Grandma's Pet Bird

Over eating and obesity are human frailties; it's not supposed to happen to birds and animals but I suppose in some places it does. So here was Grandma with her pet bird who had been a pet for many years and didn't know any other existence. Nonetheless, even Grandmas need a break every now and then, so off this Grandma went leaving behind her pet bird to be taken care of by none other than her favorite 20 year old Grandson. Lo and behold, Grandson became attached to the bird and gave the bird freedom of every kind, the kinds that only wild creatures can imagine. 

When Grandson and company drank, Bird hung around the glasses and bottles and bottle caps. When Grandson played ball in the house, Bird witnessed the wreckage; when Grandson slept, Bird slept as well and naturally when Grandson smoked pot, the bird sat longingly around as well. As things played out in Grandma's absence, Grandson invited a few friends to say hullo to the Bird and experience some whiffs of pot as well. I don't know if all assembled smoked but Grandson certainly did. Weed washes everything in the humane light and so everybody was let in for a mellow evening unlike evenings of carnage that usually and invariably accompany alcohol. 

So pet Bird sat around with the boys; when they smoked, the Bird did too. Well, Bird didn't really pick up a pipe and all that, only sniffed and inhaled the good stuff. As lovely fumes of weed gently wafted down the room, they flowed from the pipe and directly filled little Bird's lungs. Heavenly pot  lifted Bird's worries about Grandma as Bird felt her wings soar around the room. Good stuff, that weed! Before long, Bird was thoroughly soaked with weed. Like many politicians, Bird too did not inhale! Second hand smoke from weed and pot was the culprit, which those pesky Liberals never warned you about; in fact they wanted to make those freedoms available to all without discrimination.

Transformation quickly occurred  as Bird become a one-time-pot-head and soon turned into a glutton as well. A free bird, not in its cage, happily hanging around pot smoking grandsons, is bound to get into trouble. So, high on weed and wind beneath its wings, off went the bird to find its food and find in plenty it did. That big 10 pound bird food was all hers.

   

Pet Bird went for it 

 forgot to blink 

   forgot to drink; 

    to the surprise of all
 ate it, got bloated

   turned into a ball

Bird ate so much that it became incapacitated and passed out very close to Grandson who thought Bird was just tired and needed some sleep. Grandson threw my son's jacket over the bird for some peace and quiet and let Bird rest all night. There the Bird lay, all night, without moving, without breathing.

Now, Grandson has to answer Grandma what happened to her pet Bird. My son has to wipe down his jacket with warm water, lemon and some vinegar because this jacket cannot be washed or dry cleaned. Grandson's friends will speculate as to why was Grandson so sad; after all it was just a bird and maybe Grandson had a soft heart and worried about other things besides weed. All friends will have to collectively figure out what to do with the dead bird, whether to cremate it or bury it before Grandma gets back from her vacation. 

NBA Basketball of Punks and Dunks

Soccer or Football is the world's most popular sport but surely American Basketball is equally popular with its towering men and their knee length shorts, certainly not designed for men under 6 feet; anything under this number easily qualifies for a dwarf on the field.  Regular people sometimes feel a sense of relief when they see some players hovering around their normal height but that is very rare and soon people feel sorry to see such 'tiny' players having to make do in a court of giants. Then too, the 'tiny' ones seem to be specially adept at moving the ball swiftly, especially through the legs of the bigger players. Big players like Shaquille O'Neal made it an art form to fall and remain fallen till most of both teams regardless of rivalry, helped him stand up again. 

It's the sheer beauty of flight and an equal ferocity of beastly play that sets American basketball apart from any other in the world. Two to three feet off the ground is the least a fan can get to see, which in itself is a fanciful flight perfected by none other than the world's most famous athlete, the great Michael Jordan. Hang time came to be affiliated with Jordan because he seemed to stay in the air for an unholy and unbelievably long time. Nonetheless the Jordan era was also one of full time punks like Dennis Rodman and those pesky Detroit Pistons who played basketball like a series of wrestling matches. For lack of anything else to do, Rodman now keeps company with ruthless dictators and killers like Kim Jong-Un and then wonders in his pretty pink scarf why the world is so upset and subsequently has on-air meltdowns as well!

Unfortunately, like other things in America, NBA too has come under the knife of political correctness where a good old hard foul has been elevated to choices of flagrant 1 and 2 and of course off court theatrics! It's a wonder PC thought police hasn't yet objected to all the garbage talk and thoughts by players especially with the heavy handed dealing of Donald Sterling, owner of NBA Team LA Clippers! Somehow Clippers thought of protesting by throwing their jerseys down but still continuing to be on Sterling's pay roll of millions of dollars; taking Sterling's tainted money was ok!  Head butting, poke in the eye, goring another player are no longer tolerated. Subsequently, fans can no longer see a basketball brawl, so to speak. Half of the pleasure in watching international soccer games lay in watching droves of traveling half-crazed fans across borders who insist on having their own matches of fists, slurs and horns in the stands. 

