Good Monday morning, my friends! Come in, come in … isn’t it grand that we haven’t had to curtail our Monday morning get-togethers, despite the restrictions due to the coronavirus? We are still having just as much fun on Monday mornings as ever! I shan’t ask how your weekend was, nor need you ask about mine. Suffice it to say that I am now a week older than when you last saw me … but then, so are most of you. So, grab a bit of a snack and let’s see what Jolly and I have found to bring a smile to your gorgeous mugs today, shall we?
Lamborghini follow-up
Last Monday, as you may recall, I told you about a 5-year-old boy in Utah who, angry that his mother refused to buy him a Lamborghini sports car (they retail for between $265,000 and $382,000, by the way), ‘borrowed’ the family car and went out planning to buy his own … with all of $3 in his pocket. An observant state trooper pulled him over and that was the end of that story. Except, there is a follow up …
Jeremy Neves, a local businessman, heard of the young man’s disappointment and, as Jeremy happens to own a Lamborghini (apparently a quite successful businessman), decided to treat the boy to a ride.
“I’m absolutely inspired by the principles that he displayed of success ― knowing what he wants, going after it. I thought it would be really cool to say, ‘Your dreams aren’t as far away as you think they are.’”
Now, I thought it was a pretty cool thing for Mr. Neves to do, but apparently the general consensus is that it wasn’t. He was trounced on Twitter and elsewhere by people saying he had just given the lad the wrong lesson, rewarding him for bad behaviour. And, on re-thinking it, he was rewarding him for all the wrong things, and encouraging that uber-capitalistic spirit that I so often complain about. I was only thinking of the joy the young boy must have experienced. Ah well … I’m rarely right, but still … that’s ‘the rest of the story’ as I know it.
Reclaiming their turf!
Ever since March, when a number of countries put into place strict lockdown orders, and others a lesser version, a stay-at-home order, or recommendation, businesses closed, and nations ground to a halt, there have been stories of animals turning up where you wouldn’t normally expect to find them. The first, and most well-known, was the story of a herd of goats running through the streets of the town of Llandudno, Wales …
Since then, there have been many such stories from all over the world, including the U.S. I find them heartwarming … after all, the critters were all here long before humans evolved from the great apes, and we took over, driving them into selected areas, in some cases driving their entire species off the earth. The latest one, though, I found great humour in.
In an area of Brandon, Florida, residents are complaining about a group of … peacocks! They say they have taken over the neighborhood and are messy, noisy, and are keeping them up at nights! County officials said the peacocks aren’t regulated as pets because no one has claimed ownership of them, but the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said the birds also aren’t considered wildlife, so the agency doesn’t have jurisdiction over them. In other words … get over it, people! I imagine that soon, now that states are allowing businesses to re-open, people will be out and about more, cars polluting the air and airwaves, and the peacocks will find their way to greener pastures, but for now … it’s funny. (Especially since I don’t live there!)
Da bull had an itch!
In the Scottish town of Chapelton, Hazel Laughton’s 4-year-old bull, Ron, had an itch. When my cats get an itch, they use the corner of my laptop, or whatever is handy, to rub the area, usually the side of their face, until the itch is gone. Ron decided to scratch his itch against a utility pole, and that must have been some powerful itch, for in the process he knocked the transformer completely off the pole, knocking out electricity to some 700 homes!
Fortunately, the transformer went straight to the ground, missing Ron, else this might not have been a humorous story after all. Hazel posted an apology to all her neighbors on Facebook …
“Our bull Ron would like to apologize to everyone in Chapelton and Strathaven for causing last night’s power cut to over 700 homes. He had itchy bum so scratched it on the electricity pole and knocked the transformer box off.”
Not something you hear every day!
Time for a few cartoons, don’t you think? Let’s see what Phil has in store for us over at Phil’s Phun …
I don’t know about you, but I sense that my humour is a bit tired tonight, but I hope something brought a bit of a smile to your face. Jolly informs me that we forgot the cute animal video last week, and I almost forgot it this week! Thanks for reminding me, Jolly!
Well, folks, I hope you have a good week ahead, and please keep safe out there! Love ‘n big hugs from Filosofa & Jolly!
This one is called “Painting for Saints”, referring to the fact that the boy in the painting has ditched the traditional superheroes (such as Batman and Spiderman) in exchange for a new hero – a nurse.
The boy told the trooper he had taken his parents’ car after getting into an argument with his mother, who told him she would not buy him a Lamborghini. Imagine that … why, it’s almost criminal! The child told the trooper he had intended to drive to California to buy a luxury vehicle for himself. The kid’s got chutzpah, you’ve got to give him that!
Well, see, me ‘n Joyful … well, we’ve been spending lots of time together … picnics, playin’ games, ‘n other stuff, an’ … well … we has decided we’re gonna get … {gulp} … mawwied! Y’know, like bwide ‘n gwoom, throwin’ wice, and all dat stuff, ‘n den we’re both gonna live here with gwammie! You don’t have to buy us pwesents, but we hope you’ll be happy for us!
“As soon as I said that, my daughter’s eyes – she was looking at me – just popped right out. Because all of a sudden there was this lightning flash that hit right behind me. The electricity went through the wire, because I was holding a microphone. I saw lightning in my hand. I was really freaked out. I had the microphone and the shock jumped into the sound system and my hand just lit up and I saw the spark. And I’m looking at my hand and it’s all flared up … It was like I was holding a lightning bolt in my hand, it was amazing. I felt the current go right through me, but it was my hand I was worried about, because I’m a piano man. I want to keep playing. I don’t care if I die. I want to keep playing.”
Nonetheless, the party resumed, albeit under a tent, for the lightning bolt was, predictably, followed by wind and rain. It is said that a good time was had by all, and JP Nadeau is well aware that son-in-law Adam was not the only ‘lucky guy’ that day!
