Road Trip!

The missus and I decided to air out her new ride yesterday.  We set out for Christopher Creek where we used to have a trailer, 110 miles in distance and a mile in elevation away.  Came home the long way, along Roosevelt, through Globe.  Always a fun, twisty turny drive, this time was great.  The 306 ponies under the hood had to demonstrate to two or three miscreants who really was King of the Road.  Didn't get to the advertised top end of 142, but came close - smoooooth as buttah, eerie quiet, eager to accelerate.  Even driven enthusiastically, occasionally quite so, we got a bit more than 26 mpg. 

Devilcat Follow-up

Call it karma, kismet or the universe's way of squaring the books, but the devilcat got hisself runned over last week. 

Entertaining The Livestock

My office has a sliding glass door out onto an 18 x 24 deck that looks out over the preserve.  A sylvan serene setting on most days.  Today, not so much.

Our two cats are housebound.  Said preserve and its coyotes have swallowed up so many of our pets over the years that we don't let these guys out; the only reason they're still here.  Other cats in the 'hood thus have free reign to not only stroll unconcernedly through our yard, but to approach the windows, neener neenering our cats who go freaking nuts, careening headlong into the windows and sliders and yowling like Bob Dylan being disemboweled.

Today, the most dispicable cat in the world, at least in my cats' view, sauntered up the steps to my deck and stretched out there in the sun, langorously rolling back and forth just a couple feet from the enraged Mr SnapDog, our enormous orange cat.  Snapper yowls to me "Can't you see what this guy is doing to us? Can't you do something?"  It's a beautiful day, I open the slider, the devilcat slinks, stupidly, to the far edge of the deck. 

Hah!  Got your fuzzbucket ass cornered!  Catlike myself, I skulk toward him, he's panicing, casting back and forth for a way past me to the stairs.  No way.  I close the gap between us, cutting him off, closer, closer yet, crouching tiger hidden water buffalo.

That little black sumbitch was quick!  Shot past me in a flash.  I lunged to cut him off, reeling backward.  That's when I encroached on the table which altered my trajectory minimally, but just enough to upset the delicate balance of one so nimble footed as myself.  Flailing now, like a man beset by an angry hive of wasps, I struggled against the raging gravity storm threatening to evertake me. 

That's when I met the chair, which offered no resistance at all, meekly overturning in my path and throwing a leg up to catch me in the thigh.  That really hurt, so now I'm hopping, on my bad leg, still hoping against hope that I'll somehow remain upright, or nearly so. 

Sadly, it was not to be.  On what turned out to be my last hop, my foot caught the edge of the indoor/outdoor carpet, and that was the last straw.  Like the defensive line of the Bears I rammed helmetless into the wood railing, which shuddered, swayed, creaked and made a horrifying lean, as if to drop me the fifteen feet to the ground, but it held.  Damaged but not completely undone, I looked over to see the devilcat meander down the stairs, pausing once to look back at me, as if wanting to confirm a couple details of the stories he'll be telling the other neighborhood cats.

Limping, battered, beaten, I dragged myself back across the threshold into my office, only to espy the disgusted SnapDog slinking out of the room.  Ungrateful wretch.

Birthday Greetings

It's the birthday of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (listed in Omaha's Union Pacific Museum as Longhorne), in Florida, Missouri (1835), who wrote Life on the Mississippi (1883), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and his own favorite, The Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (1891). He was cynical and irreverent, but he had a tender spot for cats. There were always kittens in the house, and he gave them names like "Sin" and "Sour Mash." "Mamma has morals," said his daughter Suzy, "and Papa has cats." He swore constantly and without shame. His streams of profanity broke his wife's heart on a daily basis. One day he cut himself shaving, and she heard a string of oaths from the bathroom. She resolved to move him to repentance, and she repeated back to him all the bad words he had just said. He smiled at her and shook his head. "You have the words, Livy," he said, "but you'll never learn the tune." After he published The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he found himself awash in cash, which he invested in a typesetting machine that was very complicated and very ingenious and demanded more and more investment and in the end would not work. He had to declare bankruptcy, and he decided to go on a worldwide lecture tour, the proceeds of which he would use to pay back all of his creditors. His visits to Africa and Asia convinced him that a God who allowed Christians to believe that they were better than savages was a God he wanted no part of. He was a funny man and is remembered for his humorous sayings. He said, "It is better to keep you mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt." He also said, "Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life."

Gobbleobbleobble

It's been a great week.

Molzer Dolzer came back from the dark side Tuesday night, was picked up from the airport by her sister.  Their mother was in Vancouver, so acting in her stead I demanded that SB apprise me when "the package" was in hand.

Somewhat later in the evening than expected, came the call.  "I got her.  She's here." 

Hmmmm - something wrong? I axed of the normally loquacious one.  "Nothing wrong.  Everything's fine.  Gotta go."  Only trifecta of two-word sentences ever from that one.  And even more suspicious, Molzer didn't get on the phone.  SB disturbingly sotto voce.  Those two are up to something.  My long dormant parenting antennae shot up.

Sho nuff.  The reason SB was using her "I did too go to school today" voice and sentence structure was that the two little knuckleheads went out and got tattoos.  A star on each ankle for Shaween, on one ankle for MDolzer.

Not swastikas on their necks or anything, but still. (The son-in-law, awakened from his well earned slumber to view the carnage, says to his wifey, "Now you'll always look like you're wearing Converse.")

And the best part - when their mother calls the next morning, finally, and I express my shock, my outrage at the perfidity of the fruit of her loins, there's this pause, and then in a level voice she says, "How would you feel if I got a tattoo, too?" 

sigh

Thursday, rather than the twenty to thirty peeps we're accustomed to having over, we had just the kids and grandkids. Played bocce ball and tag and threw the football until I roughhoused too much with the Gabe and whacked his head on the ground and his mother got into my face and I felt bad and that evening we all went to Zoo Lights, for which I broke out my annual holiday channeling of Boo Radley.

Friday the wimmens went out for the 4 a.m. kick-off, from which they returned heavy laden.  Joe and the grandkids came over for some marathon Mario Party Seven, and I think we all had one of the best thanksgiving weekends ever.

Terra Incognita

I remember where I was and with whom the first time I heard Sgt Peppers.  I remember how cold it was in my basement dorm room at Sioux Falls College the first time I heard Sympathy For The Devil.  The first time I heard a cut from Chris Whitley's "Living With The Law' in the early nineties was another one of those transforming musical experiences I'll always remember.  The lush, slow chords backing Chris's reedy, threatening voice that was always threatening to jump into falsetto.  The scary hallucinogenic allusions to religion, prison, death, redemption, love.  Every cut on the album astonishing.  In the right mood, I still listen start to finish, amazed.

K and I saw Chris Whitley in person twice, both times with Ernie and Mo, and both times in small venues where we could have  stepped up and slapped the cigarette out of his chain-smoking mouth.  It wouldn't have stopped him.  I thought it was mostly showmanship when he would stroke a huge power chord and then light up, mid song, take two or three deeeeep drags, and continue.  Now I think he couldn't help it.

The second time we saw him was at the Rhythm Room, which usually has a no-smoking policy.  I'm guessing CW wouldn't (or couldn't) play under such a restriction, because everyone who wanted to was smoking.  A burly, bald, heavily tattooed giant stood right next to K during the opening act, inhaling one after the other until she asked him to step away.  He courteously did before joining Whitley on stage as his drummer.  It got so bad in there, our eyes and throats burning, that we left before the first set was over.  That was the last time we or anybody else in Phoenix will see him.  Billboard.com reports that he has died at age 45 after - wait for it - "a long battle with lung cancer."