Michael Jordan's Hang Time

Still, NBA attracts new blood each year hungry for the ring and title but of course the average age of an NBA champion is 27 years! There is Russell Westbrook with his blazing guns and of course the freight train Lebron James but none come close to being punks.  To stop Lebron James is to do it at the peril of your life and so when he comes down thundering towards the basket, it's best to move out of the way and pretend to tie your shoe laces. Everybody would understand those shoe laces were never undone! When Tiago tried to dunk on Lebron, well the sheer audacity of it went viral because the Spaniard never went anywhere. It's one thing to move out of the way but it's another to dare do it on Lebron!

NBA still has some passion, bits of controlled anger, some frustration, but plenty of beauty in the beasts of play. It's fascinating to see the ball sail down the net with a sweet swish, one smooth action, no crutch of the board is seen as in European basketball and so when it happens to be a rare air ball, one collective gasp from the crowd becomes a unique sound. But nothing to beat the absolute awesomeness of NBA basketball when players go for their dunks. Which brings me to the quintessential nature of American NBA dunks.  This beauty is truly a beast. The ball gets slammed down with such savagery that it is a miracle the ball survives as well as the net and of course the board as well. This art of slamming the ball through the net has yet to be mastered by other nations.

Drink Drank Drunk: Joys and Perils

You Tube: Compilation of Drunk People

Nothing is funnier than seeing drunkards talk or walk because they can’t do either. They open their mouth, they tip over. Was it the weight of the words? They raise their hand, they tip over, they raise their leg to walk, the leg crumbles under them. They sing and dance and accept all kinds of dares even to their heads, which are mush anyway. They insist on riding bikes without wheels or with the wheel turned around permanently; they go round and round till they can do it no more; they fold over with the bike over them or under, the bike does not care and they are too drunk to care either.  They can crawl through the tightest spots, slide through barbed wires or slide on to barbs; squeeze throats, their own or others and then wonder what their hands were doing around throats; they choke themselves, punch their own faces, and do other such foolish stuff.

People have been warned: do not drink and walk but that’s what precisely drunk men and women like to do. People have been warned, do not drink and drive but that’s another human frailty. People have been warned, do not drink but who listens. If there is anyone who cannot walk, it’s the ones who’ve been drinking all day and all night long. Suddenly they remember they need to get home and so their foray into getting-home-by-themselves begins! They start off by walking backwards and graduate to doing it diagonally; they stumble on the dark road and the road leads them back to where they began. What happened to the road? They tumble through a house, whose house is that anyway? They find their way to the door and are surprised by the door opening on them; they fall outside the house just near the door; that’s where they crumple and lie until further notice.

They were the bravest people when they started off just before they consumed that alcohol, loads of it. Then they got caught into accepting challenges, fancy ones too. They jumped off stairways, balconies, across ditches, into walls; they threw themselves into doors, windows, tables, bicycles, cars, anything that was standing or moving. Nothing is safe from a drunken man hurtling towards them. They can do everything and they are fiercely independent. It’s that evil alcohol that made them do things they were adamantly opposed to. Hollywood needs to hire drunkards for all their stunts, even though those successful stunts would have only been one-time affairs. Mostly it is men who are a sight to watch as long as those men are not related to you; then it’s not funny. The entire world thinks drunkards have a problem except the drunkards themselves. For them, it’s the world that has a problem or maybe the bottle has a problem!

Frenzy of Heavy Metal Music

If there's anything that can drive people in a state of frenzy then it has to be headache-inducing-head-banging-Metal. If you're going for the kill, this is the music that one must hear. Not only will it explode the enemy's head, it will pretty much cause an explosion of your own head as well. In case, you ever had a chance to see live Metal Show, you'll see on stage, the machoest of macho men, the alpha males, the kind every girl dreams of till her ear drums are ready to give up all pretense of sound. Lead guitarists and Bass guitarists, each occupy between three to four feet of horizontal space with their leg-spread, six feet of vertical height, with an additional few feet above to allow for leaping, jumping and landing on stage or off onto the heads or into arms of frenzied fans. Girls wait for such immense weights to fall on them; boys and men don't mind it either; after all Metal is the rite of passage!

So what is Metal? It is as generally described as thick, massive sound characterized by highly amplified distortion and loudness beyond loud. Heavy Metal performance styles are often associated with ultra masculinity, aggression and machismo! Urban Dictionary describes it as a type of music characterized by a cacophonous wall of sound and accelerated tempo achieved through distorted electric guitars playing fast-paced riffs, with the driving drumbeat often utilizing hypersonic double bass rhythms. Other sub genres besides Heavy metal are Death Metal, Thrash Metal, Drone Metal, Post Metal, Sludge Metal, Speed Metal, Glam Metal and other choice Metals.

