To Do List for 2005

SPEAK OUT
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti  2003
  
And a vast paranoia sweeps across the land
And America turns the attack on its Twin Towers
Into the beginning of the Third World War
The war with the Third World

And the terrorists in Washington
Are shipping out the young men
To the killing fields again

And no one speaks

And they are rousting out
All the ones with turbans
And they are flushing out
All the strange immigrants

And they are shipping all the young men
To the killing fields again

And no one speaks

And when they come to  round up
All the great writers and  poets and painters
The National Endowment of the Arts of Complacency
Will not speak

While all the young men
Will be killing all the young men
In the killing fields again

So now is the time for you to speak
All you lovers of liberty
All you lovers of the pursuit of happiness
All you lovers and sleepers
Deep in your private dream
Now is the time for you to speak
O silent majority
Before they come for you!

(Thanks to MAS for this)

Calmer Now

Climbing down from the rarified atmosphere of the soap box before trip -

Interesting that almost no animal carcasses have been part of the enormous loss of life from the tsunamis.  I've read that elephants likely "hear" through their feet, able to detect the approach of other elephant herds.  It's not much of a Leap of Logic to infer that other animals were able to discern the 9.0 tremor (tremor, hell) and, as with all sentient beings in danger, instinctively head for high ground.

And, have I ever mentioned that I have grandchildren?  Here's proof positive:

 

Bush League

Finally. 

More than four days after likely more than 100,000 lives were lost all around the Indian Ocean, GWBush, pissy from missing his nap, reluctantly takes a few minutes away from his vacation time at his ranch in Crawford to tell the tv that Americans are generous, not stingy as was alleged by the head of an international charitable organization. 

An administration that has sacrificed more than 1300 American lives, countless Iraqui and Afghani lives, and continues to pour more than six billion dollars each month into the futile War Of Fabricated Circumstances in Iraq and Afghanistan can pledge only 35 million dollars. 

Let's see:  if the US is spending 6 billion each month for the war, that's more than 8 million dollars per hour.  So, for a humanitarian cause, in our name, the administration has pledged a bit more than 4 hours worth of war time.  What an embarrassment.

Quite A Nudge

I read today that the earthquake that spawned the horrific tsunami through the Indian Ocean pushed the entire island of Sumatra more than 100 feet.

I looked it up.  Sumatra is about the size of Arizona and Nebraska combined.  Damn.

Knowing as little about plate tectonics as I do about almost everything else, I'm fearing there will be aftershocks, more tsunamis.  (A threesnami?)  And with that enormous displacement of mass and energy, I'll bet the rotation of the earth will be affected, too.  It won't be noticeable except to the extraordinarily precise instruments now in orbit, but I'm covering bets.  Watch  this space.

Freeware I Like And Almost Freeware

Celestia - a not too large freeware program with which you can zip at superluminal speed between many of the solar system's major orbiters.  www.shatters.net/celestia/download.html

Open Office 1.1 - a fully featured freeware suite with Word, Excel and Powerpoint analogs.  Almost all the features I use in the Microsoft versions, and seemingly fully compatible with the Microsoft versions  http://download.openoffice.org/  Prolly won't be long until the mantra at Microsoft will be "The coding ain't done 'till OpenOffice won't run."

Keyhole - a not-quite superluminous but still speedy way to get around Biosphere I.  You zoom out to what must be close to the LaGrange point, and then back in to the specific address you've entered.  I found the places we stayed in London, Paris, Vancouver, our previous homes, and the White House.  (Interesting, the images of the White House roof are very clear, but when you move east to Capital Hill, the images have been blurred.) You can get a week's free trial, but it's only, like, thirty dollars for a year of unlimited service, and it let me load it on my laptop, too, at no additional charge.  Gives precise longitude/latitude, and somewhat less precise elevations.  Highly recommended.  http://www.keyhole.com/

Turf War

Molly is in town for the holiday, hot on the heels of her most recent return to the States from India.  It's great having her around to hug on and laugh with, the whole family together, unabated noise and nonstop bustle.

Bella, as vigilant a three-year old as ever was, took keen notice of the new tall girl in town, and all the attention she was getting.  Molly reports that when the two of them were a bit aside from the group, Bella caught and held Molly's eye and said slowly, distinctly and very pointedly, "My grandma. My nanna." 

Interloper, be warned.

Snow Trolls

Arizona is such a great place.  Yesterday morning we awakened in Flagstaff to the small yet forceful cries "Nanna!!  Gampa!!" at our Inn Suites door. 

Outside it was nineteen degrees.  We loaded up the fams and drove up to the Snow Bowl, admonished every quarter mile "No Sledding At Ski Area", "No Parking On Snow Bowl Road", "No Stopping, Ever", so we went away from that place.  We did find an area with small hills where we disembarked, clambered, and sledded almost to G & B's content.  There was a bit of a meltdown when we finally had to leave, but everybody got upended, everybody ate snow, lots of screeching and laughs and no permanent disfigurements - other than those we came with.

Two hours later, 120 miles from the site of the nineteen degree wake-up call, the temp outside the BigRedTruck was 78 and we had the air conditioner on.  Kidlettes were watching a seeming endless-loop of Mary Poppins in the second row of seats, kidlettes' parental units in the way-back appeared (through the rear-view mirror) to be playing some permutation of Slap & Tickle that involved SB's socked foot repeatedly thrust under Joe's chin.  A great couple of days.

What A Man Likes To Hear

"Honey, I'm up more than three hundred dollars!  Don't you want to come play with me?"

I was in the office of the Treasurer of the Colorado River Indian Tribes, and on his wall hanged a T shirt with an old sepia photo of several of the bros, holding their spears and bows, clad in headdresses and full regalia, lined up there, looking fearsome, mostly. 

The caption below the picture is "Fighting Foreign Terrorism Since 1492."  Gotta get me one of those.

Oh, the quote - herself, out of the blue, was given a nice "extra" honorarium for a talk she did today, so we treated her to some time at the casino.  She did pretty good until I came to play with her. 

 "My life story" she mumbles.

Curmudgeon

So here we are, early Deciembre, my least favorite holiday in the offing (mmm no, my least favorite holiday is Columbus Day, but as our commander in chief likes to say, "Irregardless") and it's been raining for two days straight. 

I'm not kidding.  Two consecutive days of rain here is a once-yearly occurence at most.  Couldn't play golf.  Took an umbrella to get the christmas tree.  I'm in my traditional funk, cubed.  Worked in the office while Herself hung decorations hither and yon, trimmed the tree, strung the lights, baked the Kringlas.

She's making comments about personal cleanliness.  Implying that someone who misses a shower and doesn't shave is not going to get to the bonus round of Naughty Diabetes Educator, my favorite game that doesn't involve a ball.  (But then again, oh never mind (a chorus of EEEeewwwwwws goes up similtaneously in East Mesa and in Virginia)).

Implying, hell.  She's got me classified as, ,,,,, I don't know, UnPleasant.  Hmmpf.  I finally come downstairs for ESPN Sunday night football and she says, Do you mind if I go to the casino for a bit?  Whoa.  Terra Incognita.  Good news: I dont' have to go.  Bad news: I wasn't invited. 

Of course I dont' mind, says I. 

She's gone now.  I've showered and shaved, mostly.  I'll bet she'll be crazy for my new and novel plan for facial hair adornment.  Tay stuned.

Buddy Flix

A genre not universally appreciated.  "Pulp Fiction" perhaps the culmination of the craft, yet several peeps I know, wimmens mostly, revile and detest this masterpiece.  "Beautiful Girls" is another special example.  I know's these guises.  I've been out in the winter, plowing snow with them, arguing, tossing back shots.

Latest addition to the list of faves is "Sideways."  More subtle than PF, less purile than BG's, and a perfect vehicle for Paul Giamatti who was most recently terrific in American Splendor. Two guys, past their prime (a pox on anyone who's thinking, Look who's talking), on a wine tasting road trip before a wedding.  One believes himself to be a conasewer of wines, the other is just real happy to be there, hoping beyond hope to get his niblick polished. ("Tastes pretty good to me?"), but the way they step up for each other is what's what about that.

Like with my buddies, it's "If it can find a way to embarrass you, I'll do anything to make that happen."  (If you've already been humiliated, I'll point that out for you, and help you remember any details you may have conveniently forgotten.") ((Ooh, an opportunity for the rare double parenthetical comment!)(a nod toward SB) 

See, it's like, if you can do something to make a buddy feel good, that would be, mmmmmmmmm, verboten. But if said buddy axes you to do something really really stupid - I'm talking crazy stupid - then that becomes an obligation, a noblesse oblige.  (When I complained in a bar late one night to a particular friend about monies I am long owed, he said, "You want me to hurt him?  I'll hurt him for you!" And that was about a nine-year past-due commission payment.)

What's the point? The point is, it's not about the golf.  It's not about the putt pot, or who has The Claw.  It's about the getting together, the arguing over the bet, the braying like donkeys when Larry, usually, scuffs a shot.  It's about the meanest guys in the state being your best friends, and it's knowing you could call them up at two in the morning from Anchorage for bail money and they'd hand-deliver it.  That's what buds and buddy flix are about.

 "Invocation," by Maurya Simon, from Ghost Orchid (Red Hen Press).

O God--who art dust mote and fern spore,
salt crystal and dog-star, who art refinery smoke,
cumulus, leaf-rot, dishwater and spindrift--

how can I know thy invisible movements
through this world, when thou inhabit even
the debris of lives, the perforations of years?

God, who wears the green mask of death,
who visits the world in wisps of prayer,
how can I divine thy face through my tears?

Give me some sign--a thumbprint, a fragrance
of hyacinth, stigmata of coal on my brow--
that I may steep my silence in faith;

show me thy secret handshake welcoming
the weeds, thy luminous smile, thy mind
that spins the world wildly on its axis--

consecrate me as thou would the tiger's yawn,
offering itself like the poor man's bowl,
to the terrified fawn, to the wayward dove--

and I will do thy bidding, polishing words
so they gleam like ice, abandoning my rage
to kneel before thee, swallowing my doubt.