Among Other Notable Events This Date

It was on this day in 1978 that Jim Jones, leader of the Peoples Temple, ordered more than 900 of his followers to drink cyanide-poisoned punch.

It was on this day in 1928 that Mickey Mouse was born. Walt Disney's "Steamboat Willie," premiered in New York at the Colony Theater. It was the first sound-synchronized cartoon to attract widespread public attention. Along with Mickey Mouse, the black and white cartoon featured Minnie Mouse and Pegleg Pete.

I was sung to by my wife, my daughters, my grandchildren and my brother.  Saw a terrific little movie, The Shop Girl.  Had a nap, wings from Vito's, fresh baked chocolate cake made by my daughter, great golf gifts.  A damn fine day.  Let's do it all again next year.

Seller's Remorse

Seven years and six weeks.  It was a good run.  Uphill and down.  Really cold weather and really hot.  Really REALLY fast, and closer to the speed limit.  Not even thirty two thousand miles, hardly broke in, in the world of Goldwings.  Sigh

Ran the ad in the cycle trader and had a few calls.  One guy from Yuma called three times, last to say he was coming to town with cash money.  Had him Mapquest my address, and he and his buddy got to within about a mile before they had to call.  I rode the 'wing down to guide them in, and as I came around the corner of the lot in which they were standing, I saw the shorter one jump into the air and pump his fist.  As I pulled up to them they exchanged high fives.  I realized there wouldn't be any attempt at price negotiations. 

Gave him a ride, demonstrated the breathtaking acceleration and the gut wrenching brakes.  The cb, the 4-speaker stereo/cassette, the cruise control, how to use reverse gear.  Gave him all four helmets, two rain suits, the shop manual, and a Ray Charles tape for the ride back to Yuma.  Don't know that I ever really understood what the word "wistful" meant til now.

Blackbird - by CK Williams

There was nothing I could have done—
a flurry of blackbirds burst
from the weeds at the edge of a field
and one veered out into my wheel
and went under. I had a moment
to hope he'd emerge as sometimes
they will from beneath the back
of the car and fly off,
but I saw him behind on the roadbed,
the shadowless sail of a wing
lifted vainly from the clumsy
bundle of matter he'd become.

There was nothing I could have done,
though perhaps I was distracted:
I'd been listening to news of the war,
hearing that what we'd suspected
were lies had proved to be lies,
that many were dying for those lies,
but as usual now, it wouldn't matter.
I'd been thinking of Lincoln's,
". . .You can't fool all of the people
all of the time. . ." how I once
took comfort from the hope and trust
it implied, but no longer.

I had to slow down now,
a tractor hauling a load of hay
was approaching on the narrow lane.
The farmer and I gave way and waved:
the high-piled bales swayed
menacingly over my head but held.
Out in the newly harvested fields,
already harrowed and raw,
more blackbirds, uncountable
clouds of them, rose, held
for an instant, then broke,
scattered as though by a gale.

Happy Birthday Kinkster!

It's the birthday of the singer, songwriter, and novelist Kinky Friedman, (books by this author) born Richard Friedman, in Chicago (1944). He grew up Jewish in Texas and went on to become one of the few successful Jewish country singers with his band the Texas Jewboys. He developed a cult following, writing humorous country ballads such as "Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed," and "They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore" about a fight in a bar between a Jewish man and an anti-Semite.

Then in the mid-1980's Friedman was walking down the street in New York City when he saw a woman being attacked by a mugger at an ATM machine. Friedman grabbed the man and held him until police arrived, and the next day the New York Post ran his picture on the front page with the headline, "COUNTRY SINGER PLUCKS VICTIM FROM MUGGER." The experience of crime fighting inspired Friedman to start writing mystery novels about a former country music singer named Kinky Friedman who lives with his cat and solves crimes in his spare time. His books include Elvis, Jesus and Coca-Cola (1993), and The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover (1996).

Money Medicine Poem

by Martin Steingesser, from Brothers of Morning.
Money Medicine Poem

$11.3 million, what does James Mellor of General Dynamics do with it?
In how many beds does he sleep?
I want to know, how many breakfasts does he eat?
$11.3 million-that is every year, year after year.
What does he do with it?
James, how many copy machines do you have?
How many shredders?
Do you keep one in the bathroom?
How many suits do you own?
How many closets for the secrets money keeps?
Secrets? Does money keep secrets?
Year after year, 11.3 million.
Why so much in corporate pockets?
I need a chant to bring dollars back in my life.

Om Bram Brie Hasti Paté Yea Na Ma Om

I need a moon to draw the oceans of money back.
What does AT&T executive Bob Allen do with $9 million in stock options?
It's a great system we have.
Secrets? What secrets?
AT&T lays off 40,000 workers.
Robert Allen, you must feel like a god.
Robert Allen gets $9 million.
What are you building out of our conversations?
What is your phone number, anyway?
Will you answer a call?

Om Bram Brie Hasti Paté Yea Na Ma Om

How do we reach corporate dynamos to buy girl scout cookies?
How do we call when we want to rent a bus for the school picnic?
How do we call when the soup kitchen's out of soup?
How come big bucks stuff so few pockets?

It's a wonderful system we've got, all our money on the top floor,
corporate executives calling the truths we live.
Families of gods, like up on Mount Olympus, great scraperskies of CEOs.
One of them markets 100% water for juice,
another mainlines cigarettes,
another the medicines for smokers,
another pumps cancer into rivers and lakes, into oceans of air,
another lobbies for tax breaks to clean up the mess.
Great system we've got, billions stuffed in so few pockets.
I want a chant to bring the dollars back—

Om Bram Brie Hasti Paté Yea Na Ma Om

Give me those pants with money pockets,
closetfuls of pants, big bucks in the pockets.
Lean back, feet up, have a million dollar stogie,
Blow giant smoke rings over Broadway.
I want a chant, put the moon back in my pocket.

Miscue Laneous

What is the question to which the answer is "9W"?  Answer at end of entry.

Loaned my Bose noise-canceling headphones to the missus for her recent sortie into Chi Booma Gow Gow, and she loved 'em.  This week on our See Arizona tour (985 miles in three days, all in-state) told her of a review I'd read on the Honda Odyssey, a truly marvelous van.  Told her that in this van, whether the radio is on or off, it's putting out the same noise-damping technology as the Bose 'phones, making for a sepulchral sound level.  Always thoughtful and on the lookout for health and safety, she rejoins, "But doesn't that cause cancer?"

Got this sent to me and cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! 

The question is, "Do you spell your name with a V, Herr Wagner?"

Lonesome Valley, Az

So the missus abandoned me, yet again, for the First Nations folk of our gentle giant to the north.  This time to the euphonious location yclept Chibougamau, Quebec. 

Sounds like a refrain from an Isley Brothers song, or, maybe, Jan & Dean (chibougamau-mau boppa bougamau-mau). 

Told Youngest Daughter that I'd looked up the finest (only) hotel in boogamau-mau;  the rooms run from $41 to $47 per night and the best it had to recommend itself was that it is "fireproof" and has an in-room coffeemaker.  You, Gentle Reader, can fair imagine the Missus' reaction to my research.  (After this many years, she's difficult to impress, easier to disappoint.)