There is no voice like that of Heavy Metal. If Satan enjoyed or played music, he would do it the Metal way. For music, there is rumble followed by thunder and finally by doom. Yes, it's those Metal Guys belting out sounds straight from the belly of the beast. Those vocal cords have to be made of steel! Drums are hit with all possible might, guitars are played with a vengeance, words or something sounding like words are spat out to the tune of thunder. Leaping, jumping, sliding, clawing, racing on stage on one leg with long wavy hair, clanking chains, smashing heads, shattering drums, and generally breaking things are part and parcel of a Metal Show.

It is difficult to say who feeds off whose energy and madness. Metalheads are just as senile as their heroes, the Metal Men. Just in case, Metal Bands see any signs of dissipating energy in the lunatic world also known as 'crowds', pyrotechnics are there to provide all necessary fire and heat. Smoke bellows out from all corners of the stage and entire bands look ready to explode. The crowd responds, creates a space called the mosh-pit and in that pit they descend like zombies; their participation restricted to pushing, shoving, spitting, flinging themselves, spinning heads, falling, getting trampled, screaming and doing the same again and again. These are pits where youngsters, teenagers, and senile adults  allow themselves to get crushed, mashed and packed into unrecognizable forms.

Nothing but black is worn on stage by Metal Bands; black jackets, black shirts, black shorts, black pants, black bandanas, black socks, black boots and thick black kohl laden eyes and make-up. If they never wore anything, that would suffice as well on account of their bodies being covered in tattoos. Guys without deadly black glasses or big buckle belts or long tongues would be a disgrace to Metal. Chains, steel, multiple rings, nose rings, belly piercings, tattoos, skull heads, snakes, dragons, swords, guns, fierce looking beasts, all stick to Metal like magnets.

This Metal melts metal and human skulls simultaneously. As blinding green lights and red lights explode, Metal Concerts transform into furious sounds and mounds of forms swaying in unison with the inevitable hand gesture of the forefinger and little pinky thrust into darkness.

Is Michelle Obama Selling ObamaCare in China?

Nobody seems to be buying ObamaCare in America, so could selling ObamaCare to the Chinese be one of Michelle Obama's reasons for the China Trip? Flotus is not there for political reasons but maybe she should have. Did it not occur to her that selling ObamaCare with a different name like JiabaoCare would garner more support? With the change in name would come Made in China label along with drastically reduced costs much like other Made in China products? Regarding culture, what exchange could occur between Americans and Chinese where both cultures are poles apart and never the twain shall ever meet? So why exactly is Michelle traveling to China with a large entourage? Expenses for Michelle's China Trip as reported by media watchdogs are costing the country's taxpayers some hefty millions. Obamas' earlier trip to Africa cost the taxpayers a few millions as well! All the country got in return was a Selfie of Obama with the UK PM and Danish PM Helle Thorning-Shcimdt. Michelle is known to spend money freely and lavishly on her other vacations as well. Maybe Michelle could try getting one American, a job, via Chinese connections. White House Pastry Chef was recently let go by Michelle because he refused to replace eggs, butter and cream with some fruit fluff foo. This would be great considering there aren't many jobs available in America these days.

One good thing that could come out of Michelle's China Trip would be a push for new dress designs and hairdos for her fans who follow her keen sense of clothes, hair and other control issues. Michelle is in China with her mother and two daughters, the latter well behaved while the Mother slightly out of control. Mrs Robinson, Michelle Obama's mother has been heard barking orders to the Chinese hotel staff. Imagine misbehaving in a country which is hosting your trip. Unbelievable bad manners even for the Chinese who are not exactly known for good manners or kindness. Maybe the Chinese could convince Mrs Robinson to bark her orders for Barack Obama to shoo out Dalai Lama next time the exiled Tibetan leader visited America (Dalai Lama has been living in India since the 1960s). The Chinese are not very tolerant of dissent and neither are the Obamas, so maybe this trip could be an important point of meeting between the wife-of-one-leader-who-is-no-longer-regarded-as-leader of the world and the wife-of-another-leader-who-is-trying-hard-to-be-the-leader of the world with stiff competition from wife of the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin.

Somebody said that earlier presidents had done the same thing as in sending their wives and children on 'cultural visits' but what this person forgot was that 17 trillion debt amassed under Obama by far surpassed all combined presidents' spending and vacations and what not. Best thing would have been to scrap the visit and use the money to pay down some debt, not that it would have made any difference in Liberal thinking of spending money as long as it was not theirs! Well so far, Michelle Obama has proven that correct and her mother is there to encourage her. What are mothers for?As most Obamas' policies have fallen flat, Michelle could try selling her health diets to the Chinese who supposedly have developed a penchant for American pizzas and hamburgers and are fast traveling on the obesity trail. Incidentally Michelle Obama's health foods for schools in America resulted in school kids going hungry and schools losing business, so this program may have been scrapped for good. The bottom line is, no amount of cultural exchanges between the Obamas and Jiabaos are going to make a dent in relations; it's all about who doles out the cash to whom and how much, something Obamas sorely lack in understanding because under their auspices, America has been essentially sold to China!

