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Phone call from Jesus...

2007-02-27

Good morning Boys and Girls.

Phone call from Jesus last night:

*ring, ring*

"Hello?"

"Hey sur."

"Jesus! Wow! Long time no hear from. How are you?

"I'm fine. How about you?"

"I'm good, good. Sick of the snow."

"I'll bet. Long winter huh?"

"Seems like it. So where are you? What's new?"

"I'm in California. Staying with Marty and Steve."

"Hah. I still get a kick out of you having gay friends. Seems a little..."

"I have short bald friends too."

"Touche' How are they?"

"Marty's okay. Steve's got cancer - I told you that, before didn't I?"

"Yeah, lung cancer, right? Last time we talked about it he was stable though. What was that? -six months ago?"

"Well... It WAS, but it came on hard again about four months back. He's not long for this world, I'm afraid."

"Oh jeez. I'm sorry."

"He came home about a month ago. Stopped all the treatments. His spirits are okay though - which I still find surprising, ya know?"

"Yes. I do. You see that a lot once people have accepted the inevitable."

"Right. Marty's been amazing. It won't hit him till later - after, I think."

"How long have they been together?"

"Thirty-two years. You believe that?"

"Wow. A lot longer than my marriage lasted, that's for sure. Give them both my best. I'll get a card out today."

"They'd like that..."

"Hey! What about these bones? They yours?"

"I have no idea, and I could care less."

"Yeah?"

"Maybe the movie will be fun though. Cameron's good at his schtick. Get people talking a little, maybe."

"Nah. Jesus, you're hoping for dialog? Come on?"

"You never know.."

"No Jesus. The people who believe you physically rose from the dead and think its the most important thing you ever did are offended by the whole idea that you might not have. You know that. You could tell them it's hogwash yourself and they'd crucify you all over again."

"(chuckle) Thanks a lot surrogate! Nice thought. Holy moly!"

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I do. Well I have no idea whether those are my bones."

"Well, did you marry? Did you have a son?"

"Why do YOU care?"

"I don't but..."

"Good. Mind you own business."

"Excuse ME!"

"My point is, it doesn't matter.... Hey Steve wants some water, I've got to run. Send that card, huh?"

"Okay. Take care my friend."

'You too sur."

*click*

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Out of the ocen depths... after thousands of years... it is time.... The monster... RETURNS!

2007-02-23

Good morning Boys and Girls,

My office is about five steps down from ground level on this side of the house, meaning when I look out the window as I type, I'm looking right along the ground. As I've said before, it's pretty view, and this morning it's really nice as it looks to be a clear day, and here at 7:50 a.m. the sun is wholly above the horizon... But I've been startled yesterday and today as something flashed by very quickly, right next to the window along the ground. The third time it happened yesterday, I looked up fast enough to see it was a good sized rabbit.

This morning, it started before the sun came up. I've been sitting here since about 6:30 working, and the only light I had going was my little desk lamp and the monitor. SWOoosh! Then twenty minutes later, SWOoosh! in the other direction, just a shadow zipping by in my peripheral vision.

Then, about a half hour ago, the thing stopped right here at the window and stared at me, like I'm a chimp in a zoo cage. For a good five minutes, this bold peeping Tom Rabbit was not three feet to my left. I waved, I tapped on the window getting the width of the insulated pane away from the thing, his or her nose right up against the glass.

Then, the cat came in here, saw the rabbit, jumped up on the sill, and scared the living sh*t out of the bunny.

I laughed out loud.

People? = fish in an aquarium.

Smallish kitty-cat? = Godzilla.


Be good to everyone.

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Snippet 3

2007-02-18

In the morning we awoke to rain. Cold November rain. Rain and lots of distant rifle fire as thousands of deer all over Michigan took their last breaths.

We swore as we gathered together everything we needed; folded the tents loosely and fastened everything into the centers of the old Grumman Canoes. Chris made some happy remark about this weather being a test of our character and there was a short discussion about postponing, or at least waiting till the weather cleared later - which included a tossed off, but not bad, suggestion from Yeti about how nice it would be to enjoy a nice hot breakfast at a diner we’d seen a few miles back the evening before. No one dismissed this idea out of hand, but neither did any of the rest of us respond in the affirmative. We simply carried the canoes the hundred or so feet to the edge of the river and partially slid them in.

