Citizens arise! The animals are running the zoo. After dutifully separating my hazardous household wastes, I drove out to the Carlton County waste station to dispose of it. Pre-pandemic, this section was open at least five days a week. Now there is a sign saying they will accept the waste only on “select” Tuesdays, and if you want to know which Tuesday has been selected, there is a number to call. I have to wonder just who is “selecting” the Tuesdays. This seems like an excellent way to insure that hazardous waste gets mixed in with trash on a regular basis.

Another business I had forgotten was the Mission Bottling plant, Which I think was located on 10th Street. I remember walking by it and seeing the empty bottles rolling by on their way to being filled. They had lemonade, a grapefruit drink and orange. Someone posted that they bottled Dad’s Old Fashioned Root Beer, too.

I’ve seen a different ad about the Chet's Shoes guy. Now he’s saying goodbye to his son at school. Then he goes home after work, grabs his old copy of Hustler and again puts his feet on the table. He’s not just single, he’s divorced.

There is an ad for a pill for eczema, too. Among the side effects: various cancers, heart attack, stroke and death. So it will kill you, but you can take comfort in the fact that your corpse will have clear skin. So when people say, “He looks SO GOOD!” they will mean it.

When Ludvig Burger came to town, he had a small shoemaker’s shop across from the Cloquet Bar and Lounge, where he would go for an occasional drink. He was an interesting guy to talk to. He had been a member of Erwin Rommel’s Africa Korps. He was captured in Africa, so he didn’t have to go back to Germany, where they were putting teenagers and old men in the front lines. 

I just spent my Labor Day holiday weekend in the hospital. I highly recommend this to all my sadomasochistic friends. On holiday weekends, all the senior personnel take advantage of their seniority to go on vacation, leaving the hospital in the hands of the recent nursing school graduates, all wielding their needles, ready to draw blood from the patients.

Within minutes, both my arms rivaled those of a long-term heroin addict in terms of needle tracks—all without giving up one drop of blood. Then everyone got excited: “Darla’s coming!” someone said. I got excited too, because I thought surely Darla was the experienced bloodletter. I was wrong. Darla was just the person who had the machine that visualized buried blood vessels. They were thinking about an IV line, and they tried a few places on my arms with no luck. Then Darla struck gold—the major artery in my arm. 

So they drove a needle into that, through my bicep. This hurt much more than an ordinary IV line, and although my IV was hooked into it, I was severely reprimanded when I called it an IV line. “IT is NOT,” I was told, “An IV Line, it’s a PICK line.”

So by the time I was released, I had big bruises and a PICK line scar in my armpit to go along with the bruises on my arms.

My vegan granddaughter came up to help me, and got a big smile on her face when she learned I was drinking oat milk. She was so happy, she brought me a half gallon of soy milk. She obviously misunderstood. I am not going vegan. If I could digest cow’s milk, I would be drinking cow’s milk. I can’t, so the best substitute I found was oat milk. So I drink oat milk. Period. I am NOT looking for another substitute. No soy, almond, coconut or any other kind of milk substitute. I had a bottle of RIPPLE, which is made from yellow peas. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as good as oat milk, so I dumped it down the sink.

I messed up both my knees when I fell, so now I need to use a walker wherever I go. My other granddaughter arrived with her big brother, and they set about clearing pathways for me. They move a tremendous amount of furniture around to do that.

Before she left, she went grocery shopping, and told me there was a lasagna dinner in the freezer for me. I like lasagna, so I took a look at the package. It was one I’d never seen before, called RAO’S Meat Lasagna. It was family size, but it had to be thawed out in one piece, so I heated it up as per instructions.

Remember the other lasagnas I ate were in meat sauce, which was totally meatless? Well, when I lifted the film on this one, it appeared to be meat soup. While I was gazing at it, a small piece of lasagna noodle floated up. Only one. So I ate a meat soup dinner, and put the rest in the fridge for the next four or five meals. Surprise!! When I saw it next, it looked just like lasagna. Had one meal, still have one.

As a Minnesota sports fan, I should be wary of making predictions about success. However, I think the Twins are one or two years from a World Series. Their AAA players are getting a lot of experience in the major league, and their stars should be healing. They were supposed to do better this year until Sano, Laurnach, Kirilloff, Kepler, and in particular, Buxton went down with injuries. At one time, they had 17 players on the IL. They started with 6 starting pitchers, who one-by-one drifted off with injuries. Bundy is here but not doing well. Ryan is their only reliable who has been pitching from the start. Gray is good when he’s not hurt, but he often is hurting. Ober is back, but too late to make a difference. Maeda is coming back, but probably not till next year.

The Vikings were the unknowns in pre-season play, but they came out strong against the Packers. One take-away I got from that game is that Aaron Rodgers is too valuable to go through a concussion protocol. When he was dazed and confused, someone rubbed his head and sent him back out.

The Eagles game was different, but then the Eagles are predicted to win the NFL title this year. I was disappointed that the coach did not adjust his defense when they found it wasn’t working.

I’ve heard quite a bit if NBA talk, but nothing about the Timberwolves. 

This seems to mean that they are not expected to do well this year. Either that, or the pundits don’t have a clue.