Barb Best

Are People Dying of Boredom?

Due to Covid, we are (duh) spending a helluva lot more time at home.

Surprise! Many people tell me they are dying of boredom.

To put it bluntly, they are in a rut.

Someone who is world-weary is not enthusiastic about anything, often because they have had too much experience of a particular way of life.

Boredom is Dumb

What am I doing to pass the time? To keep intellectually stimulated, emotionally engaged and (more or less) awake?

Oh, and not bored.

A few examples:

• Installing a wine window in my home office. Salut!

• Experimenting with at-home mole removal. Ouch.

• Teaching my pet duck to straighten up and fly right. What can I say, he has issues.

• Tweaking that decadent rum cinnamon pecan caramel bun recipe. Practice makes perfect.

• Woo hoo! Going craft crazy. Etsy beware! Don’t miss my elegant skeleton nipple jewelry and my one-of-a-kind pumpkin glitter art decoupage. Busy hands are happy hands.

• Giving Fitbit a run (actually a walk) for its money. Come all, join the Fitbit cult of Stepford spouses. Ho hum Step, Ho Hum Step, Ho Hum Step. Zzzz Step. Zzzz Step. Zzzz…

• Toilet training the cat. So what if he’s nine years old? It’s never too late to embrace baseless optimism.

You Can’t be Bored While Laughing

• Immersing oneself in The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker  Laughter rules!

World Weary

Dedicated to the Year 2020

Home Stuck Home? 7 Really FUN Things to Do Really!

Boost Your Immunity

What to do when there’s a health crisis of biblical proportions?

Beef up your defenses. Build your resistance. Bolster your gut health.

There’s no better time than a global pandemic to boost your immunity!

BTW it’s also a dandy time to write your will and ditch your boring diet.

Do You Think I’m Sexy?

Predatory invaders – whether they be Covid-19, flesh-eating bacteria, or the good ole stand-by chicken pox – want your body.

Hacks from Quacks

You can UP your immunity by employing a strategy involving medicinal (barf) food, habits of hardship and dubious herbal supplements.

FUN Health Advice

• Practice safe socializing! Wrap yourself in layers of bubble wrap before interacting with any live humans. This prophylactic will protect you and them. God knows you have enough packing materials from the Amazon Prime buying binges you’ve been on.

• Nothing says social distancing like garlic and onions on your breath, in your hair, seeping out of the pores of your sallow skin. Load up on the bitter bulbs and people will keep their distance.

• Don’t forget. A spoonful of sugar helps the foul smelling kimchi and fetid apple cider vinegar go down. And by “spoonful” I mean “cup.”

• Warning. Expensive immunity-boosting supplements may leave a hole in your wallet and your Sigmoid Colon.

• Intermittent fasting will build your tolerance for suffering and deprivation. Germs respect that. So suck it up.

• Splurge on scads of Vitamin A, B, C and D. Now I know my ABC’s…

• Walk around holding an umbrella 24-7. This will catch any viral droplets hanging over your head.

• Bonus! Tend to your mental health. If necessary, paint the interior of your home a soothing Aqua and pretend you live in a spa by the sea.  Namaste.

Oh Health: A Pop Quiz

Available on Amazon

Lighten Up!

In defense of kind-hearted humor

No kidding!

Sometimes a joke is just a joke.

And not a deliberate manipulation, power play, micro aggression, political attack or intended personal offense.

Image taken from a University of Alabama site, “Approaches to Modernism”: [1], Fair use

Funny

Sometimes a jest, a quip or a pun is not a Freudian slip – but merely a leap at silliness, a feeble attempt at levity, a verbal slide on a banana peel.

Like almost everything else in this imperfect world, sometimes comedy is really dumb,

but…

Laughter and Play

can bring people closer together and unite them.

Positive humor

Take a flight into whimsy,

a playful swing at fun,

a flirtation with optimism,

a respite from burdensome reality.

Laughter can be the best (if not the cheapest) medicine.

Learn more about applied and therapeutic humor…

The Association for Applied & Therapeutic Humor 

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The Humor Academy

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Free Laughs

I Started A Joke * Puddles Pity Party

BOOKS!

Perhaps some good reads will save us from the Summer of Slog.

So many books and so much time. Enjoy!

These books can be found on Goodreads and Amazon.

Social Distancing with Alligators – A Little Advice

“Laughter may be the closest distance between two people

BUT

the shortest distance between two people and an alligator is

no laughing matter.”

May 1 – A tipsy woman dies in a fatal gator attack while attempting to get up close and personal with the big boy.

You know the instructions on plastic bags (“This is not a toy”) and boxes of mothballs (“Not a snack. Do not eat”)?

