"Meghan Markle Wears Ginormous, Cozy Button-Down While Flower Arranging With Dog Guy."

That's the headline of the morning for me — over at InStyle.

Don't get me started on the present-day inanity of calling a shirt a "button-down" — in my day, a "button-down" was a shirt with a button-down collar, not a shirt that you button up (up, not down) — because I've already spent an hour down a rathole with Grok, exploring the origins of that usage — is it a retronym necessitated by the prevalence of T-shirts? — and wondering the how kids these days could understand the meaning of the album title "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart." And that veered off into a discussion of the comic genius of Lucille Ball in this 1965 episode of "Password," and how, in Episode 4 of Season 1 of "Joe Pera Talks With You," Joe, dancing, says "Do you think AI will dance like this?," and Sarah says "No, because they don’t have genitals." How does that make Grok feel? 

But back to Meghan Markle. I'm not going to ask why it's a story that she wore a shirt while doing something and why the headline doesn't prioritize what she did, which was to arrange flowers, which would only make us wonder why it's a story that she arranged flowers. What I want is to clarify is what was meant by "Flower Arranging With Dog Guy." I assumed, the entire time I was down the rathole with Grok, that Markle had a guy who helped her with her dogs, that a "Dog Guy" was like a "Pool Guy," and for some reason, the Dog Guy got involved in the effort to arrange flowers. But no. Here's the Instagram InStyle wrote the headline about:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (@meghan)

So Guy was the name of her dog. And the dog was not participating in the flower arranging. He was just running around the general area. I don't know much about flower arranging, but I do have some confidence in my word arranging, and that headline needs work. But I'm not doing the work. I'm writing this post to say that I find my misreading delightful and enjoy thinking about this phantom character, the dog guy. I kind of am married to a dog guy. If we ever get a dog, I want to name him Whisperer so I can go around referring to my "Dog Whisperer." Or do you prefer Whiskerer? I can tell you Grok thought both names were brilliant. 

That evocative word: groceries.

Trump: I won on groceries. Very simple word, groceries. Like almost, you know, who uses the word. I started using the word. The groceries. When you buy apples, when you buy bacon, when you buy eggs, they would double and triple the price over a short period of time. pic.twitter.com/4hDzdJFrTz

— Acyn (@Acyn) December 8, 2024

"After two more sell-out shows... it’s the last night of my prom. I have to be realistic, I’m on my way out."

"The average life expectancy is 83 and with a bit of luck I’ll make that, but we need someone else to drive things. I’m not leaving [Teenage Cancer Trust] — I’ve been a patron since I first met the charity’s founders.... more than 30 years ago — and that will continue, but I’ll be working in the back room, talking to government, rattling cages."

Writes Roger Daltrey, who is now 80, in "Roger Daltrey’s backstage diary — and a farewell to organising 24 years of concerts" (London Times).

I've loved The Who since before they released their first album in the United States, but there's always somebody hearing about them for the first time:

"Awe has typically been a difficult emotion to evoke, said lead author Alex Smalley, but feelings of awe can improve mood..."

"... increase positive emotions and decrease stress. Smalley’s research has shown that people can 'experience these bumps in awe and aesthetic appraisal and beauty' when looking at a sunset or sunrise. We have, as Western populations, become very disconnected from the natural world...."

From "Why we should all be gazing at more sunsets/People find sunrises and sunsets to be the most beautiful and awe-inspiring weather, research shows. Here are tips on how to see them" (WaPo).

The article doesn't even consider the best tip, the one I follow and the one depicted on "Joe Pera Talks With You"...

... a ritual of encountering every sunrise, accepting the day's offering, anywhere from solid gray to melodramatic phantasmagoria. I wouldn't try to calculate the chances of achieving a state of awe. You're going to head out to an occasional sunrise with the thought of dosing yourself with some awe? 

Here's Smalley's study: "Beyond blue-sky thinking: Diurnal patterns and ephemeral meteorological phenomena impact appraisals of beauty, awe, and value in urban and natural landscapes" (Science Direct):

Breaking into an old man’s garage.

The media is right — the BidenDocs scandal is nothing like Mar a Lago. What’s harder to break into? An exclusive private club with private security, cameras, a strict access list, and secret service protection… or an old man’s garage.

— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) January 12, 2023

That made me think about the episode of "Joe Pera Talks With You," "Joe Pera Shows You His Second Fridge" — which you can buy on YouTube (here) or watch on HBO. Here's a short clip where he talks about kids breaking into garages to get beer from the second fridge. And here's an embeddable clip with Joe talking soothingly about the institution known as the second fridge:

Joe Pera's update from Buffalo.

@joepera Update from Buffalo #buffalo #joshallen ♬ original sound - Joe Pera

"Maybe [Evan Peters] decided to watch my show to counterbalance the heaviness of playing Jeffrey Dahmer, and something stuck."

Said Joe Pera, quoted in "A BRIEF INTERVIEW WITH JOE PERA ABOUT NETFLIX’S ‘DAHMER’/What does the mild-mannered comedian think about being compared with the Evan Peters version of the serial killer?" (Gawker).

That was published last month. I ran across it because I was looking for things about Joe Pera, whose show we've been catching up on, watching and rewatching, these last couple weeks. I was not looking for anything about Jeffrey Dahmer, and I'm not watching that series, even if it's supposed to be good.

Joe doesn't want to watch it either:

Thoughts on Albany.

Thoughts on Albany... pic.twitter.com/60BSmY2VNT

— Joe Pera (@JosephPera) October 11, 2022

ADDED: If you've forgotten "ciao, bella," refresh your recollection here.

Also, as suggested by someone over at Twitter: 

"Who ya think Frankenstein'd vote for?"

That's one of 20 "conversation starters" suggested in the "Epilogue" to "A Bathroom Book for People Not Pooping or Peeing but Using the Bathroom as an Escape" by Joe Pera.

I read that after stumbling into the TV series "Joe Pera Talks With You." We love this TV here at Meadhouse. It takes place in Marquette, Michigan, and we discovered the show about a day after we got back from a nice 3 days in Marquette, Michigan.

Sample:

Writing this post, I noticed an article, published yesterday at uppermichigansource.com, saying that Joe Pera had just donated $11,613 to the Calumet Public School Music Program.

There's also some important background on how Pera developed the show. Calumet-Laurium-Keweenaw Elementary Music and Choir Teacher Matt Ruitta said: "About four years ago, [Pera] reached out to me because, in his TV show, he plays as a choir director that lives in Marquette. And he came and shadowed me here one day....” 

But the real point of this post is who do you think Frankenstein would vote for?