I’ve exchanged recent emails with friends … Ha, I have some … about the calamity of our Romaine-E.coli national panic … and the “Fall of the Romaine Empire!”

In those exchanges, it became clear that I’m rather rigid in my expectations of what should be in a salad … some have even called me a “Salad Nazi.”

And, I’ve been forced to admit … I’m way beyond the garden variety “kale hater!”

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I’m sure there are worse things to hate … but I find myself now wrought with guilt because kale has done nothing to me.

And … just for the record, I did make what I would call “a valiant attempt” to have a relationship with kale.

I just could not get past the kaleness of kale leaves … and “Pardon me!” … I’m not a “Smoothie-kinda-guy!”

So, these days I find myself searching for substitutes for my beloved Romaine … without having to resort to the dreaded kale.

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Let’s be clear about one thing … I insist on a certain level of “crunchiness” to my salad greens.

Ergo, I eschew spinach leafs … whether new born or craggy old adults … and other “limp green leaf varieties” as an insult to my male sensibilities.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the descriptor: “limp.”

So I’ve fallen back on that old standby … crunchy iceberg lettuce … which except for the outer leaves of “the berg,” looks less and less appetizing as you venture into the washed-out-pale-green “heart of the head.”

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If not carefully monitored, salads easily become boring.  The next thing you know, you’re secretly glopping store-bought 1000 Island Dressing on your greens.

And, “Yes, Virginia” … there is a place called Thousand Islands … it’s an archipelago of 1864 islands in the upper Saint Lawrence River between the US and Canada.

To offset “Salad-Boredom-Syndrome” … or, SBS … I’m prone to be a leafy green experimenter.

When I buy fresh carrots, beets and radishes, I save and rinse their green leafed  tops to “spice up” my serving of crunchy greens.

They’re a bit bitter … but that’s offset with properly ripened tomato, occasional hearts of palm, and selected olives.

Stuffed olives aren’t just for Martinis!

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In addition to absolutely refusing to eat raw kale, no raw mushrooms ever touch my salads.

A word to the wise … with a raw mushroom, you can never ever rinse, wash or scrub enough to erase the fact that it’s grown in s**t.

Just sayin’ …

I’m 10 years old.  Mom’s looking down at me saying, “Never … never ever hitchhike, Dickie.  There’re bad people out there who will pick you up, torture you, and then kill you.”

From that point … I’ve never stuck my thumb out to bum a ride.

Now my worst fear’s come true.

We have proof positive what happens to hitchhikers in the USA.  Just ask HitchBot …

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Enter the Canadians … our seemingly carefree neighbors who gave us the Royal Mounted Police in their bright red coats and dorkie hats … half of Niagara Falls … hockey, ice cold Molson Beer, and Justin Trudeau.

They kept free healthcare for themselves … and still laugh at us.

But they did give us, for a brief period of time … HitchBot … and taught us the dangers of hitchhiking in the USA.

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HitchBot … the creation of two slightly bent Canadian university scientists with a streak of moral turpitude … had limited language skills … could answer basic questions with whoever picked it up … a TV screen face … flexible legs and arms … and bunches of other digital crap that “robot-o-sists” know about.  It looked more like a Legoman than a robot.

The scientist team planned to have it hitchhike and create a socio-cultural record of its adventure(s).

And hitchhike it did.

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Hitch first journied across Canada … over 10,000 miles in just 26 days … without a “hitch.”

Europe was next and Hitch hitched throughout Germany with a bonus trip to The Netherlands, focused on Amsterdam … lucky Hitch.

A US cross country trip was planned … why not?

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Hitch left Boston with stops in several Massachusetts hot spots … then bopped down to The Big Apple where he survived the streets of Manhattan before heading to the “City of Brotherly Love” … Philadelphia.

Love those Philly Fanatics.  The City of Brotherly Love showed just what could happen when attempting to “bum a ride.”

HitchBot abruptly quit transmitting and was ultimately found … dismembered in the gutters of Philly.

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Many felt this attack was the result of angry Philadelphia Eagle fans … this happened in 2015 … not 2018, their Super Bowl win year.

Some offered that it was a “Hate Crime” directed at … gulp … Canadians.

Others surmised that it was an “act of patriotism.”  Clearly this makeshift “robot” was just an inferior-digital-Tinker-Toy foisted on America without a valid visa … and, therefore, deserved what it got.

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Me?  I think it’s another of those life lessons my mother tried to teach me … one that took only 65 years to learn.

Just sayin …

It’s a legal thriller John Grisham couldn’t write.