Perhaps alligators need a large flashing neon sign around their necks – “Caution! Do not cuddle!”

Close to You

While extreme social distancing with Granny, Pops, Mom, the cranky neighbor next door, and (of course) your teenager – hey, why not gators, too?

See you later (how about never) alligator

Happy Hour can turn from “Fun to F*#!ed” faster than potato salad at a picnic in the park.

Do people have to be told?

• Don’t drink and dive into a swamp – or try to pet an alligator.

• Swimming is excellent exercise, but not when you’re being eaten by an alligator.

• Please no selfies with ravenous reptiles!

MATING SEASON

• How sweet… do you think I’m sexy?

Welcome to the April Fools Sh*t Show

OMG. A pandemic!

And you thought the worst thing about April would be paying your taxes?

In case we all missed it, National Humor Month is here.  Whoopee!

How to celebrate?

How ’bout a month of lock-down, confinement with family and pets (if you’re lucky), unparalleled gut-wrenching anxiety, and mindless navel gazing?

A Sh*tstorm

is “a very unpleasant or difficult situation.”

Ah, don’t you love British understatement?

Patience

Remember – “April showers hitting the fan may bring May flowers and nagging allergies.”

Amusement & Good News

It’s high time to add some amusement to the misery.

Check out John Krasinski and his Good News

Look, ma! Disney Amusement Park rides on YouTube! And no lines!

Be patient and don’t become a patient.

News to Amuse – 7 Items that Won’t Stress You Out

Hand washing or hand wringing

2 minutes x 30 times = 1 Hour a Day

Are you sick of standing at the sink scrubbing your hands for two minutes at a clip?

Do surgeons envy your disinfecting skills?

Is all this cleaning becoming a tad tedious?

Has the whole world gone OCD?

“Better safe than sorry!”

Hand Washing – 7 Ways to Have More Fun

• Recite the Greek alphabet – backwards

• While soaping up, video yourself naked and post to YouTube

• Sing, sing a song, sing out loud, sing out strong – or scream

• Count the number of toilet paper rolls and Purell squeeze bottles you have hoarded in the last week

• Meditate, chew gum, blow bubbles, hum

• Cry over all of the awesome sports events and concerts you’ll miss in the next month

• Do squats, lunges and buttock-lifting exercises while washing – oh, what fun!

~ Stay Healthy ~ 

5 Flu Prevention Tips for Hypochondriacs & Moms

≈

Air travel

Flying coach.

No leg room.

Narrow seats.

Contagions in the air.

You know you love it.

Bring all of your baggage, that is…

except your anxiety, impatience and negativity.

Leave home without them.

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7 New Realities of Flying

• Surgical masks shall be worn at all times – their single purpose being to spook the hypochondriac sitting next to you.

• Caution. Traveling with a pet under your seat in the cabin will not satisfy your need for in-flight entertainment. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. Ear and nose plugs highly recommended.

• No matter how cute, your emotional support miniature horse is not permitted to give pony rides to toddlers in the aisle. Nothing interferes with the important business of mile-high soft drink and pretzel delivery. Not even a viral video opportunity.

• New FAA rule: All babies qualify as emotional support animals and shall fly for free.

• While slogging through security, there will be no joking! Especially about da bomb you are hiding in your oddly heavy carry-on bag.

• If you are a gentleman of advanced age and your prostate is the size of a giant lemon, please pay for an aisle seat. It’s unseemly for us to interrupt our Netflix binging and get up every fifteen minutes so you can waddle to the restroom. No lemonade for you, sir.

• I don’t know what your travel issue is, but the answer is most likely Benadryl.

Air travel is not for sissies. You may as well laugh.

Funny Woman

Judy Garland was very funny!

Watch the movie JUDY for the laughter as well as for the pathos and the singing.

“People always thought I was funny. I was never funny.

You know who was truly funny? Judy Garland.

Judy Garland was funny.

She made me look like a mortician.” 

– Lucille Ball

[…]

Millennials

We love to tease our sweet, mindful millennials.

Especially because we parents nurtured and raised them to be the transcendent humans they are!

7 Signs You’re Too Sick to Go to Work

• You sneezed and it isn’t allergy season. This acute onset of respiratory symptoms could be flu germs attempting to attack your immune system.  A morning nap, a healing foot massage and a toasty burrata taco is just what the doctor ordered.

~ Stay Home

• You stubbed your toe. If not attended to, this could develop into a chronic pain syndrome – then where would your career be? Think long-term.

~ Stay Home

• You feel sort of dizzy this morning and you don’t think it’s the pitcher of Piña Coladas you ingested at your gender reveal party last night. It could be benign positional vertigo, but let’s not take a chance.

~ Stay Home […]