Chris and Yeti got situated first and took off; Yeti doing a quiet version his patented exclamation “Ye-hawwww” as they dug their first strokes. They were around the first bend before I was comfortable in the stern of my boat, irritating Todd, who sat chomping at the bit in the prow waiting for me to finish getting ready. I made sure I’d secured things as well as I though they ought be and was now fiddling with my life jacket.

“Come on! You’re taking forever.”

“Shut up Todd. It’s a forty mile trip. We’re not going to get left in the dust.”

I’d promised my folks I’d wear a life vest and had grabbed four out of the garage the day before, but none of the others wanted to bother since from what we’d heard there were absolutely no rapids and the river was wide and clear for the entirety of our route. It was also notoriously shallow in all but a very few places. Regardless, I’d promised and figured if nothing else the thing would keep me warmer than I’d be without it. For some reason though, the straps had been pulled all the way out of the little metal loops and, as though it was something I’d planned all along to piss off Todd, I was having trouble getting them back through correctly.

A good three or four minutes after Chris and Yeti had started down the river, and after a final round of what was by now probably justified bellyaching from a growingly exasperated Todd, I got settled in my seat and we pushed off.

“Geez! Finally!”

“Yeah, Yeah.” I countered. “Pull right.”

I convinced Todd to spend a couple more minutes just making sure we understood the two word commands we’d been practicing that would ensure our ability to maneuver the boat efficiently. We knew them by heart, but now, in a boat, I thought running through them all with paddles in our hands would be a wise thing to do, like checking your lights and turn signals before staring on a long car trip. Now that we were actually floating free, Todd was happy to oblige and I think we both enjoyed this little practice session.

We did a couple of spin moves and some dead stops and sharp turns. We’d call out “slide right” or “push left” and found that we were able to maneuver the boat quite well right from the outset. We were happy we’d taken the time to read and discuss so much of this over the previous weeks in anticipation of this trip.

We deliberately rocked the canoe from side to side a bit to get a feel for how far out of balance we could be without tipping the craft over. Todd, happy now, even turned around and took another tug or two on the ropes that would hold all our stuff together should the canoe capsize.

We’d both been in canoes plenty of times before, but this was different. This was the beginning of something we’d decided to take seriously, and we both knew, from having read it over and over again, that being a team, that our being able to communicate quickly and efficiently would become, if we progressed as we hoped to, extremely important.

The rain diminished to nothing more than a sprinkle almost exactly at the moment we started down the river. By the time we rounded the first bend, just a hundred yards down, it stopped completely, and within another half hour, the sun broke through the clouds.

Soon we rounded another bend and now we could see Chris and Yeti far ahead of us. Chris looked back and waved. We paddled steadily for ten minutes to catch up. Yeti smiled at me as we finally pulled along side them. “Nice way to start the day, huh?”

I smiled back and winked but I hadn’t said a word in the previous few minutes and I was enjoying the sounds and sights. I loved the sounds of the paddles dipping into and yanking water faster than the boat traveled, and even the soft clank when we’d hit the sides of the boat with a slightly misplaced stroke. Birds sang even in November, and other than a distant rifle shot every few minutes, which somehow didn’t interrupt the silence the same way talking would have, the peaceful sounds of the river was all the soundtrack I needed or wanted to hear.

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Cigar? It's a girl!

2007-02-15

Good morning Boys and Girls.

A quick post.

I've decided to head for Broward County, Florida today to make my claim on Anna Nicole Smith's body and her daughter - well, MY daughter.

What can I tell ya. I found myself watching television a few years ago and caught a couple of minutes of her television show. I was smitten immediately. One thing lead to another and, well, let's just say I'm proud to have fathered this child and plan on giving her a good home for the next eighteen years.

The fact that 486 million dollars is on the line has almost no bearing on the situation, and though the money is rightfully mine (I mean our daughter's) I'd likely as not be making this claim even if all I could get out of it was a few paltry million for interview fees and the like.