Most people at this point would be looking around for a hidden camera. Many took it as a joke and simply drove off. But finally, after three hours and who knows how many notes, somebody flagged down police Officer Richard Olden. The officer was also inclined to brush it off as a prank, but as he approached the ATM he could hear a faint voice.
Remember a few weeks ago when I posted the above picture of an avocado that had been intricately carved into a thing of beauty? Well now comes this …
The story is that Jan Campbell was preparing an avocado for lunch one day when she was struck by the beauty of the pit inside. After weeks of pondering its potential 
The weekend is here and one of my readers told me I should ‘relax’. Relax??? What the heck is that? I’ve got laundry to do, need to get out and get some Mother’s Day cards, and just because it’s a weekend, the news cycle doesn’t stop … there is still much out there to stir my ire and make me snarky (or perhaps snarky is just my natural personality?). So, here are a couple of snippets for you to ponder upon …
Why, you ask, am I re-hashing old territory? Because it’s happening again. The House Appropriations Committee, looking into the government’s bungled response to the coronavirus, requested testimony by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Dr. Fauci has been a prominent figure, until recently, at Trump’s daily ‘press briefings’ and has been the only one willing to correct Trump’s erroneous statements, the only one willing to tell the public the truth. But … Trump will not allow Dr. Fauci to testify. The committee is looking into the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, the chaos that followed Trump’s obfuscation and lies, the resulting excessive deaths that might not have happened, if the leader of the nation had used halfway good judgment. For Trump to forbid Dr. Fauci from testifying is yet another example of obstruction of justice and abuse of power, but … that is the norm for this administration. Are we really willing to, as Mick Mulvaney suggested we should, just “get over it”? I’m not.
From what I’ve seen, Dr. Fauci seems to be a straight shooter who isn’t afraid to tell the truth, who isn’t afraid to correct or contradict Trump. I would like to think that he will do the right thing and voluntarily testify, despite Trump’s orders. Will he? Does he have cojones, or is he just another coward like Don McGahn, Wilbur Ross, and others whose loyalties lie directly to Donald Trump, and not the people of this nation?
And now, we have a new one … rather an idiot, if you ask me. Her name is Kayleigh McEnany and she held her first press briefing yesterday. Now, she started out by promising that there would be more press briefings than there have been for the past year. Um … there have been none for the past 13 months, so she already beat that average. She also made another ‘promise’ …
People have been out of work, living on unemployment which is, at the most, about 66% of average income. People are still frightened of catching the coronavirus which, as medical experts are telling us, will be a valid concern at least throughout the summer. And people have seen from the past two month’s experience that … anything can happen. The sensible will start beefing up their savings rather than spending money on non-essentials such as dining out, new clothes, new appliances.
News station KDKA-TV shared a photo on Facebook where it went viral (some people have far too much time on their hands these days!). Several neighbors offered to get her some beer, but the real kicker was when Coors Light said in a Twitter post that Veronesi would soon be receiving some beer directly from the company! 
Hmmmm … I wonder … if I stand in my window with my empty wine bottle and a sign, do you think the company might send me a case?
Now, my neighbors have a teenage son, and sometimes he likes the music a bit loud … um, to the point it shakes the pictures on my walls, but even so, I would not call 9-1-1!!! Sheesh.
Have a 
Portions of a Chicago expressway left icy by a wintry blast that brought overnight snowfall led to a pileup involving of dozens of vehicles early Wednesday, sending 14 people to hospitals, officials said.
About 50 vehicles were involved in the 5 a.m. pileup along the Kennedy Expressway, the Chicago Fire Department said. The crash prompted Illinois State Police to close all of the expressway’s southbound lanes near Chicago’s North Avenue for about three hours, and multiple northbound lanes also were closed temporarily.
Makes it a bit hard to believe it’s mid-April, doesn’t it?
It’s really weird. It’s not something you find every day – it is literally in the middle of my garden. It’s one of those things that you literally have to see it to believe it. I was like ‘what on earth is this?’ I thought it was an old air raid shelter at first, then I saw the roof and I thought ‘who’d bury the roof of a car?’ Then I kept digging at saw the door, the steering wheel and realised it was a full car complete with the registration plate. The only thing that was missing was the wheels.
I’ve been told that at the end of world war two there was an influx of people that used to work for the Secret Service. It has also been suggested to me that the colour of the car is known as ‘RAF grey’. The house has got a full cellar, which is under a trap door. I can’t find a trace of the registration plate anywhere and there seems to be no record of the car available, which is weird as well.”
The bakery’s owner did some quick thinking and turned things around. You might say it’s cleaning up. The first five toilet paper cakes sold within an hour and the cake became a social media hit. The bakery now has hundreds of orders. Its owner was even able to add two extra people to her nine-member team.
The toilet paper cake is made of oat batter, passion fruit mousse and covered with white fondant, a thick, creamy sugar paste.
… I was mesmerized. This creation was designed by Rob Coutu from Windsor, Connecticut, who has two cats, a red tabby and a Savannah cat. Rob says that the Savannah likes the towers so much, she has taken over both of them and doesn’t want to let the tabby use them! Sounds like our Tiger Lily. Now, when Rob’s creation made the news on Bored Panda, many people owned by cats expressed such an interest that Rob decided to start selling the building plans.
I know my way around a hammer, saw and nails, and have built some decent bookshelves in my day, so I considered ordering a set of those plans and seeing what I could do. Until I found out that the material cost for the project is still mounting, and currently stands somewhere around $3,500 plus the tons of labor he has put in. We love our furry family members and there’s not much I wouldn’t do for them, but … $3,500??? No … just no. Still, it is a marvelous creation, don’t you think?
