"A RETURN TO NORMALCY"

I don't often quote our 29th president, Warren G. Harding, but in this case I think it's appropriate.

My first blig in over three months indeed marks a return to normalcy. Although, when I say that, I don't hold my fist like I'm crushing a defenseless bee.

So, where the heck have I been? Unfortunately...gainfully employed on three different projects. One is now completed and I can again turn my attention to important matters...like bligging.

And what better way to return to bligging than bligging about our 29th president. Most people don't know a lot about Warren G. Harding. In fact, most 5th grade students have never even heard of him. In most textbooks he's simply referred to as 'Our 29th President'. In some textbooks in the San Francisco School District, he's simply referred to as 'That mean president.' Those same textbooks refer to President Taft as, 'Lard ass'.

Anyway, here are some things you may want to know about Warren G. Harding:

1. Harding began each morning by killing seven ferrets with his bare hands. While most of us might think that's a rather strange way to start the day, Harding explained that, "The regular killing of a ferret enlivens one's humors, reduces turbidity and has no to equal in the reduction of hand callouses. What's more, I enjoy it."

2. Harding detested the term 'baker's dozen' and lobbied congress heavily to have its use federally outlawed. Harding became so obsessed with this issue that it nearly paralyzed his presidency. In his memoirs, "Harding!" Harding wrote, "I think a dozen should be a dozen. 12 is 12. Are we so immutable and languid as to allow bakers to undo thousands of years of mathematical progress, not to mention the dumbification of untold children merely for the sake of ignominious hyperbole? Should we allow this aberration to stand, I see no reason why other trades won't insist on their own proclivities of numeration. We may have a Fisherman's Dozen which by my accounting would be 15! A Mason's dozen could reach the unwieldy valuation of 19. And a Pharmacists dozen could lead to innumerable abrasions of the eye."

3. An amateur botanist, Harding spent his later years trying to breed a geranium with a Siamese cat. He explained by insisting that, "This hybrid species would not only flower each spring, but purr as well. What's more it would be pleasing to the touch and could take its nourishment from the earth rather than the can." Harding claimed he had succeeded in breeding the strange hybrid and even displayed it at the 1923 meeting of the Chicago Botanical Society. Harding was rebuked however when it was discovered he had simply taken the head of a cat and stuck it onto a geranium stalk. Harding vehemently denied the charge, but later conceded after a dead, headless Siamese cat was discovered in his waistcoat. For years Harding insisted such a hybrid could be bred, "if it were not for the encumbrances of time and common sense."