Maybe it's the Lipitor clogging my arteries

The gg loves those instructions you get from the pharmacist when he or she fills your prescription. I usually get a kick in particular from those warnings about possible side effects. Today, I picked up a prescription for some creme or ointment to cure this terrible night-time itchy rash on the back of my legs and buttocks. The itch had gotten so bad,it was driving me crazy. The instructions that came with the creme/ointment contained the following (I swear):

"Why is it prescribed? For the treatment of Dermatitis,
Psoriasis and other itchy skin disorders.

"Possible side effects: Itching"

It goes on to give these usage instructions:

"Apply to Buttock Twice a Day for 2 Weeks."

It doesn't indicate which buttock, so the gg can only assume they mean that I should apply it to the itchy one.

This little bit of humor made my day and I couldn't resist sharing it with the readers. A few more instances like this and the gg might make it through a whole day without feeling grouchy. But, alas, it was not to be.

2012: The Movie, Not Sarah Palin

Sine he retired, the gg has been going to the movies fairly frequently. Before that, I rarely had the time. Any movie I watched was from home on DVD. Today, I was in Houston and had the chance to view the eagerly anticipated movie "2012" at Cinemark. No, it is not about Sarah Palin (although, being a disaster movie, one might say the two do have much in common). The gg is a long- time fan of disaster movies, going all the way back to the first of that genre, "Airport". I'll say unhesitatingly that "2012" is the absolute best I've ever seen. It puts all the others to shame, though I'd be the first to acknowledge the distinct advantage given it by virtue of all the modern advancements in visual graphics, etc. I won't reveal any of the story line but will leave that to the readers to see for themselves. Now you might have the impression that seeing this movie made me happy. Well, not quite, and here's why: advertised to begin at 12:00 noon, it didn't get underway until about 12:20 what with all the commercials and previews of future movies, some of them not scheduled until next summer. I could have spent that 20 minutes having a good lunch. Instead, I was stuck with my junior size bag of popcorn and a small coke which, even at the middle of the day, and with my senior discount, came to a whopping and ridiculous $8.00. Had "2012" not turned out to be the blockbuster it was, the gg would have left the theater in a really, really grouchy mood. As it was, I left only partially so.

Can Texas secede from Rick Perry?

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I would just as soon not have to post on political issues. Problem is, the gg's governor, Rick Perry, continues to be an endless source of good material. Last week, governor Rick went ballistic on various proposals that would use Presidio, Texas as a sort of way station for the assembling and deportation of illegal immigrants caught crossing the border at other locations. Presidio was proposed for this purpose in order to prevent immigrants who otherwise would have been deported at the other border points where they had illegally entered in the first place from simply turning right around and re-crossing the border into the U.S. at that same point. Taking them to a central point like Presidio and deporting them from there would make it much less likely that they would attempt to re-enter the U.S. But Rick would have none of it. Sound hypocritical? Well...duh? No one in America has railed against illegal immigrants more stridently than Rick Perry. Yet,when a program surfaces that would deport at least some of them, the governor is opposed. The gg thinks Rick would like to have it both ways--on the one hand, he wants to be able to don his camoflauge pants and baseball cap and talk macho at tea party events across Texas (this, mind you, from someone who used to be a college cheerleader) about the evils of illegal immigration, but on the other hand he wants to preserve the dirty little secret that is well known in this state. What is that dirty little secret? Well, forget all that braggadacio from governor Perry about how well the Texas economy is doing despite the national recession. (It's actually true, but don't think for a minute it has anything to do with Rick Perry--in Texas, the governor has very little power to influence anything, much less the economy.) The dirty little secret is that the Texas economy is driven by small businesses whose success is dependent on the steady stream of cheap labor provided by illegal immigration. These days, governor Rick (the Breck boy?) will say and do most anything to keep the Breck girl, Kay Bailey Hutchison, from making inroads into conservative turf in Texas. Knowing that, the gg tries to ignore most of his rants and ravings. But some of them, including this latest, makes me so grouchy I wish my great state could secede from him.