Not to be that guy, but (suicide pact edition)...

This headline at Reason caught my eye today:

D.C.'s So-Called Reopen Plan Is a Suicide Pact for the Restaurant Industry

No, it isnt.

Okay, maybe it is. Could be. Could be, the restaurants are in on it. Could be they've decided to end it all and have invited the government entities who wrote the plan to join them for an evening in a giant carbon-dioxide hookah where people sit right up next to each other without wearing gloves or masks and there's plenty of Kool-Aid for everybody.

Could be. Has to be. Otherwise, it's not a "suicide pact."

Now, before I go any further: okay, okay, I know, they didn't actually mean "suicide pact." They meant death sentence, or nail in the coffin lid, or horrible inconvenience, and their metaphor just kind of got away from them.

And, also: okay, okay, I know, I'm being that annoying guy who won't shut up about how the new decade starts in 2021, not 2020. Which is true.

Still. Come on, man. Professional writer, which I assume you are since you're writing headlines for Reason. "Suicide pact" means two or more people agreeing to willingly commit suicide. So unless the restaurants helped write the plan intending that it put them out of business, you've got to pick a different bit of phraseology.

I'm available for consulting, by the way. Very reasonable rates.

Limericks about 2020

I used to write limericks. I wrote them as a kid, and then my grandfather and I started trading them when I was in college, just for a little while. He was a stickler on the meter: nine syllables in lines 1, 2, and 5. Not eight. Nine. And six in the others. Not five. 

 

So today, I’m a stickler about that, too. More on that in a bit. 

 

There’s a publication called On the Premises that runs regular fiction contests – usually extremely short fiction, like 50 words – on specific topics. Well, this time, they’re running a limerick contest: 

 

Premise: Write a limerick reflecting the author’s feelings about life in the year 2020, at least through mid-May. 

 

I’m not going to post the one I submitted, because usually publications want first-publication rights (and that seems to be the case with OTP). But here’s a few I didn’t submit: 

 

It was a vision so perfectly right,  

Until April got rolled up too tight.  

Hey, was all this a joke?  

Just a day sucking smoke?  

A hallucinogenic delight? 

 

And: 

 

They all laughed when I bought more shampoo,  

And I stocked up supplies for the loo,  

And I said I won't share,  

But damn me if I dare,  

When you smell like an untended zoo. 

 

And: 

 

We all ask what's to do, what's to be?  

In an alternate timeline we'd see:  

We're all fine, or we're done  

(By the way, the Bucks won).  

Why can't science invent that for me? -

 

Back to the limericks. OTP linked to this page in case someone needed some instruction on what a limerick is: 

 

A limerick is a humorous poem consisting of five lines. The first, second, and fifth lines must have seven to ten syllables while rhyming and having the same verbal rhythm. The third and fourth lines should only have five to seven syllables 

 

You see the problem? “Seven to ten syllables,” which flies directly in the face of my grandfather’s stickler-ness. 

 

My usual amount (five minutes) of internet research shows that this pathetically looser standard is, in fact, the accepted standard. So it turns out my grandfather was more picky than was strictly necessary, at least on this point. 

 

No matter. The die has been cast, and while you may be able to get away with “seven to nine syllables,” you’ll have to live with me looking down on you for it. 

UPDATE: 
x

 

I was not one of the ten winning entries.  You can read the winners here, if you like.  Congratulations all.  On the Premises received 377 entries, so, well, whaddayagonnado? 

 

Here’s the one I entered: 

 

Right away we got tired of the jokes 

About vision, and roaring, and smokes. 

Now we sit home perplexed, 

Hoping zombies aren’t next, 

But we won’t be surprised, will we folks? 

Nope, turns out I haven't screwed up my garden. At least, not yet.

Just three days ago, I was questioning whether I'd already killed my barley plants. Or whether they were ever going to live to begin with.

Welp:




Lookit them beauties. Couple inches tall, some of them. Four rows. Might be some don't come up still, and might be I end up culling a few, but there they are.

Gardening. It's like magic.

Here's the bird's-eye view:




I dunno if you can tell that there are distinct rows growing, but if you look closely, you can see the green. I'm going to keep doing this angle over time.

tl,dr;

Three days after I lamented my lack of barley plants, I've got barley plants. Ten days after planting.

Have I already screwed up my garden?

Call me crazy, but I have this idea about planting my own barley. My own barley, my own hops. Brewing some beer with only the things I grow or collect.

Just one gallon of beer. I'm not crazy.

The barley's going to be the really hard part. Growing hops, from what I understand, is easy. Collecting yeast, which you'd think would be the hard part, is easy. I've done that already. Water? There's a river nearby. I'll strain it and boil it.

But malting barley, that's going to be hard. The thing is, before I can malt the barley, I have to grow the barley. So one week ago today, I did this:

Four furrows, into which I placed barley seed, and covered it up. Prior to that, I tilled the area once, added some nice old mulch, tilled again, added some of this dried manure you can buy at Farm&Fleet, and tilled it a third time. I've watered it three times since planting, just a little each time. You're not supposed to give it a ton of water, and it's been my experience that a little can go a long way.

That was a week ago. Should I be seeing shoots already? Because I'm not.

Now, as I write this, it's nine o'clock on Saturday morning. I haven't been outside yet. It's entirely possible that, later today, I'll notice some little plants starting to poke their precious little heads out of the ground.

But so far, nothing. So. Am I being impatient? Did I cover them too deep? Are my seeds bad?

Am I just a rotten, rotten gardener with no hope of ever making his own beer with his own ingredients?

I might be less impatient if I wasn't already afraid for my hops plants. I know what I said before. Hops are supposed to be easy. But one of them looks really, really bad. I'll take some pictures later. I started them in pots - one Cascade rhizome, one Centennial rhizome, which, I know, I probably should have gotten two of the same kind - and they started to grow after a few days.

A week ago, I had one shoot of about 6-8 inches out of each. There were other shoots, too, but those were the biggest and strongest. So I transplanted them into the garden.

That's when the Centennial started to wilt, and it hasn't gotten better. Its leaves are gone now - did something eat them? - and I've about given up on that shoot. There might be others.

Anyway, that's where I'm at with the garden.

tl;dr:

Barley not growing yet after a week in the ground; one hops plant looking sick and weak a week after transplanting it into the garden. Updates to follow.