It's not where you start, it's where you finish

There are 50 states in these United States of America, and not a single one of them starts with the letter B, E, J, Q, X, Y, or Z. That must mean something, but darned if I know what.

Let us therefore consider where they finish.

Five states end in 'ia' - California, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. That last one (the ult) actually was carved out of the next-to-last one (the penult) in 1863, during the Americn Civil War, because people in the western part of Virginia didn't want to secede from the Union to be part of the Confederacy. Count knowing this as your historical trivia factoid of the day.

Sixteen states end in 'a' alone (without a preceding 'i') - in no particular order, certainly not alphabetic, they are North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Alabama, Minnesota, Iowa, Louisiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, and Alaska. (Actually, they are in a sort of order geographically, in four groups approximately equivalent to their time zones, excluding Alaska, which is in a class by itself.)

Four states end in 'n' - Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
Two states end in 'd' - Maryland and Rhode Island
Four states end in 'o' - Ohio, Idaho, New Mexico, and Colorado
Five states end in 's' - Texas, Kansas, Arkansas, Illinois, and Massachusetts
Two states end in 'y' - Kentucky and New Jersey
Four states end in 'e' - Tennessee, Maine, Delaware, and New Hampshire
Two stated end in 't' - Connecticut and Vermont
One state ends in 'g' - Wyoming
One state ends in 'h' - Utah
Three states end in 'i' - Hawaii, Missouri, and Mississippi
And, finally, one state ends in 'k' - New York

Put them all together, they spell mother add up to 50 states in all. There is a 51st area, the District of Columbia, which also ends in 'ia' but it is not a state. It is a district. There's a world of difference. As such, it is not included in the list.

What does this post mean, exactly?

Maybe (a) nothing, or (b) that one can waste an awful lot of time on a computer, or (c) that there's no fool quite like an old fool.

Pick one or add one of your own. If you pick (c) do not identify the fool you have in mind out of consideration for th undersigned.

I remain, as ever, yours truly, rhymeswithplague

A clarification

This short post is to clarify to my more than confused readers (you are confused, aren't you?) that when I said in the previous post that I licked hinges, I meant little cellophane hinges that were carefully applied to the backs of single used postage stamps to cause them to adhere to the pages of the stamp album my dad had kindly given to me, not big metal hinges that connect doors to door frames. My dad collected U.S. commemorative plate blocks and didn't use hinges.

Mission accomplished.

Roger, over, and out.

Either time is speeding up or I am slowing down

...because August just started and it's already over.

Three guesses which theorem is correct, and the first two don't count.

I'm doing my best to keep this blog going a while longer because its 19th anniversary will occur on September 28th and there's still a bit of life left in it if you ask me, which you didn't, of course.

I've been trying for a month to put together one of the most difficult jigsaw puzzles I've seen in a long, long time. A collage of many, many U.S. postage stamps, it was created as part of our country's semi-quincentennial (250th) anniversary celebration and sold at the post office for twenty dollars American ($20USD). I just had to have it. I couldn't resist. My dad was a philatelist (stamp collector) and in my yute I spent many hours admiring his collection of U.S. commemorative plate blocks. I even had a little stamp collection of my own. I learned how to count peforations. I licked hinges.

In early August our only granddaughter was married and a good time was had by all. At the reception I learned a new word, mocktail. The waiter offered to bring us mocktails after I said we didn't drink alcoholic beverages. When I asked him what was in a mocktail, he said, "watermelon juice and spritzer water" so Mrs. RWP (the lovely Ellie) and I both had one. They were very refreshing.

This is turning out to be a stream-of-consciousness post and, like most of my other posts, it is all over the place. I do apologize (British, apologise) but it simply can't be helped, especially at this late juncture in my life when an old dog has difficulty learning new tricks.

Speaking of old, our oldest son is helping me transition from a Windows 10 system to Windows 11 by helping to find a replacement for my trusty old Hewlett-Packard All-In-One. It was kind enough to inform me after suggesting that I run a few diagnostics that my computer is not able to be upgraded to Windows 11. Bummer.

My son also informed me that our iPhone 11s are the oldest model phones that Apple will support once ios 27 comes out. Bummer squared.

I have decided to give my fabulous 1000-piece 24"x 30" jigsaw puzzle to my granddaughter, not as a wedding present, you understand, but just because her mother told me the other day how much she enjoys doing jigsaw puzzles.

Eighty years ago today (September 2nd) my mother married my father who was not really my father, a fact I didn't know until I was well into my teens, in Seekonk, Massachusetts, a place that I'm fairly certain will live in infamy for that very fact. I was born 5-1/2 years earlier in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and my biological father had not been in the picture for, would you believe it, 5-1/2 years and one week. He joined the Army and went out of the picture forever exactly one week before I was born.

Well, that's enough minuutiae for one post.

To quote Winnie The Pooh or Tigger or somebody invented by A.A. Milne, "Ta-ta for now."

Only God knows the end from the beginning

This post, like most of the others on this blog, will make no sense to some and perfect sense to others.

That having been said, let us proceed with today's offering.

When I worked for IBM in Boca Raton, Florida, which I did for about a decade several decades ago, one of my colleagues was Frank Lindauer (a German surname, I think) and another one of my colleagues was Pete Zambito (an Italian surname, I think). I worked in the same department as Frank. I did not work with Pete but I knew who he was and saw him from time to time.