But there is no answer when I call out,
and my longing darkens my throat, my mouth.
How can I lift my eyes to a gutted sky?

O God, who art neither father nor son, nor
holy ghost, who art haloed by radium clouds,
beloved by millions of sparkplugs and ants,

thou who nestles in war's lap, in the breasts
of desire, who conspires with the darkest joys,
who art as amorphous as a map of stillness--

I cry out to thee again and again, over
and over, and only the wilderness answers,
and the dangerous world's laughter--

Long Weekend

Another nice long weekend with Larry and Donna, this time to Tubac, about twenty miles north of Nogales on the 19.  Real pretty golf resort set along both sides of the Santa Cruz river, which is barely a trickle.  Suspected all would be well when, as we checked in, I noticed that the complimentary newspaper pile was New York Timeseses. 

This is where some or most of the movie "Tin Cup" with Kevin Costner and Rene Russo was filmed in 1995.  In honor of the film, I put quite a few balls into the "lakes" as Mr. C's character had.  Charming, competent , mostly non-English speaking service personnel, a surprisingly well manicured course, and very good food.  That, and I kicked Larry's ass despite four-putting - yes - the ninth and the eighteenth greens yesterday.  The previous day I ended the round with four one-putts in a row.  Stupid game.

Sweet, funny little town, Tubac.  Prolly what Sedona was like thirty years ago.  Lots of artsy cool stuff in small shops run by people with lots of hair.  I bought a very nice glass sculpture, a wind chime guaranteed for life, and a refrigerator magnet for SugarBeth.

Today, before leaving the area, we drove a few miles farther south to Tumacacori (too-ma-cock-ree), one of Father Kino's missions dating back to 1691.  The Jesuits did a lot of work in this area before being recalled by order of King, uh, King . . ., the King of Spain at that time.  Hot on the heels of the Jesuits came the Franciscans. Lucky Mexicans.  A charming ancient woman held a tortilla-making demonstration in the courtyard.  Yummy.

Double Nickels!

Or, as my beloved youngest, and CasinoRat in Training, likes to shout, "Ten the hard way!" 

Law's a mighty, Miss Esther.  I'm pretty sure that a person's brain gets to, like, 35 or so, and then refuses to think any older.  There are reminders, of course.  I used to remember virtually everything, and now, after a second glass of a late harvest gewurtztraminer I have to look up my own phone number.  Doon good though, doon good.  Playing the best golf of my life, have access to some of the best, most creative music since the mid-sixties, I have the best, most dependable and loyal friends, and man o man, having grandchildren is the true reward for having had to put up with two "how sharper than a serpent's tooth" daughters, who eventually turned out pretty ok, too. 

And their mother.  For her it's been a thirty-five year walk in the park on a spring day.  For me it's been day after day after day of relentless enthusiasm, good cheer, laughter, friendship and a love that, seemingly impossibly, continues to grow stronger.  I am one happy geezer-to-be.  Jeez, just realized that, as of about 7:30 tonight, Central Standard Time, I'll be closer to sixty than to fifty.  OK then.

Freecell Update

 Total hours playing: 879.85

8 x 4

current streak: 0 best streak: 134 plays: 13657 wins: 12955 win percent: 94.86% average time: 3:51 minutes daily streak: 0 best today: 20 best daily: 56

The Future Of Fantasy Cinema

SB phoned, excited "That movie, Polar Express, it's at the IMAX!!!!!!!!!!!  In 3D!!!!!  I'm getting tickets!!!!!  You and Ma are in, right?!!!!!!!!"  "Uh, yeah, sure!"

I'd read maybe three lukewarm reviews. And in the not too distant past, kiddie movies, - G rated kiddie movies, have induced a deep, involuntary unconciousness, for which I again apologize profusely.

Anyhow, at the appointed time on the appointed date, Nana and Boppie dutifully showed up at the Mills IMAX.  SB had gotten terrific seats squarely in the middle of the theater (Row F, seats 18-22 (Bella's still a LappChile)) and the movie began.

Now, I can see how this movie got fair-to-middling reviews in 2D, but in 3D it is utterly amazing.  The details in the characters' eyeballs, the camera swooshing under the train, then out through the wheels, then up and over, then back under - it was heady, astonishing, yea, even unto vertiginous. 

I love this movie.  The audience was made up of congregants mostly like us, and we were rapt, all of us.  We're definitely going again.  I urge all of you (even those curmudgeons amongst you, and your name is Legion), if Polar Express is showing in 3D near you, get thee to the cinema.  The tix are 'spensive, but it's absolutely worth it.

Arithmetic

Don't know why it's taken so long, but I only lately realized that I am the product of my father's Birthday Boink lo those almost two score and fifteen years ago.

My boitday is nine months less a day after his boitday. 

"Probably all she gave him" intones Herself.

You Know Who You Are

"Banking Rules" by James Tate, from Return to the City of White Donkeys © Harper Collins, 2004.

Banking Rules

I was standing in line at the bank and
the fellow in front of me was humming. The
line was long and slow, and after a while
the humming began to irritate me. I said to
the fellow, "Excuse me, would you mind not
humming." And he said, "Was I humming?
I'm sorry I didn't realize it." And he went
right on humming. I said, "Sir, you're
humming again." "Me, humming?" he said.
"I don't think so." And then he went on
humming. I was about to blow my lid. Instead,
I went to find the manager. I said, "See
that man over there in the blue suit?" "Yes,"
he said, "what about him?" "He won't stop
humming," I said, "I've asked him politely
several times, but he won't stop." "There's
no crime in humming," he said. I went back
and took my place in line. I listened, but
there was nothing coming out of him. I said,
"Are you okay, pal?" He looked mildly peeved,
and gave me no reply. I felt myself shrinking.
The manager of the bank walked briskly up
to me and said, "Sir, are you aware of the
fact that you're shrinking?" I said I was.
And he said, "I'm afraid we don't allow that
kind of behavior in this bank. I have to ask
you to leave." The air was whistling out
of me, I was almost gone.

Tattoo Whom?

Quash your hopes.  That's not me.

 

Now This Is Incredible

Some guy whose hobby is chasing tornados around the plains states shot these photos the other night from a little town not far from where we lived in Nebraska.

Typically, the aurora borealis don't show so far south, but a massive solar storm last week really piled on the electrons.  And they were oppositely charged from the spin of the earth so it made it all the better.  In my early yoot in Dakota I remember lying in the back seat of my dad's car as he drove on the highway at night in the winter, watching the lights in the sky , like enormous curtains of shape-shifting flourescence.  I remember them a lot like these photos.

http://www.extremeinstability.com/04-11-8.htm <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>

Not So Incredible

Having seen the trailers that made me laugh out loud, with Mr. Incredible struggling to get into his outfit, his belt bursting, I was really looking forward to this Pixar production, but neither of those scenes even made it into the movie.  A lot of the animation was fantastic, the waves in the ocean, Violet's hair, the smoke from all the explosions so finely rendered.  But the movie was really only a garish feature-length cartoon.  It had no heart, no sweetness.  Much too violent, startling and aggressive to bring the grandkids to.  Glad we previewed it first.

Post 11/2 Blues

What's the difference between the Iraq war and the Vietnam war?  George Bush had a plan to get out of the Vietnam war.

I haven't been this disappointed in the country's voters since Nixon was re-elected.  I guess we all remember what happend in Milhouse's second term, so maybe there is something to look forward to.

A chart I read in the Times showed Arizona with the lowest percentage of eligible voters showing up at the polls, and that the youth of America hardly showed up at all.  You young whippersnappers will be footing the bill for George II's war and his tax cuts for a long time to come.  The country is in debt more than three hundred grand per family right now, and that ain't gonna get any lower for the forseeable future.

Decision Day

George Bernard Shaw said, "Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few."

W.C. Fields said, "I never vote for anyone. I always vote against."

Gore Vidal said, "Half of the American people never read a newspaper. Half never vote for President. One hopes it is the same half."

Ambrose Bierce said, "[A] vote [is] the instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country."

Mark Twain said, "If there is any valuable difference between a monarchist and an American, it lies in the theory that the American can decide for himself what is patriotic and what isn't. I claim that difference. I am the only person in the sixty millions that is privileged to dictate my patriotism."

Where Our Tax Dollars Should Be Going

Recent Psychiatric Research

A study conducted by UCLA's Department of Psychiatry has revealed that
the kind of male a woman finds attractive can differ depending on where
she is in her menstrual cycle. For instance, if she is ovulating, she's
attracted to men with rugged and masculine features. However, if she is
menstruating or menopausal, she's more prone to be attracted to a man
with scissors lodged in his temple and a bat jammed up his ass while
he's on fire.  Further studies are expected.

The same cross-eyed gap-toothed mouth-breathing former neighbor golf buddy (not to be too specific about his identity) questioned my logic, driving south to the Pecos/Santan to get to my grandchildren's home.  I guess their parents live there, too.  Anyway, if'n I goes (speaking so he can unnerstan me now) north to Ray, then to the 10, then to the 60, I have two stop signs and ten traffic lights in the 29.8 mile trek.  My way is one and one half stop signs (a sign with a right turn counts as half a sign) and five lights and 32.6 miles.  Is the extra 2.8 freeway miles preferable to five more lights?  Put down your beer, get off'n your step-daughter and drive it yourself if you don't believe me.

Hopefully, Only One Term

That's the punch line to a joke on a poster at the Arizona Democratic HQ that begins, "What do you get when you cross the Class Clown with the Village Idiot?"

A pleasant, articulate young man called one night last week asking if we'd be willing to volunteer some time this Saturday at the above mentioned hq.  I said sure, knowing K would be back in town and itching for something subversive to do.  Little did I know.

We made it to the appointed location, not very late, and were let in and directed to a back room where phone banks were being manned and womaned  - even more so.  It's hard to describe our disappointment at standing around for almost twenty minutes, trying to make eye contact, trying to find someone to report to and salute, and having no success.  Finally, I turned to K and said, "You know, the Huskers are playing right now."  She said ok, and we left.  We wanted a yard sign or two, but those weren't even in evidence. Sheesh.

