BAD ASS QUEEN OF THE DAY

Isabella, She-Wolf of France. Married the King of England at the age of 12, exiled to Denmark where she raised an army to invade the country she was queen of and overthrow her husband and father of her four children, King Edward the Second.
Here she is trying not to look pissed.

POP TARTS

 

I had a little vacation last week. Went to Galveston with my son, an old friend and his son.
As it happens my old friend, Jeffers, he married my ex-wife. That makes him my son’s step-dad. And his son, Dan-O, is half brother to my son.
We are all friends and fathers and sons.
Anyway we have a B&B In Galveston for two nights, and did a little fishing.
At the B&B the counter is cluttered with all sorts of snacks; chips, jerky, trail mix, ect.
The last night there I woke up about 4 a.m. and went into the kitchen looking for a little snack. Right next to the toaster was a single foil pack of Pop Tarts. I looked around a little and decided on the Tarts, got a bottle of water and went back to bed and snacked out.
The next morning I get up and I’m having a cup of coffee.
Dan-O comes in and starts rummaging through the snacks.

 Now Dan-O, he is 21 and an ace Poly-Sci student at the University of Texas. He is 20, but in some ways he is still about 16.
And he is rummaging through the snacks, and I sense an increase in his desperation, and finally he says, to no one in particular “I thought I had some Pop-Tarts here”.

Oh no!

I stayed quiet as a mouse. He continued rummaging a bit and finally says “Has anyone seen my Pop Tarts?”
Its just he and I there so its hard not to address the question. And I can tell by the wild look in his eye that those Pop Tarts mean a whole lot to him. I know how he feels.

Obviously, I have reached a moral dilemma. I can do one of two things:

1. Tell him the truth, that I ate his Pop Tarts
2. Help him LOOK for his Pop Tarts.
    

“Dan-O, I hate to tell you this but I got up last night and ate your Pop Tart. I’m so sorry. I really am”
He was crushed. It was like a dagger through his heart. His knees buckled and he looked to the heavens and let out the most pitiful moan I have ever heard. If I didn’t already feel badly enough now I felt even worse. He went back to his room.

 I went outside. Jeffers was smoking a cigarette.
“Jeff, I’m afraid I ate Daniels Pop Tart last night. It was his only one”
Jeff looked up, alarmed.
“Oh no” he said.
I could tell it was pretty serious.
“How long has Dan-O been having a Pop Tart for breakfast every morning?” I asked.
Jeff looked at me, dead serious.
“Ever since he had teeth”

TOP GUN "MAVERICK"

 

No spoliers, exactly.
I went to see the new Top Gun this weekend. It was good and I cried all the way through it.
But I have to say it wasn’t near as much FUN as the original Top Gun.
In the original Top Gun, Maverick flies inverted over a Russian MIG, flips off the pilot while Goose takes a polaroid. He proceeds to buzz the tower, causing the Sky Chief to spill coffee all over himself, shouting “I want somebodies butt for this”. Maverick and Goose are called onto the carpet to some superior officers office where they are told “One more fuck up and you’ll be flying rubber dogshit out of Hong Kong ” and given their new assignment--Top Gun in Miramar-- every pilots wet dream. Exiting the office they crash into the Sky Chief again. More coffee is spilled “God Dammmit I want somebodies butt” and off to Miramar they go.
At the local bar they serenade a mysterious woman with a rousing rendition of “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’”, and Maverick follows her into the bathroom and suggests they make it right there on the vanity. He is turned down (“Long cruise, sailor?”), but on her way to her seat she tells Goose "You're friend was marvelous". The next day she shows up as the instructor at Top Gun wearing high heels and those stockings with the seam up the back that look so fine. Hilarity ensues.

All of this happens in the first 15 minutes of the 1986 Top Gun. Already, everyone watching the movie loves Goose because he is such a great character and Meg Ryan hasn’t even shown up yet to holler “Goose! You big stud…”
The entire 2022 sequel is dependent on Goose, which is as it should be, but don’t expect it to be as much fun to watch.

THE THRILLING MOMENT

 Sometimes the best part of a journey can be just getting there. The journey itself.
My son had rented a cabin for a night for our fishing trip. Sixty bucks a night they said. I drove, Lee was was the navigator. He navigated us up to the southern shores of lake Texoma. We veered off the main road to a twisty-turny side road that took us past mansions and horse stables, past lush green fields and lily-padded ponds. We passed the golf course, country club, day spa, tennis courts, and spilled out into the parking lot and entrance to Tanglewood Resort, pictured above.
I stopped the car a distance from the entrance so we could take it all in.
“How much did you say a night?”
“Sixty dollars”
“Somehow I don’t think this is us."
"I‘m not seeing any cabins here”
"Don't look like a cabin kind of place, do it?"
"It probably don't"
“We’ve got Cabin #7?”
"Supposed to be"
“You reckon that’s a restaurant at the top of that tower?”
“Probably might be, yes”
We both laughed.

We debated whether to go up to the valet parking and ask for directions to Cabin #7.
The navigator looked again at our map and we were on our way a few miles down the road, into the most jumbled maze of gravel side roads like you never been on, through the poison oak thicket in the dark past untold numbers of copperhead snakes, on the phone with a lady trying to guide us in, who just kept saying over and over in a wonderful Texoma drawl “Just keep coming to me”.
We had a great day of fishing and caught our limit, but that may have been the best part.

“Every moment of life, I suppose, is more or less of a turning-point. Opportunities are swarming around us all the time, thicker than gnats at sundown. We walk through a cloud of chances, and if we were always conscious of them they would worry us almost to death.