There was a Mrs. Lindauer and a Mrs. Zambito. Both families had children who attended the same elementary school in Boca Raton. As fate would have it, the Lindauers divorced and so did the Zambitos. Time passed, but not much. Lo and behold, and it occurs to me that I might have posted about this before, the former Mrs. Lindauer married Mr. Zambito, and the former Mrs. Zambito married Mr. Lindauer. Everyone except the local school system lived happily ever after; the school system could not manage to keep straight the fact that the Lindauer children lived at the Zambito residence and the Zambito children lived at the Lindauer residence, and often sent correspondence and report cards to the wrong place.

As Sir Walter Scott once wrote, "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, / When first we practise to deceive!"

I'm not suggesting in any way that the Lindauers' and Zambitos' situation was based on deception because I don't have the facts at my disposal, but a tangled web was woven nonetheless.

You may remember that Sir Walter Scott also wrote, "O young Lochinvar is come out of the west, / Through all the wide Border his steed was the best" but that fact is totally unrelated to this post. Let us continue apace.

This sort of thing (the Lindauer/Zambito scenario) happens more often than you might think. One example that comes to mind happened in the world of Christian music among practitioners of what is called Southern Gospel. It's true. I kid you not. Specifically, and this also happened decades ago, Reba Rambo of The Singing Rambos (Buck, Dottie, and Reba) was married to Landy Gardner. Joy Dyson, also a professional singer of Christian songs, was married to Dony (with one 'n') McGuire. Again, as time passed, both couples divorced. Joy Dyson McGuire ended up marrying Landy Gardner, and Reba Rambo Gardner ended up marrying Dony (with one 'n') McGuire. I went to school in Texas with a Donnie McGuire but he was an entirely different person; his brother Robert dated Diane Howell. Anyway, everyone involved in the now hush-hush Gardner/McGuire fruit-basket-turn-over continued to smile broadly and sing, write, and perform Christian songs of the American Southern Gospel variety as though nothing unusual had happened. Another highly-regarded Christian performer divorced her husband and married the drummer in her band.

William Shakespeare is reported to have said, "All's well that ends well." One can only hope. I hope it is true in the cases of the reconfigured Lindauer, Zambito, Gardner, McGuire, and highly-regarded Christian performer families.

You never know how life will turn out until you live it. Many things start out with good intentions, but as my mother used to say, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

I'm not judging any of these people (because St. Matthew reported that Jesus said, "Judge not, lest you be judgef") and neither should you. As my mother also used to say, "There but for the grace of God go I."

Addendum to "Testing...Testing..."

Turns out the problem is that I'm a numbskull.

All I had to do was sign on with my gmail address and password instead of the erroneous ones I unwittingly tried to force Google to accept instead. Lesson learned. One does not force Google. Ever.

I shall now try to respond (maybe later today) to any of your comments on recent posts that have heretofore remained unresponded-to.

All's well that ends well *breathes huge sigh of relief*.

Testing...Testing...

Google or Blogger or somebody/something is not being kind to me lately. This post is a test post to see if I can still create one. Also, the ability to reply to comments seems to be, how you say, gone with the wind.

I'm hoping things will get better soon.

I think you can still leave comments but I appear to be incommunicado for the moment.

Please bear with me as together we implore whatever computing gods may be (stage whisper: there aren't any) to have mercy.

Itineraries are us and other useless information

This is my 20th post of 2026 and the 2,336th post since this blog began back on Sepember 28, 2007. I know you probably don't care but I sense an inner need to report it anyway.

My blogging has slowed down tremendously this year. In some years I have written 100 posts by this time. I don't know how Neil (Yorkshire Pudding) and Rachel (My World) keep blogging day after day after day.

This is a very busy time in our lives. Mrs. RWP (the lovely Ellie) will be observing her 91st birthday at the beginning of next week (she must remember to call her cousin in North Carolina who will be observing her 81st the day before) and at the end of the week our one and only grandaughter who is fifth among our six grandchildren in birth order and the only one unmarried is, wait for it, getting married! She and her young man, whose name is Ryan, have planned strategically. I will elaborate.

All of her family live in various affluent suburbs northwest of Atlanta (except for the ones in Alabama and Florida and other parts of Georgia) and all of his family live in various affluent suburbs northeast of Atlanta, so a neutral location that was both semi-convenient and semi-inconvenient to all interested parties was sought and chosen in the affluent suburbs that are due north of Atlanta (neither northwest nor northeast) for the rehearsal, the rehearsal dinner, the wedding ceremony, and the reception afterward. All of these events will take place next Friday and Saturday afternoons and evenings, and rather than driving back and forth to our homes during pre-rush-hour, rush-hour, and post-rush-hour traffic (the congestion never stops), some of us will be staying in a posh hotel in the area. Trust me, nothing (okay, very little) is less than posh in the affluent suburbs due north of Atlanta.

It has been many moons since I used the word 'posh' in a sentence. I remember from a song in the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang that the word is an acronym for "port out, starboard home" and was marked on the steamship tickets to indicate passengers who wanted staterooms with the best views of the African coast while traveling from England to India during the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

Maybe the hotel is only semi-posh. When I find out I will let you know.

I have heard rumours that a short wedding trip is planned to Charleston, South Carolina (a lovely place) and a longer one may also occur a little later to either Vancouver, British Columbia (that's in Canada) or possibly somewhere in Europe (because the bride vacationed year before last in France, Switzerland, and Holland and had a great time). Grandparents are often the last to know.

With all these activities looming, I probably won't be blogging again until after the festivities are over and done with and receding into history. Although my readership is small, I thought you ought to know about my impending absence.

At the very least, if Yorkshire Pudding can report on going to Mallorca and Rachel can report on going to Azerbaijan, I can report on going to the affluent suburbs due north of Atlanta.