Sometime last year I started getting emails from the Washington Times. For those of you not currently or previously drowning in politics (lucky you!), the Washington Times is a right wing rag — Fox News in black and white (and read all over) by conservatives in Washington (and probably nowhere else — it’s a really rag and not in a good way).
Since I didn’t unsubscribe for a while (the emails are hilarious in a frightening way), I am also on a bunch of other lists. And just yesterday, I got this:
(My photo of Ted’s email — eat your heart out, Google Images)
Ooh Boy Howdy! I can work long and hard to support a crazy man from Texas! Yee-Haw!
OK, back to reality. You won’t be surprised that I didn’t send Ted my hard earned money, unless you have just clicked on this blog for the first time.
But I did respond to Ted. With this:
Because I’m pretty sure that this one picture is worth a thousand words. Or dollars — Confederate or U.S.
I clipped the photo montage from my friend, Father Kane, at The Last of the Millenniums, where I get so many great pictures.
Lovely Rita meter maid,
Nothing can come between us,
When it gets dark I tow your heart away.
Standing by a parking meter,
When I caught a glimpse of Rita,
Filling in a ticket in her little white book.
In a cap she looked much older,
And the bag across her shoulder
Made her look a little like a military man.
How can you live in America, be named Rita, and have never heard “Lovely Rita”?
It was 1979, and I worked at the office of the International Tax Program. (WAKE UP!!!! I’m not gonna talk about tax, I promise.) The ITP was a pleasant place to work part time, as I was in my freshman year of college. The people who worked there were an incredibly kind bunch of folks.
My desk sat right out front in the area immediately inside the doors to the ITP’s offices. My desk was right next to Rita’s, the receptionist.
Naturally from the moment I met her, and from the instant I walked into the doors of the office every day for a year, I could hear the song.
Lovely Rita, Meta Maid …
I often called her “Lovely Rita” which is unlike me, and was even more unlike me when I was 21. I hummed the song and sang it softly all the time. The ear worm lasted the whole year I worked in the office.
My lovely Rita was an older woman – about 40 at the time, which seemed as ancient to me then as it seems young to me now. She’d emigrated from Germany, some years before, and was not at all familiar with English-language pop music.
It was some months after starting to work there that I learned Rita had never heard her own song. How could that be?
Naturally I went home planning to take the record into the office. But I couldn’t find my copy of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Anywhere. It had vanished.
Nobody in the office had it, either. Nor did any of my friends.
I searched a couple of used record stores in Boston, and enlisted the help of my roommate, Elizabeth who was a record-store junky. Somehow, there were no copies of the album anywhere.
Unwilling to be completely defeated, I enlisted some talented friends – folks I’d been performing with in amateur musicals. Together, me, Erik and Terry serenaded Lovely Rita with her song.
We sounded something like this:
Well. Kind of like that.
My friend, my lovely Rita loved it. For the rest of the time I worked there, she would hum along with me when I sang it.
* * *
This is my entry in Knocked Over By A Feather’s Beatles Contest. The rules are pretty simple — tell a story using the lyrics to any one of several Beatles songs: Across the Universe, Baby You’re a Rich Many, Good Day Sunshine, Hey Bulldog or Lovely Rita. Guess which one I chose.
You know I have the best interests of all of my bloggin’ buddies in mind when I reblog this post, don’t you? But don’t blame me. Frank, of A Frank Angle (https://afrankangle.wordpress.com/) brought it to my attention. So please, send him your used poop hats as a thank you!
Growing up at the beach, I never had much use for those little dweebes who would pan for gold in Long Island Sound. All they ever got was a plastic container of cigarette butts.
Well, it is Connecticut’s “Gold Coast” but that’s not quite what they mean. (Google Image)
And on my one trip to California when I visited a ghost gold town, well, I was still not all that impressed. But at least they got them some gold. Some of them.
I can’t even remember if this is the gold miner statue I saw. (Google image)
But more recently, I’m thinking that maybe I’ll try my, ummm, hand, at gold mining.
Yeah — me!
In fact, it might just be an opportunity for me to work from home. I may actually be sitting on a gold mine. Really! Who knew!
More than for personal gain, however, I will do it in the name of science. You see, scientist now think that this type of mining may just save the planet! It could reduce the need for more environmentally harmful types of mining.
Oh, I guess I forgot to explain the rest. You see, I just read that scientists are, ummm, mining for gold in unexpected places. Silver, too. And you know, they’ve found some platinum, too. A veritable jewelry store of precious metals.
Wanna know where?
In poop. People Poop.
Really! They’re finding all sorts of shit in there! I just read about it in an article entitled:
Every year, Americans are flushing a fortune down the toilet. Literally. More than 7 million tons of biosolids—treated sewage sludge—pass through US wastewater facilities annually. Contained within our shit are surprisingly large quantities of silver, gold, and platinum.
I am prodigious poop producer. I figure, well, I’m golden.
Google Image
I’m hiring pan sterilizers if anybody is looking for a job.
And since I am really a rotten photographer (but I do Google Images with finesse), I figured, what the hell.
Here are the rules:
The rules are pretty simple:
Post a black & white photo daily for five posts in a row.
Invite someone different to participate each day.
Ummm, except for photos of my black and white dog, which I take in color but still end up being black and white due to the subject matter, I don’t really do black and white. I don’t do much in color, either.
But here goes.
My old headder in color
And now, if I can figure out how to do it …
Does this count?
OK. I’ll do it right. I think ..
I did it! With Doobster’s help.
I’m going with the color one(s), I don’t know about you!
These are pictures of the place in Maine where my family goes in the summer — and occasionally in the winter.
I’m not going to challenge anyone to do this — feel free to do it and link to Doobster. But it is kind of neat to see my photo in black and white.
FiftyFourandAHalf 