Cheers, friends!
Well, the calendar thing says I haven’t expressed myself in cyberspace in eight days, which is one day more than that whole once-a-week thing I sometimes do, so I guess a few words are in order.
Words. They can be so amazing. As one idiot said recently, “I have the best words.”
The bottom of the page is counting my words as I type. Do you know I read once that the best blog entry is around 600 words long? Any longer than that and the audience attention starts to drift. You may have already drifted by now. Some of you drifted after the first comma.
Regardless, somehow, I’ve already typed 115 words.
The dentist told me yesterday that I’m not doing good enough. When a boss tells you that it’s frightening, when a wife tells you that it’s frustrating, but when a dentist tells you that it’s downright serious. More flossing. More brushing. The hygienist says to me “Are you a snacker?” Of course I’d lie if I said no, and we have enough lying in America from our president, so I said yes.
“Like, carrots and celery,” she said, “Or, like, chips?”
“Chps,” I said, cuz she had her fingers in my mouth and it was hard to get in a vowel. We both laughed.
“After snacking,” she finally said when we wiped the tears of laughter from our eyes, “swish some water around in your mouth and chew some sugarfree gum with xylitol to cut down bacteria.”
She also said to keep wooden toothpicks handy and that if she were a guy she’d snack all day on chips, too, so she didn’t blame me for that. Strange response, I thought, or maybe not.
At any rate, I’ve been looking for a reason to cut down on snacks so there’s my sign.
Did I tell you I finished that shed? I’ve never felt so organized in my life.
The boys are doing well:
Speaking of which, Moxie has some lumps and such, as old dogs do, so we took him in and had him thoroughly tested. Complete blood work, a couple of biopsies. Some $500 later we got the news: clean bill of health. Ten is the new seven, I said. He thought it was funny.
But they did tell us that he needs some dental work, which I guess is a Cummings theme right now, and that he’s too fat, though they may have said that in a more sensitive way. My doctor once told me that I could “stand to lose a few pounds,” and she was right. She also said “No one drinks 45 beers a week,” and she was wrong. 1 for 1 ain’t bad, though.
Speaking of records, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the Rams were 2-0. That means we’ve won two games and lost zero, for those of you not versed in football talk. We beat the Panthers in Carolina and the Saints in LA. That’s the Panthers from Carolina, by the way, and the Saints from New Orleans. And “LA” is short here for “Los Angeles,” not “Louisiana.” We play the Browns on Sunday night, which led to me canceling church on Sunday because there is no way I’m having beers with the congregation at 9:00 in the morning and remaining lucid all the way til kickoff in the evening. If you’re going to overindulge, my friends, you have to do so sensibly.
Well, that about sums it up. I hope you enjoyed this brief jaunt into my week-plus-one and that your lives are going exceedingly well and that your teeth are perfect. I gotta go.
The box at the bottom of the page tells me I’m already 20 words over an interesting blog. 😉
Tom Being Tom 
Challenge us. Write sth over 1000 and see what happens.
Does your dentist know that snacks and beer and football are best friends?
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She does now! My dentist is okay with my snacking, just not my follow up. I can do better follow up. Maybe if I swish the beer around in my mouth before swallowing?
And the word count thing is really 40% conscious effort and 60% time constraints. I really do think less is more sometimes, but sometimes I wish I had time to pen more. It looks like my average blog post is between 800-900 words, so I guess that’s not bad. Incidentally, the last time I went over 1000 words in a post?
My birthday. 😏
https://tombeingtom.com/2019/06/29/happy-birthday-to-tom/
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I wonder why…
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😁
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“If I were a guy, I’d snack all day on chips, too.” This was a very enjoyable post — aside from that sentence. I’m gonna be rolling that one around in my noggin for a long time to come. It will probably keep me up nights in a futile self-induced epistemological struggle for the ages. Perhaps whatever I come up with should be the content of the first post on my new blog page, whenever that may come to pass.
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Thank you, Paul! I try to sneak something epistemologically challenging into every 600-word post in case the other 500-something words fall completely flat. It looks like I hit for the cycle in this one. 😉
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The next time your doctor says you could stand to lose a few pounds ask how many you could lose by sitting. And when you have your next checkup and the dentist asks how you’re doing say, “I have three or four abscesses, I touch of pyorrhea, nine or ten cavities, I lost my pivot tooth, and I’m in terrible pain! ”
I haven’t met a dentist yet who got the Little Shop Of Horrors reference but I keep hoping.
Anyway, how many words is a good comment? I could keep filling this one with bad jokes like the time–true story–my dentist told me the patient before me was a hockey player and I said, “The other night I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out!” And she threatened to x-ray me without the protective lead vest.
I think I’ll use up my remaining words saying I’m glad you, the boys, and the Rams are all doing well.