Once in the parking lot, she says to me, "Let's go look at that car you were telling me about."  Long story short, we came home three hours later with a Ford Focus ZX5.  Like we need another car.  My recollection was that our plan had been to let the S2000 lease run out, then get by with the truck and the motorcycle until we find out whether K & B are selling their company, and then get another car.  Sheesh.

Ida Mae Ewbank

One of the most extraordinary women I've known has merged with the universe.  Ida Ewbank was a voracious reader with a keen business mind, easily able to reduce multiple pages of nine-point agate type legalese into real-world language, and similtaneously plan how to efficiently accomplish the task.  When Ida walked into the room, it became her room.  She had a naturally commanding presence and, when she cared to use it, The Voice to match.

I finagled a job interview many years ago, and was immediately impressed by her easy confidence.  At the conclusion of that interview, she said, "I have a person who works for me who is gay, and if you don't like that, you can't work here."  Knocked my socks off - way off.  That kind of blunt affirmation separated her from most people I know, and it was my first indicator of her astonishing loyalty to her people.

Through an uncharacteristic lapse in judgement, she hired me, and I became one of Ida's Girls.  Believe me, that's a real compliment.  No group I know of is better able to combine hard, mentally exhausting work with high hilarity than the Inverness gang.  Mass lunches, pool hall parties, and especially cocktail hours were the norm.  Who can ever forget the Ida Hip Hop Jig after her second shot of tequila?

My office was two doors down from Ida's, and her displeasure with inanity was sometimes not secret.  When in full voice, her "GET OUT!!!" would resound through the 'hood and everybody would think twice about going in with a question they could answer for themselves.

Ida's displeasure was not unknown to me.  Always unable to shake the Smart-Ass gene, I think I still hold the single session record for being flipped off with that immaculately manicured, impossibly long middle digit.

Ida was more careful with her clients' interests than with her own.  She cared more about the welfare of her employees than her own.  She was the most delightful amalgam of first-class business woman with a bawdy, enthusiastic confidant.  No one could know her and not love her.  I know I did and do.

"you can take it with you" by Josephine Jacobsen, from In the Crevice of Time: New & Collected Poems © Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

you can take it with you

2 little girls who live next door
to this house are on their trampoline.
the window is closed, so they are soundless.

the sun slants, it is going away;
but now it hits full on the trampoline
and the small figure on each end.

alternately they fly up to the sun,
fly, and rebound, fly, are shot
up, fly, are shot up up.

one comes down in the lotus
position. the other, outdone,
somersaults in air. their hair

flies too. nothing, nothing, noth
ing can keep keep them down. the air
sucks them up by the hair of their heads.

i know all about what is
happening in this city at just
this moment, every last

grain of dark, i conceive.
but what i see now is
the 2 little girls flung up

flung up, the sun snatch
ing them, their mouths rounded
in gasps. they are there, they fly up.

Pirate walks into a bar.  Bartender says, "Hey!  We don't get many pirates in here!"  Pirate says, "Aargh!."  Bartender says, "So, what's the deal with that steering wheel shoved down into your pants?  That must be real uncomfortable!"  Pirate says, "Aargh!  It's driving me nuts!"

Know what you call a caveman who takes his time getting home?  A meanderthal.

Friday in Oxford

From the Bodlean Chuck and I went to the next stop on the walkabout proposed by our dining companions from the previous evening, namely The Turf Pub.  Just after you pass under the Bridge of Sighs is a tiny walkway, no more than three feet wide, that meanders around two corners and for about 200 feet, and there it is.  Famous for 1) being open every day since 1310 save one, the day the bartender died, 2) for being mentioned in Thomas Hardy's "Jude The Obscure", 3) being the Oxford set for the Inspector Morse BBC series.  (Colin Dexter, the author of the Inspector Morse sagas is a diabetic patient of the people K & B were converting. Professor Matthews of the group is a character in Dexter's book "Death Is My Neighbor".)  This pub is so old that the ceiling joists hang at about 5'8".  On the first joist inside the entry, in big beautiful olde english script is the cautionary menu "Duck or Grouse."  I saw two hapless patrons avail themselves of the latter.

A pint and a potty break - make that a languish in the loo - and we're off to the Pitt Rivers Museum founded in 1884, not near the Pitt River but by General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers.  Thoughtful of the bloke to truncate his euphonious appellation and thus save acres of marble.  A real dodo bird, lots of dinosaurs, some very unpleasant shrunken heads.

Down Keble Road onto St Giles, turn left (I'm reading now) and pop into the Lamb & Flag.  This place was a smokey dump whose ATM wouldn't accept my now flattened and battered card.  Across St Giles, a surprisingly wide street for Oxford -vrrrrroooooooooom - still looking the wrong way before stepping into the street - More Ale!! And Fresh Horses For My Men!!.  The Vauxhalls and Peugots get a good run at you if you don't step nimbly, and by this time I ain't.

Into the Eagle and Child, where Lewis Carrol, CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien liked to hang.  The non-smoking section was clear in the back in the recently converted pony stall from which not all the air of authenticity had been removed.  Chuck's beginning to roll his eyes when I shout Pip Pip at the waitress.  She's charmed in that "I already have a grandfather, thank you" sort of way.  We left right after I ordered the barkeep to "Have that wench washed and brought to my tent."  Seemed a good idea, especially to Chuck who all of a sudden has work to do back in the room.

The Last Day, Really, In Oxford

Must be that time zone thing.  It's Friday and Chuck & I are working from a walkabout written up by two lovely locals last night.  Rachel, who has lived here all her life & Jan, the five foot firecracker responsible for bringing us over here.

We start at the Bodlean Library, which argues with Merton's claim of being the oldest.  The Bod is one of five copyright libraries in Britain, so every book, magazine and newspaper published in the UK is obligated to send a copy here, gratis.  A van pulls up each day with more.  Underground and at a remote facility they have more than 21 miles of bookshelves.  The oldest part of the Bod is built along the same lines as the Merton - vaulted ceilings, very tall racks, single plank benches running down the aisles - but the beams in the Bodlean are beautifully painted.  Only four of us on the tour, and Claire the decent docent had been a librarian there since 1968 "when Chas retye-uhhed from the Fauz-un Suhvice,"  retiring only when "they brought in those computah things.  I rally don't like them atall."  She was a doll, quick with the conspiratorial aside, enthusiastic about every detail, every gargoyle like her own child (I can expecially relate to that).  One of those in our tour had written a book and published it through a vanity press.  "I only published 100 copies, and it damned near broke me.  Then the copyright libraries demand the first five off the press!"  All books at the Bod must be read in situ.  This is not a borrowing library.  The aforementioned author axed if, perhaps since it was his book, boughten and paid for, he might get to take the copy out for a walk at lunch.  Claire reeled backward, clutching her breast, gasping for air ,"Oh No! Nono   NO Nooooo nononononono!!!!   !!!    !!!!! When King Challs asked to borrow a tome on national security, the poor librarian who had to decline his request litrully risked her veddy life to maintain the protocol of the labbry!"  A silent toast to this doubtless diminutive but steel spined mistress of the muses whose only joy each week was bathing her mother.  Probly.

Oxenford - Last Day

Thursday: Chuck and I got the last tour of the season of the Merton library which claims to be the oldest library in continuous use in the English speaking world.  They have a first edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, but not on display since there have been some recent unpleasantnesses.  Seems people have come in and ripped pages out of manuscripts - ancient maps are especially attractive - so all the first editions are in safe keeping.  Some books back to the 1200's - only one of which we're allowed to see up close, if not touch.  Many of the book spines have their years of publication.  I find many from the late 1500's and early sixteens.  The smell, the feel of the place, the cast of the light through the leaded windows is something akin to what religiosity must induce in those so induceable.  What thoughts have been thunk in these small upper floor rooms in the past 700 years.  The vibes are as palpable as at Buchenwald, or the Viet Nam wall in DC, but here the vibes have a deep, calming, almost joyful effect.

Out to dinner at Loch Frye with the peeps the girls have been railing at.  Rather mediocre food and service, but that's the first gripe with either since arriving.  Have begun ordering off the menu that entree whose description has the most words (in English, mind you) i don't understand in the context.  Usually ends up being some nether part of a normally uneaten small animal, with lots of cheese.  Gopher Anus Miribilis Gustatorius.  Not glorius.

Oaxfudd

Here is where I shall live.  Staying in a wonderful place, The Old Bank Hotel, with a shower AND a tub, both man-sized and with plenty water pressure.  What luxury!  Still propping windows open and walking well behind the others, but only another day of the antibiotics, so we may be able to have open flames about us again.  Climbed a church tower built in 1290.  Had lunch in the White Horse pub from 1530, supposedly Bill Clinton's favorite hangout when he was here.  Walked through Christ Church, and the great hall where Harry Potter and his lot dined.  The Christ Church enormous bell, Old Tom, tolls 101 times every night at 9:05, as when it was first rung, there were 101 students in the college.  Oxford is 5 minutes (longitudinally speaking) west of Greenwich (London) and so all time there is kept five minutes later than the rest of the town.  Class start times, curfews, etc.  Pretty cool for an anachronism.  In the History of Science Museum is the blackboard preserved from Einstein's seminal lecture of 1931 on which he wrote in seven succinct lines a description of how to determine how old the universe is, and at what rate it is expanding.  Right there on the wall.  His writing.  At Christ Church is a structure called The New Building.  It's only 900 years old.  I'm in heaven. 

London Dairy Air

Maybe it's derriere?  We're staying in the Blades, in a fourth floor walk-up with a shower you can't turn around in.  It does have hot water, putting it a step or two above the flat in Paris, but K is unhappy.  So I'm unhappy.  Betty & Chuck went off to do the Stonehenge tour this morning, and we all met back at the top of the stairs and then took off for a Big Red Bus tour of central London.  Much nicer than a BRBT of L in January.  Also much more sociableizing for me, since the combination of antibiotics for my abcessed tooth, the pheasant pie, and nine different brand new takes on the idea of lager, and a glass of wine or two, have combined to make me noisy, noxious and occasionally downright spectacular.  Had the upper level of the bus pretty much to myself.  Pigeon started to land then took off in as much a hurry as a pigeon can muster.  Not as quick as K however.  "Look! You can pick out our flat!  The one with the window propped open with a magazine!!"