Late word is that the actual encampment may be at a location distant from Boogamaumau.  Stay tuned for word of whether this is a reenactment of the  Reykjavik  debacle, or if it's woise.

Caligula's Horse

So, Paula Abdul had never been a judge before, either, and look how good she ended up doing.

Mood Food Fugue

This, I'm pretty sure, is the result of what happened when the two Tims - Burton & O'Leary - decided to make a garden together.  (Thanks again, 'Ski)

http://www.1st-ave-machine.com/video/anime_final.htm

Any conversation that begins with "Mom, what happened to Dad's nose?" is going to be a lot of fun for everybody but me.

Confided to the missus that I'm thinking of selling my scooter.  Did so as I accidentally picked up her beverage and stubbed my toe on the door jamb.  "Okay, but you're sure as hell not getting rid of your helmet."

It is a damn fine helmet.

Mozerdollzer is looking at condos in the DC area.  A modest one-bedroom will cost her more than the three homes we've bought combined.

This month my granddaughter turns four, my baby girl turns 26, and my baby brother turns 53.  The missus and I have been married for 12,342 days.  These are all obscene numbers.

"In The Lap Of A Stranger"

In the Lap of a Stranger

A young man is bending
Over an old man
Lying on a street corner
At the busiest intersection
Of the city.
Homeless or drunk, I can't tell which,
But there are hundreds of us passing
And only one man stops,
Cradles that dirty head
Between his knees.

It's the soles of the shoes
Turned up that make me want
To turn away—so small!
The feet pointing like arrows
Straight up and motionless,
And the crosswalk box's little man
Walking in his mechanical way,
As if on a treadmill,
And the man not walking,
Not getting up.

When the light changes,
We all drive through,
Going forward into appointments,
Shopping and errands like a future,
Choosing the crispest head of lettuce
At the grocer's, which will taste
Particularly sharp tonight.
Glad for awhile it wasn't us
Saying our goodbyes
To our one and only life, in public,
In second-hand clothes,
Easing through the ethers
Into the afterlife
From the lap of a stranger
We've probably made late.

- by Karen Whalley

This Shining Moment In The Now

When I work outdoors all day, every day, as I do now, in the fall,
getting ready for winter, tearing up the garden, digging potatoes,
gathering the squash, cutting firewood, making kindling, repairing
bridges over the brook, clearing trails in the woods, doing the last of
the fall mowing, pruning apple trees, taking down the screens,
putting up the storm windows, banking the house—all these things,
as preparation for the coming cold...

when I am every day all day all body and no mind, when I am
physically, wholly and completely, in this world with the birds,
the deer, the sky, the wind, the trees...

when day after day I think of nothing but what the next chore is,
when I go from clearing woods roads, to sharpening a chain saw,
to changing the oil in a mower, to stacking wood, when I am
all body and no mind...

when I am only here and now and nowhere else—then, and only
then, do I see the crippling power of mind, the curse of thought,
and I pause and wonder why I so seldom find
this shining moment in the now.

by David Budbill

Not that long ago . . .

Changing Diapers by Gary Snyder

How intelligent he looks!
on his back
both feet caught in my one hand
his glance set sideways,
on a giant poster of Geronimo
with a Sharp's repeating rifle by his knee.

I open, wipe, he doesn't even notice
nor do I.
Baby legs and knees
toes like little peas
little wrinkles, good-to-eat,
eyes bright, shiny ears
chest swelling drawing air,

No trouble, friend,
you and me and Geronimo
are men.

Getting Kinda Hungry, Too

The missus is spending the week traversing our gentle giant to the north - a few days in Vancouver, a couple in Edmonton - so I laid in my equivalent of hurricaine provisions: a five-pound bag of pistacchios and two quarts of rocky road.  Turned the a/c down to 68, put all the toilet seats up, and plopped down in the blue chair, worshipping at the pedestal of Sweet Sir Sony, wondering why no one has yet introduced Tuesday night football?  Step up America!  Opportunity knocks!

Will go out to the lake this afternoon with Greggy, see if the boat is still floating.  Too cold already to jump in and scrub the pontoons.  Prolly just crank up the music and offend fellow marina mates.  Arrgh!  Should have gone yesterday, International Talk Like A Pirate Day!

Trying to get a new building off the ground for the Tribes.  They're making it as difficult as possible, what with tribal hiring regulations, artifact and antiquity discovery requirements. 

Met with new car wash tenant, who opened his Mercedes' trunk for some reason, in which I espied about a hundred pair of Nikes, still in their boxes.  <sigh>  The names change, but the faces stay the same.

Our Vacationer-In-Chief

I heard today on the radio that GWBush has broken RReagan's record of most days vacation taken while president. 

It will come as a surprisie to almost no one that it took the notoriously languorous Reagan eight years to set a mark Bush eclipsed in fewer than five.

Today is the birthday of Mother Teresa who was born in the city of Skopje, Macedonia (1910), from a family of ethnic Albanians.

Her father was murdered when she was seven. The family fell into poverty. She was educated by Irish missionary nuns and went to Dublin to train for missionary work. She was sent to Calcutta where she founded the Order of the Missionaries of Charity, devoted to anyone "unwanted, unloved, and uncared for."

Mother Theresa became famous and when journalists came to talk to her, she wouldn't give them an interview unless they spent a day working among the poor.

When the pope gave her a white Lincoln Continental limousine, she sold it without ever taking a ride in it. And when she won the Nobel Peace Prize, she asked the committee to skip the awards dinner and give the cost of the dinner, (about $7,000) to the poor.

Makes me think of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and their ilk.  Makes me think of them and spit.

by Wesley McNair

Sleep

The young dog would like to know
why we sit so long in one place
intent on a box that makes the same
noises and has no smell whatever.
Get out! Get out! we tell him
when he asks us by licking the back
of our hand, which has small hairs,
almost like his. Other times he finds us
motionless with papers in our lap,
or at a desk looking into a humming
square of light. Soon the dog understands
we are not looking, exactly, but sleeping
with our eyes open, then goes to sleep
himself. Is it us he cries out to,
moving his legs somewhere beyond
the rooms where we spend our lives?
We don't think to ask, upset
as we are in the end with the dog,
who has begun throwing the old,
shabby coat of himself down on every
floor or rug in the apartment, sleep,
we say, all that damn dog does is sleep.

A Couple Thoughts; 3 Actually

I'd been searching the oddsmakers' listings for my formerly beloved Huskers' first game.  Usually they play two or three patsies to get the smell of the hunt into their psyches; kind of like throwing a squirrel into a pack of Dobermen to give them their taste of blood.  It's never been seemly, but playing some pitifully inept team to kick off the season is as much a tradition in Lincoln as is the color red.  But this year, I'm wondering, do they have a bye week to start the season? 

Finally I to to their web site, wherein the mystery solves itself.  The reason there is no point spread is that to start this year's glorious march to January, the Nebraska Cornhuskers, nee the Bugeaters, are hosting MAINE.  Who knew Maine even played football?  They gots pigs and pigskins in Maine?  An ignominious new low for a team I didn't think could ignominerate any lower.

And Robert Moog died, he of the eponymous synthesizer.  My buddy Dave Rinehart bought one of the first ones built - it could play only one tone at a time - back in 1970.  Somehow he got an invite to play it for a performance of Holst's The Planets with the Omaha Symphony Orchestra, and I came along as his roadie.  The only unpleasant part was when the orchestra conductor, to introduce himself, came into the room where Dave and I were, uh, prepping for the performance.

