the victim deep-fried past crispiness.

It got me thinking. What if the ghosts were just consciences personified? And random?

Scrooge:  Are you the ghost of Christmas Future?

GoCF: … ( he never talks in the play, he just points)

Scrooge: I fear thee most…

Ghost of DeNiro Future: You talkin’ to ME? I don’t see anybody…oh Sorry George, I’ll just wait for you to say your lines.

GoCF: …Looks menacingly at Ghost of DeNiro…though it’s difficult to tell since you can’t see under the hood.

Scrooge: His name’s George?

GoCF: …Returns his gaze to Scrooge

Ghost of DeNiro Future: *whispers off stage, “lines?”* Loud whisper from stage Left, “He doesn’t have lines, he just points.”

GoCF: *Smacks forehead. Forgets he’s carrying a scythe.* Ow!

Scrooge: He speaks!

Both Ghosts: Shut up!

What if random ghosts just showed up during the performances? 

Hamlet: Alas, poor Yoric.

Yorik’s ghost: WHAT!  I was just getting to sleep

George’s ghost: Wait until you see Dicken’s ghosts!

Hamlet: I knew him!

Yorik’s ghost: *Trying to scowl without his head*…You knew me?! Where were you when they yelled duck?

George’s ghost: Didn’t you duck?

Yorik’s ghost: I thought they were asking me to do an impression, so I quacked

Hamlet: I wasn’t there when he died. But here’s his head. Where’s the rest of him?

Gravedigger: He couldn’t afford a casket…

George’s ghost: Cheap bugger.

Yorik’s Ghost: Is that Dickens guy the one that’s looking for a fool? Auditions maybe?

George’s ghost: A Fool’s Ghost, or a Ghost for a Fool?

Hamlet: Dickens for the first and Christopher Moore for the second?

Horatio: WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING TO?!

Though it would be cool to have the ghosts in the courtroom telling everyone what the witnesses are thinking during their testimony.

Perry Mason: Isn’t it true that you went to the house with the intention of confronting your ex-wife?

Mr. Hughes: I knew for a fact that her Tai Chi group met from 2:00-3:00 on Thursdays and I just needed some stuff from my home office.

Mrs. Hughes’ ghost: Yes, truly he speaks because every time I went for Tai Chi, he would ask me where I was going. Every. single. time. And every time He said, “How long have you been going at 2:00?” And I would say, “You forgot to change the clocks from daylight savings time, it’s 3:00!”

Perry Mason: Let the records show Mr. Hughes arrived at his house at precisely 2:47 PM.

MHG: He never does anything precisely…

Perry Mason: Mr. Hughes, how did you get into the house?

Mr. Hughes: I walked in.

Perry Mason: There were no impediments to your entry?

Mr. Hughes: There was a mop near the stairs.

MHG: “See? I was paying attention! I’m not the jerk you make me out to be to your girlfriends!” Did you have to walk around the bucket?

Perry Mason: Did you have to walk around the bucket?

Jury: Is the ghost feeding Perry his lines?

Mr. Hughes: I didn’t notice

MHG: Why didn’t you fall on your ass on the slick floor?

Perry Mason: Did the floor look freshly cleaned?

Mr. Hughes: Um

MHG: That was a witty answer… Now he’s thinking, “I could say I went to the kitchen and checked the water temp and it was cold so it had been sitting there for a while.” Wait for it. Mason’s not going to give him the chance…

Perry Mason: Mr. Hughes, isn’t it true that you tracked in dirt on the freshly cleaned floor and went directly up the stairs to your wife’s room where you saw her changing into her Tai Chi clothes?

Mr. Hughes: Um

MHG: Ya, couldn’t be bothered to mop up the footprints on the Clean Floor!

Perry Mason: And when she saw you and she screamed, isn’t it true that you rushed to her and threw her through the window and into the garden on the tomato towers?

MHG: and thinking to yourself, “Ooo! fertilizer! AND mulch!”

Mr. Hughes: Shut up!

Perry Mason: I beg your pardon!

Mr. Hughes: Not you, you blowhard, the fricken Ghost!

MHG: You said that out loud, didn’t you!

Jury: Yup he did.

Mr. Hughes: Wait…you mean you guys are hearing the ghost too?

Everyone in the courtroom: Yes.

Mr. Hughes: oh…shit.

Yes, ghosts would make an interesting addition to our world.

 

 

 

Like

Like a dog door without the flap

Like a mall without a Gap

Like a hunter without his trap

I miss you

Like Astaire without his tap

Like P. Diddy without his rap

Like a quilter without a scrap

I miss you!

Like a Toddler without a nap

Like a Granny without a lap

Like a tourist without his map

I miss you!

Like a Sapsucker without sap

Like Dapper without his dap

Like Babe Ruth without his cap

I miss you!

Like the Feds with no wiretap

Like a taser without its zap

Like a present without its wrap

I miss you!