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What Swells My Mellow
This post is a flip side of my posts on “What Harshes My Mellow.” Unfortunately, I’ve discovered that there are only seven things in this world I like, three of which involve Bob the dog, so this won’t take long.
1. Bob the Dog. Who’s a good dog? Bob is.
2. Marie the Bounteous. What more is there to say? Well, I also like the way she pads around the house in her housecoat. After 56 years of marriage, Marie is still as cute as cute can be.
3. My daily Hot Tub Soak. Every night about midnight, I go out on the deck and soak for a half-hour in our hot tub’s 102-degree water. Oooooooooh. I sometimes try to come up with an idea for a Ricochet post while I soak.
4. Mrs. She’s Prose. After 30 years of teaching English, I still analyze prose as I read. I can’t help myself. We have a lot of really good writers on Ricochet, but it’s Mrs. She’s prose that just totally swells my mellow. I’m sorry, Mrs. She, if my regular praise makes you uncomfortable. I’m not really a prose stalker. Well, I guess I am. But I’ll try to restrain myself from now on.
5. My 105 Previous Posts. I enjoy rereading them. Yes I do. I say to myself every now and then, “Boy, you nailed that sentence, Kent.” You think I’m an egotist? My wife does. I guess I am. But I do hope that someone out there in Ricochet land also rereads his own posts and is willing to confess to that personal shortcoming. That way I won’t feel so alone in my self-absorption. (I wrote a grammar book about 50 years ago, and I still follow my outdated advice in that book. That’s why I still use the personal pronoun “his” —see boldfaced “his” above — when logically it should be “his or her.” The solo “his” to represent both sexes used to be common usage, but my use of the illogical singular in this modern age of “his or her” puts me square in the fuddy-fuddy category.)
6. My Morning Ritual. Every morning around 4:30 a.m, I’m at my iPad in the kitchen, with Bob the dog behind me on the couch in the den. He keeps one eye open for the signal: “Bob, let’s go see Mom.” When he hears that, he gallops up the stairs full bore and waits at the bedroom door. By the time I get there, he’s usually moaning in anticipation, his tail wagging furiously. When I open the door, Bob springs into the bedroom, then jumps up onto the bed and onto the shoulder of a sleeping Marie. Then he peers over her shoulder and tries to lick her face. She’s wide awake by this time, laughing and saying, “Bob, no tongue!”
I leave the room to go into the computer room to run off my crossword puzzle. His job over, Bob follows me in and lies down on the floor by my feet. And that’s the end of our daily morning ritual. That just starts my day off right.
7. My New Baseball Cap. About a month ago, I ordered the baseball cap, with Bob’s photo, that you see here. I 
bought it through Amazon, though the company that makes the cap is located in China. Yesterday my cap finally arrived, I like it so much that I think I’ll wear it to bed tonight. Just joking. I’m not that dotty. Yet.
The cap with the photo set me back ten bucks, a price that included shipping from China. China is going to go broke at this rate.
Published in General
If you had that cap with the picture say “I’m famous on Ricochet”, it would sell like hot cakes! Then well…t-shirts? But now that the Chicoms have all your personal info, address, email, just sayin….you might need to find an American made printer…..I’m speaking from personal experience, wondering why those cute bathing suits were so cheap……
Bob the Dog #1.
Marie the Bounteous #2.
Looks like trouble to me.
I love it.
I think I see a family resemblance in the photo.
When do you sleep?
Lilly, I’m something of an insomniac. I sleep a few hours a night.
Over-achiever.
I reread my stuff. I am indeed self-absorbed. But what I write, I often nail! And then I forget it.
But sooner or later, sometimes years later, it comes back. Just this morning I thought of a cute and instructive video that had been embedded in a comment made on a post of mine. I couldn’t remember the title of the post but I did know it was about Cahit Arf, so I did a search for that Turkish mathematician, and it all popped right out. I am relieved to see I did give @midge a much-deserved “like”!
Comments themselves are not searchable. Which in my own case may be a good thing. I had once mentioned, somewhere, a certain Brazilian journalist who had done a long magazine interview with President Reagan. I had been struck by how young she was to have got the Washington bureau job. Not only that, but it appeared she got it right out of college, Boston University to be specific. Maybe @jameslileks’s daughter has heard of such a distinguished alumna! Be that as it may, I had a few weeks ago tried to recall something I’d written on an entirely different subject, found it, and also found at the foot of it a comment mentioning Flávia Sekles. Now I will admit that being the leadoff/sole commenter on one’s own post is a whole ‘nother dimension in self-absorption. But hey, once again, I nailed…something!
John, thanks. You’re the only one who will admit it thus far. I suspect that Arahant rereads his stuff, and I await his confession.
An eidetic memory means never having to review.
What it really means is that I need to consult a dictionary.
Awww. Thanks @kentforrester. You’re sweet. (There’s no need to hold back. Really, I can stand it.) You write some of my favorite posts, too.
My best to TBM and BTD. In no particular order.
It’s the nose.
Bob the Dog 2024!
I’ll admit it too. If I didn’t, I’d never write a post. My thinking is, I’ll just blurt something out when I’m inspired and then one back and edit it for the people who don’t spend all their free time on Ricochet.
What sometimes swells my mellow is realizing how many experts are clueless. (The above is from a Newsweek magazine article of April 28th 1975)
But being happy with your Bob, your spouse and your hot tub sound rather sublime as well.
Samuel, I know a place in China where the campaign can get Bob hats.
We could also add slogans:
Two bones in every pot.
MADA (Make America Dog Again)
Who’s a Good Boy? Bob!
No More Monicas! (Bob’s been fixed)
Happy Dogs Are Here Again!
Cato, that looks to be a really cute photo of your dogs sleeping with one another. But even after enlarging it, I couldn’t see it clearly.
Wait a minute! You’re in the hot tub at midnite and at the computer at 4:30 AM? That’s not a lot of sleep by my calculations. Anyway–thanks Mr. Forrester, your posts are always enjoyable and Bob seems like a great dog.
Cdor, I’m something of an insomniac. I’ll often get just a couple of hours of sleep a night. I can get by fairly comfortably on just a few hours of sleep. Last night I fell asleep around 12;30 a.m. and was up at 2:30 a.m. Right now it’s 8 a.m. and though I’m not bright-eyed and bushy tailed, I am fairly alert.
hot tubs are great! I used to sit in ours for as long as it took to smoke a cigar, loved every minute of it. I don’t smoke anymore, but I’d like to get another tub someday and ease into it after a long run.
No. We are the ones going broke.
See? You can harsh your mellow if you just give it a little effort.
They are adorable but I’m not very good at uploading things on to this site.
Spirit, they are great, aren’t they? Our hot tub came with the house. I didn’t think much of it when I first saw it. But now I wouldn’t own a house without one. I soak in mine every day, sometimes twice a day.
For years Marie and I spent a half hour every day in the hot tub. It was a great place to talk and bond.
You need to get yourself another hot tub. And a dog.
I’ve always thought the expression should be “Bob’s been broken”. I have a feeling that Bob would agree.
I appreciate your fuddy-duddy usage of “his.” I understand it jars those raised on inclusive language, but “his or her” is nothing but clunky to my ears.
It clinks in my ears, too, Suspira, but I think it’s a lost cause — in the same way that insisting that “disinterested” means “unbiased” rather than “uninterested” is a lost cause.
I use “his” for “his or her” also. Out of sheer freakin’ stubbornness.