Hakuna Matata

Our 747 left Phoenix only an hour late, and the flight to Heathrow was fine except the light above my seat didn't work, so I had to lean into K's space to read.  Slept much of the 9.5 hours, and the four of us were met at the gate by our driver.  Seemed like a nice enough guy, and wanted to talk about science, specifically calcium carbonate, so I obliged him.  Turned out to be a real nut who would talk about nothing else.  Him, I mean.  Has the idea of drilling holes in the beds of the world's major rivers deep enough to recharge the aquifers.  Got to the point when we would try anything to jog him off the subject of calcium carbonate "Is that a baby chair in the back?"  What kind of car is that over there?"  "How 'bout them D-Backs?"  Nothing worked.  On and on and on he went.  I began banging my head on the window - He looked back quizzically, too a breath and carried on.  Longest damned ride of my life, and in a turbo-diesel so the fumes, the erratic driving and the goddam calcium carbonate combined to bring me to the edge of effluvia.

Sunday morning we went to the Tower of London, saw the crown jewels again (a 500 carat diamond - what's that, 10 times bigger than the Hope in the Smithsonian?) and then tradfatted off to the Lion King at the Lyceum near Covent Garden.  Pretty good for a musical, I guess.  First musical I've not fallen asleep in.

Better get back to the Blades Hotel here in Westminister and pick up K.  We're off to ride the London Eye before hooking up with Betty and Chuck at about two, our time.  That's four a.m. in Phoenix.  I don't want to think about it. 

Hall Of Flame

Gabe has wanted me to take him to the "fire truck museum" so K & I picked him and Bella up from school, took them to Mickey D's for a nutrient-free lunch, and then split up, men to the Moose See-Um and the ladies off to Schwoopieville for their beauty rest.

Let me just say that no reasonable person would put within easy reach a dog-house size bell with a rope hanging from its not insubstantial clanger, and then expect a simple "Please don't ring the bell" sign to have any effect whatsoever on a husky, athletic and enthusiastic five-year-old.  Damn! that bell took a licking and kept on resounding long after the place looked like somebody had kicked over an anthill.

It's a really cool almost 50,000 square foot exhibit of fire fighting apparatus going back to the oily 1700's.  I'm going back as soon as I won't be recognized. 

Rule of Thirty-Eight

Got my world-wide Freecell ranking to 48 out of 6300 by hitting a streak of 138 consecutive wins.  Shot a 38 on the back nine at Kenny MacDonald last Sunday.

Twenty Thousand

Sounds like a big number, no?  Four syllables, five decimal places.  In 1976 the biggest salary bump I ever had was to $20,000 a year, when I got into the doit bidness.  Our first house cost a bit over that in 1972.

Why the focus?  Yesterday was my 20,000th day.  Seems like a mile marker that should be celebrated, or at least acknowledged.  Ok. It's been acknowledged.

Spent the day in the best way possible, driving Clan Schwoopie up to Christopher Creek and then Canyon Creek, on the Rim where the air is fresh and free.  We all oohed as the smell of the conifers wafted through the 'Burban.  The old place we used to have looks pretty smarmy, and several more were for sale.  Canyon Creek where we first camped in 1986 shows the ravages of the recent fires, but we had a lot of fun by the creek - who'd a guessed?

 

Pity

We have Gabe & Bella for the day, and what comes after lunch?  Ice Cream!! 

Gabe and I want Rocky Road, Bella wants baniwa.  I say to Gabe, If there were bananas in the vanilla, it'd be banananilla!  And if it was Nana's, it would be Nana'sbanananilla. 

He says, No, it would be Nana's banana vanilla.  I say, Right!  Nanabanananilla!  He looks at me with his serious look.  "Say ba-na-na, grampa" 

"Banana" 

"Ok, now say va-nil-la." 

"Vanilla!" 

"Ok, now say ba-na-na-va-nil-la." 

"Banananilla!!!" 

He gives me this sad, condescending sweet little smile  "It's hard, isn't it, Grampa?"  What a sweetie.

North Rim

Didn't sleep much at all as Larry's snoring sounds like someone trying to drown a Harley Davidson.  Grumpily awoke him about 7:30 and we motored down to the Glen Canyon Damn Information Center.  Major security.  Got frisked and patted down but was denied my request for a full cavity search.  Neat, informative tour of the damn, its history and power generation capabilities.  Then into Page for combination breakfast/lunch at drive-in - like we weren't going to get enough of the outdoors that day.

Gassed up and headed to the north rim, about 130 miles from Page, across some of the most desolate land in the country - reservation, naturally, and then an astonishing climb of about 1500 feet of elevation in less than two miles and boom we're in the tall pines.  Roads are immaculate and virtually deserted.  Got down to the north rim lodge, a gorgeous place with a huge south-facing sun room, climbed around a bit, and then took off for Point Final, a lesser known trek described as "1.9 miles each way and fairly easy".  LIARS.  Was really cool place, hanging out over the east rim, one other guy on the trail and that's it.  Found a USGS marker from 1903 stating that that particular rock was 7919 feet in elevation, and that there was a $250 fine for removing it.  Would almost be worth it.  No, no, no. No.

Now our feet hurt almost as bad as our butts, and it was getting dark and surprisingly cold, and we had a long ride back to beddy by.  It was long and it was hot and it was amazingly dark, so we did see a lot of meteors, but at 65 or 70 mph..

Got back to Page for a late dinner in the only place still open, and fell into bed, exhausted and aching about 11.  Not really looking forward to the long, hot ride back to Phoenix the next day.

Scooter Ride

So Ernie and I met at Larry's and we three headed northbound about 9.  I switched on the cruise control and leaned back to enjoy the ride up through Payson, Pine and Strawberry, around Lake Mary and eventually into Flagstaff as the thunderclouds piled up.  As we're pulling into Flag a torrential downpour hits.  We pull over under an overpass, Larry fishtailing a bit to pump up all our adrenalin, and Ernie, our erstwhile tour guide says It's only a couple miles to the pizza joint.  We press on for another half-hour in this driving rainstorm.  Ernie's sense of distance perhaps not what it once was.

Post-pizza Ernie headed back home, Larry and I headed toward Page, pulling in to the Wahweap Marina on Lake Powell ass-weary, dehydrated and exhausted, at about 5:30.  Dinner overlooking the lake, now down 121 feet and at 41% of capacity, and to bed.  Day one done.

Trippin'

Birthday dinner last night for K with Mohrs at Drinkwater's on Camelback.  Their meat is "wet aged" as opposed, I guess, to dry aged (?)  Waiter's explanation was only unsatisfactory part of the evening.  The New York Strip was the best steak I've ever had, and I've had a few.  Joint is pricey ($300 for the 4 of us, no wine) and too dark to read your menu, but man oh man, what food.

Finalized two fun outings with Lar.  Next week we'll ride our scooters 350 miles up to the north rim, which is several hundred feet higher than the south, and be in prime position for the Wed/Thurs meteor shower.  No accomodations available at the rim, so we'll work out of Page for two nights.  Took the 'Wing out this morning for the first time in six weeks.  What have I been thinking?  It was great.

Then the week of the 23rd he and I'll fly to Coeur d'Alene for two days of golf at my favorite course anywhere - bent grass fairways and a floating green http://www.cdaresort.com/floatinggreen.asp - and stay at the groovy resort Kris and I really enjoyed.  Was slogging around on the net, trying to get this arranged and had muddled along to the point where I had L & me in a converted school house cum bed & breakfast.  K pointed out that this would likely mean L trying to 'spoon' with me, as most B&B's have only one bed per room.  Uh oh.  K took over the planning with timely and astonishing results.  Separate beds, tee times, rental car, everything's perfect except she's not coming.  Something about a gig in LA. 

the lesson of the moth

by Don Marquis, from The Best of Don Marquis. © Doubleday. Reprinted with permission.

the lesson of the moth

i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires

why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense

plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves

and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity

but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself

The Trouble With Women

Where to start.  K's concern that for her birthday I would again bestow upon her something that was rated in amperes rather than carats spurred her to present me with a jeweler's card replete with contact person, catalogue number, and the all-important weight in carats.  What this approach lacks sponteneity it more than makes up for as a time saver for the shopping impaired.

So I surreptitiously tradfat to the appointed shop, purchase said baubel (a fractional number that could only be a ring size had thoughtfully been written on the back of the business card) leave it to be sized, pick it up two days later, and secrete it in the garage.

Tonight comes said savvy shopper, all serious faced, with news she has something on her mind we need to talk about.  Has any man ever emerged from a "we need to talk" talk unscathed?

A picture of buddha-like serenity under even this close scrutiny, though my pulse was racing like a crack addict's, I lowered the tv volume, turned slowly, then sweetly said "Of course, beloved.  What up?"

"That ring I wanted?  Remember?"  Regaining my interior composure I slyly feign having forgotten, then suddenly remember "Oh!  Yeah!" 

"Do you still have that business card I gave you?"  The picture of concentration now.  "I'm sure it's around here someplace."  Face gets pouty.  Posture slouches.  The "I'm sooooo disappointed in you" look she's never had occasion to use before.  "Well, I just got my hands massaged and oiled at the spa today, and, Can I Get It?"

This is what I'm talking about.  That's supposed to be the logic that turns me around?

"Sure!" says I.  Silence.  A long one.  "Wasn't that the right answer?"  I'm innocent and a little hurt, my tone implies.  "Well, yes, but there were two right answers"  "Well at least I got one of them, huh?" milking it now.

Long story short, she gets the ring a week early, is happy as can be, and I get an extra dollpo of syrup on my ice cream tonight.

