Post # 1,000 (it's less than that if you exclude the apologies for not writing more)

First off, I want to point out that today is a sort of dual anniversary for me. This is my 1,000^th post to The Passing Parade and today marks the 29^th year I’ve been working here in the egregious mold pit wherein I labor for my daily bread. I’ve been trying to process the idea that babies born on the day this dump hired me are now adults with children of their own. It doesn’t seem that long ago, but the time seems to have gone by without my noticing. Lots of things do that, but time is a biggie and something you’d think I wouldn’t miss at all. But I did. I should have realized that when I noticed my beard turning gray and white without my having to dye it, but like I just said, I fail to realize lots of things, especially when they’re right in front of me.

As to the 1,000^th post, I’d like to thank Tat, Dick, Snoop, and everyone else that comes here looking for a new post, and usually not finding one.  It’s nice to know people will keep coming back even during my dry spells or during one of my many violent attacks of sloth. I do appreciate it.

The Danish and my leg, such as it is

My apologies for the prolonged absence, but I should report that I am feeling much better now, thank you for asking, and I am able to walk short distances without the cane, something for which I am almost inordinately proud of myself. Physical therapy continues as before and I spend much of my time smiling and agreeing with my therapist, an attractive young woman who combines the two traits I have found in almost all physical therapists I have ever dealt with: cheerful optimism and equally cheerful sadism. I certainly do not mind having an attractive young woman massage my right leg every other day; on the other hand, I do not understand why she does not simply haul off and pound on the leg with a baseball bat—the effect in either case is more or less the same.   

In my enforced state of stasis, I have learned that daytime television is a plot to deprive Americans of their liberties by depriving them of their ability to think critically about almost anything at all, and I have learned that Danish researchers have discovered that too much jogging is bad for you.  The two facts are not related in any way, as far as I can see, although an overconsumption of daytime television may cause the viewer not to see that a Danish researcher would say such a thing, there being an inherent conflict of interest between Danish researchers and jogging.  Time spent jogging is, by definition, time you will not use to have a Danish and maybe a nice cup of coffee while you chat with your friends. This is not a good thing, not at all, because jogging is a very antisocial activity, whether you do a lot of it or not.  You could jog with another person, of course, but you can’t really carry on an intelligent conversation with anyone when you’re blowing air out of your pie-hole like Moby Dick.  The only topic of conversation likely to interest any group of joggers is when the new guy at the back of the pack is going drop dead from a heart attack; joggers have a sick sense of humor, generally speaking. It's from spending all that time by themselves jogging. The stress makes strange things pop into their heads.

What Danish researchers ought to be researching is how come no deli in this our Great Republic can serve fresh Danish on a daily basis.  Here in our happy little burg, if you don’t get your Danish fresh on Monday, then you can forget about the rest of the week; after Monday the local consumer of Danish (i.e., me) will enjoy, if you can call it that, six degrees of ever greater staleness, until on Saturday the local consumer of Danish (i.e., me) is eating the baked equivalent of cardboard with some jam on it.  It is annoying, to say the least, and makes one question one’s commitment to the Danish as a NATO ally.  I mean, really, if the Danish cannot bother guaranteeing that the Danish is fresh, then why are we wasting the taxpayers’ money defending them from Dutch aggression? That’s what I want to know.

AN INDECISIVE PHOTOGRAPHER'S SECOND SOLILOQUY: DO I USE FLASH OR NOT, COMPLETE WITH AT LEAST ONE SIGNIFICANT SPELLING ERROR?

To flush, or not to flash–that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous flatulence
Or to take Rolaids against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To flush, to flash–
No more–and by a flush to say we end
The bellyache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flash is heir to, so don’t play with the damn strobe in the shower or when you still have the batteries in it.. ‘Tis a constipation
Devoutly to be wished away, and sooner rather than later, if you ask me.. To flush, to flash-
To flash–perchance to forget Cartier-Bresson’s warnings about flash and photography: ay, there’s the rub, and there will be no rubbing and flashing or flushing in public or the cops will show up muy pronto and you can take that to the bank, kids,
For in that flash of flush what dreams may flash of flushing, and make us wish we lived in SoHo or Tribeca or even Park Slope
When we have flushed off this mortal coil,
Must give us paws, which won’t do a damn thing if you’re stuck in the toilet bowl; just ask any rat who’s been caught in that situation. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long flash.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of Time, Newsweek, or even GQ, for that matter,
Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, or the photographer fiddling with his gear while you’re sitting there smiling in your very stiff Sunday best and feeling the sweat start to run down your back and your face begin to hurt because this doofus doesn’t know the difference between a f/stop and a cheese danish, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make, out of papier-mache and half-empty cans of Spam, no less,With a bare bodkin?
(Bodkins are often bare; it’s some sort of religious thing. The last sighting of a clothed bodkin was in 1778, when a unbare bodkin was seen serving in the Continental Army at the Battle of Monmouth). Who would fardels bear, the fardels bear being a particularly rare species of European brown bear, for those of you interested in zoology, once used by the Romans in gladiatorial games for comic relief-they were finicky eaters and disliked eating Christians, although they just loved Dacians, for reason best left to the imagination,
To flush and flash under a weary life, and look, and vanity fair
But that the dread of something after flush,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn ultimatum
Only the plumber returns, puzzles the will, especially when you see how much he’s charging you just for showing up and looking at your damn piping,
And makes us rather bear those hot flashes we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus incontinence does make flushers of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of Photoshop,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currants turn awry with pastrami and hot mustard, and some French fries on the side,
And lose the name of action, but not for very long, not if you insist on eating this kind of stuff on a regular basis. Crack out the antacids here, boys and girls!