Welcome to Trump World … a dystopian fantasy land for all those living in the crowded nightmare of Trump’s never ending criminal investigations.

How lucky do you think “The Mooch” feels?  In-and-out of Trump World so fast he didn’t even get an autographed “You’re Fired” poster!

Thanks to the FBI, the Southern District of Manhattan DA, and Special Counsel, Trump’s personal attorney, Michael “I’m-His-Fixer” Cohen, was visited by the “real-law-and-order-vets” this week … and was “fixed.”

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While most of us live in a Technicolor world, Trump’s spent his life living in his own not very creative underworld of lies, deceit, payoffs and cheap gangster movies.

He’s demonstrated at best, his life’s been … and will continue to be cheap B-movie material earning zero Rotten Tomatoes.

Michael Cohen’s finally met real attorneys, law enforcers and a pile of legal shit that he’ll live in for the rest of his life.  His days as Trump’s Fixer are over … kaput … finished.

He’s the sucker, who in those poorly plotted movies, ends up in the trunk of the mobster’s car missing body parts and wearing cement shoes.

Spolier:  Watch Cohen hang from Trump Tower while the Manhattan South DA skillfully flays and then fillets him into choice cuts of defunct and funky smelling Trump Steaks.

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Trump knows that Cohen knows where “all the bodies are buried” … and they’re not far from Trump Tower.  To date, Cohen’s tough guy persona has been earned by harassing out-funded and poorly legally represented terrified women.

“Hey Mikie … How do you like facing an “A-Team” of attorneys?

Cohen’s life as the crack attorney for the Trump Crime Family shows that his Five-and-Dime law degree matches his complete lack of intelligence.

A simple enforceable nondisclosure agreement seems to be beyond his capability.

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To pay his own legal fees, Cohen’s taking out a third mortgage on his home.

“Hey Mikie … Here’s an idea … Ask Trumpie to pay you what he owes you.”

If you hear anything on the other end of your new burner phone, it’ll be silence … or maybe heavy breathing.

What it won’t be is … “Sure, Mikie.  Give me your bank account number and I’ll transfer funds right away!”

Cohen’s only hope to save his skin is to execute a Greg Louganis “Olympic- Gold-Medal-3-Meter-Dive” … and call it the “Spill-the-Beans-Back-Flip.”

Just sayin’ …

The slimiest sleazebag sexual predator riding the streets in a bulletproof limo has announced that April is “National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month.”

It’s almost as if President Dickwad is using himself as the motivator so we can be aware of the magnitude of this problem.

I wonder how the women he’s already assaulted feel about having their own special month.

And befitting this social media president … he announced his proclamation via Twitter.

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The opening statement from the White House proclamation:

“Sexual assault crimes remain tragically common in our society, and offenders too often evade accountability. These heinous crimes are committed indiscriminately: in intimate relationships, in public spaces, and in the workplace.”

WTF … this reads like a playbook for Trump and his assaults.  “Evade accountability …  heinous crimes … committed indiscriminately?”

Whoa!  Did any of the White House Bozos read this f**king statement before they released it?  It’s clear the Head Bozo didn’t!

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Who told our Predator-in-Chief this was a good idea?

Hope Hicks is gone.  Melania’s not speaking to him.  Ivanka’s pissed because he compares her to the women on his sexual assaultee list.

He’s got no wife beaters left in the West Wing.  But he’s let it be known he wants Rob Porter to boomerang back.

The Seriously Absurd’s crack staff learned that the idea for this “special month” was solely another of the “no-brain-impulse-moves” from 45 himself.

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The fact that 45’s a p***y-grabbing-assault-denier-uninvited-kisser doesn’t seem to matter.  He’s desperate to show the world that … as he stated in his campaign … “I adore women.  No one adores women more than I do.”

He knows the best way to clear his name is to spend a month publically tweeting and holding Fake News announcements about Infrastructure Week, or North Korea, or that Beezos guy who’s younger and richer than he is.

Then while we’re distracted … he can declare himself a “Champion for Women.”

Bring back Omarosa … please.

Laura Ingram’s sure to have a good word for him … maybe Trump Enterprises can advertise on “The Ingram Angle.”

Michael Avenatti reportedly spit coffee across Wolf Blitzer’s interview table discussing this latest sexcapapade.

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But here’s the Real News … in 2009 President Obama was the first president to proclaim April as National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month.

Aha … the supreme motivator for Trump!  It’s to trump President Obama … no matter how stupid he looks doing it!  Sad!

Just sayin’ …