But happily our sense of uncertainty is soothed and cushioned by habit, so that we can live comfortably with it. Only now and then, by way of special excitement, it starts up wide awake. We perceive how delicately our fortune is poised and balanced on the pivot of a single incident. We get a peep at the oscillating needle, and, because we have happened to see it tremble, we call our experience a crisis.

The meditative angler is not exempt from these sensational periods. There are times when all the uncertainty of his chosen pursuit seems to condense itself into one big chance, and stand out before him like a salmon on the top wave of a rapid. He sees that his luck hangs by a single strand, and he cannot tell whether it will hold or break. This is his thrilling moment, and he never forgets it.”
From “Fishermans Luck” by Henry van Dyke, 1923

CRITICAL RACE THEORY

 

This image shows some of the graphics that prompted the state of Florida to reject four math books from use in public schools. The books, Florida said, were trying to sneak Critical Race Theory into the curriculum through a mathematics book. Based on my own personal experience, I have to agree.

Whatever happened to apples, oranges and widgets? Whatever happened to “Let X=Y”? When did math become a vehicle for making the obvious more obvious? Why does math be so relevant?

Teaching history and social studies through a mathematics book is not fair. It is not fair at all.

See, in my Junior year at LD Bell I had gotten a hold of some kind of weird pills that caused me to stumble badly through the smoking area.

I pretty much bounced off the walls in C and D hall, and by some miracle found myself in my seat for History class. And it so happened in that history class, I was the leader of some kind of group project, and the results of that project were due that day.

And in order to submit those results I was going to have to do some math.

Mrs Brown approached my desk and asked if I had the results. I told her I did not.

“Why not” she asked.

In a whimpering drug addled voice I tried to explain.

“Because this is history class, and the results would require me to math. I am a bit indisposed presently, and completely unable to math, which I should not have to do anyway because this is HISTORY class. You cant just cold cock this math thing on me in history class, man. Its not fair. Its not fair at all.”

I plopped my head down on my desk. I was done.

And she gave me a pass.

“OK Mr. Renfro, maybe you will feel better tomorrow”

Fact is I couldn't really math very good even in math class.

AN EASTER STORY

There is a robin in my yard that seems to be there year round. I think maybe he roosts permanent in my yard or somewhere very near. I first took note of him a year ago, but I think he has been there since I moved in two years ago. He has gotten very familiar, and seems to tolerate my presence quite well. Before the storm three days ago I stepped outside, and he and I watched the clouds roll in. We were only five feet apart. I spoke to him, wondered if birds have ears, and after a few minutes I got bored and went back inside.
I think maybe he is an old bird, like me, that doesn't travel well.
They say that it was a robin that flew to Jesus side to try to help as He was being crucified.

EASTER IN DETROIT

 

In the corner of the backyard were the hydrangeas

Mother called them snowballs

Before the hydrangeas bloomed in the summer

there were little snowball blossoms

on the clover in the spring

which attracted the bees

Big black and yellow bumble bees

to come out from underground to buzz

around and drink from the clover.

And I wonder now why I never took a shovel and paid the

bees a visit.

Two giant plums that had more thorns than plums

A bird bath, a swing set,

And two tall thin acorns that Dave and I

climbed to the very top and swayed

while we looked out over Lake St Clair.

I remember showing my sister how to catch a bee in her hand

if you held it tight enough it could not sting your hand.

My little sister Lisa

Lisa only tried it once.

Lisa could not hold it tight enough.

Poor Lisa.

My mother wore me out.

STEVE, 2/6/2019

Fourth of July picnic...

...on the banks of the Trinity river just north of downtown, about 1986. My wife's family had set up camp early to get a good spot for the fireworks, and like an idiot I brought a fishing pole. I think I had shrimp as bait. Anyway we were there all day waiting for fireworks, the crowd filling up behind us, and I had my pole set up on the bank. All day people would come by and ask had I caught anything.
"Nope. Don't really expect to"
So just as the sun is going down there is a twitch on the pole. Another twitch, and another. I grab it and set the hook hollering "STRIKE!"
I play him for all he's worth and finally get him up to the bank. Its a 10 pound turtle.
I turned to look up the hill and there must have been ten thousand people watching me reel him in, so I Raised Him Up High, so everyone could see.
THE CROWD WENT WILD!

ITS JUST CAKE

 

My brother was best man at my wedding. He was a West Point grad and retired a colonel.
The day of my wedding the pastry chef at the Hyatt where I worked called me about an hour before the wedding, while I was getting dressed. She had made the cake.
“Steve, I’m lost, I can’t find the church”
“OK, tell me where you are and I’ll come get you and lead you to the church”
My brother grabbed the phone.
‘The address of the church is %%%%%. You should be able to find it. Steve is not going anywhere but straight to the church from here” and he hung up.
“Don, I have to go get her”
“Steve, you are not going anywhere but straight to the church.”
“But Don, she has the CAKE. The CAKE!”

I’ll never forget the look on his face. I really cant even describe it. Maybe its the look you give a guy when you order him to advance on a fortified position, or clean the latrines.  I don't know. Maybe it was look you give someone who asks where they can get some Ivermectin, you know, the horse pill for COVID.
He said:
“Steve, we can have a wedding without a cake. Get your ass dressed, We leave in 5 minutes”

I think about this one a lot when I encounter situations where I (or someone else) is placing too much importance on a detail.
You CAN have a wedding without a cake.

Our Latest Crush

 

Here at Bulletholes we  have a huge crush on Pati's Mexican Kitchen. She has wonderful recipes, and tells you all about the food that she is using. She also has a wonderful accent to go with them. As she tastes a dish she gets this look of ecstasy on her face. "Yummmm" she says and her eyes flutter a little before rolling up and closing and it's very hot.

She comes off all sweet and innocent but she knows what she's doing.

She knows exactly what she's doing.