Things you don't see in the midwest

K decided to clean the garage in preparation for the Bug Assassain's visit.  Mice leapt out at her, chased her around the garage, snarling and gnashing their teeth, trying to jump up and take her by the jugular, the way I heard it.  She turned SnapDog loose on them.  He's useless.  She turned to me.  "I'll organize and put everything back," she said, "but you have to get the stuff out of the corners and edges."

Keeping a keen eye peeled for the fearsome creatures, and their accomplice ants, I ran across this little multicolored lizard about the size of my long finger who was so disoriented he wouldn't run, wouldn't be shooed, wanted to run under my shoes or whatever I was dragging out into the harsh sunlight.  I dropped a soft cloth over him, to gather him up and take him outside.  To my horror, as I turned the cloth over to close it up, his tail falls out, onto the garage floor, and shakes violently with its own life for almost four minutes. Heeeewwwwww!  Put the little guy out under a bush.  He didn't move much for a long time, but when I checked back an hour or so later, he was gone.  That would throw a guy's swagger off till you got used to it.

What Would Jesus Bomb?

Saw that bumpersticker on a wheezing Volvo in Prescott.

So, Martha goes to prison for five months, five more months under house arrest, and OJ plays golf four times a week in Florida.  America, America.

Slept badly; kept hearing this buzzing, annoying noise in my right ear, sounded like "You're going too slow!  Hurry up! Everybody's passing us!"  Probably just something I ate too late.

Yardwork Today!  Despite my best efforts, the lawn continues to grow, scraggly.  I have a vendetta out for the ants what bit my Bella's foots and ankles when she got out of the pool to pee, so as I'm tidying up with the Toro SuperSuck, I figured I'd see how many ants a SuperSuck could suck. 

Little bastards kept coming, like six legged lemmings plunging into the abyss of my Toro.  Heh heh heh, take that you little shits! 

Eeeeeek.  Must have been standing on one ant hill while vackummin another.  Doing the ant dance.  Once more, into the breech(es)!

Now, here's where it got interesting, if less picturesque.  Not that I would have done anything differently if I'd thought it through first (all together now, "yea, right") but I guess it's not that surprising that this four pounds of ants didn't lie, stunned, inert in the bottom of the bag.  Disappointing but not surprising.  This I learned as I emptied the bag into the trash barrel.  Talk about holding a grudge.  Professional bug assassain on tap for Wednesday.  I'm staying inside until then.  Just in case.

Travels With Lady Macbeth

Drove her to Prescott Wednesday.  Stayed at the Lynx Creek Farm  b&b for the fifth or sixth and last time.  Nice thundershower about 4:30 bestowed 6/10", per the Farm's owner.  She and I went into town for the compulsory casino visit, but both Buckyses were so smoky my eyes started stinging just standing there watching herself skulk the room, looking for Unicorn and some other nickel machine.

Back to our digs and a try at the hot tub, which I've always avoided before.  A few hot toddies and I'm ready for the plunge.  Axshully, I eased in at a glacial pace.  This was not a hot tub.  This was a scrotum scorcher.  Never again.  I've promised my boys.

Hiked and read on Thursday - Dan Brown's Angels & Demons, much better though basically the same book as DaVinci Code.  Now I must go to Rome and look at all the obeliskses.

Friday morning, up and off to the South Rim.  Rained intensely as we approached, the temp dropping to 61.  My date was dampish cold, took a five minute look over the edge and pronounced herself ready to return to the warmer climes.  The Quality Inn Suites suite we'd booked was scummy - crud on the windows, no view, lights didn't work, toi-toi didn't flush, and the bathtub dripped non-stop.  So we came home.

Notably, I drove the speed limit this entire 550 mile trip; didn't even plug the radar detector in.  Result: 19.3 mpg from the big red truck.  Truly amazing.  Managed to stay on limit despite repeated heckling from the passenger side.  Ungenerous references to "Gomers" and "Are we going backwards?" and hiding her face when she sees a car she thinks she recognizes.  Always has been a bad influence, likely always will be.

Passings

Learned in the past two days of the deaths of two not-real-close friends - friendly business associates, really.  One was the guy whose company rented and serviced my water softener.  He was a real earthy, solid American type guy with whom, for some reason, I really hit it off.  I would hang in the garage while he worked on our machine, and he didn't even charge me extra for helping.  His wife sent me a nice note saying he'd appreciated my business over the years, and offering to sell me the water softener for three months' rent.

The other was Annejee Combs who was my Safeway contact for many years.  She had Type 1 diabetes, had had a kidney transplant, and when I finally talked her into coming to Kris' center, really wasn't interested.  We'd heard that she continued to have trouble, left Safeway, and her obit says she died last Thursday at 52.

Yet another friend, Caralee, Ben's wife, has been diagnosed with a type of leukemia.  She's embarked on a combination of holistic and traditional treatments.

Toys

Bought the Sirius version of satellite radio, with the home kit, too.  Justified it because between here and Parker is about a hundred mile stretch with only Mexican stations, or, as Joe calls it, Circus Music.  So far am crazy about it, but the Big Red Bus hasn't found a spot for the antenna that is 100% accesible to the satellite.

Carry Me Back To Ol Virginee

Dropped into Balto Friday night.  Turned the Mapquest calculated mileage of 58 into 103.  Virginia has worse traffic signs than Mexico - or Warsaw.  Finally got to the Embassy Suite too late to hang with the Molzer.

Popped out of bed around tenish and the kid was already there.  She and her mother made quick work of dispatching me to the closest Metro station.  Only a half hour to the Smithsonian stop.  Spent a couple hours at the Air & Space, took in the entire Hirshorn and a fair amount of the Asian museum before having to catch my train back to meet my wimmens.  New American Indian Museum is architecturally interesting, slated to open this September.  Seems to be made of limestone blocks, maybe.

Spent Sunday assembling IKEA-ware.  Molz has a terrific apartment, much nicer than anything she's had before.  She and her mother spent like a bazillion dollars on weird orange and green tschochkes, none of which comes with actual assembly instructions, just stickman drawings.  It's almost midnight, hometime, so that's three, body time.  All for now.

To Be A Republican Today, You Must Believe That . .

A friend sent this today:

Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's
daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and
a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.

Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist, but
trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international
harmony.

The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest
national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but
multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind
without regulation.

Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary
Clinton.

The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in
speeches while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.

If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.

A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies,
then demand their cooperation and money.

Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing
health care to all Americans is socialism.

HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at
heart.

Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but
creationism should be taught in schools.

A president lying about an extramarital affair is a impeachable
offense.
A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is
solid defense policy.

Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution,
which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but
George Bush's driving record is none of our business.

Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a
conservative radio host. Then it's an illness, and you need our prayers
for your recovery.

You support states' rights, which means Attorney General John Ashcroft
can tell states what local voter initiatives they have the right to
adopt.

What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest,
but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.

School Days/Old Home Week

Time to get my 24 classroom hours to maintain my license, so I did what I allus do, forked over the money to Big Bucks Bill Gray, a not especially bright man who got incredibly lucky with his real estate school.

These biennial sessions are as close as I care to be to Abu Graib.  Harrassed by dolts wielding your professional future.  Most teachers are from the "I am wonderful and I can't wait to tell you all about it" method of instruction.  It can't be easy standing for three hours in front of fifteen people who can't wait for Mickey's big hand to get a move on.

Cool Bonus!  My old bud JoAnne, from when I was one of Ida's Girls, shared two classes with me.  Damn it was fun to see her.  She picked right up on insulting me as if she had just been waiting to bump into me some place.  She's as feisty and mischevious as ever.  Lucky she didn't get us booted.  Seeing her made me realize I hadn't had lunch with Kilometers for quite a while, so we exchanged e-mails, I thought.  Claims he didn't get my last confirmation which is why I got to drive down to Inverness, snark at Suzie, and read an entire Smithsonian magazine waiting for him to show.  Place was preternaturally quiet, eerie.  My memories are of an office with so much noise and hubub it was hard to get much work done.  The fact that most of that noise was coming from my office does not dissuade.

The Tripletts of Bellville

This is the sweetest, most exhilirating movie I've seen in ages.  I've fallen in love, and I don't even know the woman's name.  I absolutely offer anyone ten dollars if they can say they didn't laugh out loud when first a triplet goes "fishing."  What fun!

Fathers' Day

Brought the Blue Goliath along for golf with the boys.  Hit a bucket beforehand and every single drive went straight and far.  Almost every single drive.  I was so ready. 

Already given it away, haven't I?  Long story short: have renamed BG as Mr. Magoo.

Did win twoputt pots (front side and overall) and got paid by all for a birdie 2 that was the closest to a hole-in-one I've ever had.  That whining sniveler Larry talked me into giving him one stroke too many so I lost my bet with him.

Got home shortly after Clan Schwoopie had already dampened my doorstep.  In the pool was much hilarity and repeatedly one particularly piercing high-pitched scream which lacked much as a smidgeon of anything but pure joy.  Was given a marvelous mouse pad with the grandkids' beaming countenances.  Pretty damn fine day all around.  Lucky, lucky guy.

Minor Miscreant Or Bad Seed?

Brrrrrrinnnnnnnnnnng

"Dad!  You won't guess what!"

"Don't tell me that fool ambulance driver parked within a hundred yards of the . ......."

"Almost.  Gabe was in the principal's office again today.  He and (name excised) were throwing rocks over the fence again."

Said miscreant and aggrieved mother arrive.  I sit the kid down and affix my most baleful stare - my way of initiating a man-to-man.  He's uncomfortable, but unrepentant.  I talk of personal responsibility and sanctions.  Of owning up to wrongdoing and learning from mistakes.  Then his mother comes back into the room, stands over my shoulder.  He removes his attention from me and starts doing the eyebrow thing to his mother.  She holds out for about, oh, maybe a minute, probably less, then snorts, giggles and says "You are sooooo cute!  You crack me up!!" 

Kid gives me the "Who do you think won this round, old man?" look.  Oh, I know, I know.

 

Little Capone

Shawnee arrives to pick up the kids from Montessori, is greeted by Bella with the news that "Mommy!!  Gabie's in Big Trouble!!"  Finds grandson-of-mine being interrogated by the Poelees. 

