Celibacy can be a choice in life or a condition imposed by circumstances.

While attending a Marriage Weekend, Bud and his wife Ann, listened to the instructor.

"It is essential,” the instructor declared, “that husbands and wives know the things that are important to each other."

He then addressed the men, "For instance, can you name and describe your wife's favorite flower?"

Bud leaned over, touched Mary's arm gently, and whispered, "Its Gold Medal All-Purpose, isn't it?"

And thus began Bud's life of Celibacy...

Daddy's gonna eat your fingers!

I was packing for my business trip and my three year old daughter was having a wonderful time playing on the bed. At one point she said, "Daddy, look at this!"

She proceeded to stick out two of her fingers. Trying to keep her entertained, I reached out and stuck her tiny fingers in my mouth, pretending to eat them, and said, "Daddy's gonna eat your fingers!"

I went back to packing, looked up again and my daughter was standing on the bed staring at her fingers with a devastated look on her face.

"What's wrong, honey?" I said.

She replied, "What happened to my booger?"

20 puns for your groaning pleasure...

1.) Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love, and got married. The ceremony wasn't much, but the reception was excellent.

2.) A jumper cable walks into a bar. The bartender says, "I'll serve you, but don't start anything."

3.) Two peanuts walk into a bar, and one was a-salted.

4.) A dyslexic man walks into a bra.

5.) A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm. He says in a loud voice to the bartender, "A beer please, and one for the road..."

6.) Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other, "Does this taste funny to you?"

7.) A man goes to his doctor complaining of an illness.

"Doc," the man cried, "I can't stop singing 'The Green, Green Grass of Home.'"

"That sounds like Tom Jones Syndrome," the doctor exclaims.

"Is it common?" the patient man asks.

"Well," the doctor explains, "'It's Not Unusual...'"

8.) Two cows, Daisy and Dolly, are standing next to each other in a field.

Daisy says, "I was artificially inseminated this morning!"

"I don't believe you," says Dolly.

"It's true; no bull!" exclaims Daisy.

9.) An invisible man marries an invisible woman. The kids were nothing to look at either.

10.) Deja Moo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before.

11.) I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day, but I couldn't find any.

12.) A man woke up in a hospital after a serious accident.

"Doctor, doctor, I can't feel my legs!" he screamed to the attending physician.

The doctor replied, "I know you can't -- I've cut off your arms!"

13.) I went to a seafood disco last week...and pulled a mussel.

14.) Q: What do you call a fish with no eyes? A: A fsh.

15.) Two fish were swimming about in the lake. One of them swims into a concrete wall, and the other avoids it.

The colliding fish turns to the other and says, "Dam!"

16.) Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.

17.) A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel, and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office, and asked them to disperse.

"But why?" they asked, as they moved off.

"Because," the manager exclaimed, "I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer..."

18.) A woman has twins, and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt, and is named Ahmal. The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him Juan. The twins were allowed by their adoptive families to keep in touch with their birth mother. Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother.

Upon receiving the picture, she sighs and turns to her husband. "I wish I also had a picture of Ahmal," she said.

Her husband responds, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal..."

19.) Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail, and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him a super-calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

20.) And finally, there was the person who sent twenty different puns to his friends, with the hope that at least ten of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.

Apparently if you start seeing that neon blue eye makeup start coming out, it means trouble...

10 Quirky Economic Indicators

by Candice Lee Jones - Kiplinger.com

Friday, June 12, 2009

These off beat barometers of the economy can give you much needed guidance for your portfolio or simply a good laugh.

Everyone is scrambling to get their fingers on the pulse of the economy. When will it turn around? Have we seen the worst? The answers may not be as elusive as you might think.

In the past, you might have relied on the old Hemline Theory to determine which way the market was heading: As hemlines rose, so did stock prices. Think model Twiggy in her super-short mod dresses of the '60s, followed by falling hemlines in the '70s as the economy weakened.

But these days you'll find all sorts of clues in everyday life to help determine where the economy really stands. Dry cleaners, for instance, may seem a bit more cluttered these days, and it's true -- many people are stalling an extra week before shelling out to pick up their clothes. Eyeliner sales are surging these days, and a cutback in eye makeup may signal a resurgent economy in which people are spending on costlier personal luxuries.

