Did you know that Dr. Ole Ivar Lovaas, who pioneered Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) for autism, also developed therapies to “cure” gender nonconformity in children? ABA forces children to suppress their autistic traits to make them seem more “normal.” I’m autistic. IMO Lovaas was a monster.

Me, to my son, as he’s cutting up a dead tree with a chainsaw: “Don’t cut your leg off!” Him: “I was going to, but since you said I shouldn’t I won’t.”

Pockets has the same weary, annoyed expression that I used to see in desk sergeants when I’d visit cop shops, digging for news.

If you kids don’t settle down and stop that racket, I’m going to follow Grandma’s recipe and make an Easter lamb cake for dessert tomorrow.

Pockets is in the slammer again. Send lawyers, guns and money.

You may find yourself teleported to a Waffle House. And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?” That’s what puzzles Gregg Allen Phillips, below, head of the Office of Response and Recovery in the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He claimed it happened to him twice.

Just finished reading The Pursued, by Corey Mead. What a ride! It’s a true account of a years-long campaign of threats and violence against a quiet, churchgoing Kansas woman that left law enforcement stymied. The ending is a shocker.

Tree met fence. Neither was happy about it. Usually there are deer back there, but they made themselves scare in the recent snowstorm.

Pockets and her lookalike Valentine card

H.P. Lovecraft’s cats, Mittens, Mr. Whiskers, Snookums, and Garnaxx Devourer of Souls.

An unexpected daylight appearance by Pockets. She dragged her play mat out to show us that the battery needed recharging. Clever kitty!

Happy Caturday from Pockets, who dislikes being Photographed.

What if Amazon MGM Studios’ film, Melania, was INTENDED to be a massive flop? What if it was a scam, like the play at the center of Mel Brooks’ The Producers? Although in that case, “Springtime for Hitler,” the intentionally terrible musical-within-a-musical, turned out to be a hit? Just wondering.

To paraphrase what Hippocrates wrote in his Aphorisms: Desperate times call for desperate measures. Reader, due to today’s snowstorm, and my dislike of going outside when it’s below 30 degrees Fahrenheit, I had crab Rangoon and jelly beans for breakfast. Below: The Vent. It must remain unblocked.

I’m filling out the worksheet provided by our accountant, so he can do our 2025 taxes. I find it satisfying to be able to account for every penny. My mother was a CPA and she trained me well. Pockets has no interest in taxes, as far as I can tell.

My offer of fingertip towels for my son’s powder room didn’t go well. He said I sounded like I was from the 19th century. What was a powder room? And nobody ever heard of fingertip towels. I assured him they exist, and he needs some for his guests. “They can dry their hands on their pants,” he said.

Hello, are you there? Do you wish to communicate with me? Some person I never heard of sent me that message on here. I’m not a ghost and this isn’t a Ouija board, so I ignored them.

All the plants left behind by the former owners of our son’s new house are toxic to cats. These are just three of them. There are several more. They’re shut away in the sunroom, where his cat can’t get them and poison herself. I call this room the SHU. IYKYK

Pockets is getting larger, and her coat has more stripes. If she were to morph into a tiger I wouldn’t be surprised.

Striped tail!

Happy Holidays from our house to yours

Catnap

Pipe smokers live longer. Longer than whom? Lots of folks! Guys who ignore the flashing lights and warning bells as they drive through a railroad crossing, circus aerialists with a drinking problem, human cannonballs, lots of folks! This holiday season, give him a woodie, a Kaywoodie.

Attempting to save money, Eunice Sleutweiler of Easton, PA, purchased an inferior cap for her son, Horace. Her thoughtless act inadvertently doomed him to a lifetime of mockery and failure.

Melania Trump is starring in a movie! The title is Melania, because all important movies have one-word titles. Casablanca, for instance, or Joker. Speaking of whom, look at Mel in her hat! Soundtrack: “Don’t Cry For Me, Mar-a-Lago,” “My Grift Will Go On,” and “(Epstein’s) Island Girl.”

Nothing says Merry Christmas quite like a fatal frog mugging.

Remember the reason for the season. Get into the holiday spirit with feasting, gambling and revelry. Saturnalia, December 17-25

I wonder who the first person was who saw a lobster and thought, that thing with pinchy claws and ten legs looks yummy. Ima eat it!

Newly married Nancy sure knew how to tickle the menfolks

From Brockton, Massachusetts came Eleganza, a mail-order purveyor of quintessential 1970s men’s fashion. It proclaimed its wares not merely sexy, but “super sexy.” Yowza! Its seemingly bold yet essentially vague slogan was Things happen when you wear ELEGANZA! It’s safe to say they probably did.

I’m deeply disappointed in stroopwafels. I’m speaking of the Dutch syrup-filled waffle cookies. They promise so much and deliver so little.

There was a lot happening on that plate: steak, rice, chips, an egg, green beans, carrots, a lemon wedge, and, for some reason, a flower. As plating goes, it was a bit messy, but the food was outstanding. Could have done without the flower, though. Chefs who do that are trying too hard, IMO.

Currently reading Baby Driver by the late Jan Kerouac. It’s an autobiographical novel by Jack Kerouac’s daughter. She met her famous father twice, briefly, and holy guacamole! What a life she led! IMO she was a much better writer than her distant, disinterested dad. Read it and see what you think.

Does your brain ever glitch, causing you to tell customer service personnel things like, “You mailed me the thingy that makes the internet go faster, but when I plugged it in to the box-thing with lights on it, the internet doesn’t go?” No? Me either.

Why, thank you!

Dick Cheney is dead. What’s everyone having for breakfast? I’m having granola.

Shopping with my son for his first house, I find myself asking him, “Remind me, was that the one that smelled like urine or the one with the Teletubbies wallpaper?”

When I was a child, among the businesses in my town were the Rainbow Car Wash and Rainbow Carpet Cleaning.Their signage pictured a rainbow.🌈 Nobody freaked out and demanded the names be changed, claiming: tHe rAiNBow REPreSenT GoD pRoMiSe NoT to dO anOTher fLooD aNd iS nOT To bE tRIFLed WiTH!

I just want to put it out there that I was not involved in the Louvre Museum jewelry heist. I wasn’t even invited to participate, which annoys me.

Ten-year-old me would buy this 19.5-inch polyresin statue without hesitation and proudly display it in the front yard, for all my friends to gaze upon with envy. I’m still tempted, but I’d want it to be life size, with animatronic movements and whinnying, galloping sounds.

My town’s water department presented us with a gift of a 10-cup Britta water filter and pitcher worth at least $16 retail, to make up for having ignored our complaints about drastically low water volume. Now they’re out there with a device called a mole, installing a new water line.

Kids growing up on the mean streets of suburban New Jersey learn early to double consonants when adding a suffix to a stressed syllable ending in a single vowel and consonant.

“These chilis are very, very hot,” the waiter said. “Be careful,” the waiter said. “Try a tiny bite first,” the waiter said. But did I listen? Reader, I did not.

Saw a loon yesterday at a marina on the Navesink River. It dove under the water too fast to take a photo. They don’t often turn up as far south as New Jersey. Might be climate change, IDK.

Festooned!

Constant craving…

Help solve a mystery

Crab Rangoon! I love it so.

"What the president was trying to do, in this very humorous and very unique way, was highlight how hard it is for us to forgive our enemies," the vice president said. Yep, what a kidder, that Donny! Guy shoulda done standup. He would’ve wowed ‘em in the Poconos.

Photos strictly forbidden, they said. No picture-taking, or else, they said. Reader, I did it anyway.