Seems he and a couple buds had a game of Who Can Make The Biggest Noise Banging Rocks Off Yonder Ambulance.  Suspect but not certain that my little man scored the winning toss which took out a window of said emergency vehicle, whose driver called the cops.

Kid is a prodigy.  Think his granddad was already nine before he got taken downtown.  Pretty sure that was the first time.

Freud Be Damned

Daughter Dearest:  Dad, I had the most horrible dream about you last night.

Me:  Tell me.

DD:  You were on a homicidal rampage and killed Mom!  Cut off her head!

Me:  Oh dear.

DD:  And then you came after me!!!

Me:  In my dream, you're first.

DD:  Awww, that's so sweet!

Monday Golf

Words don't often fail me, but describing my Dobson performance Monday morning is daunting.  For lack of a better word, I was magnificent.

Par on the first hole, bogey, double bogey, par - any way, one birdie and a 90 for the round.  Beat Larry by 17 strokes, not that I'm counting.  Not that I'll remind him. 

Memorial Day Weekend

Pat Tillman goes from hero to victim.  Bush has Saddam's pistol as a souvenir.  John Ashcroft and Tom Ridge are in a turf war.  Reminds of Donovan's version of "And The War Drags On."

Clan Schwoopie over yesterday for a Dunk 'n Dine.  The adult wimmens wouldn't dain to wetten, but Bella was, as always, a gamer.  Because Gabe jumped in from the side, ear plugs and all, Bella had to, too.  Comes up sputtering and blowing, eyes wide, says, "I did it!!" and flashes a grin and a big (relatively) thumbs up for the cameras.  I lobster over to where she's bobbing and she confides, sotto voce "Grampa, I scared."  What a brave little toaster.

Gabe made good and repeated use of the inflatable slide until I plucked him up and flang him mostly up to the top of the slide where he bounced twice and skidded down, kersploosh.  Ensued what must have been hours of One More Time. 

Postponed the rotator cuff healing process by about a year, I think, judging by the way it felt during Shrek 2 today.  Sat with Gabe on my left and Bella alternating twixt Nanna's lap on my right and mine.  Great movie, great fun, great holiday.  Tomorrow I'll kick Larry's ass around Dobson for the trifecta.

Mobile Log

aka Moblog - folowing Molly's lead, I'll be adding some snaps to this site from time to time.      http://lylemob.textamerica.com/

Adieu MollzerDollzer

K & I spent Molly's last day as an Arizona resident with her and Brian in La Casa Viejo.  K was very brave, only reddening up and overhumidifying a couple times.  Me, I'm a man.  It's only my little girl abandoning me to the clutches of her evil sister and her sister's mother.

K & B cleaned M's apartment while M & I did what we do best.  Movers came, packed, loaded, left.  We went to lunch at Olive Gardens, took back the extra packing boxes. 

Immediately liked Brian alot.  The perfect foil for Molly.  Real smart, quick, gives as good as he gets but always pulls the punch.  Tried to help him into buying a new car, but he's obviously been hustled before and learned his lesson.

This morning, Molly had some challenges getting past airport security with her one-way ticket into Dulles on Memorial Day weekend, but she's airborne now.  We already have our tix to visit over the fourth.  Realize I don't want things changing anymore.  Just everything stop, right now.  It's perfect.  Since I'm putting the kabosh on all things temporal, maybe I'll just back it up to the day before Molly accepted the position in Virginia.

A Glimpse Into My Future?

I hadn't won a putt pot in ages.  Figured it had to be the putter (not the puttor). 

Monday night I burrowed into the dark, roach-infested corners of my garage, digging out putters from daze of yore.  Hefted a couple, swang 'em, tried them against the one I've been using - father-in-law's last putter with a faux diamond on the toe - and decided to stick with the current one.

Tuesday morning I'm on the green of the first hole at Dobson, and I panic, then start pawing through the clubs in my bag with both hands.  "Oh Man!" I cry out to my buds, "I think I left my putter in my gar - - -" and then I notice I have it tucked under my arm.  Many whoops and much hilarity ensue. 

Thankfully, these are thoughtful, sensitive, considerate, non-abusive fellows who will doubtless never bring the incident up again.

GFI

Ahhh the springtime ritual.  Trim back all the pointy, sticker-laden things around the pool, vackum up everything the trees have shed on the cool deck.

The good news is: everything worked the way it was supposed to.  The bad news: because of my lifelong philosophy of Ready, Fire!!, Aim, it took about twice as long as necessary and involved some extra steps.

After collecting all the effluvia in a nice pile, I picked up my Toro Extra Suck and shoved its snout into the pile.  FaWOOOP as most of the pile was expelled out into the middle of the pool through the unzipped-up bag.  Sigh.  You'd a thunk I'd a remembered from last year.  Some of the stuff made it all the way to the other side of the pool, so I drag the TES around to - SNAP  POP.  Oh yeah, don't drag the old, chewed up extension cord through the water.

My brother and some other similarly misguided folk actually look forward to their yard work.  I'll bet their tasks rarely end up being as interesting, even exciting, as my forays into the nether world of suburbia.

Ain't Gwine Follow De Debil No Mo'

One of my best friends opposes downloading (he calls it "stealing") music without paying for it so much that he won't accept, nor listen to CDs I burn from my ill got goods.  This guy is not a prig at all, in fact,  he's one of maybe four non-family members I'd give my wallet (ok, my rubber band bundle) without counting it.  My way of saying I believe in this guy's opinion, for the most part.  So I've been thinking hard about this - hard for me, anyway.  To the point I thought I could smell grease burning.  So I stopped.  Abruptly.

I was an early subscriber to MusicMatch, and, happily for me, at least in this instance, paid for lifetime upgrades.  I really like their player, their on-line radio is excellent when RadioParadise gets on a Grateful Dead kick or something, and now they have ninety-nine cent downloads.  They don't have everything I want, of course (Incendio's Black Opal, Eels Birds), but I've cleaned out both Kazaas, BearShare, Grokster, etc. and am now pure as the driven snow. 

Am I going to delete the +/- 450 tunes I stole? 

Let's change that to "pure as the driven slush".

Pasture Emeritus

My Dad phoned to say he's being feted by Sunset Hills church June 6, naming him Pastor Emeritus.  Certainly the call was to get me to come (it was the first time he has phoned me in the better part of a year (not that I phone him that often)). (The rare double elipsis.  Don't often get a chance to use that.) 

My immediate instinct was to get my plane reservations, show up dutifully, nod and smile for a couple hours at well-meaning congregants, toss a few back con mi hermano y su esposa, wait while the hours drag by until my flight back.

So what means this?  Emeritus, an adjective: 1 : holding after retirement an honorary title corresponding to that held last during active service. 

That's been a given for about a quarter century.  The church has been limping along with declining attendance for years.  They finally dumped the most recent pulpit-doofus and are now operating under the aegis of a temp.  This 'ceremony' is doubtless an attempt to boost the Nielsens and was probably instigated by Floretta, who I suspect is about single-handedly supporting the financial obligations of the church, and thus dictating its direction.

Cheapest tix available at this late date would cost me about half a g note.  Can think of no compelling reason to go, not one. 

Re-reading this, I wonder why I sound angry?  "Paging Doctor Freud; patient waiting in the lobby."

Virginia Visit

K signed us up to fly into Baltimore to spend the 4th of July weekend with MolzerDolzer.  Sounds like she has a really neat apartment with a great view and amenities.  Apparently, the complex has furnished apartments available on a nightly basis so we'll be right on site.  DC always puts on a terrific fireworks show - last we were there was during the Desert Storm Massacre celebration under Bush I.  Enormous parade and more than an hour of non-stop fireworks.

Owning Mahowny

This is Philip Seymour Hoffman in monochrome.  No emotional range, no nothing.  Minnie Driver phones in her most insipid performance yet, which is saying something.  Director  Kwietniowski resorts to hackneyed plot devices and choppy scene selections.  "So" asks the Gentle Reader, "Did you like it or not?"

Old Nemesis

Have despised Sears since my company used to clean several of their stores, in the 80's.  Their managers were the meanest, nastiest, least honorable people we had to deal with in The Dirt Bidness, almost as if they had a special finishing school where managers-to-be were taught to abuse, belittle and take advantage of their contractors.  (I understand the people who ran that school now work for our intelligence agency in Iraq.)

Regardless, when the casino moved out of Moovalya Plaza I had this gaping hole in the rent roll.  In a town of 3500, who is going to rent a space of more than 20,000 feet?  Along comes a Sears franchisee.  Blah, blah, blah and I cut out a prime space for him of 8000 sf on a percentage rent basis based on his predictions of how much business the store will do (dumb, dumb, dumb).  End result: effective rent/sf is half of the second-lowest rate in the entire center; most obstreperous tenant, least professional staff, won't clean up their trash out back etc.etc.

Now comes said Sears schmutz, axing for an extension at the same terms.  Heh, heh, heh.

As Tony Soprano so eloquently put it, "Revenge is like a plate of cold cuts."

Arizona Science Center

Picked G up from Montessori.  We ran a couple errands, lunched at Mickeys, and tradfatted down to the Arizona Science Center.  Love a place with signs all around that say, "Please Touch."

Three hours later we were ready for our ice cream so we headed home.  Am tutoring the boy in Taunting & Baiting.  "You're a mound of monkey meat!"  "Oh, yeah!?  Well, you- you're- you're a poopy diaper!!"  "Oh Yeah!?  Well YOU"RE a pooperoni pizza!!"  " Oh Yeah!?!!"  oh yeah.  Next week it's on to spitting on the sidewalk.

. . . . Sweeter Than Whine

K suprised me with an early morning blood glucose check and has now pronounced me "pre-diabetic."  Already am set up for heart disease - high cholesterol and triglycerides, family history - so this is another asterisk for the loss column. 

Have been instructed to test my blood in the morning "fasting" and again an hour after a big meal.  A lot less problem finding the right time for that second one.  Bled all over my good shorts.  The joys of being a man in his fifties. Bleck. 