Anyhow, I was reading Moog's obit in the Times, about how Switched On Bach by Walter Carlos was the album that really turned the corner for the Moog.  I still love that album's transcendence, a perfect vehicle for Bach's virtuosity.  I'd never seen anything more after a second album by Carlos, but I had seen that Wendy Carlos had picked up where Walter had left off.  Little did I know.  I figured Wendy was Walter's daughter.  The obit obliquely noted that Walter Carlos had had a sex change operation and now is Wendy Carlos.

Lastly for now, The Kinkster, Kinky Friedman, late of Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, is making what is more than a half-hearted run at Texas's governorship.  He and the 'boys haven't played for a long time; the Kinkster's been writing fiction, running a ranch for abused animals, the usual thing.  Anyhow, he's got some folks worried that he just might have a chance, me not among them. 

Some of my favorite Kinksterisms include, "Get your biscuitsinto the oven and your buns back in bed."  His thought on the Baptists:  "They don't hold them under long enough."  Kinky swears that when he's elected he'll lower the speed limit to 64.95.  And my favorite, about the job (and a former holder of the job) he hopes to be elected to, "Hey, how hard could it be?"

Lucinda Matlock by Edgar Lee Masters

Lucinda Matlock

I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out at Winchester
One time we changed partners,
Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,
And then I found Davis.
We were married and lived together for seventy years,
Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children,
Eight of whom we lost
Ere I had reached the age of sixty.
I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick,
I made the garden, and for holiday
Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,
And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,
And many a flower and medicinal weed—
Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.
At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all,
And passed to a sweet repose.
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you—
It takes life to love Life.

A Matter of Degree

At yesterday's golf outing I was mumbling and musing about how tempus fugit, and I says to my bud Tom, (whose divorce hurt me none at all, but whose re-marriage and subsequent reception, chronicled here earlier, caused semi-permanent damage to my cranium and my other friend's car), I says, "You know, this is nuts.  Already my grandson has started first grade, has gotten himself a girlfriend, and his teeth have come loose."

Tommy glances at me, kind of sighs, says, "That sounds just like my last year, except for the school part."

Priceless

Ha.  Jack and Meg should try living with a nurse for three-and-a-half decades, and then see what they think.

RRRRIIINNGG  mid morning

"Hey Pops!  Did you know tonight's the White Stripes concert?  I think we should do it up, dude!"

Still able to get seats on the main floor.  Do I hate Ticketmaster? Those bastards.  Jump through their hoops, print out our tix.  Wife and daughter confer in low tones on "what's he gonna wear?"

Newly showered, dressed in my spiffies, stomach pulled in, hair strands carefully, symetrically arranged (I hope).

The lanky one picks me up just before five, "We got one stop to make on the way.  I need your help loading something into the Element from IKEA."  Like I didn't see that one coming.  About a half-ton of bookshelf boxes later, I'm sweating like a N'Orleans longshoreman and some of the bloom has definitely come off the rose.

We get downtown in plenty of time to walk to Tom's for an Amaretto sour and a piece of chocolate cake, and a cup of chili and a bottle of beer, respectively.

The concert was great.  Jack coaxes more incredibly tuneful smashmouth noises out of a six-string than anyone since Jimi.  His sister was, at best, a distraction.  A less skilled drummer I've never beheld, even in the old days of The Barbarians, and that's saying something.

There were two other guys there who may have been older than I, and several at least as bald, though their conditions appeared to be by choice.  Opening act The Greenhorns was lamentable, but the ninety minute set by the Whites was fabulous.

Best Laid Plans

We'd had the North Rim Perseids trip planned for months.  The frau lined up the accomodations, the buddy lined up the trailer for our scooters, all I had to do was gas up the Burb and steer.

The buddy goes to pick up the trailer, and none of the three on the lot had working lights.  No trailer, the bikes stay home.  No biggie.  However, each of the three nights we were in Kanab, UT, perfectly situated at about 5800 ft on the east edge of a small, dim (in multiple ways) town - it stormed.  Completely overcast.  Couldn't see stars, much less meteorites.  Thinned a bit on Saturday night to the point you could make out where the moon was, but not much more.  No Perseids.

We did have great weather for three rounds of golf and for our visits to Zion and Bryce Canyons, and to the North Rim.  I'd forgotten that Bryce runs up above 9000 ft elevation.  The North Rim is about 8000 ft and is so much nicer than the south side.  We rode the tram through Zion for 90 minutes and spent some good time in the museum there.

Ended up driving right at 1200 miles in the four days.  The good news is that the behemoth got a bit over 18 mpg, fully loaded with telescope, luggage, four sets of golf clubs and four full sized people on board.  The bad news is that, when filling it up, the pump automatically shuts off at $75.00 whether you're full or not.  I wasn't.

High Praise

I was talking business today to a guy who doesn't know me.  I mentioned the name of a third party, another broker who is, unbeknownst to this guy, a good friend of mine.  The guy says "Oh man, I hate negotiating a lease with (broker friend's name).  He's so smart about leases, and, you know, he's just plain mean enough that he makes my life miserable."  

In this business, and with the kind of friends I have, you don't get much better of a compliment than that.

The Mower

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,
Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world
Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence
Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.

- Philip Larkin

High Country

K rented us a 4-bedroom in Pinetop for a long weekend.  She and I headed up Thursday mid-day, swinging by Club Schwoopie to get the grandkids' bikes.  Got to the "cabin" in about three hours flat, gaining more than 5000 ft in elevation and losing forty degrees.  Amazing what the smell of pine trees, a rainy day and even minimal oxygen depletion can do to a guy.

The owners of the property must be rookies at this rental business, as it was way better equipped than it should have been.  A sixty inch tv with surround sound downstairs, tv's in every room, and another tv with surround sound on the loft.  Also not nailed down was a boom box by the jacuzzi, and another really nice stereo/cd/dvd system with speakers taller than I.  Most B&B's give you some rustic (read rusty) silverware, ancient non-matching plastic dishes and let you chase the roaches out of the sinks yourself.  This place was great - tons of towels, etc.  Hope they don't get burned.

The kids came up Friday afternoon and, as usual, any semblance of serenity vanished.  We rode bikes, caught crawdads in the adjoining marsh, threw rocks (a sport one of us is much better at than he really should be) and had a ball.  Saturday morning, really early, a bright smiling face burst into view above K and my bed, wondering what was taking so long, what with the sun already being almost up and everything.  More bike riding, a nice hike along the Rim Trail, bowling in the afternoon, pizza, wings, the kids recapturing the crawdads each time a certain tall blond would surreptitiously empty the bucket back into the marsh, and a couple hours of Uno in the evening.  Really nice. 

The Mysterious North (Rim)

It started when She was confirming our "north rim" reservations. 

Taking along our wimmens, Larry and I will be loading our scooters onto a trailer and have three nights reserved at the North Rim of The Canyon the second week in August, for what should be a remarkable showing of the Perseids meteor shower during a new moon.  

Anyway, back to today's events.  Herself cries out triumphantly, "We also get a free round of golf while we're there!"  I retort, "How the hell far do we have to drive to use it?"  She demurely responds, "Not at all.  The free golf round is at the course we're staying on, right there at the north rim."   

Several seconds of silence ensue.  Damned uneasy silence on my part.

"Honey,"  I venture cautiously.  "THERE'S NO FREAKING GOLF COURSE ANYWHERE NEAR THE GRAND CANYON!!!!!!!  ON EITHER FREAKING RIM!!!!!"  