Obama and Putin Discuss Crimea on Phone

Probable conversation between President Obama and President Putin:

Obama:   What's that about Crimea?
Putin:      What?
Obama:   Let me warn you!
Putin:      About what?
Obama:   There will be economic sanctions!
Putin:      From you?
Obama:   There will be consequences!
Putin:       For who?
Obama:    I'm getting ready to put my foot down.
Putin:       Where?
Obama:    On the table and take immediate action!
Putin:       Oh damn!
Obama:    I'll get Europe to back me!
Putin:       Who's that?
Obama:    Stay out of Crimea!
Putin:       It's Russian business as usual.
Obama:    Leave Crimea alone.
Putin:       Oh that!
Obama:    Don't play with me!
Putin:       Yeah, I'm real scared of America!
Obama:    Are you?
Putin:       Nah! Just for a laugh, I even got my Parliament to say yes! It's all legal!
Obama:    What about people of Crimea!
Putin:       Anything else before I settle my troops there?
Obama:    I'm warning you again!
Putin:       FU!

Living With Creatures In Our Attic

This entire winter, we've lived with some animals or creatures in our attic. It's not as if they were paying us, it was more like free loader stuff, the kind that America's president actively promotes. In fact, theses creatures have had more fun this winter than we have had. I've heard all kinds of sounds, of pleasure, I should say: rolling, jumping, pitter patter, running, falling and even scratching. I can only imagine some heavy rollers being used to ride on, perhaps some swings may have been attached to the walls of the attic or maybe a hot bath or two were in the offing.  Maybe the creatures were even smoking cigarettes after a good bout of pleasure! Who knows what was up with all these strange sounds that were clearly beyond the grasp of mere mortals trying to live their own lives!

I did what I was forced to do, by my husband, called the Village of Skokie. Yes, it's called the Village because as most other things in America, Americans like to do things the 'other' way. In fact, it's a suburb but also manages to house loads of trees, birds, animals and wildlife like deer, skunks, raccoons, chipmunks and others. Questions from the Village were asked: what kind of sounds, at what time were the sounds, where exactly were the sounds coming from? By the time I answered all the questions, I had become discombobulated and wondered if I imagined the sounds! Nonetheless, remedies were offered: go up in the attic, dip rags in ammonia, wrap moth balls in sheer stockings and throw them in the attic. My husband quickly ruled himself out of going in the attic, I shuddered at the thought and our two boys quickly ran away to the gym.

An important question remained: how on earth did these creatures get in our attic? My husband thought the creatures had used trees to hop, skip and jump on the roof. But how did they get in through the roof? As the temperatures have been quite frigid this winter, we were loathe to go outside and up on the roof to check this. Even if we got ourselves to be brave, we would have likely become part of the snow spectacle as snowmen and snow women with real red noses instead of carrots. We were not going to allow ourselves to be part of senseless global warming teams heading to Antarctica to find some melting snow and getting stuck in their own experiments! A self damning experience to say the least! Anyway we rather have creatures sleep in our attic than freeze ourselves in sub zero temperatures in a sea of snow!

We decided that as these creatures were mainly active in the day, they were most likely squirrels. There was no money trail so we just had to go around the house many times to look for possible holes in walls, windows, doors etc. We looked up at the chimney to be a possible suspect but that was capped with mesh, so that was out. Anyway the chimney would be a long process even for squirrels. They would have to climb down the chimney braving all the hot air, avoid getting singed, get to the basement and when all was quiet, quickly run up the stairs, take a tour of the house and find the best way of getting up back to the attic! Even for squirrels, this seemed a waste of time. So the chimney option was quickly abandoned and left for Santa Claus to pursue. 

Finally we found the holes, rather saw them by chance after much staring and blinking at the house. There were two of them, approximately 5 inches in diameter in the front of the house, looking all lonely and scratched up. This is just like life I thought, seeing and not seeing! Anyway, we're going to leave the holes alone for the time, let the squirrels be till the thawing season comes around and then go after those holes with a vengeance. But first, we are going to make a racket through the attic door, maybe have the vacuum cleaner on for long minutes, throw ammonia soaked rags and nylon wrapped moth balls; perhaps have loud rap music full of curse words or even head busting metal rock; wait for the squirrels to depart from the attic, find their own house; then we are going to climb or lean against the vertical plane, get dizzy, experience some vertigo and finally fix those damn holes.