If I didn't have Larry's ass to kick around the golf course, dark chocolate, my grandbabies, rocky road ice cream, Radio Paradise, hey, wait a minute - maybe this isn't too bad yet after all.

Gettin'My YaYas Out Again

It's been so frustrating to have my computers audio output jack not.  Almost a month I've been without my mp3s and even worse, without my beloved Radio Paradise.  Finally today, pulled my courage up and took the 'chine into Best Buy.  The main tech fix-it guy there is the prototype computer tech; six three, overweight, splay footed, thick glasses, haircut needing, and for me, a savior.  Twenty minutes after dropping it off I get a call that it's ready.  "Just pulled the bejimminyator out, put it back in and there ya goes!"

Walt's World

Five days together at Disneyland, and we're still talking to each other.  Pay up, Molzer.  Got stiffed on the rooms in a hotel being converted to a La Quinta.  DiGiorgios moved into, I think, three different rooms and never did get one with a working a/c.  Molly's room had a relentless drip from the a/c return above the door, so you stepped into a puddle and got dripped on when you went to visit her, and we all went to visit her.  Rinnnnnnnnnnnng   Rinnnnnnnnnnnng "Grampa, will you walk me down to Tia's room?"

The big new ride at Disney's California Adventure, The Hollywood Tower of Terror, was having a 'sneak preview'.  Molly and I rode it twice.  She thought it was real good, I yawned.  Splash Mountain is scarier, and the roller coaster is the best ride by far.

Understood what it would be like to be 45 pounds heavier, carrying Gabe around on my shoulders.  K did an amazing job lining everything up, from airplane to rental car to rooms to passes.  Kudos, darlin'.

Only sadness was the news that Molly has accepted a new position with AOL requiring her to move to Virginia.  That's a tough one.

He's Baaack

Thanks to unanimous, if tepid, response, will continue.

NYC Auto Show

Sunday morning we walked over to the Jacob Javits Center for the annual car show.  Two vast levels filled with every fancy glitzed up streamlined flashy body style imaginable - and some pretty neat cars, too.  Pleased to see an S2000 right beside the Lamborghini, Saleen and Astin Martin.  Bentleys, Rolls's's's's, Maybachs, Phaetons, "Wowzer!" K repeated over and over.

Honda displayed a new style Element with a 200 hp engine, 20" wheels, updated body panels and interior.  If it's available timely, will likely be the next addtion to the Thistle Landing Stable.

Walked back toward the Bada Bedford, noticed  lunch being served outdoors at the Bryant Park Grille, a beautiful little bistro in the eponymous park on the west side of the NYC Library.  They had a $25 lunch special - cheap by local standards - that we enjoyed over a glass of wine.  Then we walked back to the hotel to finish the Times, watch a little baseball, and soothe our aching foots.  Dinner this night at a terrific Asian restaurant with a copy of Zagat's in the window proclaiming it to be "NYC's Best."  We heartily concurred.

Day Three

K done with her presentations; very positively received, likely to result in more invitations, trips to East Coast.  We took subway to Coney Island - gorgeous day.  Walked the Boardwalk, rode the Cyclone - rickety, very old wood roller coaster; still a good ride.  Bought a Nathan's dog and some suds and ate and drank next to the Shoot The Freak arcade, where you buy paintballs and use this AK-47 looking pneumatic gun to shoot at a poor bastard in a helmet and body armor who is dancing around piles of junk about 30 paces away.  "You shoot him, he doesn't shoot back.  It's Coney Island's favorite sport!!" the barker intones through his p.a.  Had the targets been small yipping dogs I might have sighted one in.

Rode north all the way to 81st & Central Park West, and as we're climbing out of the station, K says,"Look!! It's the clown guy from the movie!!!"  It was, in fact either David, Seth or Jesse, from the documentary "Capturing The Friedmans" which we had watched just the week before.  I approached him and said, "Mr. Friedman?"  He gave that cautious look, glanced down and said Yes, it was him.  We chatted for a few minutes, I told him we had been touched by his bravery and wished him well.  Not ten minutes later, as we were about to enter the park, I got the familiar elbow in the ribs and K says, "Dan Akroyd is standing right behind you."  He looked so pasty and overweight I didn't think it was him, but others on the sidewalk started pointing him out, too, and he quickly sidled north and ducked into a florist.

Day Two In Gotham

Ridng on the MTA:  Got K's coffee, tucked her into a cab, walked up to Grand Central (everything in NYC is up-, mid-, down-, east or west; no north no south) and jumped into the first train that pulled into the station.  See, I had a 50-50 chance that it would take me north.  As reported separately, I soon found that it took only two consecutive wrong transfers to end up visiting distant, strange lands peopled with colorful, exotic persons speaking in strange tongues.  This visit was accompanied by strange smells, two instances of abject terror and one straightforward but unappealing proposition.

Later that same day, recounting my harrowing experience, it was brought to my attention that even a cursory glance at the subway map might have precluded the Stage Nine Pucker Factor.  Monday morning quarterback.

New York, New York

It's a wonderful town.  Flight scheduled for four-and-a-half hours ended up taking nine due to donder and blitzen in New Joisey.  We were re-routed to Syracuse where we parked on the tarmac with no drink cart and seemingly no air conditioning for a couple hours.  Newark airport Cabbie stiffed us for an extra ten bucks - usual Welcome Wagon For Bumpkins, I guess.  K didn't like the Bada Bedford Hotel.  Kinda old, kinda dingy, but whaddyawant for two hunnert bucks a night?  Was really in a great location, East 40th St twixt Lexington and Park Aves, a mere block from Grand Central.

We went around the corner to Scottie's 24 Hour Deli for a late bite, as the stews had hidden the snack tray with the drink cart, and that didn't improve K's mood at all.  Can't recommend Rude Scottie's.  Late to bed, NY time, and she's up at 5:30 prepping for an all day and half of the night seminar.  I trundle off for her Starbucks and my Times.  It gets better.

Life's Persistent Questions

So, if JS Bach loved his work so much, why would he entitle a piece, "I'm Inclined To Knock Music"?

Texas Governor Race

Kinky Friedman, raconteur, bon vivant, author and band leader (remember Kinky Friedman & The Texas Jewboys?) is a semi-viable candidate for Governor of the grate state of Texas. His campaign bumper sticker says "Kinky Friedman for Governor, How Hard Could It Be?"  Gotta love it.

Emergency Room

It doesn’t take much blood at all to send a four year-old’s mother and grandmother into paroxysms.  Everything seemed to be going so well.  Gabe was home, otologically enhanced and adenoidally free, playing video games with Tia.  Something happened.  Accounts vary, but what ensued was profuse bleeding from Little Big Man’s nose and mouth.  Mother and Grandmother were unable to stanch the flow (imagine the scene and the decibel level).  A call to the offending surgeon’s office produced a trip to the emergency room, during which trip LBM began convulsing, flailing, kicking his mother in the throat.

 

It doesn’t take much in the way of a report of blood and convulsions coupled with a tearful request for an ad hoc ER meeting to rouse a grampa to frenzy.  I jumped into the roadster, utilized all of its capabilities in most of its gears and arrived at the hospital, let’s say, post haste.  LBM so brave, wouldn’t complain, still saying he was ok to any green frocked questioner.  A glance at aforementioned mother/grandmother team dissuades.  (How many times do they have to stick needles into different places on the boy?  Look lady, he whimpers, you die!) Off to his second surgery of the day.  45 minutes later, he’s back, sleeping fitfully.  Two hours later, he’s home.  Slept all night, tired, sore, but not leaking blood from anywhere today.  Updates as they become available.

"Grampa! I can hear!!

The boy had surgery this morning to put tubes in his ears and scrape out his adenoids, like his father and tia before him.  Concern is always warranted when general anesthetic is involved, even for a Burly Boy, but while walking to the bank I got the phone call.  "I didn't cry or kick or anything!" 

Aforementioned is now perched in front of the video game console, reveling in even more attention than usual.  My little guy.

Sunday in the Saddle

Immediately following a vigorous and wide ranging, yet succinct discussion with K, I jumped on the scooter and rode to Christopher Creek for brunch.  The Creekside still offers the Mad Jack from the same menus as were extant lo those many years ago when we had a trailer there. The rain was cold, I'm talking very cold, but the mesquite smelled so good and the snow pack on the rim was beautiful.  The new highway misses CCreek by about a mile, so the hamlet is again as quiet and unruffled as almost twenty years ago.  Prolly even more so as there won't be any more Jake Braking through town from those big riggers who haven't yet mastered the intricacies of gravity. 

Doubled back down through Payson and Rye, and turned east onto the 188.  Rode through more rain past Roosevelt Lake - what was cold and unpleasant for me was rejuvenating for the lake - and down to Globe.  What a gorgeous ride.  If I could only find one thing I don't like about the 'Wing I could prolly talk myself into a new one, but it seems to run better by the mile. 

Back to the Valley, where I finally warmed up coming down through Gonzalez pass.  Made it home literally seconds before thunder and more rain.

Bush / Cheney

George II has agreed to appear before the Sept 11 Commission only if "to save time" he can bring his life sized Vice President to help jog his memory. 

Some fun (cribbed) quips heard so far:  "Never has a public appearance been so carefully crafted to elicit a Saturday Night Live sketch;"  "I'm waiting to see if Cheney ever takes a drink of water when Bush is talking;"  "Do you think they'll use two chairs?"

Golfing with my Homeys

Golfed w/K's brother, who doesn't do arithmetic, Kid Krakow and Ron. KK became frustrated with Kb's inability to award himself a score greater than five on any hole, though he had that many before he got greenside on most.  When KK gets frustrated, he hits his drives with his putter.  And he hits them about 220 yards.  Ron just turned 69, and he was pounding them out there, too.  Hate to be out-driven by a guy using a putter and by a guy 15 years older than I. 