A flurry of testy exchanges ensues, and civility is restored only as it becomes abundantly clear that this is, in fact, entirely my fault, since I (as well as other unnamed co-conspirators) signed off on the arrangements, with my usual attention to detail.  

Turns out we're staying in a palatial 3-bedroom condo in - wait for it - Kanab, Utah, a bustling burg about eighty miles from the mysteriously re-located north rim.  Turns out that Kanab is within 65 miles of Zion Park, and 85 miles to Bryce Canyon, all scooter jaunts well worth our time.  And there's the free golf.  

Damn, I'm good. (Hey, if I have to take the blame, I'll sure as hell grab on to the credit.)

The Sunday Flog

Hot; damn hot.  Front nine an unremarkable 48, but tied with TB for low putts.  Back nine, different story: Lar & I won the team bet and ate delicious hot dogs courtesy of the King of Krakow and the aforementioned TB.  Then, Prince Lyle the Magnificent, as I like to call myself, went on a tear, finishing with two birdies in the last three holes, and a five over par.  Collected an astonishing $15 for the drubbing I gave the Stooges. 

Was waxing eloquent over a pitcher of adult beverage in the nineteenth hole, relating yet again to my astonished and awe-struck, not to say vanquished course-mates, when my phone went off.  "Are you on your way home?  The kiddies are still in the pool and they're asking for you!"

I bade adieu to the Stooges, who seemed less reluctant than I would have thought to have me exit before detailing the finesse required to post two birdies in three holes, one more time, and headed westerly.  All the way home I planned my entrance.  'I'll sneak into the house, get my suit on, and come barreling out the back door and jump into the pool in a cannonball much to the joy and elation of my gathered family.'

That's pretty much how it happened, right up to the last part.

Got home, suited up, and headed out the south patio door.  See, I'd taken my glasses off indoors, which lent some ambiguity to my perception of the actual path to the pool.  I had that barreling thing down, for sure, but as I rounded the pool fence, attempting to accelerate a'la Gabe, one leg of the fence reached out and grabbed my left foot.  Even for one so nimble, graceful as Fred Astaire, this misaligned my trajectory.  Shawnee later recounted that she heard "pat pat pat pat - thwup - padapat - whompwhomp" though I think the reference to a stumbling water buffalo was uncalled for.

Anyhow, I had enough momentum built up, if not altitude, by this time, that I segued (again, very gracefully) into a backflop into the shallow end, at the feet of Shawnee and Joe.  Much applause, huzzahs, cries for a repeat performance, this time for the cameras, etc etc.  Oh, thanks for asking.  I'm fine, thanks.

Schwimmen Gehen Mit Der Gabe

The Scene:  Swim Kids Montessori - Guadalupe & Price

The Players:  Four mothers, one grandfather, and their respective charges

The Action:  The huddling sideways-looking mothers are like a Greek chorus, as one admonishing their progeny to step slowly, gently, carefully, wait! wait! one toe at a time into the water.  Lexy!!  Amber!!  Don't hurry.  Be careful.  No, no!, be more careful.  Slower, more slowly.  Slower yet!

Grandson and grandfather observe this silliness.  Knowing looks are exchanged between men. 

Grandson looks deep into grandfather's eye, says with the elegant simplicity of youth, "I'm Going In."  Subtle nod from the aged one, affirming, approving.

Four accelerating steps and SPAAAAALOOOOOOOSH!!!!!!!!

Shrieks of indignation, gasps, askance stares and sotto voce defamations among the aghast mothers.  Snorfling snickers from the grandfather. 

I may not have mentioned it, but this kid is ok by me.

A Day at the DMV

People have been telling me for years, twelve in fact, that I shouldn't have my social security number on my driver license.  Thursday I remedied that.  As I sat and waited along with the unwashed masses, I noticed I had a seat very close to the restrooms.  I noticed because, in that hour and a half waiting period, four different times people came out of the restroom breezing past my seat trailing the unmistakable sweet tinged backwash of marijuana.  Almost got a buzz just sitting there.

The other reason was that I last renewed on Halloween in '93.  That doesn't seem significant in itself, except that everyone working at the DMV that day was in costume, many of them on purpose, it appeared.  There was much joshing and kidding, and as I stepped on the line to have my visage purloined for permanent identification for the next decade or so, someone pushed a button that blared an ear-splitting blood curdling scream. 

My not-unexpected reaction was to break into an ear-to-ear grimace, referred to thenceforth by my beloved as "The Whoopie Cushion Face."  At numerous airports across this great land and at least three others, Persons behind counters have squinted at my license, peered at me, squinted, peered (I wore contact lenses at the time, enhancing every aspect of this ridiculous Alfred E Newman grin) until I've offered, "Do I have to do the face?"

No longer.  I have a newly minted picture, more like my day-to-day glower than some hyenic snark, and my social security number will now be known only to those who ask.

Omaha

Spent a few days last week in and around my old stompin' grounds.  Ostensibly the visit was to be of assistance to my baby brother who had rotator cuff surgery last Monday, and to visit my ever-ailing father.  Idea was that Blood would be laid low, scarcely able to move, and I would nurse him back to a semblance of mobility, and while he was in the arms of Sister Morpheus, I'd visit my dad and compliment him on his walker and on the entirety of his Joel Osteen collection.

I arrove the day after my brother's surgery to find him chipper as a tree full of squirrels and my father newly readmitted to the hospital from yet another fall that left him bruised all over and bleeding from his ear. 

My brother gave me the keys to his Acura S-type and we set off for the mandatory LaCasa pizza dinner.  I was housed in the Presidential Suite of his palatial estate, which in many homes is called a basement.  Not so on Meadow Road.  To be brief, the subterranean level has about the same square footage as my entire house.  Comfy bed, full audio-visual system, full gym, whirlpool, fireplace, even a juke box.  It was so dark and quiet that the least I slept each night there was more than eight hours - a not inconsiderable feat for moi.

Back to the presupposed invalid.  The kid gots no whine to him.  His surgery consisted of eight small incisions where they went in and stirred his shoulder with a scalpel.  He wore a sling with a thick pad at waist level, keeping his arm not rigid, but confined to small, non-stretching movements.  The pad was so thick we agreed it could be easily modified to hold a few beers and a cup-holder.  But the guy never said one word of self pity.  Wouldn't even take a pain pill until late in the day.  One wonders if he really is his father's child, what with the astonishing self sufficiency factor.

Anyway, I visited my old pal Noll, got to see his fabulous new home, got to go to the Henry Doorly Zoo for a special up close and personal showing by one of the female gorillas, had a demonstration of how to make baby orangutans, thoughtfully right up by the window (hey, it is spring) and got more sleep in three nights than I usually get in four.  Maybe it was the pace of the place.

Spokane

You gotta love a community whose signature beer is called Moose Drool.  This is a beautiful area, not too big, but has all the amenities.

We had  perfect weather Friday and Saturday, and played two of the nicest municipal golf courses ever, Indian Canyon and Qualchan.  Excellent food in restaurants along the Spokane river, mediocre rooms at the Hotel Lusso.  Breakfast yesterday in Coeur d'Alene on the golf course.  Back last night to two sulking cats and a house that took almost four hours to cool down. 

