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Fifth Friday footnotes, follow-ups and far-flung fripperies:

• The entrenched love their trenches.
• If only Donald Trump had insisted his name be attached to the vaccines. Others would develop them. He would promote them.
• I’ll bet somebody in Hayward Field’s procurement office is searching for international flags that are colorfast and UV resistant.
• Pet owners are generally better people, except the ones who know it.
• “Takeaway” is internally redundant. If it’s not away, it hasn’t been taken.
• Mask-wearing has gotten so confusing! Less than a month ago, we could separate the good from the bad based on masks alone. Now both teams have been split between masked and unmasked.
• How long before people start buying houses just for the lumber?
• Beauty is not produced; it’s exposed.
• Conundrum: the sharper the needle, the lesser the pain. Shots are now nearly painless but we still fear them. The needle wasn’t all that got pounded into us.
• “Are you seeing someone?” used to refer to romance. Now it’s about therapy.
• I find myself rehearsing before I enter a store, “Masks are not required. Pants are.”
• Why is there no gum-flavored gum?
• AirBNB is reacquainting thousands of homestay hosts with the literal meaning of “You’re welcome.”
• We shouldn’t ask bureaucrats to stop playing defense. We should ask who in the organization is responsible for playing offense?
• Everyone is happier when everyone is happy.
• Today’s assignment: Use the word “widespread” in an unexpected way.
• Protecting life (or anything else) doesn’t always preserve it.
• Many think I should give my brain to science. Most insist I shouldn’t wait.
• Ask yourself: Is it relational or is it transactional? (Is one party’s actual presence optional?)
• Most remember their first pornography experience fondly.
• I wonder if Juneteenth (like Brexit) gained momentum in part because it’s fun to say.
• I don’t collect things as much as experiences. Nouns interest me less than verbs.
• Is it too soon to admit I was only pretending to not touch my face?
• I’d go see a rock band named “More than Inadequate.”
• Kahle’s razor: “We tend to overvalue what can be easily measured.”
• I miss thwarting.
• I’ve read that cats kill between 1.4 and 3.7 billion birds a year. What about their devastating impact on used furniture values?
• If “bomb” rhymed with “womb” and “tomb,” it would be more onomatopoetically correct.
• Never bet agains wisteria. It will find a way.
• All of us have something to prove. Only some of us know it.
• Isn’t it odd we think artists will benefit from inspirational surroundings, as if everyone else has already given up?
• Unpopular opinion: Lack of housing can’t be remedied sustainably without first addressing the larger deficit: pride of place.
• When you strive to be remarkable, you need others to remark.
• I’m determined to use fewer commas.
• Intention is our most limited commodity, so why do they use the good ones to pave the road to hell?
• Whenever a door is left ajar, somewhere in the universe a jar becomes adorable.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and archives past columns at www.dksez.com.

Extras (spares):

• Shouldn’t the plural of takeaway be takesaway? (like mothers-in-law)
• Somehow “addled” refers to when we have less going for us. Shouldn’t it be the opposite? Subtractled?
• My shirt has a pocket I never knew it had.
• My kitten has learned that pushing against a door will sometimes open it. Nothing will be the same after this.
• How about this for a deal, Chuck Schumer? Persuade Mitt Romney to vote for a voting rights carve-out from the filibuster so that Joe Manchin doesn’t have to. This feeds Romney’s presidential ambitions and protects Manchin’s West Virginia street cred. And everybody involved gets to crow that the voting rights bill is bipartisan.
• When a solution fits the problem, that’s good. When it fits just barely, that’s better.
• Football is to baseball what track is to golf. Does the sport first reward exertion or finesse?
• I don’t hear the word “delicious” used very often in reference to wine or beer. Do I need to widen my palate or my social circles?
• Owning your ideas is not as good as owning the terms people use to convey those ideas.
• Taking the band-aid off hurt more than my COVID-19 vaccination shot.
• Trader Joe’s doesn’t sell any of its beverages chilled (except milk and some juices.) What do they know that most other stores don’t?
• Beauty demands everything that doesn’t belong be removed.
• Can’t you see that McConnell and McCarthy are strategically guarding opposite flanks of the GOP for fundraising and candidate recruitment?
• We used to joke that if God had wanted us to go to church, He wouldn’t have made the Sunday paper so large. What’s our excuse now?

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