Thank you all in advance for supporting me as I embark on this painful journey.

This venture is likely to rid me of my life savings as I assume the legal fees will be substantial, if not down right outrageous. Therefore, any individual donations in excess of five thousand dollars would be appreciated and further, will entitle any of you who decide to step up to the plate to a "surrogate will be a great Dad" t-shirt at the reduced price of $14.95 plus shipping and handling.

Again, with humility and fatherly love, thank you.

 

Be good to everyone, especially my daughter, what's-her-name.

 

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That lying S.O.B. of a groundhog promised an early spring. Bring me a rifle.

2007-02-14

Happy Valentines Day Boys and Girls!

Okay... It's getting to me.

I love winter. Winter is pretty. Winter is cold and clean.

When I was a kid, our license plates boasted that Michigan was a winter wonderland.

I would have even loved this winter, I think... I THINK - if, it was winding down about now. But, since it isn't, and won't be for another few weeks, I find myself with a case of the "enough already" blues.

The upside? -since the first of the year I've had plenty of time to write and I've made use of that abundance fairly effectively, but ENOUGH.

Over the last two weeks, it's been so cold I haven't been able to work much, and I'm too damn young to find that fun for more than a day or two at a time. I get itchy!

I look out my window here to my left and see snow. Now, there are plenty of trees in the view and some pretty hills, and right now the sun is creeping up over the horizon and normally I'd find the vista pretty as any winter scene through a window could possibly be.

Today? I see snow. Period. And, I find myself in that weird place I get to this time of year, questioning my choice to remain in my home state when I could be anywhere in southern half of the U.S. avoiding "it."

And then, I'll see a story on the news and I start thinking about someone other than myself for two minutes, and it dawns on me how good I have it; the guilt grabs...

People being shot at or being blown up; people starving; people being persecuted; people dealing with REAL natural disasters...

And I'm bitching? What an ungrateful putz...

Man...

What a wimp.



Be good to everyone.

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So, this duck walks into a bar....

2007-02-09

Good morning Boys and Girls,

It's 3:29 a.m. Friday morning. Just woke up after falling asleep earrrrrly.

Went to sleep thinking about John Kerry...

Huh? -I hear you cry.

God bless the guy, he's dry as toast, as is Al Gore, Hillary, John Edwards... God, can you imagine listening at a sales meeting run by Dennis Kucinich? Barack Obama, at least, has some personality... He'd be fun to listen to anyway....

Heck, I even like Joe Biden! God knows he likes to talk, (if he'd just stop putting his foot in his mouth for two seconds...)

Not the point...

Not the point. Not the point.

I was thinking about John Kerry. Yes. John - I married a Ketchup Heiress - Kerry.

I was thinking about the way his campaign this time around was derailed early on by that stupid joke he botched a couple of months ago where he implied, (he says accidentally and I take him at his word - though it's not relevant to my point,) that our soldiers are, in fact, NOT the best and brightest, but instead are largely recruited (read, "scraped,") from the bottom of the nation's economic and intellectual reservoir (read, "barrel.")

I personally don't think he meant it that way, but, either way, he was roundly lambasted by lots of folks who indignantly spoke out, implying unequivocally that OUR men and women in uniform could probably all be attending Harvard if the courage of their convictions hadn't induced them to volunteer for military service, and that if John Kerry didn't realize that, it was further proof of his own inherent leftist intellectual elitism.

Okay. Whatever.

So how is it that most of these same people are now so convinced that a non-binding resolution of opposition to President Bush's troop increase and this proposed new door-to-door sweep will be so completely and irreversibly demoralizing to our troops, sending them a message that we don't support them as a military entity or, I assume, even as individual people who've made the choice to serve their country in the most direct and fundamental manner imaginable?

Does Mitch McConnell, for example, think our men and women in uniform are so stupid that they can't understand that millions upon millions of Americans can stridently oppose this war AND this "new" strategy, while still being extremely proud of and thankful for the service of these fine people; that it is BECAUSE we support them that we don't want more of them put in harm's way to satisfy the flawed agenda of a group of men and women who themselves did all they could to avoid being part of our nation's military forces - which now, by virtue of circumstances too bizarre to fathom, they command; that we don't think OUR men and women should be part of a "last-ditch" effort, the last white chip a compulsive gambler has left after betting poorly and wildly for years, praying for that one big hit to get him even, and plopping down it (them) down on zero?