1. Packed Theaters

During the last seven recession years, box office sales have increased in five of them. The new Star Trek movie pulled in more than $200 million in the month of May, just one example of how well cinemas are faring these days. According to the National Association of Theatre Owners, the number of movie tickets sold in the first quarter of 2009 increased more than 9% from last year.

Better films? Hot new actors? People continue to fill theater seats, NATO says, because movies are one of the least expensive entertainment options out of the house. The average ticket price in 2008 was $7.18. So when the lines get shorter, go buy some stock.

2. Green Thumbs

The National Gardening Association finds that the number of households who will grow their own fruits, berries, vegetables and herbs this year is 19% higher than in 2008.

That makes 43 million gardeners in the United States this year. It's fun and relaxing, no doubt, but 54% of the respondents say the prospect of saving money on groceries motivates them to till the soil.

3. First Dates

Misery loves company, eh? Online dating service Match.com notices a pattern in its site activity during tough times. The fourth quarter of 2008 was their busiest in seven years (the site has been around since 1995). Match had a similar surge in late 2001, right after 9/11.

The company believes people are looking for someone with whom to try to forget about money troubles -- or share the pain. When the Dow Jones industrial average dropped to a five-year low last November, Match.com had its second busiest weekend of the year.

4. Romance Novels

The economy has broken your heart and stomped it to pieces and now you need to put it back together. At least that's what Harlequin, the giant romance novel publisher, says is happening. In 2008, Harlequin's sales were up 32% from the year before. In 2009, its sales are still rising.

The publisher credits this its uplifting stories that offer a haven, and to the low prices of the books relative to other entertainment. This theory has stood the test of time. Harlequin saw a similar sales increase during the recession of the early 90's. So if these stories start piling up unwanted on the discount table at the bookstore, alongside all those mis-timed guides to real estate riches, better news is on the way.

5. Droopy Eyes I

America is all tuckered out. A poll by the National Sleep Foundation found that nearly one-third of Americans lost sleep because they were worried about their finances. The 2009 Sleep in America Poll also found that 10% of those people tossed and turned specifically worrying about their jobs -- roughly the same percentage of Americans who are out of work.

6. Droopy Eyes II

Americans spent $10.3 billion in 2008 to endure 1.7 million cosmetic surgeries, which is 9% less than in 2007. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons cites the bad economy.

Without as much extra cash -- and facing depleted retirement funds and much less home equity -- fewer people can spend freely on plastic surgery. The number of liposuction procedures was down 19% in 2008 and tummy tucks down 18%. If you can get an appointment with a top surgeon without much of a wait, that's a sour sign for the economy. But, then again, maybe you can strike a deal.

7. Goopy Eyes

You've got that recession look in your eye. Total eye makeup sales at supermarkets and drugstores were up 8.5% in the one-year period that ended on March 22, compared to the previous year. In that time period, more than $260 million was spent on eye makeup -- in particular, eye liner was up 9% and mascara almost 13%.

The leading lipstick indicator -- the idea that lipstick sales rise in economic downturn as consumers settle for inexpensive luxuries -- is not holding up. Lipstick sales are down 11%. But eye make-up has replaced lipstick as the indicator, so the principle is the same.

8. Gators

What do 100,000 alligators have to do with the economy? The gators are all residents at Savoie's Alligator Farm, one of the largest alligator farms in Louisiana. The farm, which sells gator skin hides to tanners who in turn sell them to luxury designers like Louis Vuitton, has not sold a single hide since November, according to Savoie's.

This business is awful because people are not buying alligator skin handbags and luggage. The makers of designer labels therefore don't need to buy hides. This is tough on the gator farmers who are losing money fast and trying to keep the hides they already have in stock from spoiling. But it's good news for alligators everywhere -- if they only knew.

9. Dry Cleaning

The International Drycleaning and Laundry Institute is hearing gripes from many of its 5,000 members. The poor economy has customers are visiting less frequently and leaving clothes for longer. Weekly customers visit every two weeks, monthly customers visit bi-monthly, and some people delay their pickups even longer to avoid the bill. This has been a staple indicator of hard times before.

10. Mosquito Bites

We know the real estate bust has done a number on the economy, but did you know it can actually make you itch? In Maricopa County, Ariz., enormous numbers of foreclosed or abandoned homes have vacant swimming pools and unattended ponds. The stagnant waters -- known as green pools -- are a hotbed for mosquito breeding.