Gabe

Gabe has been running through a patch of rough road lately.  Wouldn't come out of the pool even following the most strident commands from his parents; can't seem to stop a forbidden action, such as throwing something, once he's started to cock his arm; unusual abrupt noises, disturbing to his mother, mostly, erupt at amazing volume, usually in tight quarters.  He's growing even more.  Today was "graduation" at Montessori where all the little people get a certificate and a hug, and blow out a candle.  In the picture taking line-up, my little guy was the least little of all. 

S bought the series of "Bob" books that I use when I volunteer to teach kids reading there, and they arrived yesterday.  G read them, rapt, until his mother finally made him turn out the light and go to sleep.

I think it's that so many things are going on in his mind and his body right now, that it's amazing he can keep any of it straight.  Synapses firing in new ways, muscles building, new realizations. 

This is really fun.  I'd like it to slow down.  All of it.

A Week At Dinnyland . . .

is one, maybe two days too long.

Still a great place.  "Pirates" retains its charm while Star Tours has grown hoary with age.  Tower of Terror became the new favorite.  The bus driver is almost certainly right who told us riders that, "If you have a heart condition, you probably won't mind the second drop."  I think we rode it maybe ten times over the week, four times just on the last day.  The roller coaster is my second favorite.  I was able to bring the family dare devil to her knees, begging me to stop, on the interactive ferris wheel.  That was a good ride.  Don't like Mullholland Drive nor the Matterhorn - too rough.

Avoid the Best Western at 7555 Beach.  None of the four rooms we checked in and out of was completely ok.  One had hot, no cold, one the other way, one a/c didn't work, the tv picture was pink, it was a disaster, all the way down to the drunken domestic family fight directly below us.  K got on line and hooked us up with the comparatively marvelous Homewood Suites by Hyatt for only $20/room/night more.

No divorce actions filed, very little blood spilt, sadly, all of it Gabe's.  It's not easy being a five year-old in the body of an eight year-old, but he is just the best kid ever.  And Miss Bella is an entire person, self assured and with a raucus laugh like nobody else's.

The nightly fireworks are amazing - now they do Mickey heads with ears, smiley faces and even cubes i don't know how.  Best synopsis was as we finally separated from Clan Schwoopie at the Phoenix airport, and SB shouted out, "Same time next year, right Pops?"

 

Why Satan's Phone Don't Ring

Archaeologists have struck another blow against the fevered beliefs of Heavy Metal rockers, televangelists and others concerned with Satanism.  Seems they've found scroll fragments for the Book of Revelations that show conclusively that "the number of the Beast" is not 666.  Turns out it's the same as the area code of Ann Arbor Michigan, 616.

Sedona Wedding - or - It's Good To Be A Dane

One of my pain-in-the-balls golf buddies got married Saturday at a pretty little meadow by the creek in Sedona.  Kris and Donna took Donna's convertible up the 17 and Larry and I rode our scooters up the long way, through Wickenburg, up the mountain through Congress and Peeples Valley, the twisties into Prescott, then up and over Mingus Mountain (7300 ft), down to Jerome and Cottonwood, then over to Sedona.

Saturday, the day of the wedding, the girls jumped on the backs of the bikes and we rode up Oak Creek Canyon to Flagstaff for lunch, then back down the Canyon, hopefully, for nappy time.

The wedding itself took all of ten minutes, presided over by the groom's son who had two days earlier been annointed a minister in some internet seminary for $39.95.  About a hundred people and about 200 bottles of wine, champagne and assorted adult beverages. I wouldn't want to be rude by not sampling a bit of each.

Things went really well and I was entertaining as all get out.  It got dark, very dark.  We went back to the parking lot to get into the car.

Now, Mercedes makes a very nice convertible, but its back seat is for really little people, especially when the top is up.  My beloved and I do not qualify.  However, she clambered in with me in hot pursuit. 

It's common knowledge that there exist in Sedona weird vortices, and permutations and ululations of gravity which can diskabibble the balance of the momentarily unobservant.  I'm convinced that that was exactly what caused the arc of my head's trajectory toward the back seat to be thrown off, ever so slightly, as I leapt toward my love.

Larry's contention that the impact caused the vehicle to momentarily rock up onto two wheels is false. The collision did, however, leave a mark - on both of us.

Now, your best friend, gentle reader, would certainly offer solace in the form of gentle words, a band-aid or an unguent of some sort.  HAH!  My friend instead demands recompense for the ever-so-hardly noticeable indentation in the frame of the convertible roof, and for the expense of having the scalp and tissue shards removed from the paint and frame of said vehicle.  I gotta start hanging with a better class of people.  If they'll have me.

Clean Didey Day At The Rub & Tug

Since the Day of the Chest Pains I've been getting one or two theraputic massages per week.  Nice, very serious young women with very strong hands.

The first day I come in, after the requisite paperwork, I'm led to a softly lighted room and invited to "disrobe to [my] comfort level" and she steps out. 

Ok. 

So I took off my shirt and sat on the table.  After a brief interval she calls out - "Ready in there?"  You bet!

Shoes had to go, too, but all else seemed fine.  Until two massages ago.  Margaret had some nerve she wanted at, down low, something she called a pubiculous meticulous ridiculum -  something else, but a lot like that.  "But with all those layers of clothing on, I really can't tell what's going on."

Ok.

So, two days ago, I make sure I've got clean undies on, and when I'm invited to disrobe to my blah blah blah, I disrobe to my best undies.  My second best, actually, but I didn't think the ones with the little red hearts and the "I Love You"s would be appropriate.  At least not yet.

So I'm lying there, and she's pushed and pulled my chest around until it feels like it's all in places other than where it should be, and she says, "Did you want me to show you that pressure point?"  Time stops.  There's no air. 

"Uhhhhhhhhh, yuh." I boldly venture.

She peels back the sheet, exposing the ElastoBand of my skivvies.  She sighs, exasperation finally on the forefront.  "Since you've still got all this on (all this?) I can't tell where everything is.  And I want everything to be out of the way before I show you the pressure point!"

I assured her everything was out of the way.  (Like a frightened turtle, out of the way.)

The point was located, pushed and prodded, and that was that.  Why do I feel as if I escaped something?

Corpsing . . .

. . . is an interesting term indigenous to the theeutuh.  It's when an actor on stage breaks up uncontrollably.  Often happens in Macbeth, according to the fellow on NPR, who said many superstitious actors won't even refer to the play by name, instead calling it "The Scottish Play."

The cited example is a howler:  this fellow's company of players gave a weekly matinee performance of The Scottish Play for the benefit of the elderly in the community.  The performance was in a theater so small that seating for the front row of patrons was practically on the stage itself.

One Wednesday, the teller of this story was within a foot of two sweet elderly ladies as he began the famous soliloquy that starts, "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow . . ." at which point one of the aged darlings leaned over to the other and loudly stage-whispered, "That would be Sat uh day!"  Considerable corpsing ensued.

Why Men Are Happier

Why ARE Men Happier? 
 
Men Are Just Happier People-- What do you expect from such simple creatures? 
Your last name stays put. The garage is all yours. Wedding plans take care of themselves. Chocolate is just another snack. 
 
You can be President. You can never be pregnant. You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park. You can wear NO shirt to a water park. Car mechanics tell you the truth. 
 
The world is your urinal. You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky.

You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.

Same work, more pay. Wrinkles add character. Wedding dress $5000. Tux rental-$100.  

People never stare at your chest when you are talking to them. The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected. New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet.

