Category Archives: Potpourrhetoric

A category of the uncategorizable

Just Call Me ‘For Dinner’

If you had read this post earlier, you could have surmised from the book on the lower portion of the bottom half of my page (that is not there anymore so don’t bother looking), that I had just finished reading Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson, about a legendary mountain man of the Old American West.  What struck me most about this book is the extreme coolness of mountain man nicknames: Bear Claw, White-eye, Arkansas Pete, Hatchet Jack, Mad Mose, and of course the main character, Crow Killer, otherwise known as Liver-Eating Johnson.

This got me conTIMplating nicknames, where they come from, and perhaps most importantly, why I don’t have one.  Continue reading →

Time for a Graduation Innovation Conversation

Yesterday was Thing 1’s last day of high school, which means she graduates in the top 100% of her class this week and enters the ambiguous and limbotic state of a Phillip Phillips Summer; somewhere between “Home” and “Gone, Gone, Gone”.

Not unlike your typical middle-aged milquetoast who has survived such a life event as this, my emotive state is one of uneasy apprehension and terrible trepidation, not so much from the launching of a long-time household resident as from the requirement that I actually attend the lengthy and dreaded tradition that is the graduation ceremony. Continue reading →

Tim and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

I’ve had better weeks.

Perhaps you have heard the phrase, “First World Problems.”  It is a euphemism for such life difficulties as, “My lettuce turns brown too fast” or, “The escalator is broken again” or, “Which government agency should I use to harass my political enemies?”  I won’t say whether I have any of these specific problems or not, but I will say that after this week I am seriously looking at some lovely sand-front property in northern Mali.

Early this week I fought “The Battle of The Siding” which is a lot like “The Battle of The Bulge” except that nobody died and there probably won’t be a movie made about it starring George C. Scott, although one with someone like Bill Pullman is a distinct possibility. Continue reading →

Date Night? Actually, I Prefer Figs.

The other night The Queen Mother and I found ourselves in possession of an expiring Groupon for one of your finer dining establishments in downtown Minneapolis.  For those of you unfamiliar with the Groupon concept, it is a discount coupon that you purchase, then forget you own until it expires in 45 minutes, at which time you scramble around and rework your entire life so you can redeem it and save the $17 you had so coveted six months earlier. 

This particular Groupon was for one of the more trendy Minneapolis eateries, and by ‘trendy’ I mean to say we were among the most heterosexual of patrons.  The idea was to have a nice half-price dinner for two, then meet our various offspring for an ice-cream chaser all for under $40.  We were even being so economical as to opt to drive our 20-year-old puddle jumper as opposed to our planet-killing gas-guzzling SUV, which in a politically correct nod to the Sierra Club we affectionately refer to as “The Axles of Evil.” Continue reading →

I’d Like to Ask You a Few Questions—And I’m Not Even Polish

Feel free to congratulate me, for this is my 50th blog post and coincidentally, my blogging antiversary.

“Yo, Dog,” I hear you saying,  “That is awesome!  You did it!  How and where can I send you a check?”  While your words are thoughtful and kind, I would appreciate it if you did not call me ‘Dog.’

Let me be perfectly clear: this not my anniversary and is thus my anTiversary, as it is a day OTHER than my anniversary, kind of like an UNbirthday is everyday BUT your birthday which makes today especially special for me because it is BOTH my unbirthday AND my antiversary which calls for excessive festal merriment and celebratory freedom to use run-on sentences and capital letters at will. Continue reading →