Barging Into A Party

Finally got the Molzer Dolzer out to Canyon Lake, along with Roger, Sylvia and clan DiGiorgio.  Bella drove, Gabe drove, then when Molly took over at the helm, it was the Exxon Valdez revisited.  Ok, j/k.  When Bella was at the wheel, she didn't want my hands anywhere near the controls, and would sweep my meandering mitts away with an imperious gesture of disdain. 

As retribution for some unremembered transgression, Molly gave Snoot Flutes aka Nose Whistles to her windy sister and the Gabe.  Like it's not noisy enough around those two. 

We beached the barge for an hour or two, the kids played on the beach, Joe and Kris cooked the brats, the two grandmothers in attendance hovered, clucking over the children playing on the beach, admonishing them not to throw sand, not to go in farther, not to sit down in the water, not to run, not to go over that direction, etc. etc. I keep murmuring in Gabe's ear, "You're not the boss of me; you're not the boss of me."  Instead of using it as I hoped, on his grandmother, he turned triumphantly to his mother and shouted it out.  Shawnee's icy stare and pursed lips made it clear who is the boss of me.

The Old Gang

Miles invited me to Inverness's annual St Patrick's Day lunch blow out.  Rumor had it there was partial nudity at last year's gala, so I trundled on down.  Nobody was hitting it hard, at all, and it was neat to tease my old cell mates and see that everyone is still vigorous and enthusiastic.  Weirdest thing though.  Nobody - not one person was smoking.  None of the other exiles were there, so I felt special.  Ida looks real good and is growing hair.  Everybody was sweet to me, save Dinah, of course.  JoAnn looks terrific and is going to join me in grandparenthood, with a boy.  Hard to believe it's been seven years.

Possible Loss Of Privileges

Gabe awoke in great pain from an earache early into last night.  He's such a tough little bugger that it must have been excruciating.  God I hate that.  Fear it might have resulted from the ice breaking swim earlier in the day, or something.  Gabe's mother trying not to point the Fickle Finger of Accusation, but she had to stay up all night with the little man.  This morning, looking through the otoscope, the aforementioned mother spied blood in G's ear canal.  Hope his ear drum is ok, but fearful.

Surf's Up!

Gabe wanted to go swimming.  In the past I've handled this by letting him take off his clothes and climb down to the second step, at which time we come into agreement to wait a while.  Yesterday was different.  He still wanted to swim, so I suited him up in his new buoyant suit and the little polar bear went right in.  Once Bella caught wind of what was happening outside, she came a runnin' too.  Two little twerps splashed and played for about twenty minutes before turning a lovely shade of sky blue.

Dressed the Gabester and took him to Fiddlesticks to drive the bumper boats and the Rookie go-carts, the only two events he's tall enough for.  He was the best driver on the track - the other kids couldn't catch him.  So's to make it more interesting, he slowed down, waited for the other (older) kids to catch up, then ran them into the rail.  My little Guy.  Track attendant pulled him over, 'splained the rules to him, to which G responded with his 90 megawatt smile.  T A waves him back into the traffic flow, and G T-Bones the first kid he comes across.  They'll forget what we look like and let us back in, oh, maybe a week or two.

The Noble Red Man

So the Tribes decided to be their own developer for the new shopping center.  In retrospect, our bid was perceived as a grab for turf.  Wrote a gentle letter to Tribal Council assuring them that we'd be available to help in any way, etc etc.  Wondering how eager the Big Box Boys will be to jump on board a project being developed by committee consensus.

Passion Or Obsession?

Just checked my stats for the on-line Freecell site:

Total Hours Played: 574.87

Best Streak: 118

Total Plays: 8353

Total Wins: 7891

Winning Percentage: 94.47%

I guess that last one could be considered a good thing.

K9 Youth In Asia

Neighbors acorss the street have two small dogs yipping almost non-stop.  Neighbor with adjoining lot (which lot has been diabolically designed to funnel all yippy sounds directly to my office window) had three miniature dachshunds, now accoustically augmented with puppies.  Composed amendment to homeowners association CC&Rs requiring all small dogs to be put down. Adjoining neighbors had marital spat, husband moved to apartment.  Yippy mini tubesteak he took with him was caused so many complaints from other lessees he had its bark surgically removed.  Moved back to 'hood and 'chsund now just sounds ashtmatic.  Have decided this interim solution to noise problem will be acceptable if applied timely and comprehensively.

Pancreatitus

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft was hospitalized with a pancreas infection, a terribly painful condition often leading to diabetes.  Bill Maher tonight opined that Mr. Ashcroft may have incurred the infection while "wiping his ass with the United States Constitution."

The Dirt Bidness

My neighbor and close friend has accepted a (top) job with a national cleaning contractor.  I hired him circa 1985 and we developed and nurtured a close relationship which has gotten even better since he moved in next door.  My 10 years in the dirt bidness ran the gamut between unpleasant and intolerable.  I hope and believe that at his lofty level in the company he will be free of those stresses and tensions.  Plus, the extra cake he's been promised - mucho extra cake - will pay for the aspirin, if it's needed.  Happily, he won't have to move, as his new employers have expanded the existing territory to include Phoenix.  Best of luck, G!

Mistress & Commandeerer

Took Team Schwoopie, Bro & Beloved and the Blonde to the party barge.  Fired right up, gassed up, put oil in it and headed east for our Three Hour Tour.  The grandkids and relatives coexisted wunnafully.  Boat motor wouldn't re-start after being turned off midway twixt the dams.  After Joe, Kent & I all got soggy up to our, well, up past our knees in the cole cole wattah, we got it going again.  Shaweenie has a real knack as a boat pilot.  Claims she always thought she was Ginger, but turns out she's just as suited to be Skipper.

Long Lost Cousin

Met Cousin J, the only confirmed millionaire in the fam, along with his beloved, my baby brother, his beloved, my beloved at the Roaring Fork in Snottsdale.  The food was truly excellent, no question, but the tab came in at $260 with very little alcohol at all.  Cousin J and his B arrove in a three-day-old black Vette.  Very nice indeed.  They just returned from Puget sound where they laid concrete under water over a superfund site.  Sort of sweeping the dust under the rug it seems, but the Feds don't want to chance roiling that stuff up into the Sound.

Beverly Hillbillies Redux

So I send the stuff Max (we're on a first name basis now) Baer asked for.  Some pictures, a nice letter.  Now the guy won't leave me alone.  Yesterday he called to thank me and to ask for more pictures.  Today he's left two voice messages with instructions to e-mail the stuff to his lawyer, because in his palatial manse he ain't got no 'puters there'n.  Thank goodness for caller i.d.

Can Any Good Come Out Of Florence?

Driving K to her floor show in Globe last night, I was reminded that Ernie keeps talking about this weird radio station in Florence that has no advertisements, no news, no nothing but non-stop music except for the twice hourly identification "KCDX, Florence."  Called him to find where it is: 103.1.  Just as he said.  Who pays for this?  What's in it for them?  From the mix, it's clearly people who grew up in the 60's.  Must investigate.

Just Trying To Conserve Resources

Her:  "I really appreciate you helping with the laundry, but you're GOT to STOP washing the towels with the underwear!  It's gross!"

Me:  "But it seems to get the underwear so much cleaner!"

Her:  "SHRIEK!!!!"

Sunday With The Boys

Cloudy & overcast but we teed off on schedule at 9:15.  Spat upon us a few times, but didn't really start to come down until we were marching west on the 18th fairway.  I was the only one with an umbrella ("Hey! get a load of the cutie with the parasol!"  Why I continue to play with these guys, I don't know.)  Only one triple bogey all day, a couple doubles, a few pars, and a 91 for the round.  At least I kicked Larry's ass, once again, but that's old news.

Met Larry & 2 of his buds for the Lakers game.  Suns played well in the first half, going in ahead by one.  They struggled in the third and crumped in the last quarter.  Kobe had 40, Amare 25, I think.  All those young men on the court are very big guys, but Shaq is so much bigger than any of them it's amazing.

Musea

Picked up the Gabe before 10, and headed off to meet Sue at the Southwest Museum in Mesa.  She is some kind of female.  About 14 feet tall at the hip, and weighs in at about 4.5 tons.  Or would have if she were fully dressed.  There's some question whether this particular TRex is, in fact, a female, as it has a bone in its tail previously thought to be particular to males.  Due to their prevalence in today's dinosaur culture, most people don't realize that only about a dozen specimens of TRex have ever been found.  Sue is the largest and most complete set of bones, at more than 90%.  Nobody yet knows what those ridiculous tiny arms are about.

"Grampa!! Now let's go to your museum!"  Off we trundle to the Az Science Center for three more hours.  What great fun to (again) have a little buddy to take places.  Sure doesn't seem that long ago I dragged the Fabulous Swenson Sisters to places they were sure would be Boring & Gross.  Yeah, maybe some of them were.

Beverly Hillbillies

Ahhhh, Life's amazing coinkydinks.

I'd offered to make the dinner reservation for Friday with John & Lynn & Kent & Lorie at the Roaring Fork, but neither neither KristiSue nor I could find the number.  I e-mailed Lynn saying that this fancy restaurant's phone wasn't listed "down here in Clampettville," and would she please make the call.

This morning I get a phone call from a guy with a deep, husky voice I always associate with a heavy smoker.  He asks if this is me, I say yes, he says, "This is Max Baer.  I used to be Jethro on the Beverly Hillbillies."  I'm thinking, This automated dialing is getting really sophisticated if it can confirm my name before starting the recording.  He says, "I'm calling from Las Vegas and wanted to ask you a few questions."  Wondering how low this guy has fallen, shilling for some casino now, I start into my "awfully busy right now but with the Blonde's proclivities will be visiting there soon I'm sure" speech.  He laughs, says he really does want some information. 

Anyway - turns out he's trying to put a casino into a shopping center in California and wants info on how casinos in shopping centers work out.  45 minutes later, I've listened through his standard list of amusing anecdotes, famous friends ("I went to Bush's inauguration as JD Hayworth's guest.") and have a list of things to make copies of for my new best friend, who has confided his several phone numbers and even his personal FedEx number.  The air is really thin up here. www.jethroscasino.com