One mood all the time. Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat. You know stuff about tanks. A 5 day vacation requires only one suitcase . You can open all of your own jars. You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness. If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.  
Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack. Three pairs of shoes are more than enough. You almost never have strap problems in public. You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes. Everything on your face stays its original color. The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe even decades. You only have to shave your face and neck. 
 
You can play with toys all your life. Your belly usually hides your big hips. One wallet and one pair of shoes one color for all seasons. You can wear shorts no matter what how your legs look. You can "do" your nails with a pocket knife. You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache. 
 
You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25 minutes. 
No wonder men are happier. 

Paging Mr Golding

Saturday last herself and I met up with the grandkids and their ma at the zoo.  Warmish day and the short people wanted to play in the water feature.  The water feature is an area about seven hundred square feet with eight-to-ten foot squirts erupting at irregular intervals from nozzles in the floor.  Prolly thirty dwarves and a half dozen adults squealing, leaping and casting about.  (One real dwarf who the tall blonde is sure is already stalking her.)

I'm standing courtside with that goofy grin I get when I'm watching dwarves squeal and jump and soak, and a woman standing by me says "It's Lord Of The Flies, isn't it?" 

I grin.  She says "They make their own rules, if they're needed, and it's just crazy!"  I like her right away. 

"Keep your eyes peeled for a stocky little almost blind nearsighted guy" says I.  She grins.

A doctor is working late in his office.  An agitated guy comes in.

"Doc, you gotta help me!  I think I'm a moth!"

"Well, I wish I could help, but I'm pretty sure that what you need is a psychiatrist."

"Oh, I was waiting for the psychiatrist, but I noticed your light was on."

Compliment

Grandson was sorting things out with his mother's ostensible help.

"So, when you were a kid, was grampa your dad?" 

G's mother allowed as how that was the way she 'membered it.

"I'll be that was fun!  He cracks me up!"

The boy's mother said something to the effect that you had to be there.

Prayer

If any more stochastic evidence of the inefficacy of prayer and the absence of a just God was needed, I submit the following.

In the past week, three prominent figures have been the focus of millions of prayers beseeching divine intercession: Pope John Paul II, Terry Schiavo, and Jerry Falwell.  Which one is on the road to recovery?

Getting A Jump On Pool Season

Picked up the trolls from school and brought them back to la casa de nana for lunch.  Idea was that Bella would nap while Gabe went with me to run errands.  Bella would have none of that nonsense, so the three of us gamboled out into the warm April sun.  Hit the FedEx store, the bank, the pool store and went to the aquarium store where the sales pitch was effective on all parties save he with the paper thin wallet.

Got home and was distributing the conditioner around the pool with Gabe's relentless help.  Putzed around with the filters and skimmer, and behind me Gabe says "Ok if I jump in, Grampa?"  We'd been talking all day about how cold the water was, and this kid is already a world-class kidder, so says I "Sure!"

SPLOOOOSSSSSH!!!!!!  From above the water feature, no less.

Having reviewed this and similar circumstances many times, before and during fitful sleep, with two efficient motions I emptied my pockets and unholstered my cell phone and SPLOOOOOSSSSH!!!

All my fault.  You don't kid a five year old, advanced kidding skills or not.  Got him toweled off and Nana has his clothes in the dryer, and, yes, I've already come clean with Gabe's mother.  He and I have had the talk and exchanged promises.  I know I won't forget my side of the deal.

Kite

We'd toted this silken furled monster around, unassembled, in the back of the Punkin for weeks.  The trolls are on break and their mother has school, so the only sitters they've ever had got called in for overtime.  The last several days have had very gusty winds, and today was no exception.  K picked up the trolls and brought them back to a park near our house, and I walked up to meet them.

As I crested the hill I heard borne on the wind my most euphonious appellation, and see G, arms outstretched, at full gallop barrelling across the soccer field toward me.  One of those images I'll always retain.  Swept him up and hugged him until he gasped, then repeated the process with Miss Thing who was trailing but not by much, due to rough terrain, very short legs, and the added burden of a pink Care Bear.

With the able assistance of our spotter, we repeatedly launched the Giant Wasp Kite until hunger pangs and time constraints bade us sojourn to Pizza Planet.  Miss Thang experienced a minor meltdown on the short ride, but my hard-earned specialty in quelling obstreperous young women came in handy yet again.  By the time I carried my Sweet Baboo into said Planet, she was docile and insisting that I be the one to cut up her pizza, not Nana.  Not at all a slur at Nana, but a nod toward curmudgeonly kindness.

Now, K is off for a floor show in LA; I'm cranking up RadioParadise.com and basking in the memory of another wonderful day.  The cast of the light on the kidlette's hair, the way it turns it more red than auburn; how the wind moved Bella's hair as she clutched the kite string spindle, brave, smiling  and adventurous.  K, indulgent but ever vigilant, under the sparse shade of a ficus.  Today was a pretty good day.

Possible Passing (of a Stone, or a Clod, at least)

Word has reached these parts that the Most Reverend Jerry Falwell lies inert in a suthun hospital, in critical condition.

Is it too much to hope that he passes quickly, and meets his (truly) just reward?  Even better, and more just, he should pass a stone a la Al Swearingen in Deadwood.  Took Al three weeks; three episodes, anyway.  Pretty convincing portrayal of what another experienced chap told me felt most like a cat being dragged against its will through his urethra.

Alice In Wonderland Gots Nothing On Me

Have had a frenetic few days, with a tenant (purportedly with mob ties) I had to lock out, our attorney, the owners, lots of phone calls etc.  Today the owner calls me with the news he's made a deal with the tenant.  I'm to phone the tenant with the past due balances total the two of them have agreed on.  There's a good deal of hurry-up involved, Owner tells me, "Here's the number he's at, I just got off the phone with him."  I jot down the number and dutifully arithmeticate and phone the tenant. 

Right then, the Jane/Tarzan yell I have programmed in my cell phone for my girls goe off with wild abandon.  I look at the display; it's Kris.  The phone to my ear is still ringing, so I hazard quickly answering K's call and mutter, sotto voce, "I'll call you right back!"  Imagine my disorientation as I hear in my other ear my very words.  Quickly, I hang up both phones.  What the . . . .? 

Please tell me it's not going to be like this.  There must be some things that a person can count on, that don't have to be checked, re-checked and checked again? 

The owner had given me my own cell phone number instead of the tenant's.  A call from the home phone to my cell phone can only come from- well, you get it. 

The worst part?  I did the whole routine a second time before I caught on.  Coulda been worse.  I might still be dialing and smiling.

Rhymes With Boozer

My old buddy Noll came to town yesterday.  We hit the greensward for a quick nine.  Quick for him: he won six holes, I won one.

Came back to our house for some poke roast the missus had had in the pot all day, heard beeping.  That's been happening lately - not the poke, but the beeping.  Turned out to be the battery backup for my 'puter.  Upon further review, no power whatsoever to the whole house.  Neighbors in same predicament.  SRP reports it will be at least ocho in the post meridian before someone gets out to 'fustigate (Gabe's word). 

We downs the tasty roast on the patio, Noll leaves.  We reads by flashlight.  We walks down to Payton's for a brewski and some pinball.  We discovers somebody hasn't brung his fiduciary credentials.  We walks home and pockets our credentials.  We drives to the movies.  It's Kevin Costner or the bush.  We drives to Paytons, hires a brewski and a handful of quarters.  The missus kicks my ass at pinball.  Home again home again jiggedy jig.  No electricity until about 3:30 a.m.  Some days are just like that.

