Butt...butt...

Many years ago, I learned about “rumpology.” P.T. Barnum must be chuckling in his grave since the rise of the Internet in offering millions of suckers worldwide access to scams like this one.

The deal is that you send a print of your backside to these folks and for a mere $100, they will send you a "reading" based on the "lines, crevices and folds of your fanny."

They say to use a photocopier or ink (they suggest washable is best. Thanks. It would be hard to explain my black backside to a gynecologist after using unwashable ink!).

I can’t imagine sitting on the photocopier. (Of course with the size of my backside, it would have to be a panorama print.)

With the butt print, you include your initials, the date of your birth, and "a check or postal money order for $100, or use your credit card and our shopping cart (coming soon) to place your order on-line. All shipping and handling charges are included." After they've finished your reading, they'll return the print, suitable for framing to give to friends and relatives, no doubt. The gift to give someone who has everything!

Can't you just see a bunch of guys in a fraternity somewhere coming up with this idea? "Let's see how many people we can get to send us $100 and pictures of their butt." Bart Simpson is alive and well!

To make it sound more legitimate, they've explained that "rumpology" was used in ancient India and Babylon. Oh those wacky Babylonians!

Your butt reading comes in a 30 page report. What could you possibly have to say about my butt that takes 30 pages? Even MY butt. Even if you examined it inch by inch (which could take a long time), I can't imagine finding 30 pages worth of information.

There are a few suspect things about this (no shit!). First of all it says that the report is 30 pages, but farther down it offers to sell you a butt-print-making kit (for only $49 -- with everything you need: paper, non-toxic ink, a 16oz. bottle of For Men Only lotion (for clean-up) and a return address sticker with postage."

Let's see. I'm going to spend $50 on paper, ink, lotion and an address sticker. I don't think so. And why is the lotion "For Men Only." Women don't get lotion? (Or are women less gullible and thus less likely to fall for this scam?)

If you buy the $49 kit, your Butt analysis is a 49 page report. Obviously you get what you pay for. No kit, only 30 pages of buttology.

I'm also not going to send money and a picture of my butt to anyone named Jacqueline Stallone.

The whole ludicrous project does give me an idea, though. Before and after butt pictures. I mean--why just go for before and after weight loss photos? Why not framed before and after butt prints? I'm not sure I have a wall wide enough for the before pictures, but I'll work on it. What a conversation piece! It would have taken care of my Christmas shopping. Framed prints to give my loved ones.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

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Harlan Coben

 Harlan Coben is currently my favorite author.  I have read everything he has written and am eagerly looking forward to his next book.  He is an expert at twists and turns and every book I read, no matter what I'm convinced is happening, it's not.  He starts with several characters who seem to have nothing whatsoever to do with each other, and by the end of the story they are somehow all connected.

One of his books, "Fool Me Once," has just been made into a movie, now showing on Netflix.  I watched the first four (of 8) episodes and then the next day decided to watch the next one or two.  I started at 9 p.m. and could not turn the TV off when an episode ended and ended up watching the remaining four episodes.

Like his books, unrelated characters became par of other characters' lives, the killer was not someone I thought would do it, and the exposé was such a shock...and at the same time so funny, that it was just great. 

 I highly recommend going on to Netflix and watching it.  

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Getting there...

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No insomnia

 I write so much about insomnia in this journal but I sure had no insomnia last night.  I fell asleep somewhere around 9:30 and staggered into the living room around 10 and immediately fell back asleep.  I woke up at 10:45, disappointed that I'd only had a "nap."  Stayed awake until midnight, so I could do the Wordle, then went back to the living room and fell asleep again.  Woke up once or twice, but didn't get off the couch and woke up for good at 9 a.m.!!!  

Marta gave me a heated blanket someone had given to her and I think that helps me stay asleep...and Bubba loves to be in my lap when the blanket is warm.

It's such fun that Lacie has decided to join our Wordle group.  (Jeri & Phil, Alice Nan & Joe, Olivia & Norm, and me--Walt isn't interested).  It's such fun to have a grandchild who likes doing Wordle and she usually does better than I do.  My "average" score is 4; hers is 3 (so is Alice Nan's and Jeri's).  I have sometimes gotten 3 and once a 2, and Lacie has gotten bigger scores than I have, but she's very good at playing the game.  When Jeri and I joined the Wordle group, she hoped that it would turn into a chat group as well as a score group and, thanks to her, it has, kind of.  Fun to chat with the others about scores and occasionally about other things.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

Not sure exactly what this is!