In fact, plopping it down even though even a "win" wouldn't mean anything close to getting even or ahead, but only prolonging the overall loss.

 

In fact, let's take the anaogy one step farther. The administration is the haggard gambler, okay? WE are the house. We're the guys in the credit department who listened to the sob story and extended further credit, allowing the mope (gambler slang for "a hopeless player") to dig himself into such a large hole that he finally had to sign over his house to keep playing. Now, He's lost the house, We're in trouble with our own bosses cuz we didn't have the damn thing valued properly, and we know he owes more than he'll ever be able to repay, and here he is AGAIN with another story while we sit there behind the desk, looking at our watch cuz we've heard the same story so many times we're bored and irritated, knowing damn well it's time to freeze his accounts, sic Big Vito on the jerk, and cut our losses.

Finally, leaning forward, elbows on the desk, palms upward and deadly seriously we say, "Look, I don't trust you, okay? Your word is not good with me. I'm turing you over directly to God - I mean Mr. Wynn."

And we pick up the phone and dial the three digits, 4-6-3... "Hey, Boss, GW wants another twenty-one five... No, I'm serious. I know, I know... That's what I told him. Hell no, sir. I can't be responsible for this one... I'd appriciate it if you'd make this call sir. Okay... hang on."

And we hand over the phone. "He wants to talk to you." Now we lean back in our chair skeptically, listening, fingers inerlaced behind our head, knowing exactly what's being said, and staring at the little hidden button that, if pushed, would summon Big Vito in about two seconds, and sickened by the prospect of making either choice.

 

Poor old John Kerry... The guy simply has a lousy sense of humor and absolutely no sense of...

.....


.....


Timing.


Be good to everyone.

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dah-dle-lah-dle-ahh, wah wah wah, dah-dle-lah-dle-ahh, wah wah wahhhh,

2007-02-03

Good morning Boys and Girls!

Well now. I didn't think I'd be writing a post this morning. Thought I'd work this morning and write one tomorrow. Lined up work and everything...

And God said, "Let it snow like CRAZYYYYYYYYYY"

Okay.

I can take the hint. Driving would be nuts. We're expecting up to three feet around here and a good foot has fallen already. I can tell from the new build-up in the deer feeder I made last week that was SUPPOSED to protect the feed from the white stuff, giving a deer an easy snack even in weather like this.

Well, let me say that my design failed miserably. Snow goes sideways when it likes.

So? -write a post instead.

Along with all the other devastation in Florida the other day, I just heard that 18 whooping cranes were found dead in their enclosure. Too bad. According to the news, that leaves 63.

Today, an old friend of mine turns fifty. He's a pastor in Skokie, North of Chicago. When I was in High School, he, I and another friend of ours spent a lot of time together. At the time we attended the same Church, where we were all quite involved. We all talked about going into the ministry. I'm proud to say that two out of three of us did.

I, faithful reader, am the lone holdout.

Sounds like the title of a Western! I can hear the theme music, can't you? Who'd play me? Clint Eastwood? No... no...

I got it!

Lee Marvin. Perfect.

"He travels the West, alone but for his story; one he tells too often and much too loudly..."

"Well, see, my faith just wasn't up to snuff. I believed in God, but the whole miracle thing, and the resurrection? I just didn't buy it, plus, I never heard "the calling," you know? So when push came to shove..."

And gunshots ring out from across the cavern, then a shout from a long way off, "SHUT THE HELL UP! WE DON'T GIVE A SH*T ABOUT YOUR STUPID STORY. JUST GO AWAY!"

So, he rolls up his blanket, saddles his llama, and moves on, wishing he had the courage, at long last, to either shout back, or quit telling the boring tale to every cactus willing to listen...

Oh... amid the dozens of other closings and postponed activities around here being announced by the crawling text at the bottom of the T.V. screen due to the weather?

Snow camp has been cancelled.




Be good to everyone.

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