Pirate Joker In Training

BBrrrrrriiiiing - brrriinnnnnngg

Hello - Who's this?

Grampa!!  It's Gabe!!

What do you want now, your rotten little troll?

Grampa!!!  Do you know why the kid coudn't get into the pirate movie??!!!!!!

No, Monkey Meat, why couldn't the kid get into the pirate movie?

Grampa!!!  BECAUSE IT WAS RATED AAAARRRRRRGGGGGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Get it?  AAARRRRRGGGH!!!!!!!!!!

Peals of laughter. 

Click

Mya Hee, Mya Haw Haw

Remember that kid in his basement with the Star Wars-ish light saber?  The good news:  He's baaaaaaack.  The bad news:  He's German.  (Have your speakers on.)

http://db.playego.com.br/orafiles/01122005120941567g.swf

Who Lives In A Pineapple Under The Sea?

Absorbent and Yellow and Porous Is He

If, like me, you believed America's homophobia had reached its nadir when Reverend Falwell berated the Teletubbies for carrying purses, take a deep breath, dear reader. 

Now comes Rev. Dr. James C Dobson, founder of Focus On The Family, accusing Sponge-Bob SquarePants of proselyting for the Gays.  Seems that Mr SquarePants frequently holds hands with his animated sidekick, Patrick.  Rev Dobson asserts that Mr Pants has been enlisted in a "pro-homosexual video."  Quoth the maven, "We see the video as an insidious means . . . manipulating and potentially brainwashing kids.  It's a classic bait-and-switch."  Loved the picture in Tuesday's paper of your President Bush holding hands with Rev Dobson, deep in prayer.

And another thing:  I thought the War On Terror was more important than any other task facing the Administration?  No, no, not so important as discriminating against gays.  The Pentagon has been whining non-stop about the lack of Arabic translators.  Less than 20% of the State Department's 279 translators are fluent.  Lots of intercepted messages going untranslated 'cause they ain't gots the qualified peeps to do it.  So what is the least logical thing possible at this juncture?  Fire twenty of them because they were found to be gay. 

America, alas.

Out Of The Mouths . . . .

Molzer was talking to Gabe (now 5 1/2) about the reason he didn't have school Monday.  M inquired whether G knew about Dr MLK jr.  Of course he did. 

"And he was such a cool guy!  He fought with his words and not with his fists!"

Another feather in the caps of a tall blonde and the Montessori system.  I'm so proud I could burst.

From The "America, America, Alas" File

Flipping through channels last night I came across Miss Jessica Simpson in the back seat of a limo, waxing elequent, kinda, of her first day in seventh grade.  Midst titters and squeals at the memory, she recounted in the limo how pleased she was when her new teacher, clearly not yet cognizant of Miss Simpson's mental acuity, asked the class if anyone knew all the continents?  Thrilled at the opportunity to perform, Miss Simpson somehow got the teacher's attention, was called on and proudly announced, "A, E, I, O, and U !!" 

Certain that that would be the night's nadir, I was yet somehow not astonished to run across a "reality" show starring an excitable, diminutive young man yclept Flavor Flav, monied, unkempt,  inarticulate, and with a habit of wearing a dinner plate-sized clock around his neck.  Anyhow, for - I don't know, it seemed like a long time, Mr Flav flew 'crosst the 'Lantic to London and, clad in a Viking horned helmet, trod the sidewalks, harrassing passers-by in pursuit of his beloved, an Amazonian-sized, hard living blond and former Mrs Sylvester Stallone named Brigitte Nielsen.  Folks, I gotta tell ya . . . .

Happy Birthday Stephen Hawking

"Before, I was very bored with life. I drank a fair bit, I guess; I didn't do any work... When one's expectations are reduced to zero [being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease in the mid 1960's], one really appreciates everything that one does have."  -Stephen Hawking

Twenty years ago Gary Lynn Jepsen and I spent several years having more laughs together than a pack of hyenas.  Over tanker truck loads of beer we played endless hours of pinball, went to countless horse races, took dozens of Cornhusker road trips to exotic lands like Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri. Gary was like Sara Lee - nobody didn't like him.  He never had a bad day, was always funny and fun to be with.  A very large and brilliant man, he was uninterested in any physical exertion (at least any vertical physical exertion), and had what he called "a touch of the sugar diabetes." (When he would say that K would squirm like an Episcopalian in a Catholic pew).

Thursday, in Omaha, Gary was shoveling snow, had a heart attack and died.   

The Wages Of Sin Is, Eventually, Soap

The worst, most feared, ultimate corporeal punishment to which my grandchildren can be subjected is a fingertip's worth of liquid hand soap administered to their tongues.  This sanction covers the same pantheon of misdeeds as, when I was a lad, required my father's leather belt, a ping pong paddle, or an 18" strip of linoleum, whichever was in closest reach.

Anyhow, Young G's synapses are firing with increasing enthusiasm, sometimes forcing his tongue and demeanor to respond in ways his mother deems unsuitable.  It's difficult to stop when you've got a really inventive riff going on the word "diarrhea" or you've found a way to make a noise reminding of a Yeti being emasculated by a barbed wire fence.  And, as everyone knows, when mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.  For this poor, disabused young'un, out comes the soap (which mama now keeps in a handy, purse sized container in her, well, you get it).

Young G understands the arrangement.  He recognizes his sins, and understands the atonement process.  Maybe he wants to please too much, I don't know.

Recently, SB was forced, in her mind, to pull the car over and Administer The Soap.  G squirmed and fought and snorted, and then announced, "Nope, didn't get any on my tongue."  Process was repeated, replete with spitting, snorting, squirming, and after each application, his mother's failure was duly, thoughtfully noted.

Even though, with a lash or a club of some sort my parental units didn't have to go through this repeat process, I really think the new way is better.  Gonna take a couple weeks off of whispering in his ear "She's not the boss of you" though.

Wireless Weirdness

A couple months ago the doorbell began ringing once or twice a day when no one was at the button.  Disconcerting.  I'd jump up from the Big Bue Chair or run down from my office - no one.  Replaced the itty bitty battery, still.  Couldn't tie it to cars driving by, phases of the moon, Bush malaprops, nothing.  Two weeks ago I unplugged the plug-in annunciator and took the battery activated button off the wall outside the front door; let 'em knock.

Today, I'm in the BBC, ruminating through the Times, K is upstairs, arranging stuff or whatever, and the garage door goes up.  Spooky.  Don't ask about the beeping.

New Hampshire, February 7, 2003

 by Maxine Kumin, from Jack and Other New Poems © W. W. Norton.

It's snowing again.
All day, reruns
of the blizzard of '78
newscasters vying
for bragging rights
how it was to go hungry
after they'd thumped
the vending machines empty
the weatherman clomping
four miles on snowshoes
to get to his mike
so he could explain
how three lows
could collide to create
a lineup of isobars
footage of state troopers
peering into the caked
windows of cars
backed up for white
miles on the interstate.

No reruns today
of the bombings in Vietnam
2 million civilians blown
apart, most of them children
under 16, children
always the least
able to dive
for cover when
all that tonnage bursts
from a blind sky.
Snow here is
weighting the pine trees
while we wait for the worst:
for war to begin.
Schools closed, how
the children
love a benign blizzard
a downhill scrimmage
of tubes and sleds. But who
remembers the blizzard
that burst on those other children?
Back then we called it
collateral damage
and will again.