Heather Morey of Creative Photo, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons by Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper is apparently experiencing his own Christmas miracle as his body evolves into the unmistakable shape of Santa Claus. His increasing girth cannot have anything to do with the keeper’s intake of rich food and …
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Category:Holidays
“Just Like the Ones I Used to Know”: The Pen in Hand’s Guide to Vintage Christmas Movies
Photo by Geoffrey Carter (Originally published, December 10, 2021) By Geoff Carter Well, the Christmas season is upon us in full force. The commercials are everywhere. We’ve seen that ad for the car—or Energizer Bunny, wrapped in a bow and sitting in the driveway on Christmas morning at least one hundred times. Getting ready for this holiday season, …
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Oh, Christmas Tree
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter (Originally posted in December, 2019) Each year, in the family holiday tradition, my wife and I venture out to buy our Christmas tree. We’re lucky enough to live across the street from a big tree lot so we don’t have very far to go—we can walk right over. …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to Spinning Classic Christmas Vinyl
Photo by The Retro Store on Unsplash By Geoff Carter (Originally posted in December 2019) While the Couch Potato will always be slavishly devoted to his TV home entertainment center, this week he will be putting down the universal remote in order to turn his focus solely on another entertainment form—music. Part of the reason for this departure …
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Kickass and The Christmas Poem
Kelvin Kay, en:user:kkmd, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, naps through the following: As a man of quiet and reason, The keeper sees this season Fraught with troubles and woes, Total dumbness wherever he goes. People buying things they don’t need, If it isn’t essential, it must be greed. …
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Kickass and the Canadian Fruitcake
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joined the keeper in pretty much staying out of the way as Phyllis went into her annual fruit cake making mode, combining a most interesting collection of colorful elements and beginning the procedure that concludes with long-term soaking in a tasty alcoholic beverage, something …
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Kickass and Playing Scrabble
thebarrowboy, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, was an innocent spectator as the scrabble game see-sawed back and forth with first the keeper in the lead only to fall behind as Phyllis used six tiles in a word that required rule-book justification. The game went down to the very …
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Kickass and the Dumb Turkey
Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, assists the keeper with the following: Don’t know if you’ve heard That being a bird Can go lots of ways With honors and days. Some are here for the eggs they lay Others to make Col. Sander’s day. One bird is the …
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Hospitality
Jean Leon Gerome Ferris , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter Originally published Thanksgiving Day, 2018 Thanksgiving 2019 (addendum) Even though the events in this original blog–the caravan to the U.S. border–are past, the effects of them are still with us today. The U.S. is presently holding thousands of refugees in camps and in …
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Kickass and Phyllis Remission
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper and Phyllis in celebrating a pre-Thanksgiving checkup visit Monday with Dr. Rose at the UW Carbone Cancer Center with continuation of the “REMISSION” report for Phyllis. So what else matters? Eat lots of turkey and have a great day! See more …
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Kickass and Heights Vet Day
Noah Wulf, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports on behalf of the keeper that he–the keeper does not remember a Veterans Day when he felt so honored and privileged as the most recent one when he was invited to be a guest of the Wisconsin Heights School where …
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Kickass and Veterans Day
Bjarki Sigursveinsson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in noting that Veterans Day is when the country pauses to briefly consider all those mostly young people that it has either hired or drafted to go off to kill the mostly young people–but sometimes inadvertently the woman and …
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