Maricopa County Environmental Services Department's Johnny Diloné says crews have treated more than 4,000 green pools already in 2009. During the same period in 2007, before metropolitan Phoenix's housing market collapsed, they had treated only 2,500. While most of the "green pools" are on vacant properties, some do belong to residents who just cannot afford to maintain their pools and ponds.

Copyrighted, © 2009 Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc.

Inspirations are never what they seem sometimes...

Real `Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' gravely ill

AP Wire Report

Jun 12, 2009 9:23 am PDT

They were childhood chums. Then they drifted apart, lost touch completely, and only renewed their friendship decades later, when illness struck.Not so unusual, really.

Except she is Lucy Vodden — the girl who was the inspiration for the Beatles' 1967 psychedelic classic "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" — and he is Julian Lennon, the musician son of John Lennon.

They are linked together by something that happened more than 40 years ago when Julian brought home a drawing from school and told his father, "That's Lucy in the sky with diamonds."

Just the sort of cute phrase lots of 3- or 4-year-olds produce — but not many have a father like John Lennon, who used it as a springboard for a legendary song that became a centerpiece on the landmark album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

"Julian got in touch with me out of the blue, when he heard how ill I was, and he said he wanted to do something for me," said the 46-year-old Vodden, who has lupus, a chronic disease where the immune system attacks the body's own tissue.

Lennon, who lives in France, sent his old friend flowers and vouchers she could use to buy plants at a local gardening center, since working in her garden is one of the few activities she is still occasionally well enough to enjoy. More importantly, he has offered her friendship and a connection to more carefree days. They communicate mostly by text message.

"I wasn't sure at first how to approach her. I wanted at least to get a note to her," Julian Lennon told The Associated Press. "Then I heard she had a great love of gardening, and I thought I'd help with something she's passionate about, and I love gardening too. I wanted to do something to put a smile on her face."

Vodden admits she enjoys her association with the song, but doesn't particularly care for it. Perhaps that's not surprising. It was thought by many at the time, including BBC executives who banned the song, that the classic was a paean to LSD because of the initials in the title. Plus, she and Julian were 4 years old in 1967, the "Summer of Love" when "Sgt. Pepper" was released to worldwide acclaim. She missed the psychedelic era to which the song is indelibly linked.

"I don't relate to the song, to that type of song," said Vodden, described as "the girl with kaleidoscope eyes" in the lyrics. "As a teenager, I made the mistake of telling a couple of friends at school that I was the Lucy in the song and they said, 'No, it's not you, my parents said it's about drugs.' And I didn't know what LSD was at the time, so I just kept it quiet, to myself."

There's no doubt the fanciful lyrics and swirling musical effects draw heavily on the LSD experiences that were shaping Lennon's artistic output at the time — although many of the musical flourishes were provided by producer George Martin, who was not a drug user.

"The imagery in the song is partly a reflection of John's drug experiences, and partly his love of `Alice in Wonderland,'" said Steve Turner, author of "A Hard Day's Write," a book that details the origins of every Beatles song. "At the time it came out, it seemed overtly psychedelic, it sounded like some kind of trip. It was completely new at the time. To me it is very evocative of the period."

Turner said his research, including interviews with Vodden and Julian Lennon, confirm that she is the Lucy in the song. He said it was common for John Lennon to "snatch songs out of thin air" based on a simple phrase he heard on TV or an item he read in the newspapers. In this case, Turner said, it was the phrase from Julian that triggered John's imagination.

Veteran music critic Fred Schruers said Julian Lennon's reaching out to help Vodden as she fights the disease is particularly moving because of the childlike nature of the song.

"It's enormously evocative but with a tinge of poignancy," he said. "It's the lost childhood Julian had with that little Lucy and the lost innocence we had with the psychedelic era, an innocence we really cherished until it was snatched away."

Vodden was diagnosed with lupus about five years ago after suffering other serious health problems. She has been struggling extreme fatigue, joint pain, and other ailments.

"She's not given up, she's a fighter, and she has her family backing her, that's a good thing," said Angie Davidson, campaign director for St. Thomas' Lupus Trust, which funds research. "We need more people like her, more Lucys."

Davidson, who also has the disease, said it affects each person differently, typically causing exhaustion and depression. When the disease kills, she said, it does so by attacking the body's internal organs.

It has become difficult for Vodden to go out — most of her trips are to the hospital — but recently she and her husband went to a bookstore and heard the song playing over the store's music system. When they went to another shop, the song was on there as well.

"That made me giggle," she said.