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Hahaha! Thanks, Chris! Hope you’re doing well, too, here on your 5-year C-free anniversary. We’d be lost here at TBT without your commentary and we’d be lost in commentary without you here. I don’t have any idea what that means, either, but I will say that the length of any good comment is measured by the quality of the commentator and, in that vein, you could go on for hours.
So, go ahead.
I’ll wait. 🙂
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I always thought the limit was 900–I hope people are reading right to the end of mine because that’s where the best stuff is! As for lumpy dogs, Titus has lots, but we learned long ago that if they’re squishy and move around, they’re just cysts. We had a lovely 6 year old retriever once who had a rock hard, immobile lump. Yep–it was cancer. $3000 later….she lived 5 more years thankfully:-)
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The length-thing is pretty arbitrary; I’ve read articles about the benefits and drawbacks of 0-300, 300-600, 600-1000, 1000-1500, and 1500+. I remember one that said you’ll get more comments the shorter it is, more followers the more mid-length it is, and more readers and shares the longer it is. I personally think most people make most of that up to have something to write. 😉
As for your posts, (a) your best stuff is all throughout, and (b) whatever length you make ’em everyone will read the whole way through. You set the standard on fun, engaged, and enjoyable blogging, sister! I just write words and see what comes out. 🤣
Love the happy ending (despite the cost)! ❤️
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Well, I love your words too, no matter how many or few there are😊
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Thank you, Suzanne!
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Tom,
If I didn’t know better, I’d say the boys did all the work on the shed for you! They look exhausted. Congrats on getting so much done, your new teeth challenge and, of course, on your team. Cowboys are 2-0 as well! WooHoo! We play Miami this weekend, so unless something goes terribly wrong…It’s funny, but the more I try and edit, the longer my writing gets. *sigh* Mona
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Hahaha! I get that, Mona! Looks like your Cowboys easily handled those Dolphins, and my Rams escaped Cleveland with a win. Honestly, when I saw we were on the road against a tough Carolina team, at home against a Saints team seeking revenge, and then back on the road to Cleveland to face that revamped roster, I worried we might start 0-3 this season! To escape at 2-1 I would have been happy; to be 3-0 is all I could hope for and more! 👏👏👏
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Poor dentists. Actually, poor hygienists, they’re the ones doing all the grunt work (although I suppose we’re the ones grunting). But the dentists are always trying to drill up business. “Looks like that filling you got when you were twelve should probably be replaced.” Yeah, Doc? Well, I’m gonna die with that thing in my head, so move along, move along.
Tell us, what’s the most expensive appliance you have in your store? Now explain why it’s worth that. I fell in love with a Wedgewood range we had in an old home in San Anselmo, CA.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSfWx5z9T8HrKtOJj6sdF_3AIhXdnWgHNjgENM_tCpKgZgG96vR
That thing and its pilot light could dry figs and plums like nobody’s business. Tell us you have the best gear to cook on in your home…
I’m afraid I won’t watch football until they dig a mote around the field and play to the last man/woman standing. BattleBall coming to a stadium near you.
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Ah, I love the game. I’m not even a big sports hound – I don’t really follow anything but NFL football these days. I hardly pay attention to college ball, lost complete interest in basketball about 10 years ago, and gave up baseball in the mid 90s. But the NFL is like, I don’t know, like the Avengers vs the Zodiac every game. Armored up, colorfully clad, and diverse superhumans in a battle to the finish. The strategy. The tactics. The individual, often heroic efforts. Football is great (and the Rams are 3-0!).
The most expensive appliance I have in my store right now is a $5500 GE Cafe double wall oven with a french door on top and a pull down on the bottom, in dark slate (https://www.cafeappliances.com/appliances/ctd90fp3md1/overview). We sell a lot of mid-range and low-end new appliances so I don’t carry a bunch of commercial/hi-end stuff all the time. I’ve sold $10,000 refrigerators before, but that’s few and far between. I once did an analysis of our average appliance sale it was, like, $657, but that was years ago. I need to redo that study.
In my own house? Mid-level stuff. GE brand, slate color. My entire kitchen (fridge, gas range, dishwasher, microwave) would retail about $3200, I’d say. My washer and dryer? A $1500 Kenmore front load set I bought when I first moved to town in 2004. I worked at Sears back then!
That Wedgewood is beautiful!
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Your blogs are always interesting brother. More like enthralling.
Keep snacking, life is short. The best beer is the next one and Pats /Rams again in February!
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Amen to that 🏈! Thanks for the nice compliment. As you can tell, 90% of what I write is just stream of consciousness and the other 10% is plagiarized from smart people like you. Just kidding! I steal stuff from dumb people, too. 😉
“Keep snacking” may be the best advice I’ve ever had!
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