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NCIS

 There was an NCIS marathon on and Walt and I watched most of it, all day until 10 p.m., except for a break for Family Feud (during dinner) and Jeopardy.  It's nice liking a show that has been on for something like 15 seasons.  You never run out of something to watch.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

Tom's dogs

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Sunday Stealing - favorites

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. This feature originated and published on WTIT: The Blog. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves.

Stolen from Pinterest

1. Favorite food - Dungeness Crab

2. Favorite color - Red, the bluish color, not the orangish color

3. Favorite Animal - Domestic:  Dog.  Wild:  Elephant

4. Favorite thing to do on a cold day - Snuggle under a warm quilt and watch TV

5. Favorite vacation spot - Our various international trips were fun.  I probably loved London and Ireland (yes, one a city, one a country) best.

6. Favorite TV show  - Monk, NCIS, Criminal Minds

7. Favorite Mythical creature - the Unicorn

8. Favorite fairy tale - Beauty and the Beast

9. Favorite thing to draw - I don't really draw anything

10. Favorite scent - freshly brewing coffee, the ocean, puppy breath

11. Favorite mode of transportation - train (tho I've only been on a train a few times)

12. Favorite vegetable - artichoke, peas

13. Favorite candy - See's California brittle

14. Favorite sport - 49er football

15. Favorite weather - Cool, foggy or lightly raining

  

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

We're working on the new puzzle

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Saturday 9

 

Welcome to Saturday: 9. 

What we've committed to our readers is that we will post 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. 

Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love to answer the questions, however, and here are today's questions!

Saturday 9: This Could Be the Start of Something (1959)

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

Welcome to the first Saturday 9 in 2024.

1) We're beginning the year with an optimistic song about starting something new. Right now, are you feeling positive about 2024?
I'm feeling wary about 2024.  I am not looking forward to all the politicking that we are going to have to go through, and terrified about the potential results of  the election.

 

2) In this song, Jack Jones sings that because he's on a diet he declines a rich dessert. Are you trying to lose a few pounds after the holidays?
Nah.  My scale has dead batteries and I don't have a clue what I weigh.

3) The specific dessert referred to is a Charlotte Russe, a cake made with custard, fruit, cream, whiskey and gelatin. Preparation sounds like a great deal of work! What's the most recent dish you whipped up in your kitchen?
I made Speculaas cookies before Christmas.  And pumpkin pie last week (to make up for the 2 pumpkin pies I made for Christmas which I forgot to add sugar to!)

4) The lyrics contrast dining at Sardi's in New York with sunbathing in Malibu. Do you enjoy nightlife or are you more outdoorsy?
Neither, actually.  My "nightlife" is watching television from my recliner.  I rarely go outdoors.

5) This week's song was written by Steve Allen. While best known for his work on TV (he was the first host of The Tonight Show), he was also a composer who felt most creative at the piano. When do you feel most creative?
When I am writing something, or when I am putting together some sort of journal to send to a Swap Bot partner.

 

6) This week's artist, Jack Jones, won a pair of Grammy Awards and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Yet he's probably best known for singing the song that welcomed travelers aboard The Love Boat every week. What TV theme song can you sing along with?
Many, but the one that comes to mind is the theme to The Golden Girls

 

7) In 1959, when this song was popular, "continuing dramas" (aka soap operas) like Young Dr. Malone and Ma Perkins were broadcast daily on the radio. When you turn on the radio, do you listen for news, talk or music?
I haven't listened to the radio in forever, but when I turned it on when driving somewhere alone, I generally listened to talk shows.  If Walt and I listen to the radio, it's to the classical station.

8) Now let's turn the calendar and our attention from 1959 to 2024. Is there a skill you're looking forward to learning, or improving, this year?
Not really

9) Have you purchased anything on impulse yet this year?
So far nothing.  I purchased too many things on impulse before Christmas.

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Cathy Johnson

I received a Christmas letter returned yesterday.  It was addressed to my friend Cathy Johnson, who was part of our CompuServe women's group forever ago.  She lived in Santa Barbara and was in a terrible marriage.  The group of women on CompuServe became great friends to her and supported her in all of her problems.  We were supportive of her decision to leave her husband and move to Vermont, to be near the daughter she had given up for adoption.

She continued to remain in touch with us for many years, telling of her beloved dog, and her sadness when the dog died...and her happiness with the cat she adopted.

She stopped contacting us a few years ago, but I continued to send her Christmas letters, though she never responded.  This was the first year my letter was returned.

I checked obituaries in Vermont but couldn't find one for her (without paying money I wasn't willing to pay).  I checked with two other members of the women's group to see if they knew anything about her, which neither did, but one was able to get the obituaries of the local newspaper and learned that she died two years ago, at 88.  

She was not a close friend, and it's not surprising that she has died, but it's always sad when someone in your life is gone.

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